USA TODAY reports Major League Baseball's online unit, MLB Advanced Media, is taking its biggest step into non-sports entertainment by joining with music marketing and licensing power Signatures Network in a 50-50 venture. Their still-unnamed partnership, forged late last month, will offer musicians in Signatures' stable ways to use the Internet to take charge of their images and financial affairs. Signatures …
…And Mexico Runs On Churros
Taglines are difficult to write. Nike's famous, "Just Do It" is one in a million, for instance. With that in mind, here's Hill Holiday's new effort for Dunkin' Donuts. I get where the line is going, but it asks that I, and all who encounter it, suspend disbelief. I'm willing to do that with a really great film, but not with a mediocre tagline. …
DeVito/Verdi Climbs Out On A Tender Limb
DeVito/Verdi is one of the more creative agencies in the land. Therefore, I was surprised to see the following pro-bono campaign from the New York shop. If we can put aside what we think about Bush and his war, and focus just on the ad, it's simply not up to DeVito's own standards. No big idea, no arresting visual, nor any thought-provoking copy. For that matter, how can any soldier in Iraq be put "at ease?" This …
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Wendy’s Marketing Execs About To Find Out “How It’s Playing In Peoria”
From the newly redesigned Ad Age: Fed up with more than a year of sales declines and what it sees as a lack of voice in marketing, a group of powerful Wendy's franchisees have formed an independent organization to get management's attention. The move is a stunner at a chain long the gold standard for franchisee relations. But its relationship with owner-operators has soured along with sales, leading a full 13% of …
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Bud Hits The Mini Screen
According to Adweek, Anheuser-Busch is jumping onto the digital media bandwagon with a new set of ads for more than 1 million subscribers of mobile television provider, mobiTV. The Emeryville, Calif.-based company's service is available in the U.S. through Sprint, Cingular and Alltel. "The 21-35-year-old beer drinker is increasingly tech savvy, seeking out the latest gadgets and technology, not just for fun, but in …
Forget About Working For The Man. We Now Work For The Machine.
This article from the New York Times, states that newspaper editors are increasingly adjusting their content to suit Google. Of course, economics are driving this shift. But putting that aside, wouldn't it make more sense for Google to adjust to newspapers? Journalists over the years have assumed they were writing their headlines and articles for two audiences — fickle readers and nitpicking editors. Today, there is …
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Paul Arden Writes Again
Strolling through a Barnes & Noble today, a familiar, yet odd look caught my eye: Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite is the latest book by former Saatchi & Saatchi Creative Director Paul Arden, whose book "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be" was quite a word-of-mouth success when it came out. …
Wires And Lights In A Box
The opening and the closing scenes of George Clooney's masterpiece, Good Night, And Good Luck show Edward R. Murrow (deftly played by David Strathairn) delivering a landmark speech to the Radio-Television News Directors Association in Chicago on October 15, 1958. What the legendary newsman had to say on this occasion could not be more timely for media professionals working today. It's a longish speech. I've selected …
