Engadget says Apple has applied for six patent applications that reveal plans to turn iPhone into a “lifestyle companion.”
The Wall Street Journal is shining some light on AOL’s efforts to integrate Advertising.com with the other ad-technology firms they recently purchased, all of which have different areas of expertise, from behavioral targeting to video ads.
AOL’s future largely hinges on the success of that transformation, which involves aggressively slashing costs, forsaking billions of dollars in overall subscription revenue, and laying off thousands of employees.
Lynda Clarizio, 47, a nine-year veteran of AOL, is leading the way. Clarizio led the team that acquired Advertising.com in 2004 for $435 million. That unit has accounted for nearly a quarter of AOL’s revenue and is one of the fastest-growing parts of the company.
Trained as a lawyer, Clarizio is known internally for an analytical mind and an ability to delegate. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, she came to AOL from Washington law firm Arnold & Porter, where she was a partner for seven years and also worked as an AOL outside counsel.
We just love how the same old thing gets a new name every few years. Retard? Mentally Impaired. Handicapped? Physically Challenged. Midget? Little Person
Chrysler doesn’t just make cars. ChryslerListens.
According to Ad Age, Chrysler also reframed the focus group, presumably while listening, calling it “on-demand customer collaboration” instead.
Bold moves.
The New York Times wants us to know how tapped into the culture Scion, and their agency, is.
Toyota will let Scion owners design their own personal “coat of arms†online. In making their personalized crests, Scion owners can choose from among hundreds of symbols, all designed by a professional graffiti artist. The symbols range from an eagle, a jester, a king’s crown and a worker’s fist to Japanese anime-style flowers, a three-person family and a yin-yang circle. Customers can download their designs and have them made into window decals or take them to an auto airbrushing shop to have them professionally painted onto their cars.
Scion Speak was created by StrawberryFrog, an advertising and marketing agency based in New York and Amsterdam that is known for its quirkiness and for representing new or hipster brands. The agency spent six months last year escorting a graffiti artist, Tristan Eaton, around New York, Los Angeles and other cities to talk to Scion owners about their lifestyles. Based on those conversations, Mr. Eaton designed the symbols.
“These guys love to personalize their cars, and we give them a tool to do that,†said Kevin McKeon, the executive creative director of StrawberryFrog in New York.
Tats, customization, social networking-inspired thinking, downloadable art…it’s all good.
I’ve worked on tourism accounts, and I know it’s not easy. You have to satisfy lots of different audiences, not the least of which are the politicians ponying up the cash for the campaign. So there’s often a montage of footage that tries to avoid preconceived notions.
Today, New Jersey launches a new campaign with nary a Springsteen or a Soprano in sight. Take a look:
The PR release has more:
The campaign, which features images of GPS navigation screens and the familiar “you have arrived” broadcast voice-overs, capture New Jersey’s range of experiences – from bicycling to birdwatching, from starfish to spa treatments. Viewers will see historic venues such as Red Bank’s revitalized Count Basie Theatre, exciting dining and nightlife, and families bonding over Wildwood’s exhilarating rides and nostalgic “Doo Wop” culture.
Does this make you want to hit the Garden State on your next vacation?
Do you want to hear about Starbucks’ new social networking site, or the new espresso machines they’re planning to roll out? The Wall Street Journal has that information.
I have different information. Last week in Austin I asked myself, besides Jo’s, where might a true espresso fiend venture. The answer wasn’t hard to find.
image courtesy of Flickr user, nieve44
Caffé Medici is an espresso and coffee house located in the Clarksville neighborhood, just west of downtown Austin. They take a lot of care when making shots and that care translates directly to the coffee experience. I savored every drop of this precious brew, let me tell you. And I shuddered to think what going back to Starbucks’ burnt bean, crema-less cup would mean. It means compromise and I have enough compromise in my life, I don’t need it in my coffee.
We love a good throwback ad.
Rehab, the cats behind Gap’s Sound of Color effort, just launched a Kenneth Cole campaign themed “We All Walk in Different Shoes.”
In a surprise twist of social networking fate, AOL buys Bebo, which is like MySpace with a British accent, less garish colours and funnier videos.
I’m not a NASCAR fan, but apparently, Goodyear makes all the tires that the drivers use, and of course, in the world of car buffs, that’s a huge coup.
Unless the drivers bitch about the tires. From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
On Monday, Goodyear was peddling a feel-good story: “Goodyear tops Fortune magazine’s most-admired list.”
But 24 hours earlier, NASCAR driver Tony Stewart was peddling his own story.
“Goodyear can’t build a tire worth a crap,” said the mouthy fireplug of a man known for saying exactly what’s going on inside his racing helmet. A frustrated Stewart was speaking after a race Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway about newly designed tires that forced drivers to drive like grandmas.
But he was just getting started.
“I’m going home and taking everything that has Goodyears off and put Firestones on and feel a lot safer,” Stewart said in another interview.
“It’s a shame these teams that work so hard are being dictated by a company incapable of building tires fit for a street car.”
Ouch. These celebrity endorsements and sponsorships can really boost a brand’s sales. They can also backfire.
Because convincing people to pay more for water in ultra-fancy packages never gets old, Evian Canada is re-launching its brumisateur facial spray this April. And at $10 per bottle, we’re sure they’ll call it a bargain.
Shawn Waite brings this retro-feeling print campaign for Nocona Boots to our attention.
I don’t like that these cowboys are messin’ with a bear. Bears are my peeps. However, if I allow myself to overlook this fact and to overlook the fact that the other ads in this campaign also glamorize man conquering nature, I can see what nice work this is. From a visual storytelling point-of-view these illustrations are wonderful. And brand building. Should I ever want to have nature-conquering boots on my feet, I’ll consider purchasing Nocona.
See more ads from this campaign after the jump.
I’ve been working on some “green” intiatives for a client of mine this week, so this story caught my eye:
British environmentalists say a Chicago-to-London American Airlines flight was “obscene” because it carried only five passengers.
The Feb. 9 flight used 22,000 gallons of fuel to carry the passengers on the trans-Atlantic route, a decision Friends of the Earth said was environmentally irresponsible, The Telegraph reported Wednesday.
“Flying virtually empty planes is an obscene waste of fuel,” said Richard Dyer, Friends of the Earth’s transport activist. “Through no fault of their own, each passenger’s carbon footprint for this flight is about 45 times what it would have been if the plane had been full.”
American Airlines officials said it was forced to cancel one of its four daily fights from Chicago to London. While it was able to place nearly all of the canceled flight’s passengers on other flights, five couldn’t be accommodated.
Then there was the London-to-Chicago flight to consider.
Canceling the flight “would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded at London Heathrow who were due to fly back to the U.S. on the same aircraft,” an airline spokesman said.
This is an interesting dilemma. I have some questions, after the jump:
American entertainment companies are lining up to deliver their brand experiences in a land far far away.
Mark Shapiro, Six Flags’ CEO
According to Los Angeles Times, Six Flags Inc., will develop a thrill park in the United Arab Emirates as part of a massive entertainment and amusement complex in the country known as Dubailand.
The Six Flags park is the latest addition to Dubailand, a 3-billion-square-foot project that will include restaurants, hotels, Universal Studios Dubailand and DreamWorks Animation Park. Groundbreaking on the Six Flags portion is expected to begin in 2009.
This is the first Six Flags project to be developed outside North America. The company operates 21 theme parks in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Cons are 100 this year.
Gary Koepke, the cofounder and executive creative director of Boston-based ad agency Modernista! says, “They’ve always been around in my life. They’re a fixture, like family . . . it’s like an archetype now – like a cross or an old Coca-Cola label.”
[via The Boston Globe]
According to The Washington Post, Marriott.com is one of the top 10 e-commerce sites for sales, bringing in more than $5.2 billion in 2007.
Not bad for a firm whose CEO, Bill Marriott, does not use a PC.
Stuart Elliott brings us the story of a small beer brand using the interwebs to further its cause.
A Mexican import, Pacifico, is filling its Web site with 30 brand-centric video clips that celebrate a life centered on sun, sand, surf, street food and a willingness to eat extremely hot peppers or play checkers with bottle caps.
The videos, and the Web site, were created by Creature, an agency in Seattle that also produces ads for Pacifico in traditional media like magazines and billboards and oversees promotions like the refitting of 1960s Volkswagen buses to serve as touring Pacifico peddlers.
The videos, which run from 15 seconds to 3 minutes, were filmed in Mexico with Super 8 movie cameras to give the footage less of a slick, polished look
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