Every week’s AdAge has a “Creativity” feature in the back that highlights some of the more interesting work from around the world.
This week, the trade featured an amazing outdoor execution that Leo Burnett created to remind you that McDonald’s is a great place for breakfast.
What – you’ve never seen a giant egg on a pole before?? Each morning the humungous egg starts cracking and is fully open when it’s time for breakfast, and the yellow yolk inside the egg says “Fresh Eggs Daily.” The egg stays open from 6am to 10:30am, then it closes and waits for the dawn. It’s worth clicking HERE to get the full effect.
I think this is fresh (pardon the pun) and fun - it grabs attention, which outdoor has to work extra-hard to do – and delivers the exact message the company intends. Great!
This stunt made me think that I’d actually seen a few other unusual outdoor treatments recently and, lo and behold, the New York Timeshas, as well.
Check out this elevator at NYC’s Manhattan Mall decked out to look like a giant Oreo getting dipped into a cold glass of milk!
Wednesday July 30th 2008, 9:22 am
Filed under: retail
Another piece of late 20th-century Americana bites the dust: Bennigan’s is closing.
The chain was founded in 1976 in Atlanta and grew rapidly in the following two decades. Home to the Monte Cristo sandwich, it was better known when I was a high school student in Dallas (living in a dry county…) as a cool, dark place where a courteous teenager could probably get drunk.
I agree with the Wall StreetJournal’s assessment that this is yet another reflection of the recession’s effect on the in-betweeners, which I’ve written about in the past. Low-end and high-end dining and retail are doing well, but if you’re in the middle? Tough sledding.
Select Soho House clubs and hotels in NY and the UK are now offering emergency same-day wardrobe service in partnership with NetAPorter.com. Designer shoes, accessories, dresses… forget – or ruin – something while traveling? These two premium brands have you covered.
This is so very clever and useful. Beyond the service’s usefulness, though, I think women will take advantage of it for the fun and the splurge of it, too: a new dress chosen with your significant other – for a special dinner that same evening in a chic hotel in a chic city – will add to the experience for many. Soho Housenetaporter.com
So this is my fourth post on Starbucks. And now I realize that even my very first post – in which I defended the company for proposing a new line of kids’ products - was about the company losing focus!
Since then, I’ve gone on to write twice more about how badly the company has wandered off course. Howard Schultz issued a big mea-culpa and returned as CEO. In April, he vowed that the company would restore its focus on coffee and jettison distractions like the uber-smelly egg selections at breakfast. In June, he announced that the company was closing down its music business. Good. Coffee and service, coffee and service. Even if you want to bring in some new products, you need to restore our faith in, well, coffee and service.
One month later, the company has reversed its decision on killing the eggy entries (a new recipe will supposedly kill the stink), even though they generate only 3% of sales, and has launched yet another I’m-on-another-planet creation: smoothies* (which are already getting lousy reviews). The company is also closing 600 stores.
So in a recession, when a $4 cup of coffee has to fight extra-hard to survive, Starbucks is keeping an old distraction, starting a new one and putting even more pressure on the employees who remain after the company’s worse blood-letting ever? What’s next?GAH! I’m not saying don’t ever experiment again, but is there anything in the last 18 months that suggests that now is the time?
This is truly a case where I wouldn’t be ranting if I didn’t care. eHarmony is running a TV commercial in which one of its new brides says of her new husband, ”It’s easy to love Lee.”
Well, it’s getting really hard to love Starbucks.
P.S. I need amusement when I’m away from NYC for too long, so I tried a banana chocolate Vivanno last week. No-go. I recall that Schultz provided an oblique reference to the pending launch in the profile Portfolio did in its July issue. He enthused about the incredible-tasting fruit blend from Italy – which makes perfect sense because the nicest thing I would say about the drink is that it has a somewhat sophisticated, unsweet taste that will never make it in the U.S.
USA Today printed a small item today describing a Houston Zoo program that offers free admittance to low-income families for 5 days each year. That is really great.
The problem is that fewer than 9% of the 80,000 people who take advantage of the offer each day come from low-income zip codes. The president and CEO of the zoo laments, “We’re not hitting our target market.”
Marketers to the rescue!
I don’t know how the Zoo promotes this program, but you’ve got to go to where the customers are. How about appointing an advisory board made up of representatives of low-income assistance organizations to help carry the message? How about mailing tickets to the 85+ low-income medical clinics in the Houston area? Don’t ask first - just mail. Build a list: the Houston Housing Authority, local libraries and HELP Houston Housing for the poor with HIV/AIDs are candidates. Ask the Houston Electric Company to include tickets in the bills sent to families that take advangate of the Lite Up Texas Electricity Program. Families must elect to participate, so we have their addresses…
And this might be too much work, but the Zoo could even mark the tickets sent out (or printed from a secure site) to individual organizations and give an annual grant to the one that has the highest number of tickets redeemed.
I got a million of ‘em.
P.S. Not all people feel the same – especially in Texas. Click here for just a few comments you can find on the web in response to the original article in The Houston Chronicle.
A guy named Richard S’Dao has a 20 year old baby gift business, Silly Phillie Creations, Inc. I just read a story about his recent launch of a related online concept but, for me, the best part is how he got backing earlier this year.
He cold-called Kodak and spoke to someone. During his second call, Kodak invited him out to Vegas to pitch the idea at a trade show. Within a week, S’Dao had $1 million in seed money from Kodak.
The site is owned by S’Dao and his wife. Kodak gets 100% of the revenue from photo prints a users may want; the S’Daos make money from the albums an individual might purchase to hold them.
Why did this catch my eye?
Twenty years ago, I assumed I’d go directly from college to business school. When a certain institution accepted me on a deferred admit basis, I suddenly found myself in need of a two-year job. I still marvel at the fact that I dropped off a resume with the receptionist at KPMG’s headquarters (I had no idea why) - and got a call (and a job) within the week.
“Welcome to the Age of Austerity” is the mega-headline on the front page of this week’s AdAge. The article details cutbacks at GM, Nissan, Coca-Cola and others: cutbacks that reflect not only fewer dollars (billions) in the marketplace, but also painfull lay-offs.
And so – Mad Men notwithstanding – it was an unfortunate editorial choice to devote an entire page in the same issue to ad agencies’ in-house bars. The Latest Happy Hour Hotspot: The Office highlights Arnold’s “roving keg party,” the ping pong table in the bar area at Rivet and the cheap drink tickets at BBDO. Look at us drink and wear sombreros! We’re wacky ad people!
I certainly don’t believe this says anything bad about AdAge’s grasp of the recession or its effects, but I do think the last image any of us wants to send is that of a drunken line of agency people doing the bunny hop. It’s just – dumb. And even if agencies do have bars (and – in my experience – it’s better than it sounds, most never have time to have a drink at work and it’s no big deal), why show it?
Maybe I’m alone, but when I turned the page, I cringed. Poor timing, bad taste.
Tappening has a fresh, new ad campaign highlighting bottled water’s environmental damage in a humorous and insightful way.
Check out the campaign on Ads of the World HERE, and check out the in-depth interview I did with the Men of Tappening HERE on my first blog, Stephanie Fierman – Marketing Mojo.
Launched in November 2007, Tappening is now set to conclude its “Message In A Bottle” campaign by sending 1 million plastic water bottles (originally planned for the front lawn of Coca-Cola’s headquarters) to a recycling center.
This is a most worthy cause, initiated by Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo - two worthy ad men who, first and foremost, consider themselves dads interesting in protecting the earth for their own kids.
Does an article in this Saturday’s Wall Street Journal mean that we can stop thinking about Barbie vs. Bratz and starting pitching products to young girls because we think they’re smart? That would be nice!
The article, “The Secret to Marrying a Billionaire: Brains,” says that, although the media heralds beauty as the key to man-snagging, it appears that many contemporary billionaires believe that finding a smart partner is more important. Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Michael Dell are all held as examples of men who “married smart.”
Unfortunately, the WSJ article also links to Forbes’ “Billionaire Wives List,” which includes a feature that allows you to check out the chicks ”In Pictures.”
When was the last time you saw one of these lists offer a photo gallery of Steve Schwarzman, Carl Icahn and Vikram Pandit (hey, sexy!)? I thought not.
Babycenter, CafeMom, ClubMom… there have always been plenty of websites for moms, but what about us single non-baby-person aunties? What do we buy, where do we go, what will they like?
A new website, SavvyAuntie, targets us PANKS: Professional Aunts With No Kids Of Their Own. The site offers blogs, forums and the Auntiepedia. There is a “digital fridge door” for kids’ artwork, a gift shop and info on kid-friendly restaurants and local activities and events (delivered in partnership with Nickelodeon’s GoCityKids). It was created by former beauty editor/marketing exec, Melanie Notkin.
An article I read about the ad-suported site points out that PANKS control 85% of their households’ spending, so I hope Melanie makes it. Because after Serendipity, the Children’s Museum and the Statue of Liberty… we NYC PANKS can go blank pretty quickly!
Ecolect is a super-cool online library of sustainable building materials. The site, whose primary users are architects and industrial designers, was created last year by two Rhode Island School of Design graduates. One of the co-founders, Matt Grisby, won the title of Rhode Island Innovation Awards Rising Star Innovator for his role in the creation of Ecolect.
The site highlights materials with sustainable attributes in multiple categories, such as paint, flooring, roofing and tile, and offers case studies that illustrate real-life examples of sustainable design.
New York Life is holding an online contest. Entrants are asked to create advertisements using the company’s “blue box” logo. Ten winners will receive a $100 donation to the charity of their choice and the ads will run on the company’s website at www.newyorklife.com.
Winning videos need to work in the company’s core values of integrity, humanity and financial strength.
My only thought up this point was that this was a perhaps unremarkable but nice way to increase awareness of the logo and, therefore, the company. $100 is going to limit entrants to hard core video fiends – it’s just not enough to push a “regular” consumer to take the time to (a) come up with an idea, (b) shoot it, (c) edit it, (d) fill out the contest application and upload the video, but - ok, it’s still not a bad idea.
Then I got to the end of the article and noticed that the videos must also highlight the theme of the company’s own ad campaign: that life insurance is the most selfless gift of all.
Oh, my! That’s hilarious. What a company says – and can say – about itself is frequently quite different than what consumers at large can. Life insurance is the most selfless gift of all? Are there masses of people who are going to create videos about how life insurance is ”the most selfless gift of all?” Most of the time, when I hear about people buying others life insurance, it’s in a Lifetime Network movie or a Law & Order episode where – after the person is killed – the cops discovered that her supposed loved one had bought life insurance on her a week before she disappeared.
This adds a layer of cheesiness and difficulty that – my opinion – will depress response and that just wasn’t necessary. It’s funny (for me), but… not necessary.
Every business situation that involves more than one breathing person necessitates some compromise that isn’t always visible on the surface, but…
If TBWA really “disavowed” one office’s work to protect another’s, that’s pretty lousy.
The Wall Street Journal ran a story on July 14, 2008 describing a major client conflict that landed TBWA in hot water with China… and how one side of the agency through the other overboard to protect billings.
It seems that TBWA’s Beijing office has launched a campaign focused on China’s pride at hosting the Olympics next month. Chinese athletes are shown surrounded by cheering fans. At the same time, unfortunately (for TBWA), the agency’s Paris office had released work on behalf of a very different client – Amnesty International – highlighting China’s poor human rights record. No cheering fans here: one of AI’s ads shows a blindfolded man lashed at ankles and wrists to a target normally used in Olympic shooting events. Another shows a man being waterboarded in an Olympic swimming pool.
TBWA screwed up. Its conflict filters and procedures failed (note to TBWA: the content of each ad must also be entered into your database, in detail, so that conflicts might be uncovered that do not involve direct client name matches). Chinese bloggers are calling for a boycott of all TBWA work, just at a time when TBWA is competing for more business from Visa, a big sponsor of the Games.
Here’s where it gets lousy. Instead of stepping up and owning the mistake (even AI has since pulled the ads for being too aggressive), TBWA HQ said that it knew nothing of the Paris work and that, had it been informed, the ads ”would not have been produced.” TBWA’s CEO cited the AI ads as being the result of one (now fired?) individual, acting alone on an egotistical mission to get the AI work entered at Cannes (where it went on to win a bronze award).
I’m not surprised that TBWA brass doesn’t see every office’s work all the time… but I am a little perplexed that they don’t get an advance look at work being submitted at Cannes, the most prestigious advertising award event of the year. But even if they didn’t, to disavow work and an employee in a very public way is most unfortunate. If I were a TBWA employee, a job candidate, a customer or even a client, I’d be taken aback. The way a company behaves in a crisis shows where its true heart lies. In this case, the organization’s heart appeared to be resting in its wallet and everything else got thrown under the bus. TBWA OlympicsAmnesty International
A television commercial for the Mercury Mariner caught my eye last night. That’s a picture of the Mercury Mariner there on the right – an SUV, otherwise known as an automobile that requires your mortgage payment to gas up right now.
The ad seemed to be following a standard path, until the voiceover offered that the Mariner gets “429 miles per tank.” The “429 miles” was huge and in big black letters on the screen, while the “per tank” was on the next line in the center at a tiny fraction of the size.
What a curious new tactic! Is this gas mileage to crow about? Is this news?
It’s not. According to Edmunds, the 2008 Mariner gets 429 miles* from a 16.5 gallon tank, or 26 miles per gallon. Edmunds considers both the 2008 Ford Escape and 2008 Toyota RAV4 to be comparable to the Mariner and both get 429 mi per tank, as well (with the Toyota getting slightly better mileage from a slightly smaller tank).
And these SUVs compared to “regular” cars? Forget about it. Assuming an average V6 4-door with automatic transmission, the Toyota Camry gets 518 and the Honda Accord 527 mi per tank, or 28 and 29 miles per gallon, respectively.
Unless I’m missing something, could Ford possibly think that viewers might interpret the statement as meaning 429 miles PER GALLON? Or maybe Ford knows that viewers may not go quite that far, but might at least sit up and pay attention for a minute? Either way, this is not adding anything to the gas crisis conversation right now. And for the consumer looking for a little reassurance about buying an SUV right now, this isn’t it.
* All researched gas mileage figures are from www.edmunds.com and refer to mileage attainable on the highway, not in the city.
If you had a window into a loony bin, it could not be more entertaining than this show. And Jeff Lewis? That’s a lot of pressure to deliver a latte at exactly 140 degrees. And to make sure there are precisely six bottles of French Vanilla CoffeeMate in the fridge - with all the labels facing forward.
But before we jump all over poor Jeff, let’s face it: who hasn’t asked their assistant to combine two tins of breath mints into one!?!
Last week, almost three dozen people trying to enjoy themselves at the Bronx Zoo had to be rescued by emergency officials after being stuck for several hours in a “Skyfari” cable car suspended 100 feet in the air.
And what does the Department of Labor think was the problem? It says that a wheel on one of the ride’s 14 gondoloas slipped off its cable overhead. They think that a gust of wind was the cause of the mishap. Everyone is fine.
And now, gentle readers, I shall repeat the above two paragraphs as if I was speaking them to myself in my own head:
Last week, almost THREE DOZEN PEOPLE!! trying to enjoy themselves at the Bronx Zoo had to be RESCUED!! by emergency officials after being STUCK!! for several hours in a “Skyfari” cable car SUSPENDED 100 FEET!! in the air.
And what does the Department of Labor think was the problem? It says that a wheel on one of the ride’s 14 gondoloas SLIPPED OFF ITS CABLE!! overhead. They think that A GUST OF WIND!! was the cause of the mishap. [I would skip the "Everyone is fine" part.] GAHHHHHH!
Aside from my personal allergy to trams, how do you market one when a gust of wind can cause it to malfunction?? This was not a freak tornado, or an earthquake in the Bronx, or King Kong using his pinky to pluck the car off its cable… it was WIND. And last I checked, wind happens alot.
Should they say “Come See The Animals! (On A Breezefree Day…)” Or add “unless its windy” to their current line, “Why walk when you can fly?”
He is a robot that does not like to be called a robot. He is also a baby dinosaur who can walk, play, nose around and be affectionate. But let’s make her a she… what’s up with the auto-he??
So anyway, the Pleo is a slightly freaky but sort of fun solution for the petless among us, although there are some very funny articles and videos of housepets going generally whacko around Pleos, Roombas and the like. And here’s one showing Seaworld dophins talking to a Pleo (come on, that’s damn cute!). Yes, yes, maybe some tech people have too much time on their hands but – I’ll say it again – I’m sure all those people sitting in the dark called Ben Franklin a hack, so… you never know what might happen! pleougobe
Transitional Sizes is a new company helping dieting women dress well without breaking the bank. The company rents out brand name clothing for temporary use while the pounds come off.
Great concept. There have been companies that rent maternity wear for some time, but there is so much more business in dieting! Let’s face it: many more women end up dieting for longer periods of time – and sometimes over and over again – then there are ladies who get pregnant (and don’t forget the overlap!).
The company rents women’s clothing in sizes 4-26 for monthly rental fees ranging anywhere from $3 to $25 apiece. A customer orders the items she needs and can keep them as long as she likes; once she is ready to return, she’s asked to clean the pieces and send them back in the original box free of charge.
A woman does not need to be a member of the site to use it, but membership packages give dieters a variety of extra perks including discounts and weight loss incentives. The site is still a little new, and no one’s winning an fashion contests wearing the gear that’s currently available, but let’s assume they get it right.
And when they do, there are so many opportunities to drive revenue. How about an option where the member automatically gets a new box of clothes when she has committed to being one size smaller: and the cost is automatically billed to her credit card? Money can be motivating… And I would strongly consider partnerships with weight loss companies (Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers), relevant media (parenting and self-improvement magazines, like Parents and Self) and possibly the medical community (a la the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology).
What other untapped “leasing” opportunities are out there? We’ve got clothing, handbags, jewelry (ever see Borrowed Bling?), cars, cell phones from hotels and airports…
billboard
Oreo
Swing tags in every room will promote “
Soho House
netaporter.com
tappening
bottled water
Mark Dimassimo
Eric Yaverbaum
Sergey Brin
Larry Page
Michael Dell
ecolect
TBWA Olympics
Amnesty International
And 
pleo
ugobe
