So many dumb moments in business, so little time. But Business 2.0 mag has their picks for the 101 dumbest of 2006.
Wal-Mart is #1, for hiring a big firm to create their "Candidate Wal-Mart" campaign. #2 is Northwest Airlines, for giving their employees a "How To Save Money" booklet after laying them off. #3 is the contest McDonald's held in Japan, with the winners getting free mp3 players with a virus on them. The rest of the top 10 are GM, Kazakhstan, Steve Wynn, The New York Times, Spirit Air, Porter County, and Comcast.
There are 101 in all, so grab a hot beverage and get comfortable. You can't see the entire list on one page, which is a little annoying, but there is a handy scroll function at the bottom.
I've given up on tracking the time and am just guesstimating now. I assume no responsibility if it takes you more than 120 seconds to read this.
Hispanic agency Conill has been named the "Multicultural Agency of the Year" by AdAge based largely on the quantity and quality of the clients they landed in 2006.
Car makers are paying Car & Driver magazine to take their car reviews and turn them into multimedia online "test drives." This allows the title to directly monetize the reviews, which make up a large part of their content, but does raise concerns over those reviews being watered down to appease potential advertisers.
The L.A. Times has taken their Envelope blog and turned it into a targeted print publication that, as we get deeper into Oscar season, is full of "For Your Consideration" ads. For a look at what kind of "FYC" ads the studios are putting online, check out the Adverlicio.us archive.
Oh please for the love of all that's good and holy in this world can we stop with the pandering already? First Time names "You" its Person of the Year and now "The Consumer" has been named the Agency of the Year by AdAge. This has to stop no matter how hard you try and justify it.
As a media property, the "American Idol" brand is worth more than $2.5 billion. That comes not only from the TV show that started it all but the multiple spin-offs that it's spawned.
Author Jeff Chester has put out a book that claims the American public has been "brainwashed" into relinquishing its rights to privacy by the marketing industry. Between tracking more of our behavior and pressuring the government to not protect privacy the.....AHHHH my chip just went off....it burns......!!!!
Just because the rest of you were off partying with Britney Spears over the New Year's weekend doesn't mean the Weblogs, Inc. team wasn't working hard.
The United Kingdom, according to Slashfood, is about to introduce advertising regulations that would put cheese in the "junk food" category.
Engadget talks about Head & Shoulders introducing a photo booth that alerts you to any dandruff you might have, thereby ensuring you have a lousy day.
Blogging Stocks says that the much-touted redesign of the Wall Street Journal, meant largely to lower print expenses when it's online where the ad revenue is, comes about three years too late to really mean anything.
Blogging Stocks also points out that while eBay has survived largely on its good user reputation, many critical voices have been muffled by the true believers.
Lots of good stuff from the BS crew, with this piece on how there might not be the advertiser support for Fox's upcoming business channel debut.
TV Squad has a screen shot of the web promotion CBS has up for "CSI: Miami," the next run of which will feature some character shifts that are alluded to in this Beatles-esque picture.
TUAW mentions that Apple was named by MediaPost to be their "Marketer of the Year."
Slashfood says scented ads, especially scent-infused packaging, are just going to become more and more common.
Joystiq talks about Burger King's crowing over selling two million King-themed Xbox games.
The Wall Street Journal staff has rounded up their best and worst ads of 2006. Winners include Apple's "Mac Vs. PC" spots, CareerBuilder.com's Monk-e-Mail web execution and KFC's attempt to foil DVR users by inserting coupons that could only be viewed when watched slowly. Losers include the Head-On spots (can we all agree these are awful and move on?) Wal-Mart/Edelman's attempt to fool us all with a fake blog and DaimlerChrysler's "Dr. Z" series.
This is great. SEED Strategies magazine has listed the top ten films about advertising and there are some great ones on there, including Lost In America and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Granted a lot of these movies only deal with advertising in a very superficial way, most often using it as a setup for some other gag but still this is a lot of fun.
I'm a magazine junkie. Seriously, it's an illness. I probably spend more money on magazines and newspapers than I do on food and clothing. And that's not counting the mags I read for free as I drink my chai in the Border's Cafe.
Advertising Age has looked at the magazine covers from 2006 and picked the 10 best. Some of these I can't complain about. The New Yorker cover is simple and powerful, the Time cover is clever, and the Wired cover manages to look good and have someone on the cover that sums up the year (and he's hacking an iPod!). But the Swindle cover is at least two years out of date, and the Vogue and Bicycling covers are just plain boring (they must have had other covers during the year that would have been better choices).
Do you remember any covers that caught your eye in 2006?
What did Stuart Elliot at the New York Times like in the 2006 advertising world? Folgers' Tolerate Mornings campaign. G.E's One Second Theater. Philips Electronics' aggresive move into sole-sponsorship of TV shows.
What did he not like? Dodge's "Silly Little Fairy" spot. American Express ripping off Rod Serling with M. Night Shyamalan. Companies that created fake blogs. Republican Bob Corker's controversial "man on the street" ads.
USA Todayhas named the latest entry in Windex's ongoing "bird" campaign as the most liked ad of 2006. This one features two birds who clean a patio door so well that a guy walks into it, a comedic device that's been used about 7,403 times just since 2004.
Artistic gripes aside, what's interesting is that according to the USAT's Ad Track survey, just a quarter of the ads screened were liked by more than 21 percent of the audience. That's an incredibly low number. Humor and nostalgia seemed to be the biggest common threads among commercials that worked well. Auto ads did not fair well despite being among the top spending industries out there.
ASIFA-Hollywood recently announced the nominees for the 34th annual Annie Awards, which are given for excellence in animation in both movies and television. The following animated commercials were included this year:
Candy Factory, a PSA for RAT (Reject All Tobacco), a funny spoof on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Giraffe, created by Z Animation for the St. Louis Zoo.
"Billeive," a stop-animated spot for ESPN. See below:
"Dancing Couple," not a terribly exciting spot, created for Hilton Journeys:
"Dragon," a spot for United Airlines that has little if nothing to do with air travel, but the dragon looks cool:
I'm not quite sure what the definition of "family friendly programming" is to the Family Friendly Programming Forum, but they gave out awards to TV shows the other night.
The FFPF is made up of advertisers that represent 43 different companies, and they give out awards to TV shows and actors that promote family-friendly programming during prime time hours. Some of the choices are fairly predictable: Dancing with the Stars, The Ron Clark Story, High School Musical, and Ugly Betty. But they also gave an award to CBS' Numb3rs, which is a 10pm show about murder, robbery, and assault. Hmmm.
The show will air on the CW on December 12. Question: is this show also eligible to win the award, sometime next year?
TNS Media Research has just signed a deal with Starcom Media Group that will have them providing second-by-second commercial ratings data to the agency. The data will only come from 300,000 Charter Communications customers in the Los Angeles market but this is a huge step that could spell trouble for Nielsen's never-quite off the ground system.
Young & Rubicam woke up this morning wondering where $61 million went to. That's because Orbitz has decided to take its account elsewhere at a time when the online travel service seems to be gaining market share versus its competitors.
Media buying and planning for Kodak will now be handled by MindShare Worldwide and Neo@Ogilvy. The account is valued at around $100 million and comes as the camera maker has been shifting dollars from TV to online efforts.
Lightspeed Research thinks it has the key to overcoming an overly-surveyed population: Giveaways. Right, cause that won't skew the results at all. Does no one remember when Pinky & the Brain tried to take over the world by offering free t-shirts? That didn't work out well and this won't either.
Sony is adding Grouper and other online executions to the stable of offerings it presents to media buyers when the syndication team goes knocking on doors.
AdAge has named Toyota its "Marketer of the Year" in recognition of the gains it's made on the Detroit-based auto companies.
Following the lead of NBC Universal, the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau has sent out an advisory to the rest of its membership advising them to not participate in Nielsen's advertising ratings program. Apparently the CAB has problems with the completely unreliable system. Go figure.
AdAge has named the September 19th, 2005 cover of The New Yorker as the Best Magazine Cover of the Year. The cover featured a drawing of the Bush administration cabinet members under water following the Katrina-related flooding in New Orleans.
Watch the video interview with Jeffrey Diskin, VP of brand management for Hilton Hotels about the chain's renovations and revitalization.
So many dumb moments in business, so little time. But Business 2.0 mag has their picks for the 101 dumbest of 2006.
I've given up on tracking the time and am just guesstimating now. I assume no responsibility if it takes you more than 120 seconds to read this.
Just because the rest of you were off partying with Britney Spears over the New Year's weekend doesn't mean the Weblogs, Inc. team wasn't working hard. 
The Wall Street Journal staff has rounded up their 
This is great. SEED Strategies magazine has listed the 
I'm a magazine junkie. Seriously, it's an illness. I probably spend more money on magazines and newspapers than I do on food and clothing. And that's not counting the mags I read for free as I drink my chai in the Border's Cafe.
What did Stuart Elliot at the New York Times like in the 2006 advertising world? Folgers' Tolerate Mornings campaign. G.E's One Second Theater. Philips Electronics' aggresive move into sole-sponsorship of TV shows. 
USA Today 
I'm not quite sure what the definition of "family friendly programming" is to the Family Friendly Programming Forum, but they gave out 
TNS Media Research has just 
Lightspeed Research thinks it has the key to overcoming an overly-surveyed population: 
Following the lead of NBC Universal, the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau has sent out an advisory to the rest of its membership advising them to 
Advertising Age feels that it's a great time to 
