It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and we’ve still got a month to go. An e-mail from my bank reminds me they’ll have a drop-off box for Toys for Tots. Definitely not on my list: an American Girl doll. These dolls are pricey ($110 and up), but that’s not why I won’t buy them. American […]
Super Bowl ads: Three categories say it all (nearly)
Once as a brand manager I was shown the same storyboard twice, a couple of years apart. The twist? This “new ad concept” was presented for two entirely different product categories at two different companies. Detergent and food. Same agency. (BBDO, if you must know.) I don’t recall the storyboard, but I’m certain it was […]
Bach to the future!
Brands advertise to stand out. They advertise on TV, which dwarfs other media in cost, because it offers the opportunity for impact through sight, sound and motion.
So why do most ads end up sounding alike, literally? Given the high cost and the huge opportunity, why do marketers use such a limited range of music?
Connecting for beauty
Most social media-driven crowdsourcing efforts leave me cold, I’ll be honest. The wow factor of the mechanism or the participant count often seems more impressive than what’s actually being done. So I was quite skeptical when I clicked on a recently released TED talk by composer Eric Whitacre about his virtual choir initiatives. As a lifetime alto, though, I was intrigued. I dare you to watch this and come away unmoved.
Do tweets go better with Coke?
With social media the it thing, it’s no surprise that Coke and Pepsi have spent huge amounts in trying to “create a conversation” about their flagship brands. So far, it appears they’ve bombed. In the latest issue of the popular Dim Bulb marketing blog, the always readable Jonathan Salem Baskin describes how both Coke and Pepsi have little if anything to show for their expensive forays into social media.
But should that really surprise us? What is there, really, to say about yesterday’s iconic sodas?