BBH is attempting to avoid the layoffs many of its competitors have been forced to make by offering their employees 9 days unpaid vacation. The ad agency has asked about 400 employees to vote on the forced vacation and in the current climate, it seems pretty likely they’ll go for it.
The worst days for display advertising are behind us according to a report filed by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.
The “Display advertising market stabilized in the first quarter and won’t be as bad for the rest of the year as many other people think.”
Wishful thinking or insightful analysis? We’re certainly hoping it’s the latter.
Forgive me for being a bit dubious of the claims made in this commercial, but are donuts really better for your kids than TV?
Microsoft has launched a new series of ads in their “I’m a PC” campaign targeting value-concious consumers by taking shots at the higher price points found on Apple computers. Obviously the Crispin Porter + Bogusky produced ads are intended to play to the fear a lot of consumers feel now about the economy.
The first TV spot in the “Laptop Hunters” commercials aired during March Madness features Lauren, a young woman shopping for a 17″ laptop who hits a sweet spot for Microsoft, not too hip, not too square and eminently likable.
Lauren’s charisma it turns out, if we are to believe The Man, isn’t born of great acting chops. The story is that CP+B recruited people from Craigslist to participate in a focus group. The agency followed the marks inside electronics stores and taped them shopping. The resulting unscripted video was edited into commercials.
This is the first bit of good work to come out of this campaign after two major fails with Seinfeld and the impotent “I’m a PC and I’m 8″ series of hack jobs.
Logos designed by amateurs are a lot like bad car crashes… except the “designers” are usually really proud of their work and nobody dies.
Coca-Cola owned #2 sports drink Powerade is on the attack, claiming that it offers a more complete product than its competitor, the PepsiCo owned #1 player Gatorade. In the clever billboard execution pictured above, drivers first see a half-covered billboard showing part of a Gatorade bottle bearing the text “Don’t settle for an incomplete sports drink” down the road they see another billboard with complete Powerade bottle tagged “The complete sports drink.”
Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has a guest post over at TechCrunch titled Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet.
The gist of the article is that current web advertising is based on the more traditional push-style of information publishing which clashes with the more participatory nature of the web. It’s a great thought-provoking, if not 100% accurate article, worth the read and it currently has 572 comments.
Kudos to Benjamin Moore and their agency Cramer-Krasselt for making a boring product interesting!
I’m calling it now: this is another Onion satire that will come true a la Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades
Agency Layoffs