According to Ad Age, McDonald's will launch a campaign featuring four of its U.S. beef and produce suppliers in the new year. "We thought putting a face on the quality of the food story would be a unique way to approach this," said U.S. Chief Marketing Officer Neil Golden. "We acknowledge that there are questions about where our food comes from. I believe we've got an opportunity to accentuate that part of our …
Advertising Is Not The Place for Playing It Safe
First Lowe's, now KAYAK. The online travel site also pulled its ads from TLC's new show, "All-American Muslim." Which is bad enough on its own, but the situation is made worse by company executives trying to explain the decision away like it's no big thing. Steve Hafner, CEO and Cofounder writes on the company's blog: Our decision regarding advertising on All-American Muslim was in no way influenced by …
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Appealing To Knife Enthusiasts Is A Real Knife Fight
KA-BAR, whose famed Fighting Utility Knife was carried by the US Marine Corps in WWII, has released its first ad campaign in the company’s 125 year-old history. Directed by Joshua Frankel through Charleston-based Rawle Murdy the three-spot campaign features testimonials brought to life in the form of animated tattoos. KA-BAR approached Rawle Murdy to expand the brand beyond its core military base …
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Mitch Joel Takes The Measure of A Modern Brand
Mitch Joel of Twist Image, a Canadian firm that "connects brands to people and people to brands," has a pretty good bead on what the job of building brands has become today. To achieve ROI in Digital Marketing, Joel says there's no room for laziness. Are you willing to do the long, hard and disruptive work or creating a brand ecosystem that you can truly measure? You see, the tools, technology and …
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A Different Take On “Think Different” From Someone Who Was There
Writing on Forbes.com, Rob Siltanen, who worked at TBWA/Chiat/Day in the 90's and was instrumental in bringing the Apple "Think Different" campaign to life, tells how the campaign came about. Jobs was quiet during the pitch, but he seemed intrigued throughout, and now it was time for him to talk. He looked around the room filled with the “Think Different” billboards and said, “This is great, this is really great … …
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Where Are The Candidates On Jobs And Immigration? And Literally Where Are They?
NBCPolitics.com is working with foursquare to display check-ins from President Obama’s campaign team and the Republican presidential candidates’ campaign teams as they travel across the country on the campaign trail. “NBC News’ partnership with foursquare will allow our audiences to more fully engage with the 2012 campaign,” said Vivian Schiller, Chief Digital Officer at NBC News. “All politics is local, …
Clark Is The Real Coca-Cola Kid
Wendy Clark is a former agency-side exec who is now a big, big client. Ergo, she a person to listen to and learn from. Here she is at ad:tech in New York last month: At 39 minutes in to her speech, Clark gives up the mic to Renny Gleeson of Wieden + Kennedy, who speaks about innovation and how Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE) has a role in helping brands learn iterative process and how to fail …
Apple Adjusts Its In-App Advertising Package
Apple is losing ground to Google in the race for mobile advertising dollars. Last year, Apple shared the top spot in the mobile display ad market with Google, each company capturing 19 per cent, according to research firm IDC. This year, Apple fell to No 3, behind Google and independent mobile ad firm Millennial Media, capturing just 15 per cent of the U.S. market. According to The Australian, Apple is now …
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It’s Important for Brands to Listen To Customers And Their Own Conscience
TLC's new show "All-American Muslim" is a nightmare for Lowe's, and an example to other brands of what not to do. The California-based home repair retailer was advertising during the reality-based program, until some racist wing nuts in Florida started making noise, which frightened Lowe's into withdrawing its ads from the show. While it is true that listening to customers is important, a brand team has no …
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End The Negligence – Send MBAs Into Action With Proper PR Training
There's an interesting discussion about the need for mainstream press taking place in the comments on Vinny Warren's post about the Chicago Tribune's lack of a clue when it comes to reporting on the city's advertising business. "I have a hard time believing in the old model where we lean on the press to reach our public. We reach our public directly today," I contend. Of course, there is room for both the direct …
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