Sun Times ad columnist, Lewis Lazare, takes the temperature of the Chicago ad scene. He says the "business stabilized last year, after a couple of truly traumatic years." He also says Draft/FCB isn't asserting itself and he wonders if it ever will. Here's his take on JWT: JWT/Chicago is perhaps the biggest mystery. It nearly was wiped out last spring when Kraft pulled more than $170 million worth of business from the …
ROI Or Else
Ad Age is looking at agency business growth from an employment perspective. Meanwhile, Adweek is reporting that Chief Marketing Officers have a bug up their asses. Get ready to defend. In the coming year, nearly half of marketers plan to fire at least one of their agencies and change direction, according to the second annual forecast to be released today by the CMO Council. The survey of 825 chief marketing officers …
Reverse Graffiti Used To Reverse Homelessness
Another graffiti campaign to show how "street" the brand is, is not needed. But Crisis, a London outfit that helps the homeless and really is of the street has put a spin on street art, and with help from Rapp Collins/London have come up with an innovative way to advertise their cause. Crisis estimates there are 400,000 homeless people ‘hidden’ in hostels, squats, B&Bs or sleeping on friend’s floors. To highlight …
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Thin Is In
Today at MacWord, Apple introduced the world’s thinnest notebook: MacBook Air. It measures an unprecedented 0.16 inches at its thinnest point while its maximum height of 0.76 inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. Here's a more detailed report, or if you prefer some tweets from fakesteve. [UPDATE] Emily Chang won't be buying one. …
Rabbits Uncaged
Ed Cotton of Butler Shine & Stern wonders aloud how well equipped clients are to forge ahead in today's decentralized media sphere. Marketing departments need fundamentally new skill sets, new positions/job titles and they are also going to need some smart technology to assist them. Given how little bandwidth most departments have these days, it's safe to assume that there are quite a few brands out there who risk …
Higher Prices Make Wine Lovers Swoon
We've seen how many premium brands fool customers into thinking a product is of a higher quality when in reality, it may not be the case. So check out this study as reported on Bloomberg.com: Volunteers in California who were given sips of wines with fake prices said they preferred the cabernets they thought were more expensive to the ones they thought were cheaper about 80 percent of the time, according to the …
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Networks Are Ecosystems
| View | Upload your own [Leigh Himel via CrapHammer] …
Bliss Followers
I like when bloggers report earnings. It makes me think and gives me hope. The Wall Street Journal has two bloggers on record in an article about advertising on blogs. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger says he made $250,000 in 2007. ProBlogger's Alexa ranking is insanely high at 2,994. There's clearly a huge audience for Rowse's type of advice. Rhett Butler, founder of Mongabay.com, a site with articles on rainforest …