Almost too rare to wear.
Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Frankfurt, Germany
Creative Director: Andreas Pauli
Art Director: Matthias Fickinger
Copywriter: Christoph Tratberger
Illustrator: Christian Frech
Photographer: Marcus Caviola
Published: December 2007
According to the NYT Xerox Hopes Its New Logo Doesn’t Say ‘Copier’ – well good news Xerox, it doesn’t. It says “beach ball” or “hard peppermint candy” but not “Copier” or anything else you actually do.
“Our new brand reflects who we are, the markets we serve and the innovation that differentiates us in our industry. We have expanded into new markets, created new businesses, acquired new capabilities, developed technologies that launched new industries — all to ensure we make it easier, faster, and less costly for our customers to share information.” source press release
Sure, OK. Would you like a mint? 
The language of marketing has been borrowed from the military. We talk about defensive marketing, offensive marketing, guerrilla marketing. Often overlooked, however, is "flanking," one of the most powerful military strategies.
All hail Bravo! the current reigning champ in the world of product placement! And I do mean that in all sincerity. Bravo! for the most part has done an excellent job in integrating relevant products in to many of the their programs. And while it can some times be executed a little heavy handedly I can usually get beyond that if it makes sense in a program, like the “Glad family of products” so often referred to in on Top Chef by the lovely Padma Lakshmi. But the other day I felt the the bonds of relevance strained as the designers on Project Runway were challenged to create an ensemble using only the things they could find in the Times Square Hershey’s store. In all fairness the designs they created out of a pile of crappy looking Hershey’s tschotskies were very impressive. And what I originally thought was a tenuous relationship between the marketer and the program at best, the contestants were able to bring back around. What really got me with this instance of product placement was Hershey’s rep Michelle Gloeckler monologue that was summed up quite nicely by Missy Schwartz at EW.com as having “all the gusto of a stale Twizzler.” (Check her out at about 3:00 here.) Marketers, come on now. You know product placement works so why not treat it seriously? Would you use an actor who with all the charm and charisma of bowl of cold oatmeal in a tv spot? I think not. How would that reflect upon your brand? Product placement, like any form of marketing, requires careful thought, planning and execution. It’s not bludgeoning your audience to death with images and references to your product. And if you are going to go the animatronic route, go with a model like Vicki the Robot in Small Wonder who was capable of delivering a range of life-like emotions.
Technorati Tags: product placement, review, beyond madison avenue
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Conde Nast's big changes today have expanded far beyond The New Yorker and Lucky, where the company ousted the publishers this morning, to include the departure of Mitch Fox, group president and publishing director — and an executive once considered a contender to eventually take over the company.
As if going to the dentist weren’t enough of a nightmare, L.A. dentist Patty Ross offers appointments at the witching hour and beyond—at late as 2 a.m. on weekdays. Naturally, Ross has some after-hours spoof-horror advertising to match. See four more executions over at AdVille. Via Neatorama.
—Posted by Tim Nudd
LONDON – Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for the creation of a single food labelling scheme to avoid consumer confusion.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide is readying a layoff of between 50 and 100 staffers in New York this week, according to executives familiar with the matter.
Like many others, I started out a Twitter skeptic. Why would I want to know when someone’s eating a cheeseburger? But since I started using the micro-blogging service over the summer, I’ve come to realize that it’s actually a useful method of sharing information—and complaining about PR people. I’m not alone. Several ad execs are Twittering away. The usual social-media suspects are there: Joseph Jaffe, Steve Rubel and Greg Verdino. Starcom’s Jeff Marshall and Art Sindlinger are represented. So too is Anomaly’s Johnny Vulkan. Others include EVB CEO Daniel Stein, Critical Mass vp of experience design David Armano, Poke New York creative director Tom Ajello, Naked’s Noah Brier and Carmichael Lynch’s Tim Brunelle. And, of course, the AdFreak Twitter feed’s been up and running for a while now. Who else is Twittering?
—Posted by Brian Morrissey
Before I even begin to discuss this new spot from Ford’s long-time luxury division, Lincoln, let me say that I am all for having corporations and brands create positive images for themselves while making the world and communities better. And, I think this was the impetus for this idea… the execution of which, I’m sorry to report, fell far short.
This :60 spot for Lincoln’s luxury crossover SUV (called the MKX), “HOMETOWN”, puts jazz musician, Harry Connick, Jr. behind the wheel of a Lincoln MKX. He is driving through his hometown of New Orleans reflecting about its devastation from Hurricane Katrina — while driving a $40,000+ automobile! Okay, maybe he is bringing building supplies to the needy neighborhoods, maybe he is donating the vehicle to a needy family or church group helping those displaced, maybe he will announce some great new campaign financed by Lincoln to help build up his hometown… nah!
He is meeting his friends and delivering a couple of buckets of crawfish! As he ruminates on the hope that “good times” can roll again in New Orleans, the announcer claims that this new 2008 Lincoln MKX is, “Designed to inspire, ready to uplift.” What? Did I miss something? Is the car, brand, or corporation doing ANYTHING to inspire and uplift the people and community of New Orleans?
And, why would I run out and buy this luxury crossover SUV over a Lexus RS 350 or Acura MDX? I don’t know… but, then again, maybe I missed something.
Technorati Tags: lincoln mkx, harry connick jr, new orleans, hometown, beyond madison avenue
Yup. we’re ready for it. Ready for everyone to tell us we’re reading way, way too much into this Target billboard that places a certain area of a woman’s body highly targeted by men right in the middle of…
With 2008 in full swing, many of you have made one or several New Year's resolutions. I, too, have made both personal and professional goals for 2008. Top on my list is to continue to lose weight — the weight of apathy that's settled on a weary advertising industry.
Edward Wasserman, professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, argues in the Miami Herald that journalism ought not be subject to the brutal trappings of online metrics.
Under the new rules, the commercial value of specific editorial offerings is estimated with precision, rewards and punishments doled out accordingly, and coverage cut to fit.
The problem with online Popularity Pay is it that it mistakes journalism for a consumer product, and conflates value with sales volume. Journalists don’t peddle goods, they offer a professional service, a relationship. The news audience renews that relationship to get information and insight on matters it trusts journalists to alert it to, even though the news may be disquieting or hard to grasp.
Gawker Media already operates on the Popularity Pay model. Nick Denton’s goal is to discourage “self indulgent” posts and “mind-numbing frequency” in favor of “linkworthy material.”
ABC news reports that the model seen moaning in the Szul.com jewlery ad has filed a lawsuit, and in it she claims that she did not “consent to or authorize the use of her likeness, picture, image or name to simulate a female having an orgasm or otherwise experiencing sexual pleasure.” The lawsuit also says that model Jane Doe “has worked hard to project a wholesome image and has been extremely careful to avoid doing any work in the industry that would cheapen or tarnish her reputation”. Did not consent? There was no model release form signed? Oh, speaking of those don’t you just hate when they ask you to sign one and won’t let you make a copy?
The woman is asking for $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages. That’s $5 million for a “cheap” internet viral.
Adfreak weighs in: “she only got $200 for the gig. She’s suing for $5 million. The appropriate price tag is probably somewhere in between. ”
Jonah Bloom of Ad Age sees falling debris on the MyFaceSpace horizon.
Facebook and MySpace will have the longest lines of advertisers looking to get into their clubs in 2008. Of course, as those advertisers pay their admission fees and filter in, there’ll be more Beacon-backlash-type tales and plenty of grumbling from the natives. Gated communities, with subscription or premium-service business models, will pop up offering better online living without the nasty ad riff-raff. Still, the leading social networks already have the scale to record rapid ad revenue growth this year. The question is whether they’ll grow fast enough to persuade all the VCs to stand by the thousands of Web 2.0 businesses that are also seeking ads as their major source of income. They can’t all be winners — marketing money moves more slowly than venture capital, if it moves at all — and there’ll be a host of implosions.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Conde Nast Publications is making sweeping changes for the new year, turning over the leadership at two important magazines, The New Yorker and Lucky.
LONDON – Sky has made an agreement with Land Securities to become the exclusive retailer of entertainment and communication services on the concourses of all its flagship shopping centres.
Yeah, I took the headline right out of the mouth of the Finacial Times as it sounds so doomsdayie*. When I think of stealth marketing, I recall actors asking people at the empire state building to take their picture with a phone, and actors chatting about new drinks at bars. At the finacial times they’re talking about product placement, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms.
Product placement – in which items with visible brand names are integrated into television programmes – looks set to become legal on British screens within 18 months. But the process must be treated with care if it is to boost revenues, according to some of the UK’s leading broadcast executives.
Following an European Union directive on broadcasting issued last month, member states have been given the option of permitting product placement in most genres of commercial television, but not news, current affairs, sport and children’s programming.
* new word!
Sometimes an innocent instance of “sticking it to the man” is not just sticking it to the man. It might be sticking it to women. Literally. Blood and all. Words & Pictures takes a closer look at the activities…
LONDON – ‘Top Gear’ presenter Jeremy Clarkson has revealed that his bank details have been used fraudulently after he claimed that the government’s recent loss of data was a ‘storm in a teacup’.
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