This seems to be becoming a weekly occurrence. From The New York Times: The TJX Companies, the retailer that operates the T. J. Maxx and Marshalls discount clothing chains, has joined the ignominious list of companies that have had sensitive customer financial data pilfered by identity thieves. Yesterday the company, based in Framingham, Mass., said that as early as 2003 and during most of last year, an intruder had …
Will Diversity In Firing Reflect Diversity In Hiring?
This Ad Age chart shows, in actual percentages and numbers, the mandates for diversity hiring in New York City's advertising agencies. But we all know how unpredictable the ad industry is, and inevitably, some of these ad agencies may hire new staff only to fire them if they lose business. So will their layoffs reflect that diversity? At the Philadelphia Enquirer, now run by a former ad agency exec, it's already an …
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How Do You Say “Deja Vu” In German?
Another month, another young, high-profile, so-called "change agent" gets the boot. Ad Age reports on the departure of Kerri Martin, the marketing exec at Volkswagen who dumped Arnold and hired Crispin: Ms. Martin, the 36-year-old executive who helped establish BMW's Mini in the U.S. with a much-lauded campaign from Crispin, arrived at Volkswagen a marketing rock star. "VW has always been at its best when we make …
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Art Directors Club Call For Entries Takes On Armageddon
I'll admit I didn't study the Art Directors Club call for entries poster when it came in the mail a couple of weeks ago: It's intended to be the "Final Call For Entries." But over at Little Green Footballs, a right-leaning political blog, the poster was interpreted like this: It’s an impressive panoply of moonbat leftist self-loathing, a desolate nuclear wasteland populated by Republican political leaders holding …
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Convergence Is Converging This Week
Between Macworld and the Consumer Electronics Show, both going on this week, we're going to see a lot of new gadgets, doodads, and gizmos that will combine the power of video with the Internet, along with the services that will sell them to consumers. Like this bit from Sony: Sony revealed Sunday a system that will allow viewers of its Bravia flat-panel TV sets to access broadband video content, some of it in …
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The People Win. Again.
First, Time made 'You' its "Person Of The Year." Now, Ad Age has named 'The Consumer' Agency Of The Year. From the lead article: From an agency perspective, there are exactly three ways to look at the rise of consumer control. The first view is like something out of the Book of Revelation -- all conquest, war, famine and death. Happily, the ad industry, thanks to countless foretellings of the death of the 30-second …
Did Hal Riney Kill The Electric Car?
So I'm sitting here watching Who Killed The Electric Car?, a documentary about GM's EV1 electric car, which was produced in the late 90's. About 18 minutes into the movie comes a discussion of the TV ads (one shown above) and print work done by Hal Riney. One of the former EV1 marketing executives interviewed traveled around America and saw the consumer buzz building around the car. In the movie, she says: "We'd sit …
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First Came Web 2.0. Now Come The Web 2.0 Dot Bombs
While social networking in all its forms has bred a lot of new websites, and media hype to go with it, the beginnings of a shakeout seem to be in order. On Wednesday, Seattle-based Jobster announced it was laying off 60 people -- 40% of its staff. Jobster is a job board/career networking site (think Friendster for jobs) that has yet to make a penny in profit despite pulling in $48 million in venture capital money. …
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