Advertising News and Know-How
By David Burn
I know the good ad men and ad women of California Street like to invite immense challenges. It's a way to stay fresh and test one's mettle. The Sprint account presents such a challenge. According to Ad Age, Sprint Nextel continued to bleed customers (340,000) in the most recent quarter, leading to the resignation today of Gary Forsee as chairman and president-CEO. After winning the $1.2 billion account earlier this …
Continue Reading about Sprint Speeds Towards Its Own Demise →
By David Burn
Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards has a blog on NBA.com. According to the Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.) every 10 days or so the outspoken baller calls his entries in to a National Basketball Association staffer who faithfully transcribes his thoughts. But some of his commentary has been tough for his corporate overlords to stomach. Like the time he said "I'm sitting there looking at the shoe like I …
Continue Reading about Brand Reputation And The Unfiltered Word →
By David Burn
UC Berkeley is making entire course lectures and special events available, free of charge, on YouTube. This move strikes me as an interesting way to get the Berkeley brand out there. I'm not sure who watches these vids, but I would think they're useful to prospective students. Even for the non-prospect, these free offerings still build the Berekely brand, reaffirming that Berekeley is a vibrant place where knowledge …
Adweek takes a look at the agency/client tensions involved with bringing to life this Motorola spot, directed by French filmaker Michel Gondry. It was during editing that the creative differences became evident. While the agency wanted to keep Gondry's vision intact, the client wanted to streamline it and take out some of the more fanciful elements. After production had been completed in June, an agency meeting with …
By David Burn
According to Ad Age, DirectTV will be the sole sponsor of the season's final episode of Mad Men. The article explores the sponsorship model, while also touching on product placement in the show. With its unflinching look beneath the veneer of 1960s politesse, it's easy to see why brands such as Jack Daniels' parent Brown-Forman, which inked a product-placement deal with "Mad Men," were cautious. "They have this whole …
Continue Reading about “Mad Men” Drink But Not To Get Drunk →
To paraphrase a old saying, reading about beer is like dancing about architecture. But Bill Yenne's Guinness: The 250 Year Quest For The Perfect Pint makes a fun read, especially when you're sitting at a bar on a Sunday afternoon and the Falcons are playing like a Pop Warner team. From the beginnings of Arthur Guinness, an Irish brewer in the mid-1700's, through the present day, Yenne talks about how Guinness has …
Looking for some very light reading for the weekend? Check out A Carbon-Neutral Pile of Manure, my new column on Talent Zoo which takes a look at brands desperate to greenwash themselves. Why? Money is green. Or vice versa. If you live in Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha, or other Midwest cities, you can head to the bookstore and grab a copy of Create Magazine, whose Sept/Oct Midwest edition has a column of mine entitled …
By David Burn
Joe The Peacock is funny. And when someone funny is forced to endure mindless babble on a conference call, they tend to a) pass out, or b) make a note of it. Joe The Peacock made note of it. Here are some of the things he thought, but could not say (without the invention of a mute button) on a recent call. God, I wish I'd been paying attention in college when they went over the definition of "synergistic" in English …
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