Rich Siegel, freelance copywriter and author of Tuesdays With Mantu, My Adventures With a Nigerian Con Artist, wants to run Morgan Stanley. Instead of sending his appeal directly to Mama Morgan, he's making creative use of an Adweek column instead. A cursory glance of my CV will reveal that I have little or no experience in the financial arena. Indeed, I have spent the last 25 years of my career as a creative …
Episodic Video Is The New Sandbox
Directors and their production companies are starting to offer episodic video to show brands just how rich a space exists between the 30-second spot and a feature film. Undercover Cheerleaders by HungryManTV is a good example of this kind of content offering. Undercover Cheerleaders - Selling Sh*tby hungrymanTV Hungry Man is one of the most prolific commercial production companies in the world with offices in New …
We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…
Breaking news from the nation's capitol: A bipartisan group of U.S. House lawmakers defeated a $700 billion rescue plan for Wall Street on Monday, rejecting pleas from the Bush administration and congressional leaders from both parties. The 205-228 vote against the plan sent stocks plummeting, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down around 500 points as news of the vote spread through Wall Street. Okay, back to …
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The Internet Never Sleeps
Virginia Heffernan of the The New York Times Magazine had fun last week poking around some prominent banking and investment sites. In my fantasies, banks are never financial-services firms, and Bill Clinton did not sign the 1999 law that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, allowing commercial and investment banks to merge. It seems that the once-glorious Wall Street investment banks — Goldman Sachs, Morgan …
Milquetoast for Breakfast, Milquetoast for Lunch…
Agency execs are a conservative lot when it comes to pitching ideas. That's the latest news from a study by Menlo Park, Calif.-based executive staffing firm Creative Group. According to Marketing Daily, marketing executives--whose products and services are at stake--said they needed to push for more risky marketing strategies. Sixty-five percent of survey respondents who are marketing executives and 45% of those who …
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You Can Have It Your Way At BK, But Not At The Polls
Politics is polarizing, arguably to a dangerous degree in this country. Burger King and their agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky understand that and have turned this fact into cultural currency. BK customers interested in having fun with the race can download applications for Facebook or MySpace and then share their political opinions and debate "friends." That doing so in real life is more fun and more impactful is …
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Clash Of The Titans
Most people in advertising love Wieden + Kennedy. Most people in advertising love Starbucks. Apparently, the two don't feel the love for each other. Ad Age has the scoop: "Wieden always felt like it was a one-way relationship," said an executive familiar with the matter. "They felt like they presented a way to drive the brand forward, and Starbucks wasn't receptive." The agency wouldn't comment beyond its statement …
I Blog, Therefore I Earn
Tech journalist, Sarah Lacy, on why she doesn't run ads on her blog: Until I could find an advertising vehicle that valued my audience as much as I do, blogging would just be a loss leader for me—a hub for everything else I was doing and a way to solidify myself as a thought leader. After all, isn't a decade of industry experience and contacts worth more than pennies a click? BusinessWeek, Yahoo, or any organization …