Consumers Threaten Clairol With Boycott If Omarosa Appears in Ads

In what has to be some of the worst brand management in recent history, Clairol is toying with the idea of placing Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, the deceitful "The Apprentice" contestant, in some of their Herbal Essence commercials. Surely, it's a bid to capitalize on her 15 minutes of fame but one that could go sour as consumers threaten to boycott Clairol products if the company makes this brainless move.

There's An Ad in Your Pocket

As the camera pans in on a dude dancing in a club, then pans to the inside of his pocket, we realize there's a lot going in this New Zealander's pocket. What we see inside his pocket amounts to a humorous snuff film for Panasonic's new D-snap digi-cam. The clip ends asking, "Would your pocket like a D-snap?" Viewers can click off to a site, play some games and win a free D-snap.

B to B Marketers Not Happy With Their Ad Agencies

Something's amiss with the business to business client/agency relationship claims a news study from GfK Custom Research. Among 209 C-level executive in B to B companies, only 11 percent plan to retain their current marketing firm without a review. Further 47 percent have planned a review and 42 percent will do so in the next six months. The key reasons for this, according to 42 percent of survey respondents, is that their agency "failed to demonstrate an understanding of their business."

One explanation for this dramatically negative view among C-level execs of their company's agency is the trend towards top management becoming less and less involved with the ad agency and delegating the management of the relationship to lower ranks. This has resulted in a disconnect between management and agency leading to "disenchantment" according to HSR Agency CEO Rick Segal.

Segal also says agencies don't do enough work to get inside their client's businesses and their client's customers. It's very easy to create an ad for a valve manufacturer and place it in Contractor Magazine. It's entirely another thing to craft a marketing communications plan that contains a closed-loop program which maintains contact and measures the involvement of the potential customer from first brand contact to final sale.

Product Placement OK With Consumers

A recent Mediaedge:cia study claims 60 percent of consumers would consider a product they had seen in a product placement in either a movie or on TV. While the study found traditional televison advertising is still more effective in terms of brand recall and purchase intent, product placement boosted brand recognition by 40 to 100 percent. Younger demos expect to see product placements integrated into content and are more likely to buy a "placed" brand than older demos.

Adrants Goes to AD:Tech in San Francisco

From May 24 to May 26, Adrants will be in San Francisco covering AD:Tech, a new media and online marketing trade show, for both this website and for MarketingVOX. News will be provided in near real-time as a team of webloggers will be sitting in each of the sessions at the trade show. For the kind of coverage you can expect, look at the AD:Tech Blog from the November show in New York City.

Since Adrants is a shoe string operation and San Francisco hotels aren't cheap, a proposal is offered. For any interested company that pays Adrants' hotel bill, that company will receive free advertising and gracious promotion on this site and/or in the Adrants Daily newsletter equal to amount of the bill (or parts of if multiple companies step forward).

So there's the offer. It's either a brilliant win/win or it's just another website begging for money. You decide. If interested, send an email to steve AT adrants DOT com. Much appreciation.

Man In Chevrolet Dealer Car Shoots Ford Dealer Blimp

As a remote controlled blimp advertising Salisbury North Carolina-based Cloninger Ford-Toyota floated in a field above competing Team Chevrolet-Cadillac-Geo, a man got out of a black Chevrolet truck with Team Chevrolet plates, pulled out a shotgun and fired at the blimp. He then got back into the truck and left. Salisbury police do not yet know the identity of the man.

It's one thing for Claria to lay an ad on top of another with their nasty pop ups but it's an entirely different thing to take a shotgun to a blimp ad. Funny, though. But not so much if you've worked with car dealers before.

The Weather Channel Introduces Addressable Advertising

During its upfront ad sales presentation in New York Tuesday, The Weather Channel announced the implementation of what it calls addressable advertising. The cable channel will offer advertisers the ability to slot different creative at the same time based on geography, time zone or the weather. While this is a nice first step, its really just taking advantage of existing local cable technology that allows for zoned placement of advertising. A true step towards addressable advertising would be targeting a home, neighborhood or town based on a demographic profile suplied to the cable company by the subscriber.

The Truth About Starbucks

Ever wonder why the "f**k" Starbucks calls a small coffee a Tall? Some little midget-toon does and dishes it out in this video to a Starbucks (or Star-Schmucks as it's called here) barista and customer calling the whole experience "physiological marketing trickery." Claiming "Venti" isn't even a word, little midget-toon says it just an underhanded strategy to make you feel all sophisticated so you don't feel like an idiot when you part with the five dollars to buy one. After even more verbal abuse, he tells the dude to go choke on a biscotti.

McDonald's Names New CEO

Following the sudden death of McDonald's CEO Jim Cantalupo on the eve of the fast food company's annual franchisee meeting in Orlando, Florida, McDonald's Board Members moved quickly and named former President and COO Charlie Bell the new CEO. Bell, 43, was being groomed for the position and has held McDonalds president positions for McDonald's Europe, Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

Fosters 'Foreplay' Isn't What It Seems

In this viral video for Fosters, things are not always what the seem - to the dismay of this woman.