Ad Age is reporting on a public feud between non-profit Save Darfur Coalition and Fidelity Investments. The financial-services company has pressured CNN and Newsweek to hold off running coalition ads critical of Fidelity's investment in PetroChina, a company whose parent, China National Petroleum, is one of Sudan's largest oil-industry partners. Clearly, when it comes to ad clout, Fidelity has the upper hand. The …
Smart
[via Houtlust] …
Gorillas In The Dust
Copy: Rain forest cries out. But the chainsaws don't let you hear it. [via Shedwa] …
BP Steps Up
British Petroleum is working to move the needle on its environmental practices, a necessary move (and a smart marketing strategy) from a leader in the energy business. According to NPR, BP's Helios gas station at Olympic and Robertson in Los Angeles is the nation's first "green" gas station. It has low-flow toilets, solar panels and a floor made of recycled glass. Still, environmental critics argue you can't get …
Winter, You’ll Miss It When It’s Gone
Houtlust kindly shares a new Greenpeace ad from TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, Johannesburg (where it's coming up on winter). …
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Google The Good
Google Earth, a satellite mapping service from the search giant that seeks to "do no evil," has teamed with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in a bold move to shine light on the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. photo courtesy of Houtlust Thanks to this initiative, 200 million Google Earth users worldwide can now literally see razed villages, casualties and squalid refugee camps in the central African …
Ad Age Seeing Red
Ad Age explores reactions to the much ballyhooed Red campaign designed to benefit the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The campaign's inherent appeal to conspicuous consumption has spurred a parody by a group of San Francisco designers and artists, who take issue with Bono's rallying cry. "Shopping is not a solution. Buy less. Give more," is the message at buylesscrap.org, which encourages people …
The Greening Of Brandlandia
Financial Times reports that companies are increasingly looking to make green claims in the face of heightened consumer scrutiny. The heads of AMV BBDO, JWT, Ogilvy, RKCR/Y&R and Saatchi & Saatchi have told the FT they believe green advertising will grow in the next 12 months. The agencies say environmental branding has risen up boards' agendas, and point to the spate of recent rival green announcements in the …