In a somewhat misguided attempt to demonstrate why Motorola's shareholders should hand the keys to the coffer to him, Carl Icahn took out a full-page newspaper ad in The Wall Street Journal to air a, well, bitchslap in ink.
In appropriately dramatic boldface type his harsh letter reads, "I am convinced that significant stockholder representation in the Motorola boardroom, even by a single director, is absolutely necessary at this troubled company [...] I am seeking a single seat, a single voice, asking for accountability instead of 'business as usual.'"
He also mentioned that management was like "something straight out of Alice in Wonderland," a quote we particularly like.
Motorola recently responded with some tome about how very very wrong Icahn is and how serious and responsible they are.
Oh yeah? You want to talk serious? Why do RAZRs suck so bad?
We love these little nuggets concerning the real reason why people change jobs. A tipster tells us, "Two Wieden + Kennedy creatives are heading back to Goodby after only slightly more than a year in Europe. Creative team Hunter Hindman and Rick Condos have asked for their old jobs back in San Francisco, The spin: family reasons.The reality: they constantly bitched about the food and lack of American things and missed Rich Silverstein's hand on creative management style." So there you have it. Even more irrelevantly important news you can't live without.
Today, rumors were afloat industry newsletter Adotas had been sold. A quick IM to Founder and Publisher Pesach Lattin confirms the rumor but Lattin wouldn't say to whom the publication was sold only that "small group of industry execs" were involved. He promised full details of the sale would be released Monday.
Lattin has sold his position in Adotas outright and will no longer be involved with the online newsletter. Lattin, long involved with online publishing including the famed AdBumb told us the reasoning behind the sale. saying, "After 6 years of publishing interactive advertising publications, I have decided that it is time to focus 100 percent on Vizi|Media and our growing business." So there you have it. The man behind the often controversial AdBumb has left the publishing building for different pastures.
- Now you can get t-shirts from that weirdly-named agency Wexley School for Girls.
- If you were ever curious about the history of Smirnoff Vodka, Paranoid US and JWT(New York) have crammed hundreds of years into sixty seconds.
Aside from the fact all that nudity and porn seems to slow DailyMotion to a crawl (and the play/pause button in the middle of the video that prevents you from getting a decent screenshot), here's a pretty cool stop motion commercial for Big Yellow self storage.
- Spiderman is all over New York.
- Oh look! Another ad agency makes its debut in Second Life.
- Seems the Ninja is now a trend. First G4 did it. Now, Oregon State Lottery is going Ninja.
- George Parker says the new Maytag campaign sucks.
Following the return of Heroes Monday night (which, by the way, packed into one episode what a normal TV drama would have stretched over an entire season making it intensely interesting), the IAC ran a commercial - which has been on YouTube for six months - promoting those cute little traveling Zwinky avatars and the launch of Zwinktopia, a virtual world devoted to the little digital creatures who follow you around wherever you choose use them. Because of the many request IAC has received from users who want to outfit their avatars with actual brand name clothing, the organization is working with brands serve that need thereby creating an ad medium along the way.
more »
Chris from Cogbox tells an interesting story about Digg, its users, digital rights management and the power of social media. In a nutshell, a post appeared on Digg referring to a site that has posted the alphanumeric code that would allow someone to break the digital right management system and copy copy-protected DVDs. Digg removed the story after getting over 15,000 Diggs. People rebelled and posted the code in unrelated stories that were then digged to the front page of Digg. Digg admins banned the accounts of those who posted the code. The AACS, the group that enforces the code, sent cease and desist letters to those posting the code. And, hilariously, the letters sent by the AACS contained the actual code which was buried in the URL of one of the sites the organization was trying to silence.
Well, like that poor girl trying to rip her racy picture off the high school bulletin board in a recent Ad Council internet safety campaign, the AACS's efforts are fruitless. Once something like this is out of the bottle, there is simply no way to re-cap it. Nearly every story on the front page of Digg yesterday contained the code despite efforts to stop the spread. Chris has an interesting analysis of this as it relates to social media and the role social media enabling sites like Digg play.
When we're presented the chance to launch ourselves out of a cannon to any destination in the world, we tend to get a bit excited. After all, that Outpost.com gerbil thing was pretty cool. Well after no less that 15 clicks and a seemingly endless collection of forms, buttons, drop down menus and a final challenge to enter personal information, our desire to hop inside the cannon quickly waned. For fuck's sake, marketers, if you're gonna offer up some silly time-waster, the least you could do is make it simple.
If you care, this whole cannon thing has something to do with Heineken, the UEFA Champions League Final and various prize packages. We know we're shirking our journalistic duties here but if you really want to see what happens when the cannon goes off, you'll have to slog through the site on your own,
Continuing our support of diversity in advertising, we'd like to let you know our traveling diversity conference in association with Business Development Institute will be making its third appearance in Boston Wednesday, May 16 at Boston University. The conference will discuss the pressing issues surrounding diversity in advertising, educate job seekers on life in advertising an provide those job seekers the opportunity to meet Boston-based hiring organizations such as Arnold Worldwide, Boston Globe, Digitas, Draft FCB, Mullen, Stop & Shop, TJX Companies and many others.
The keynote speakers will be Arnold Worldwide Director of Multicultural Programs Tiffany Warren and Digitas President Torrence Boon. The past two conferences held in New York and San Francisco were well received and well attended and there's no reason to believe the Boston event won't be just as successful. For all the details on the event and to register to attend, check out out the event site here.
Continuing their Emerald Nuts twisted quirkiness, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has launched Goulet Bars, a site on which Robert Goulet tells us not to believe "that silly nut company" which says he messes around with people's stuff while their asleep at the office. Rather, he has your best interests at heart and wants you to eat his Snooze Bar which will help you go to sleep, not finish your work and thereby lower people's expectations of you so you won't have to do a lot of work in the first place. Love that logic. Goulet rocks!
On the site, you can download some sweet Goulet lullabies to ease you into that work-reducing, afternoon nap. You can also check out the nutrition section which responds to Emerald Nuts' "propagandist" nutrition literature by countering "Health is a non-issue. As a regular Snooze bar eater, you will spend close to 90 percent of your life asleep so who cares what kind of shape you're in for that other 10 percent." Hmm. Now there's a diet worth trying.
The whole thing is the perfect anti-sell that sells. Or at least we hope it does. Trouble is, or own unscientific testing of Emerald Nuts versus big boy Planter's, sadly, leaves Emerald Nuts on the lower rung of the taste ladder. No matter. All we care about here is cool advertising and Emerald Nuts has it in spades over Planter's who can't sop messing with that iconic nut in a tuxedo dude.
This is how Murphy's Law works. Soon after we finish ranting about the plethora of racing games already floating about in the ether, another avails itself to us. This one, however, is special because it contains spiffy surprises that are revealed when you speed or otherwise misbehave (it's for an insurance company, after all).
And note the demented version of the benign but neurotic Chevron persona.
We are not amused. Why doesn't anyone make gaming variations of Tetris? Those blocks have nothing to do but serve as ad space. And the Tetris-obsessed have nothing to do but stare at the blocks. Consider the marketing opportunity.
|
