A lot of brands have been targeted over their sponsorship of Glenn Beck's show on TV and radio. So should brands be more vocal about their views, or the views of their management? Would you recommend that type of stance to a client? Most companies aren't very public with their views. And this is where the new "join the conversation" and "let's be friends and have dialogues with brands" thinking starts to get tested. …
London Agency Takes It To The Street
Pop-up retail has been an interesting trend for the past few years. Now, thanks to London's RKCR/Y&R, the concept is being stretched considerably (to include service providers). Ad Age and Shots are both featuring stories about the agency's one-week pop-up agency experiment in its local Camden neighborhood. Here's a passage from the Shots piece: Camden is a great home for the agency. With some iconic businesses from …
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Finally, Microsoft Competes In The Image Arena
Steve Ballmer and crew loves what Crispin Porter & Bogusky is doing for Microsoft's external image and internal morale. In a New York Times feature, Sean Siler, 39, a software engineer at Microsoft who was featured in Crispin's "I'm A PC" ad campaign says, "I've never seen more pride at Microsoft. You walk through the campus, and you see people's laptops that have 'I'm a PC' stickers on them. I walk in the company …
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Reawakening The Pirates
You rarely hear publicly from people who've recently left high-profile ad gigs. At least, they don't talk about their most recent position or agency. But Al Kelly, who recently left TBWA\Chiat\Day, wrote about the agency's famous "pirate" spirit, using an old "we lost a pitch" ad the agency ran in the 70's. The place is legendary for good reason: the visionary leadership of a single unflinching, uncompromising …
Add ‘Punch Of Fives’ To The List Of Unusual Agency Names
I came across an item about an agency called Punch of Fives, which was named the "first agency of record for the Women's Flat Track Derby Association." I felt compelled to dig deeper because I was intrigued by the name. According to this press release: Punch of Fives is a full-service marketing and creative services company that blends the imagination and creative spark of a boutique shop and houses it within SGW -- …
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Incubators Need Constant Monitoring, Or The Baby Gets Cooked
Rick Turoczy's blog, Silicon Florist, which dutifully covers Portland's hi tech startup scene, wrote the other day about Wieden + Kennedy's involvement in a new venture called the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE). Turoczy says PIE is "a collaborative project between W+K and members of the tech community designed to help Portland spin up more tech startups, more quickly." There was an initial meeting yesterday …
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Tossing Sacred Cows On The Open Fire
Mark Wnek, chairman-chief creative officer of Lowe/New York let one rip on AdAge yesterday. As a result, I think more highly of him today. Brilliant execution is largely what wins creative awards; the depth, breadth and scale of the idea are secondary at most. Great ideas not so brilliantly executed win nothing, while brilliant one-off executions with no connection to any kind of business results can and do win Grand …
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Holding Companies Fish In Microsoft’s Waters
According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is entertaining competing bids for Razorfish, the digital ad firm it acquired and now wants to offload. Publicis bid between $500 million and $600 million for Razorfish, and Dentsu made a higher offer, according to people familiar with the bidding. A key negotiating point has been the buyer's commitment to purchase hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising on …
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