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Louisiana: Come Home And Sweat
Watching the news this past week, I've been struck by a commercial for Louisiana's The Road Home program, which is encouraging displaced citizens to return. The spot features a fellow who's involved in rebuilding a house; he starts off seated on the home's front steps. Then, as he gets up and walks, one can't help but notice the sweat stains all over his shirt. It's a distracting sight, but actually, I'm glad the …
Price Will Always Play
In today's paper, New York Times takes a look at the lowly coupon and its place in the world. An estimated 99 percent of the roughly 300 billion coupons distributed annually in the United States — mainly in Sunday newspapers — end up in the trash, unused and unredeemed. “The paper coupon is the single most inefficient marketing tool you could imagine,” said Peter Sealey, a former chief marketing officer at Coca-Cola …
Sometimes Cheap Is Pure Gold
Is this the perfect ad for an airline that offers a Myrtle Vegas to Atlantic City nonstop, or what? [via Make The Logo Bigger] …
Trouble
According to Information Week , a highly influential money man says don't put your money in marketing. Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson doesn't see any reason for startups to budget funds for marketing anymore. Indeed, Jurvetson, a partner with the legendary Silicon Valley venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, has one question for companies that do. Why? Instead, Jurvetson tells businesses to go for "zero cost" …
A New Flavor Of Advertising
Over at BusinessWeek, Jon Fine examines the impact of FlavorPill. Flavorpill was once a list of cultural events that co-founders Sascha Lewis and Mark Mangan sent out to a few pals in New York. It's now an e-mail that goes out to a few hundred thousand subscribers in four U.S. cities and London. It owns five other Web properties, including music site Earplug and art site Artkrush. What DailyCandy is to fashion, …
Wal-Mart Running For Office
According to the New York Times, Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail behemoth, Wal-Mart, is taking its "we're good for America" spin to the airwaves. Wal-Mart, under attack now from unions and prominent Democrats, yesterday introduced a marketing campaign that closely resembles the television advertisements used by political candidates. In a local experiment (spots are running in Omaha and Tucson) that is eventually …
Candy Maker Dips Into Art History
To support the launch of M&M's Dark Chocolate Candies, the brand introduced its new ad campaign at New York City's famous Guggenheim Museum, with a print ad that interjects the "fun" of M&M's into an admittedly dark masterpiece, Edvard Munch's 'The Scream.' The ad features "Red," the iconic M&M's character, unexpectedly playing hopscotch in the background of the celebrated work of art -- bringing a bit of levity and …
