Ad Age reports on moves being made by telecommunications executives to consolidate their offererings under one extremely well known banner. AT&T announced it will accelerate the elimination of its Cingular Wireless brand by removing the name from all in-store signage, including kiosks and point-of-sale materials in 1,800 company-owned stores. Several high-profile stores in major markets will have new AT&T signs. Over …
BBH Woos The Distribution Channel
According to Ad Age, Miller Brewing Co. has named British-owned Bartle Bogle Hegarty agency of record for its flagship Miller Lite brand, following a competitive review. "They are passionate about the beer business. And, with their previous experience working with the nuances of a three-tier system, we know that they will make great partners as we accelerate the momentum of our flagship brand," said Randy Ransom, …
McDonald’s Burger King
"We train more people than the U.S. Army." -Karen King, McDonald's USA's East division president According to Ad Age, Karen King joined McDonald's 30 years ago in Lawrenceville, Ga. Today she manages some 5,000 restaurants, comprising 36% or $10 billion of revenue for the domestic system. Today she's also the star of a new ad campaign that seeks to rid the world of the very concept of "McJobs." "If you have the …
GM Tries To Inject A Little Sanity Into March Madness
You really have to play the AdAge video to hear how pathetic GM CEO Rick Wagoner sounded when speaking at the Newspapers Association of America convention. While the accompanying Ad Age article refers to Wagoner's desire for more advertorials, which is laughable by itself, the video shows him explaining how GM products are no longer "on sale all the time" with a "deal of the month" such as cash back or …
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Sears Seared
Chicago Sun Times ad columnist Lewis Lazare doesn't care for the new Sears campaign from Young & Rubicam/Chicago. It's obvious to us hedge fund guru Eddie Lampert and company still haven't a clue where Sears is headed. Why do we say this? Because the campaign's new tag line -- "Sears: Where It Begins" -- is so hopelessly weak and non-specific. It's a collection of words that say absolutely nothing, primarily because …
Taking Tea Where It’s Never Been Before
Guayaki Yerba Mate is an emerging beverage brand with interesting stories to tell about their organic, rainforest-grown, fairly traded product. Witness, the seven-minute documentary: Guayaki also makes room for brand advocates and Mate heads to tell their own tales. Available from the brand's YouTube channel, "Out of my Gourd" appears to be a New Age-inspired consumer generated commercial. The brand name Guayaki …
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A Ream Of Culture Clashes At FedEx Kinko’s
I've made many copies of my book at Kinko's and sent plenty of them via FedEx. So a merger of the two seemed fine to me. So how's it all going? The New York Times takes a closer look. “We’ve got three cultures at play here,” said Brian D. Philips, Fedex Kinko’s chief operating officer. But most see cultures at war. “At Kinko’s, there’s a thin veneer of professional folks riding herd on a vast platoon of semitrained …
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McMiffed
McD's is gonna be pissed to learn that the Japanese have coined a new McTerm. According to Mainichi, "McRefugees" describes a growing class of people who sleep overnight in Internet cafes, saunas and McDonald's restaurants for few hundred to a thousand yen. On another front, McDonald's is fighting British dictionary publishers over their use of the term, "McJob." The Oxford English Dictionary, considered by many …
