Yesterday morning I awoke to an interesting story on the Today Show about how the founders of US Fidelis, the automotive extended warranty firm, had been indicted on multiple felony charges. The laundry list of white-collar crimes was read over mugshots of the owner brothers, followed by a slideshow of expensive cars, watches, and helicopter shots of million-dollar mansions bought with defrauded money. Turns out that after an damning NBC investigative report in April 2009, the company discontinued selling its services in December 2009 and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2010.
At this point, the company's clearly down for the count, but I elect to take this opportunity to kick it while its down to learn a thing or two about "misleading" marketing messages: chiefly, how not to market a service so it is perceived as a skeevy scam.
Whether or not the Vacay Sway is your dancefloor move of choice, Old Navy has been making moves in the world of television advertising by teaming up with mobile app company Shazam earlier this year.
Since its inception, Shazam's music identifying and tagging app has solely been focused on saving individuals from the mind-wrangling torture of trying to figure out the name of the song that's playing overhead while you wait for your oil change. The Old Navy team-up, which allows you to shop the items from the commercials right from your smartphone, is just the first play in Shazam's full-court press to expand its tech beyond simple redirects to iTunes and Spotify and into the realm of non-music marketing.
Yesterday, Visit Buffalo Niagara (formerly the Buffalo Niagara Convention and Visitors Bureau) unveiled a new brand for our city, during a classy, no-frills presentation at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. Anchored by the tagline “Buffalo. For Real,” this campaign attempts to encapsulate the spirit of the Queen City, in a bid to attract “cultural tourists” (aka history buffs, art geeks, architecture dweebs, etc.).
The idea of ads mixing with e-books is enough to elicit groans, and is probably fodder for hundreds of gloomy blog posts about the unbridled proliferation of advertising into every aspect of American life. But this particular blogger thinks that Amazon may have achieved the improbable—the creation of a desirable ad-supported e-reader.
First and foremost, Amazon promises skeptical readers an uninterrupted reading experience with the ad-supported Kindle—ads appear only on the bottom of the home screen and as screensavers.
CareerCast recently released their list of the 10 most stressful jobs of 2011. Surprising to many, including some here at Travers Collins, public relations officers and advertising executives ranked at No. 2 and No. 6, respectively.
To compile this list, CareerCast weighed several factors, including work environment, income, future outlook, travel, deadlines, competitiveness and public pressure. It ranked 200 professions based on how these demands affected the work day.
Now sure, PR and advertising pros have to adapt to evolving mediums, juggle several projects simultaneously, maintain positive reputations and effective brands for their company or clients, deal with crises, handle tight deadlines and sometimes put in long hours.
In the latest American news item that should be a non-story, an image in a J. Crew catalog has inspired a vociferous debate, including a column from Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow that positioned the clothing company as cultural instigators, bent on destroying humanity as we know it.
“These folks are hostile to the gender distinctions that actually are part of the magnificent synergy that creates and sustains the human race,” Ablow writes. “They respect their own creative notions a whole lot more than any creative Force in the universe.”
So just what’s in this ad anyways? Osama bin Laden wearing a Stripe Boatneck Sweater over a Linen Henley Tank? No. It’s a candid shot of J. Crew president and creative director Jenna Lyons, laughing at home with her son Beckett. She’s holding one of his bare feet in her hands, and his toenails are painted pink.
Last week, I wrote a blog about my love for the new Fage yogurt spots and how they inspired me to buy the product. (Advertising works! Yay!)
I bought the 0% plain yogurt and tried it with my lunch on Monday. It tasted like... plain yogurt. Very thick, very creamy, but still plain yogurt. And then I remembered that I don't like plain yogurt. I never have. So perhaps my expectations were a bit unrealistic.
The redeeming news is that when I stirred in a tablespoon of honey, I liked it a lot better. And last night I used it in a recipe for crab cakes as a subsititute for mayo and was highly pleased with the result.
Bottom line: I'm still a converter. The spots didn't magically make me like plain yogurt on its own, but at least I have found a new ingredient for my cooking.
Every year during the month of March, McDonald’s brings back the Shamrock Shake to select stores (remember this point as I will reference it later) across Canada and the United States.
Introduced in the 1970’s and credited for paving the way for bringing other seasonal drinks to the marketplace, including Starbucks'pumpkin and eggnog-inspired lattes, the McDonald’s Shamrock Shake has created an almost cult-like following of peppermint-craving consumers, with hundreds of Facebook fan pages dedicated to the Shake.
By Alyssa Mayer, Account Manager, Interactive Strategist
I am among an elite group of coffee drinkers – the Starbucks Gold club. This essentially means that I spend too much money on coffee. But it is not just the delicious drinks that I love about Starbucks. I am a very loyal customer at businesses that recognize my patronage and make every effort to make me feel special. From a free drink on my birthday, to discounts on purchases, everything about Starbucks has me hooked.
I recently started reading The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary that outlines how Starbucks has created such a strong brand. In 1971, Howard Schultz had an idea to take a “quality coffee bean and merge it with the charm and romance of the European Coffeehouse.” That first coffee store in Seattle has grown to over 11,000 stores worldwide.
