LONDON (AdAge.com) — Omega will not reconsider its involvement with the Beijing Olympic Games or speak out against China's foreign policy, despite pressure from one of its most prominent ambassadors, actor George Clooney. Mr. Clooney, who advertises the Swiss watchmaker around the world, has repeatedly spoken out about the crisis in Darfur and has visited the region to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis there.
If your brand messaging is clear, the color of the Latino person in the ad should be irrelevant. Your product will sell to the overall Latino market you're targeting because they know it's made for them regardless of skin color.
LONDON – AKQA has created a new viral for Pot Noodle, spoofing the Guinness Tipping Point campaign.
NEW YORK – Rupert Murdoch has lost a legal fight to claim a domain name for Fox Business Network, News Corporation’s US business news channel.
LONDON – The Boat Race has added three new sponsors for the 2008 contest between Oxford and Cambridge University.
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.
(TrendHunter.com) Sometimes, it’s the “little things” that matter most. Designer Young Hwan Kim has come up with a notebook design that tackles one of the most annoying and bothersome aspects of mobile computing – heat. The laptop concept “Float Away†solves the problem by elevating the back end via an integrated…
Time Warner chief executive Jeffrey Bewkes has said he is open to a combination of AOL with another company, fuelling speculation that the firm is looking to sell the company or merge it with a rival.
DETROIT (AdAge.com) — Mark McNabb, the top American at Nissan North America, has resigned unexpectedly, an executive close to the matter confirmed.
Bad as the economy is now, it’d be worse if there were more Democrats and fewer Republicans. In a new Harris Poll that asked people how their household’s financial situation has changed compared to a year ago, Republicans were more likely to say that it has improved (49 percent) than worsened (29 percent), with the rest saying it has remained the same. Among Democrats—an improvident bunch, apparently—nearly twice as many said “worsened†(50 percent) as said “improved†(26 percent). There’s a similar skew in this week’s ABC News Consumer Comfort Index, with Republicans rating the economy at -3 on a scale of +100 to -100, while Democrats rate it at -47. One can surmise that the Democrats’ presidential primary campaigns, which depict the nation as one big Hooverville, have had a depressive effect on party members’ economic views, over and above the economy’s actual struggles. Listening to the candidates’ speeches and watching their commercials, Democrats must feel it’s an act of party disloyalty if they fail to feel impoverished by Republican rule.
—Posted by Mark Dolliver
This Top-Flite video, nearing a million views on YouTube, was reportedly the brainchild of Top-Flite’s national brand manager, Nate Randle. He apparently showed it to a Callaway Golf sales meeting in September and got a standing ovation from all the rap fans in attendance. After the jump, ESPN’s Kenny Mayne interviews the rapper.
—Posted by Tim Nudd
It all started when I decided I wanted to buy a small interactive shop and called a CFO friend for advice. He set up lunch with a private-equity buddy of his. I laid out my plan and asked what they thought. The private equity guy said before you spend a dime on lawyers, go talk to my friend Jeff.
(TrendHunter.com) Can’t afford a million-dollar premium domain name?
Why not own the next best thing, the reverse spelling of it. It’s called Backwording and it’s the newest domaining phenomenon that is changing the landscape of the Internet. The concept is simple: register the backward spelling of premium domain …
The new Abercrombie & Fitch children’s hospital they got name it in exchange for a $10 million donation.
“It is troubling that a children’s hospital would name its emergency room after a company that routinely relies on highly sexualized marketing to target teens and preteens,†the members of the coalition wrote in a letter that was sent on Tuesday to the hospital’s office in Columbus, Ohio.
“The Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department and Trauma Center marries the Abercrombie brand to your reputation,†said the letter, addressed to five senior officers of the hospital. “A company with a long history of undermining children’s well-being is now linked with healing.â€
Hat tip Leslie at BAP
Werbeblogger notes that blackberry owns iphone.de. wtf?
Who needs a movie could quite possibly be the worst video ever produced, evah in the whole wide world. The irony is of course that they are selling their ability to produce videos. Hat tip metachat
LONDON – British Olympic double gold medal winner James Cracknell is to launch a new sports marketing agency, Threshold Sports, alongside industry specialists Julian Mack and Charlie Beauchamp.
LONDON – Search marketing firm Ambergreen has acquired digital agency Lightershade.
LONDON – Eighties pop icon Kim Wilde has been signed up as the new public face of kitchen retailer Magnet, which plans to introduce a focus on the environment into its ads.
LONDON – Iris has won the pan-European integrated advertising account for car rental firm Hertz.
LONDON – Sara Lee-owned skincare brand, Sanex, has launched an experiential campaign across UK gyms to promote its new Skin Energy Shower gel.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Watching "Family Guy" on online video site Hulu.com isn't like watching it on TV. You can pause the show, even take a break from it and come back to it later. As more consumers look to the web for entertainment they would normally watch on their flat screens, however, Hulu offers a map for how boob-tube advertising might develop.
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