Chicago Sun Times advertising columnist Lewis Lazare reports that Leo Burnett svp/cd Kash Sree has departed the Wacker Avenue agency for greener pastures. Sree arrived at Burnett in 2002 from Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, Ore., where he was a key creative on the high-profile Nike account. Lazare writes, "His departure from Burnett suggests he was unable to fully integrate himself into the highly political and complex …
Perfect For The Wannabe Gangsta On Your Christmas List
At only 25, Michael Kobold is the youngest president in the luxury goods industry. Kobold watches range in price from $1,500 to $22,500. Kobold personally designs every watch and ensures that each and every one meets his personal expectations of quality. He also acts as his own ad agency, creating the ads that represent his namesake firm. Here's his latest effort, which is running in The Economist: "With the James …
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Rotten Apple Or Sour Grapes?
According to USA TODAY, Apple stores represent 50% of the company's retail sales. That's great news for the computer maker, but not such welcome news for independent Apple resellers. In fact, some resellers are upset enough to litigate. Tom Santos, a San Francisco reseller said his business dropped 50% overnight, following the opening of the Apple store in Union Square. …
Yellow Tries To Make White And Brown Frown
There are brand overhauls and then there are brand overhauls. While DHL is a leader in many overseas markets, their US presence has been weak. But all that has changed in recent months with a major ad campaign from O+M New York and a total repackaging of the German-based firm's corporate identity. The new look popped up virtually overnight this summer on 426 warehouses, 2,841 retail store locations, 15,338 drop …
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In The Company Of Saudi Princes And Ricky Martin
I have to give Adweek's Adfreak bloggers some props. They're dishing up the gossip like seasoned blogerati. Case in point, Catherine P. Taylor's delivery of the goods on DDB Worldwide chairman, Keith Reinhard. Taylor reports that Reinhard resides in a four-bedroom, $9.1-million spread on the 70th floor of the south building of the Time Warner Center. Not bad for a creative who got his first break in the business at …
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Agency Automatons Can Be Replaced By A Machine
Novelist Daniel Akst writing in The New York Times ponders the future of novel writing, given emerging prose-generating technology like Brutus.1--a program developed by Selmer Bringsjord, a computer scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and David A. Ferrucci, a researcher at I.B.M. Hard as it is to imagine, another competing program, StoryBook, is capable of "end-to-end narrative prose generation that …
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Big Boxes Put The Squeeze On Branded Goods
from Crain's Chicago Business: According to consumer research firm Leo J. Shapiro & Associates LLC, which conducts an annual brand preference survey for trade magazine DSN Retailing Today 81% of consumers had a brand preference for groceries and canned foods in 1996. This year, only 63% of consumers said so. With the massive growth of discount retailers, or big box stores, consumers are increasingly purchasing on …
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Deutsch Gets Serious About Product Placement
from Adweek: Interpublic Group's Deutsch has established Media Bridge Entertainment, a product placement company that the agency said would be able to measure results for clients. The new company, based at Deutsch in New York, uses a proprietary tool called Results Oriented Integration that measures and pays only for a product's onscreen exposure. The agency's chief media officer, Peter Gardiner said, "Product …
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