Advertising News and Know-How
Checking the comments section of Bob Garfield's column, it appears he ignited a shitstorm over his review of CVS's new TV commercial (also available at forallthewaysyoucare.com). Garfield doesn't mince words: You see a lot of bad ads if you watch long enough, but, really, how often it is that you see a TV commercial that makes you want to puke? And the comments run the gamut, like this one: It's obvious Bob's never …
Continue Reading about The Sentiment Behind Sentimentality →
By David Burn
I used to live in Philly and it's far from the ugliest city in America. Yet, Travel & Leisure named it such in a readers' poll. The readers have obviously never been to Gary, Indiana. At any rate, Philadelphia-based agency Gyro is now making lemonade from the lemons. Gyro CEO Steven Grasse remarks, “Walking around this city is like rubbernecking at a car accident. It’s hideous, but you just can’t stop gawking. It’s …
Continue Reading about Gyro Offers Its City Some Nice Spec Work →
While the Gap loves to get activist celebrities like John Mayer involved in its ad campaigns, it's currently facing a bigger problem. Namely, the discovery of child labor abuses at its factories. From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Clothing retailer Gap Inc. said Sunday that it will convene all of its Indian suppliers to "forcefully reiterate" its prohibition on child labor after a British newspaper found …
Continue Reading about The Gap Has A Gap In Its Value System →
By David Burn
The New York Times is running a series called "Age of Riches." Today's installment looks at a weird strain of Silicon Valley youth culture. Max Levchin, who is now 32, is typical of a new generation of junior titans in Silicon Valley who might be called the prematurely rich — techies worth tens of millions of dollars, sometimes more, at an age when many others are just starting to figure out what to do with their …
Having lived in both the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt in the last few years, it became very obvious to me that, outside a small sliver of the Midwest, no one has any affinity at all for cars from GM, Ford or Chrysler. Of all the troubles the Big 3 face, perception is the biggest one. Because there's nobody under the age of 30 who can associate domestic automakers with excellence. They simply don't remember a time when …
Continue Reading about The Big Three Are Invisible To Young Buyers →
By David Burn
We have a saying where I work, "It's our job to surprise and delight." It's something I've come to believe in. Much more so than the tired old, "I wonder if this will get me into CA" bullshit I used to run on. While this has nothing to do with solving marketing problems for clients, I was surprised and delighted to see this latest creation from Fusebox in Lincoln, Nebraska. For more on Fusebox, see …
By David Burn
JWT France has people excited about Wilkinson shaving products. The reason is Fight for Kisses, a strangely Freudian video with a microsite and gaming element. [via Gavin Heaton and Craphammer] …
By David Burn
Standard & Poors' investing newsletter The Outlook says blogs are "dazzling the eyes of major media publishers as the next takeover targets." Blogs--especially the big-name brands such as TechCrunch, Gawker, GigaOm, Boing Boing, and the Huffington Post--appear to have attractive business models. This is good news for traditional media companies that are being marginalized online and off, and are hoping to catch up …
Continue Reading about The Bloatosphere Is Ripe for Acquisition →
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