Advertsing Age looks at a coffee giant's random acts of kindness. Don't be surprised if sometime between now and Christmas a stranger gives you lift tickets in Denver, skating passes in Toronto or even free parking at a Michigan hospital. They're certainly not your typical holiday-stocking stuffers, but Starbucks is using such happy acts to kick off its holiday marketing program. Starting today Starbucks is …
Best Buy Stole Christmas
Okay, here's a lesson for all you brand builders out there: If you have a business with an e-commerce component, like say, a major electronics retailer, and you take pre-orders over the web for the hottest video game system of the Christmas season, don't cancel all the pre-orders 3 days later, explaining that your online division wasn't set up to take those orders, and attempt to placate the masses of mad parents out …
Deer, Pot And Retail
Gawker Media's The Consumerist is always a good read (thanks to editor Ben Popken). Today, particularly so. Here's one story from the retail sector: A huge-ass box of pot on its way to a Philadelphia drug dealer was mistakenly rerouted to the local Kmart, Saturday, where it was discovered by an employee in the stock room. Imagine their surprise when, instead of Martha Stewart towels staring up at them, the poor Kmart …
Got Room On Your Credit Card? Start A Company
The New York Times looks at the new, more fiscally conservative, approach to launching a tech venture today. Unlike most companies formed during the first Internet boom, which were built on costly technology and marketing budgets, many of the current crop of Internet start-ups have gone from zero to 60 on a shoestring. “V.C.’s hate it; they want you to take big money,” said Jay Adelson, who is the chief executive of …
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Publicis Casts Its Lure
According to International Herald Tribune, French ad people are not as promiscuous as their cohorts in London and New York. Although, Maurice Lévy, chief executive of Publicis Groupe, is trying to change that. A round of musical chairs that is reshaping the upper ranks of the French advertising world continued last week when Maurice Lévy, chief executive of Publicis Groupe, named three executives to key positions in …
To Err Is Human…
Bob Garfield, writing for Advertising Age, rips Goodby, Silverstein & Partners a new one. Why? Because they made a mediocre TV spot for Saturn. To see the introduction of Saturn's Aura midsize sedan from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, is to wonder where Goodby and Silverstein were when this thing was being produced. On vacation? Hospitalized? Guantanamo? There hardly seems to be another explanation, …
Calacaniscasting
Jason Calacanis, CEO of AOL's Weblogs Inc. is playing with microphones and software and stuff. …
Welcome To Chicago, Ros
Lewis Lazare looks again at the fact that Chicago can be a tough town for advertising creatives. I'm careful to say, "cab be" not "is," for Chicago has plenty of ad luminaries, now and in the past. Ros King's first year at the helm of JWT/Chicago hasn't exactly been the smashing success she no doubt hoped when she took on the daunting task of turning around a local ad agency that has sagged badly in recent years. And …
