Hasta La Creative!

A kidnapper-rapist sicko has me thinking lately about the literal value of news.

Well, as you always kind of suspected, Bob Garfield hates advertising. He even thinks it will die, at least in its mass-appeal form.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Fewer than 10% of incumbent agencies are estimated — by the reckoning of either the 4A's, industry consultants or Ad Age — to hang on to an account at the conclusion of a review process. Even so, declining to defend when the consequence is waving goodbye to a fat and prestigious ad budget in a poor economic environment is a bold enough statement that outsiders take notice.

While shooting a typical testimonial spot for Downy fabric softener, U.S. Hispanic agency Wing persuaded Procter & Gamble to take a chance and film an edgier test commercial at the same time.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Advertising in Spanish-language media fell 6.58% in the first half of 2009 in a decline that is unprecedented in the U.S. Hispanic market but less than half the 15.4% drop Nielsen recorded for the general market compared with the first half of last year.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — "Cloud" computing services — generally free applications that exist on the web such as Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, AIM, WordPress, etc. — are now woven into the lives of just about everyone on the web. But what happens when there's a problem, or as happened to Gmail last week, it simply breaks down? In the cloud, no one can hear you scream.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — With new-home construction languishing, paint sales are projected to slide 9% this year, leading brands such as Glidden, Benjamin Moore and Dutch Boy to pick up the slack with new marketing and new products designed to encourage consumers to spruce up their homes.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — TV networks have placed a big bet that demand for ad time will increase as the ailing economy limps toward something resembling recovery. And early indications are that some marketers are starting to spend again.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — If the giant Walt Disney Co. is lucky, Marvel's heroes will help the home of Goofy and Donald Duck generate even more content across a broad range of traditional and new-media venues — and thus boost ad dollars, subscriptions and licensing revenue in the process.

ad:tech Chicago’s “Love for Sale — How Great Creative Seduces Its Target” session was broken into two discernably useful parts: statistics on online dating, and seduction as a metaphor for marketing.