Hasta La Creative!

Agency Spy ran with a piece about John Rausch, formerly a Group CD at Euro RSCG/Chicago, running amok and causing a “mini-coup” in the agency’s creative department.

Which isn’t that big of a deal, I suppose. What I like about this post is the fact that the shop’s Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Steffan Postaer–who is in South Africa on a shoot, according to his blog–stepped up to the plate in the comments.

The post’s first comment in the string comes from Pete Shotton. He calls Postaer “one of advertising’s great poseurs.”

Postaer responds with this:

Mon dieu! We have been found out!
Let this serve as my confession.
Shotton is correct. I was “posing as an intellectual.”
It was intended as a ruse to fool certain liberal factions of our company. Alas, it became an obsession. When Shotton revealed the “sane people were trying to escape” I ordered the exit doors barred. This action was impetus for the “revolution” Agency Spy reported. Unfortunately, the “coup” left several brave creative directors mortally wounded and they had to be taken out. May the Gods of Advertising have mercy on them… and on my soul. So say I, on this the 5th day of March, 2008. -SRP

Hey, at least Postaer’s having fun with it all.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on poor promo planning from Verizon.

To promote its FiOS offering–an $18 billion gambit that delivers higher-speed Internet, television and phone service via a fiber-optic line connected directly into the home–Verizon blanketed the airwaves in select markets with an offer of a free Sharp Corp. high-definition television set.

Unfortunately, Verizon had difficulties obtaining enough Sharp TVs to meet demand (which you might say is a good problem to have).

FiOS customers can now wait an additional five weeks for a Sharp, or as an alternative, Verizon customers can have a similar-model Magnavox TV or a $200 gift card for Best Buy Co.

December was a busy month for British Sky Broadcasting with the broadcaster topping the volume charts in all three direct media.

Canon has selected Neolane software to help it develop more targeted and personalised direct marketing campaigns.

We reported earlier here about the music industry and their “pay what you feel” releases. I also remarked that Trent Reznor didn’t seem all that happy with the results.

We’ll it seems Trent learns from his mistakes and his latest venture Ghosts I-IV has paid off in spades. A $300 limited edition sold out in two days. That’s $750,000 mo money in 2 days. There’s still a smaller $75 version, a free sample and a $5 and $10 option for punters.

It goes to show people will pay for things that they see has real value and that this new way of releasing music might be here to stay.

LONDON – Commercial broadcaster Five swung back into profit last year, helped by additional ad revenues earned by its two digital channels and what it termed “stringent” cost-cutting at its core TV channel.

LONDON – Directgov, the Government information service, is using 900 ATMs across England to direct the public to tax credit and savings advice.

LONDON – Adam & Eve has been appointed by Lloyds TSB to handle a £10 million brief to promote the company’s £80 million sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympics.

LONDON – Adam & Eve has scooped the £5m creative account for Westfield, the £1.6bn shopping centre due to open in West London this year, following a competitive pitch.

For all her noxious crying and whatnot, Hillary Clinton is a well-honed jungle predator. “Winning. Winning, winning, that’s my measure of success — winning,” she barked recently.