For more on Shepard Fairey see Obey Giant, but don't bite his style for your next ad campaign. It's already been done. …
Poor Memory? Buy An iPhone
Sprint Speeds Towards Its Own Demise
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 …
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Brand Reputation And The Unfiltered Word
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 …
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Go Bears!
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 …
“Mad Men” Drink But Not To Get Drunk
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 …
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Mute Buttons Collar The Truth
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 …
Big Money In Sales
Fortune reports that the job du jour is online ad sales rep. In fact, the field is so hot, journalist Jessi Hempel was offered a "mid-six-figure" salary by a CEO to defect while reporting the story. Hiring a sales director "is the single biggest challenge that we have faced," says Dina Kaplan, co-founder of Blip.tv, a video-sharing site. Kaplan says she spends as much as six hours a day searching for the right …