USA TODAY: Toyota Motor said Monday it will join NASCAR's Nextel Series racing circuit, marking another market long dominated by U.S. automakers where the Japanese manufacturer plans to compete. Toyota, which has raced in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing's Craftsman Truck Series since 2004, will join the Nextel and Busch Series beginning in 2007, the automaker and racing association said. Toyota's …
Fallon Tidies Up
NYT: Pat Fallon, the chairman of Fallon Worldwide in Minneapolis, unexpectedly fired his hand-picked senior creative executive yesterday after less than a year in the job. Paul Silburn, who joined Fallon as executive creative director for North America in early February 2005, was dismissed along with Mark Taylor, a creative director hired from Crispin Porter by Mr. Silburn last summer. A search for a successor for …
Ben’s Book
Ben Popken of The Spunker wants to be a copywriter. Here's one of the spec ads from his developing portfolio: Popken had a portfolio review at Y&R last week and people have been emailing him with suggestions. What a difference a few interweb years can make. Wowzers. My portfolio got a really high response. Thanks everybody. Now I hate all my ads. But it’s a good hate. Really, my reaming was surprisingly gentle. …
Phil Knight Takes His Game Off-Campus (But It’s Still His Game)
Ad Age: Some 13 months after his ballyhooed replacement of the legendary Phil Knight, Nike CEO William Perez has stepped down after clashing with Mr. Knight over the direction of the world’s biggest sneaker and apparel company. Mr. Perez, who resigned as CEO of S.C. Johnson & Sons last year to take over at Nike, said in a statement that he and Mr. Knight “weren't entirely aligned on some aspects of how to best lead …
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Cuban And Wagner Disrupt Movie Channel
Associated Press: If you live in New Jersey, Virginia or Nevada and want to see the new Steven Soderbergh film Bubble in a theater, pack your bags. It won't be showing in those or more than a dozen other states. The country's largest theater chains are snubbing the film because they object to it being sold on DVD and shown on cable TV the same day it debuts in a handful of theaters owned by the same company that …
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Revenge Of The Nerds (Flash Version)
High tech job board, Dice, wants unappreciated IT Managers to "get in there and get even." …
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Hope For Hometown Hardware
Fast Company: Every year, thousands of executives venture to Bentonville, Arkansas, hoping to get their products onto the shelves of the world's biggest retailer. But Jim Wier wanted Wal-Mart to stop selling his Snapper mowers. Tens of thousands of executives make the pilgrimage to northwest Arkansas every year to woo Wal-Mart, marshaling whatever arguments, data, samples, and pure persuasive power they have in the …
Times Sends Reporter Into WOMBAT Zone
NYT: As advertising conferences go, the take-home message at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association meeting was a little unusual: Don't advertise. At the conference, held here last Thursday and Friday, more than 450 advertising and marketing professionals listened to speakers tell them how to reach customers using some alternatives to traditional advertising, like viral and buzz marketing, that are becoming …
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