One day after dumping Goodby Silverstein & Partners, eBay, whose new President Bill Cobb has lengthy ties with BBDO, has proved, once again, it's not the work you do but the people you know. That's right. Cobb, yesterday, handed his company's $74 million (TNS measured media) account to BBDO. Indicating, maybe, Cobb has a thing against Goodby, in the late 90's, he fired Goodby when he was marketing SVP for Pizza Hut and handed that account to BBDO.
In a say nothing press release, Cobb gave lots of BBDO love calling the agency the "best agency in the business. Continuing, he uttered the PR cut and paste, "To generate the integrated marketing efforts we undertake today, we needed an agency that could deliver creative excellence across our marketing mix."
Well, at least the Omnicom holding company big boys are happy it's all staying in-house. By the way, WTF? The BBDO site is "under construction." Didn't that excuse go out in the mid 90's? Instead of using a lame-ass "under construction" page, just leave the old site up until the new one is done. How hard is that?
While watching this week's American Idol on which Jessica Sierra's booty was booted, Jossip's David Hausliab, saw a commercial for the 2005 Ford Escape and couldn't contain himself. Writing as only David can write, he trashes the spot, saying, "...the 2005 Ford Escape, carrying the tagline "100% SUV." C'mon, are they just trying to convince themselves? 153 horsepower? We've taken shits with more thrust. This thing is the girliest, tween SUV we've seen since Toyota's RAV4, and Ford's attempt at persuading otherwise is insulting."
No pithy closing comment needed on this one.
A new Entertainment Weekly subscriber experiences the desperation publishers go to to maintain circulation levels. After subscribing to Entertainment Weekly by responding to a 26 issue offer, Jodster, after receiving just one issue, received a promotional piece to renew his subscription. After the third issue, he received a second promotion and after the fifth - still with 21 issues to go, he received the pictured "Last Chance!" offer. To those of us in the business, this is not unusual but the perception it creates among subscribers should be of interest to us.
Writing on his blog, after receiving the second renewal notice, Jodster wrote, "I still have 23 issues to go, and yet they want to get me to renew my subscription. Is the circulation department so inept that it would require more than twenty weeks to process a subscription renewal?" While keeping circulation up is, most assuredly, a nightmarish job, appearing inept to subscribers is probably not the perception publishers should create.
The Viral & Buzz Marketing Association has added eight new members to its roster. The new members include SMLXL (UK), i to i research (USA/UK), partizan (USA/UK), Dunn Direct LLC (USA), Marcom:Interactive (USA) and consultants Tim Stock from scenarioDNA (USA), Jake 'The Community Guy McKee the Global Community Development Director at LEGO, and Andrew Corcoran from Lincoln University in the UK.
For discount junkies, Coupons, Inc., a U.S. provider of consumer-printable coupons, has rolled out an RSS feed to deliver advertisers’ coupons directly to consumers' desktops. The new all-coupons feed is available on the My Yahoo and My MSN services from www.coupons.com and for stand-alone RSS readers via www.coupons.com/rss.asp.
Apparently, the growing popularity of RSS feeds could not be ignored. Not an all bad idea for those that hate schlepping pounds and pounds of newspaper coupons to the dump each week, the coupons delivered to RSS subscribers are also updated simultaneously on Coupons, Inc.’s recently introduced CouponBar, - a toolbar directly installed into Web browsers that features an updated list of available offers. Combine this with A9 and no one ever has to leave their desk again to shop anymore. Here's to an even fatter America.
Commercial Alert sent a letter today to PBS, criticizing it for partnering with Comcast in a 24-hour cable channel for children that will carry advertisements. The letter follows.
Wayne Godwin
Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Public Broadcasting System
1320 Braddock Place
Alexandria, VA 22314
Via fax: (703) 739-7500
Dear Mr. Godwin:
The New York Times reports today that PBS and Comcast are partners in a new 24-hour digital cable channel for children that will play commercials along with programs such as Elmo and Sesame Street. Other co-owners will be Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment.
Public broadcasting is supposed to be an alternative to the commercial networks and a refuge from the huckstering that assaults children there. It is supposed to give kids, and parents, a real choice in this regard – a choice where kids won’t be seduced with junk food, junk entertainments and noxious commercial values with which parents may disagree.
In case you somehow haven’t noticed, American children already are subject to an unprecedented barrage of commercial propaganda. And, not surprisingly, they suffer from an epidemic of marketing-related diseases, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Recent research by Juliet Schor found that “High consumer involvement is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and psychosomatic complaints” in children. Why would you want to make this any worse?
Your descent into commercial predation has been swift. In 1998, PBS first ran national commercials before and after Sesame Street. And despite shocking rates of childhood obesity, in 2003, PBS began running ads for McDonalds before and after Sesame Street. What’s next? A partnership with Philip Morris? If there’s enough money in it, why not?
Children need adults who will stand up to the commercial culture. They need adults who will put their health and development above the interests of money. It looks as though they aren’t going to find these adults at PBS any more.
Sincerely,
Commercial Alert
Leeds Real Radio DJ Guy Harris placed an eBay ad for his co-host, Lorna Bancroft selling her as an escort girl. Needless to say, Bancroft was pissed.
Bancroft said, "I got nice emails from listeners after my photo was put on the radio website. Guy got jealous and this was his way of having a go at me. It (the eBay ad) made me look like a prostitute and people believed I was for sale. I am really angry with him. It was bang out of order and it will take time for me to calm down."
Harris has apologized and hopes Bancroft can forgive him.
Commenting on eBay's recent firing of agency Goodby Silverstein, eBay spokesman Chris Donlay said, "Our policy is not to comment on vendor relations," to which we ask "why the fuck not?" Sidestepping the nasty habit of clients disrespecting agencies by calling them "vendors" versus business consultants for now, what is so crucial about an agency/client relationship that's so important it must be hidden from the rest of the industry. It's not like we're talking about national security secrets here. Haven't we all had enough of this bland, say nothing PR bullshit? Yes, we thought you'd say yes.
Is it asking too much for companies to at least come up with statements of interest like, oh, "We fired the agency because the account director is a self-important, pompous wind bag" or "We dumped that client because they are clearly clueless when it comes to effective advertising" or "The fuckers think the Internet 'isn't there yet' as a medium." Come on, a little honesty, inventiveness and effort would make all our lives more exciting. Please, PR, give it a try.
 OK, Like WTF? Below is the meta data from the source code of CokeBadger, revealing it to be one of the latest, wacky viral promotions which, in turn, promotes another site which promotes a new movie, It's All Gone Pete Tong, already a fave on the festival circuit, to be released April 15.
meta name="description" content="The Coke Badger wants you to do coke. Nothing else. The Coke Badger will come after you if you don't. Coke, coke, coke. Coke addicts are the best society has to offer, so why not be one of the best? Oh, and, the Coke Badger is holding Frankie Wilde in hell."
You see. Frankie Wilde is the fictitious, central character of the upcoming movie, "It's All Gone Pete Tong." The phrase "it's all gone Pete Tong" is Cockney slang that plays off the name of real superstar DJ Pete Tong. It means "it's all gone wrong." The film is a mockumentary based on the life of fictitiously legendary DJ Frankie Wilde, a talented and envied European DJ and the central focus of hedonistic youth vacationing in Ibiza, Spain. As the movie progresses, Wilde, who eventually cokes out and goes deaf from too many throbbing throw downs, hires a lip-reading instructor, accepts a new way of life and rediscovers the dance rhythms that originally defined him. Wilde's redemption then returns him to the top of the DJ scene with a renewed connection to music and fame. And then he disappears, just in time for a sequel.
The campaign is deep and extensive, including an "unofficial" fan site, a site for "author" Eric Banning who wrote about Wilde's life, a site for his cheesy manager, Max Haggar and even a site his record label, handicapped artist focused Motor City Records (be sure to view the videos of "CEO" Jack Stoddart here and on the main page). Surely there are more sites tied into this elaborate promotion but we have other things to do today. We do give a big "brilliant" to this engaging effort. The usual suspects are behind this one.
In a move to satisfy complaints over its so called "No More Late Fees" ad campaign in which the video chain's elaborate and twisted return policy confused and angered consumers, Blockbuster has agreed to pay $630,000 in legal fees to settle claims from 47 states and the District of Columbia. The settlement calls for Blockbuster to refund anyone who claims the ad campaign misled them into believing they could keep their rental for as long as they liked rather than, as the details explain, having to return it within 8 days or face the full price of the rental added to their account only to be refunded if it was then returned in 30 days along with a $1.25 restocking fee.
Confused? Yes and that's the whole point behind Blockbuster finding itself in this mess. Sure, all the T's are crossed and the I's dotted in the rental agreement but when Blockbuster goes out and spends millions to scream, "No More Late Fees," without divulging details clearly, something is amiss and the chain is now paying for that oversight. We don't know who said it first but there's an important little tidbit to keep in mind when marketing: KISS - keep it simple stupid. Clearly, Blockbuster did not adhere to that notion.
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