Hasta La Creative!

Today, Calvin Klein announced actress Eva Mendes will be comes the spokesperson for Calvin Klein Fragrances and will make her debut in the company’s 2008 Fall campaign. We like.

Get ready for an explosion of cute. Yes, GAP has announced the winners of its casting call contest which selected four kids from a pool of 20 finalists which were selected from a pool of 800,000.

According to The New York Times, Subway is inexplicably (as in pending lawsuit) pissed at Quizno’s because of some “derogatory” user-generated videos that depict Subway unfavorably. Must see to believe (scroll down to view the big offender).

Tyson Foods, Inc. has been touting its line of antibiotic-free chicken as part of a $70 million advertising campaign. But, competitive poultry producers are upset that the Arkansas-based company has been making false claims about its product.

Calling themselves the Truthful Labeling Coalition, Perdue Farms, Sanderson Farms Inc., Gold’n Plump Poultry Inc. and Foster Poultry Farms accused Tyson of displaying misleading advertising claims in violation of federal and state law and sent a letter to Tyson asking the company to pull its ads.

At issue is Tyson’s use of an animal medication called ionophores, commonly added to poultry feed to help prevent an intestinal parasite that can lead to lower body weight or death in poultry, causing economic loss to producers.

Last month, Tyson agreed to stop using a version of its antibiotic-free labels on its chicken products after the U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded it had awarded the label mistakenly, because the company was still using medication that it characterized as antibiotics. Tyson has also agreed to amend its advertising.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

Kansas City Star takes a look at Lee Jeans, a firm that ended its 18-year relationship with Minneapolis-based Fallon. The account is now at Arnold in Boston.

Lee is centered on a pull, not a push, strategy. In other words, the consumer dictates needs and Lee fulfills them.

Lee president Joe Dzialo said the company has undertaken extensive research to understand its customer, research that includes large-scale quantitative analysis and one-on-one interaction, including asking consumers about purchasing intents before and after trying on its jeans.

What Lee came away with is that its customer demands mostly middle-of-the road clothes with a bit of style that are reliable but that most importantly resolve a litany of fit issues confronting its customers’ ever-changing — and often challenging — body shapes.

For instance, many women the company queried complained of jeans “gapping” at the back. So Lee now has a line of jeans that have a wide yet discreet elasticized band in the back. There’s also a line that includes a panel in front that provides a slight pull-in effect.

For both men and women, Lee and other brands have added a “stretch” element to their jeans that “give” at key points, although Lee marketing vice president Liz Cahill said men’s products are positioned as being “flexible.”

“You can’t say ‘stretch’ to men,” Cahill said.

I’m taking note of this story, primarily because we often read about and talk about how companies need to improve their product and that better marketing flows from there. Lee could be a case study for this idea.

You gotta love a CEO that falls in love with his own product to the exclusion of all else. In a NYT interview Steve Jobs calls the Macbook Air the most elegant of Apple’s computer designs, lavishing affection even…

According to The New York Times, Zagat Survey is for sale and may fetch as much as $200 million.

The Zagats, who met at Yale Law School, could not find a publisher for their annual Manhattan restaurant rankings guide in the early 1980s, so they began publishing it themselves and delivering copies to any bookstore that would stock them. They set up a publishing company in part to get tax deductions for meals.

The business has since expanded wildly with international guides in multiple languages and into new categories. The company also began making custom guides for corporations. For example, Walt Disney commissioned a guide for attractions at its theme parks and WellPoint, the health insurer, commissioned a guide on doctors in its network. In both cases, the rankings and reviews were completed independently of the companies that paid for them.

The article suggests that the media company would make a great acquisition for a carrier looking for a mobile content play. I can also see a credit card company wanting to buy this firm. Am Ex is already deep into custom publishing with titles like Travel & Leisure and Food & Wine.

Wendy’s, apparently not pleased with its red wig campaign, may be leaving Saatchi & Saatchi, AdScam’s George Parker reports. A Saatchi source tells Parker production has ceased on all work. George didn’t like the red wig campaign citing its…

Brandkeys publishes this thing called the Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. According to this year’s index, Starbucks lost serious ground in ’07 for forgetting what made it a big name in the first place: the coffee experience. Who’s winning the…

Gotta love a logo battle. French firm Lacoste just lost one against a dental practice in UK-based Gloucestershire, which uses the image of a crocodile to promote its service. The battle raged for four years between the goliathan clothing…