Brandeo is an online marketing resource that cuts through the clutter to update you on the need-to-know marketing ideas and insights that help build brands and increase sales.
This great street promo attracts passersby with a display of the discarded box, wrapping paper and ribbon of a Mini Cooper given as a Christmas gift. Marketing Profs points out that the promotion is effective, not only because it’s eye-catching, but because it also reinforces key Mini Cooper brand attributes of small size, fun, uniqueness, cleverness, etc. Affordability is reinforced with the price sticker conveniently left on the box.
Verizon Wireless (VZW) has "unveiled a new Christmas-themed TV ad (below) in which Santa criticizes one of his reindeer for having a cellphone coverage map from AT&T, rather than Verizon."
Microsoft (MSFT), Sephora, NASCAR and Comcast (CMCSA) are using Twitter as a component in sweepstakes promotions to boost buzz about their brands. Adweek 11/22/09
Complaints over ads from competitors filed with the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the industry’s main self-regulatory program for national ads, will set a record in 2009. Combatants include Pantene vs Dove, Science Diet vs. Iams, AT&T(ATT) vs. Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Campbell Soup vs. Progresso. New York Times 11/22/09
Mega media brand Oprah Winfrey is ending her talk show in 2011 after 25 years on the air to launch OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. Adweek 11/20/09
eBay (EBAY) will sponsor free wireless Internet on Delta (DAL) flights during the holiday travel period Nov. 24 through Nov. 30 to promote eBay’s “Holideals.” Clickz 11/18/09
Intel (INTC) hopes to strengthen the connection between it’s brand and consumers through a new website they’ve launched called LifeScoop. The site is designed to appeal to consumers interested in technology “but aren’t hard-core geeks.” Brandweek 11/14/09
Hundreds of “older, poorly perfoming” Holiday Inn hotels in North America could lose the right to call themselves a Holiday Inn if the franchisees don’t meet franchisor Intercontinental Hotel Group's (IHG) quality specs and undertake extensive renovations. Wall Street Journal 11/13/09. Requires subscription.
McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) plans to open about 1,000 new restaurants, remodel 2,300 existing ones around the world next year, and is experimenting with new technology to prepare for a global economic recovery. Wall Street Journal 11/13/09. Requires subscription.
The American Family Association is calling on consumers to boycott Gap Inc. (GPS) and its brands, which include Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic, this holiday season because the retailer's ads downplay the word "Christmas." Brandweek 11/13/09
Burger King franchisees are suing the company, alleging that Burger King Corp (BKC). doesn't have the right to set "maximum prices" for certain menu items. The lawsuit was spurred by the double-cheeseburger promotion that franchisees fought against saying it causes them to lose money. Advertising Age 11/12/09
Miracle Whip bought every ad slot on The Colbert Report on November 12th, and announced the buy “in newspapers warning Colbert that his commercial breaks would expose his viewers to “hardcore Miracle Whip attitude.” The Miracle Whip ad roadblock was in response to a parody of a Miracle Whip ad that Colbert ran on his show in October. MediaFreak 11/12/09
Ashley Furniture sponsors live-streamed birth on MomsLikeMe.com, a one-year-old site owned by newspaper publisher Gannett. The company had a featured banner running during event which was seen by 3,600 people watching the live stream, and an additional 148,600 unique visitors who downloaded the video during the next 72 hours. ClickZ Network 11/11/09
Breaking with other airline sites, Continental Airlines (CAL) plans to sell advertising on their website, saying their 10 million monthly unique users are in a trip-planning frame of mind, creating “an extremely conducive atmosphere for advertisers."Brandweek 11/11/09
A North Carolina Hardee’s franchisee, which owns nearly 350 Hardee’s restaurants, has refused to run TV ads for the fast-food chain’s new Biscuit Holes. The ad depicts customers being asked to decide between “a-holes” and b-holes in a taste test.
Writing a successful creative strategy is tough because there are often many directions it can take. So, part of the job of the strategist is to provide focus to the strategy by making decisions about what information is relevant based on the advertising objective and their analysis of the information available.
If a creative strategy cannot be expressed in a single, focused sentence, then it’s not an effective strategy. And the result could be a creative execution that fails because it tries to do too much, as depicted in this painfully funny video.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Burger King (BKC) plans to launch a campaign next week that searches for people who have never had a Whopper or a Big Mac, aka “Whopper Virgins”---Rural Romanian farmers, Thai villagers and Greenland residents---to participate in “the world’s purest taste test.”
BK says they are sensitive to and respect the cultures and the people involved in the test, but several bloggers beg to differ:
AdFreak says the campaign is “embarrassing and emblematic of how ignorant Americans still seem to the rest of the world.”
And And a 
