Mr. Sievers was a television news producer who covered more than a dozen wars but became best known to the public as he chronicled his illness for NPR in a blog called “My Cancer.”
LONDON – The RSPCA is adopting a mobile strategy in a bid to encourage responsible pet ownership.
(TrendHunter.com) Drifting, a sport and driving technique that involves skillfully skidding the rear tires of a car through a curved track without spinning out, is typically done with fast coupes and sedans, not semi trucks.…
LONDON – Car rental firm Avis is running a digital ad campaign in the UK in a bid to boost its revenue during the off-peak months of September and October and differentiate itself from the competition.
LONDON – The Co-operative Group is extending its ‘Good with Food’ positioning to its pet food range to provide a healthier and more natural offering.
LONDON – The UK’s two biggest supermarkets are investing in the visual identities of their clothing ranges as they battle for the position of number-one UK clothing retailer.
(TrendHunter.com) Instead of using just one celeb, the ‘Stand Up to Cancer’ telethon will be a star-studded event, featuring dozens of stars, including: Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, America Ferrera, and Charlize…
If you’re caught up in Mad Men fever and want to drop a little deeper into the rabbit hole, get yourself on Twitter and start following @don_draper and @joan_holloway.
We can”t say for certain that the producers of the show are behind it, but we can tell you the characters seem absolutely consistent with their televised versions when tweeting with one another and followers. In addition, each profile links to the official AMC site, and there does seem to be some highly subtle show promotion. For instance, last Sunday morning, well before the episode aired, @don_draper tweeted: "Wishing I didn’t have to spend most of my Sunday at the office." It was later revealed in the show, of course, that Draper had to head into the city to work on the American Airlines pitch. Nice.
It’s an interesting use of Twitter, and one I’m content to play along with to see what more they can do with the highly personal medium.
Of course, there’s an open invitation for the masterminds behind this to contact us with more revelations.
LONDON – O2 has extended its tie with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) as the lead sponsor of the England Rugby Team for a further four years, taking it beyond the next World Cup.
LONDON – As many high-street retailers suffer from a slowdown in consumer spending, retail sales at airports are booming as operators market their sites as shopping destinations.
LONDON – Birds Eye is launching a £2m drive promoting its peas with ads aimed at dispelling perceptions that they are not as healthy as other vegetables.
LONDON – WWF UK has launched a direct mail fundraising appeal based on its work to protect the world’s most critically-endangered big cat, the Amur leopard.
LONDON – Land Rover is putting direct and digital marketing at the heart of a campaign to promote the Range Rover Sport.
LONDON – Blyk, the free ad-funded mobile phone network for 16- to 24-year-olds, has ventured into recruitment advertising.
I got up early this morning to play with the website for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, a Wackness-meets-Go-type movie featuring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings.
MSN today premieres a 25-episode Web-video comedy series called Republicrats, about a presidential hopeful of no fixed political beliefs (hence the title) who lets the public (via the Web) determine his stance on the issues and even select his running mate. Wags might ask how this differs from actual presidential politics. In our poll-obsessed, image-is-everything society, it probably doesn’t. In fact, it’s not even as pointed as Stephen Colbert’s foray onto the electoral stage, because his “fake” candidacy was for “real.” The producers of Republicrats say they have no advertisers yet. If they’re willing to inject some mind-bending irony into the process, they should try to get their candidate on the actual ballot and qualify for public matching funds. Then the show could sponsor itself by running real/fake commercials for its real/fake candidate during its own episodes. Now that’s satire! And if laws are broken, well, that would just heighten the political “reality.”
—Posted by David Gianatasio
Media saturation for the Olympics is complete now that we have Paste magazine’s picks for the 10 Best Songs in Commercials During the Olympics. The list is mostly a who’s-who of fading indie credibility. I’ve always preferred Gabriel Ananda over Enur, who makes the cut for a Target spot set in the kind of giant dorm room only seen on TV. As for the Killers, that “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” line isn’t as clever as they (or Nike) think it is. (The same could be said for their entire discography, pretty much.) Brandi Carlile get props for donating a song to General Motors for green causes, but her sound got old when everyone else in her genre was doing it. I agree with this list’s No. 1 choice, though—featured in the ad posted above. It’s impossible to knock Marvin Gaye, and Nike’s talents for exploitation are well documented.
—Posted by David Kiefaber
Current.com are mocking those Olympic tie-in ads – so well deserved. They point fingers at the Visa – Go World – Derek Redmond ad and Home Depot – Team USA as well as the by now classic odd couple – McDonald’s and olympic athletes who would never eat that crud.
BEIJING – Coca-Cola has topped an in-depth ranking of Beijing Olympics sponsors according to how well their marketing performed in China before the Games started.
Big news from the Associated Press this week: a mom shocked by her daughter’s modest clothing! Yes, this may be the newest trend in teen land: girls gone mild. How did this come about? Is it simply a long-overdue return to the days when 13-year-olds didn’t buy thongs, or at least partially the result of Disney’s billion-dollar, Christian-values boy band the Jonas Brothers? I’m thinking Disney’s summer of sweet, hot chastity has really caught on. Ms. Cyrus herself picked a modest dress for the Teen Choice Awards this year, compared with her cleavage-revealing, sparkly mini from last year. Even the CW is dressing its starlets from Gossip Girl (which won six Teen Choice Awards) with enough modesty and style to get the fashion blogs cooing (and you can shop for all the clothes on the GG Web site, squee!). Maybe innocence really is sexier than we thought.
—Posted by Rebecca Cullers
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