LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — PepsiCo's Sierra Mist will debut a 30-episode animated web series, "On the Bubble News," at San Diego's Comic-Con. But while Sierra Mist wrote all the checks, the brand is almost nowhere to be found in the show.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Free applications, the darlings of the new iPhone, are the latest in tech cool. They're also the latest place marketers are plugging their ad messages.
(TrendHunter.com) The (former) pregnant man, Thomas Beatie, has released baby photos and his story. The baby, born June 29th, was a 9 and a half pound girl named Susan Juliette.
Thomas told People, “When Susan finally…
Starting this week, LinkedIn members reading an article in either the business or technology section of NYTimes.com will see a box featuring five stories selected for them based on their LinkedIn profile, according to Ad Age. What they may not notice is that online ads have also been targeted to them.
Sounds like a great idea, but I don’t see it when I visit the Times. Maybe it’s not active yet. Let me know if it’s working for you.
LONDON – Sainsbury’s has handed Tullo Marshall Warren a brief to increase sales of voucher cards and hampers through its Sainsbury’s Business Direct service.
LONDON – The Search Works has appointed former vice-president of Thomson Business Intelligence, Nick Lane, as its agency sales director.
If you’re not green today, you’re missing the boat. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, it’s imperative to find a more ecologically sensitive path to profit.
According to The New York Times, even direct marketers want in on the action.
A group of direct-marketing companies, along with a handful of their corporate clients, are banding together to make an inherently unsustainable practice at least a little bit greener.
The group calls itself the Green Marketing Coalition, and it includes Microsoft, Washington Mutual and OptimaHealth. Not all the companies involved are big mailers, but they share the sentiment that there should be best-practices guidelines for the direct mail business, which has been vilified even before global warming became a hot topic.
“This industry just didn’t have any real green standards,” said Spyro Kourtis, president of the Hacker Group, the Seattle direct-marketing company that headed the Green Marketing Coalition. “So we figured we could set some that vendors and clients and others could all live with.”
LONDON – Wunderman played host to the 2008 graduates of Bucks College’s advertising creative degree in its ‘Best of Bucks’ showcase competition earlier this month. Marketing Direct was there to capture the thoughts of students contemplating DM and digital marketing as a career.
So, JC Penney’s new back-to-school campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi has been out for a little while, and the whole thing is ripped right from The Breakfast Club (the nicer word for rip-off is “homage”). The major differences: a little more ethnicity and a new version of “Don’t You (Forget About Me).” I was 3 years old when The Breakfast Club came out in 1985. I didn’t know the film existed until I was in college, where it was included in a class on culturally significant movies for Gen X. Now, there’s more or less a decade separating me from today’s incoming high-school students. Does anyone really think they will get the reference? Hey, JC Penney, remember that scene in The Office where Steve Carell goes to this club and starts talking to this chick who is, like, way younger than him? Steve says Back to the Future (also ’85) is his favorite movie, and she says, “I guess that was before my time. How old are you again?” Congratulations, JC Penney, you’re now the old dude in the club. Maybe you’ll have an impact with the parents of some of those high-school kids. Better hope the kids actually want to shop where their parents suggest.
—Posted by Rebecca Cullers
According to the Boston Herald: “To cope with increasing requests for public appearances, the Red Sox have sent out a call for job seekers willing to don Wally the Green Monster’s costume part time for community and corporate events.” I’m throwing my cap into the ring, but I’m a little concerned about some of the job requirements. I’ve never worked as a sports mascot, theme-park character or actor—but I talk back to the screen at movies and trick-or-treated as Underdog when I was 6, so I should be OK. I’ve also acted like a journalist for nearly 20 years—a finely nuanced performance that’s fooled readers nationwide. It says applicants should be able to cope with wearing the 50-pound Wally suit in boiling heat. No worries. In fact, that’s my leading qualification: I won’t need the costume or makeup because, frankly, I’ve really let myself go these past few years.
—Posted by David Gianatasio
Pipl.com claims to provide the most comprehensive people search on the Web. I have no idea if that’s true, but the site is one of the Internet’s more depressing destinations, judging by some of its user testimonials (which appear at the top of the page with each refresh). Raves one “happy” customer: “I lost contact with him … I found him on Pipl … This was a big punch to the gut to find out that he had passed … at the age of 20.” Another proclaims: “I found my best friend’s obituary deep within the recesses of a newspaper in South Carolina. Without Pipl.com, I would never have known.” After reading those, I hesitate to do a Pipl search. Everyone seems to turn up dead! It would be a good place for shrinks, organized religions and Häagen Dazs to advertise—they’re three pillars of comfort in times of despair. Most unsettling of all: “For 11 years, I have been searching for an ex-girlfriend … On the very first search, Pipl found an address and a website … and we have rekindled the friendship.” Some people just don’t know when to let go!
—Posted by David Gianatasio
LONDON – Microsoft is splitting its online business into two parts, creating a new division amid a management shake-up
LONDON – Guardian.co.uk has bounded back into the lead among the UK’s newspaper websites in June after attracting 20.5m unique users, according to the latest ABCe results.
LONDON – Wieden & Kennedy Amsterdam has won the £18m global ad account for tyre manufacturer Pirelli without a pitch, replacing incumbent Leo Burnett.
Summer blockbusters "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight" both showed superhero-like powers when it came to pulling in box-office receipts. The marketing and media behind these two Hollywood franchises was a critical ingredient to maximizing both films' potential. Paramount developed the "Iron Man" media strategy for Marvel Entertainment's first funded production, while Warner Bros. was behind "The Dark Knight." The companies took quite different media strategies. Let's review how well they did.
LONDON – The Guardian website regained its position as the number one newspaper website, growing its audience by 11.9% from May, to lift itself back above Mail Online, according to June ABCe data.
LONDON – TheSun.co.uk remains the most popular website among the red-top newspapers, posting an ABCe of 15.5 million unique users in June with its online audience growing by more than any other newspaper site over the previous year, bar the Telegraph online, according to the latest ABCe figures.
LONDON – Google has opened its answer to Wikipedia, Knol, to the public for the first time.
Arnold has some new ESPN Fantasy Football spots honoring no-name NFL players whose unexpectedly productive performances, as all fantasy owners know, are essential to a successful season. The ads stress the fantasy element, as only the die-hard fans can see and hear overachievers like Ryan Grant, Grey Jennings and Earnest Graham. The conference-room scenario with Graham is especially well cast; I like how the nerdy guy in the sweater says he feels “uncomfortable.” Given the heightened sensitivity shown by some ad viewers this week, I wonder if the spots will be misconstrued as mocking people who suffer from delusions. I’ll take a quick poll here in my cubicle. Tom Brady, Madonna and Batman say there’s no problem, but Mr. T says he “pities the fool” who thought up the campaign.
—Posted by David Gianatasio
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