Advertising's most lovable curmudgeon, George Parker of AdHurl and AdScam fame has finished his book, MadScam: Kick-Ass Advertising Without the Madison Avenue Price Tag which is sure to ruffle a few feathers as it Parker reveals the inner working of the ad agency business, it's over reliance on the cool and its seeming inability to focus on what's important: The Idea. If you've read either of Parker's sites, you know this book will be like a bad burrito that's decided to set up house in your intestines while it turns the innards of the agency business inside out. if you dare, you can pre-order it on Amazon here. It's not out until December. You can read the book's preface, written by Ogilvy & Mather VP and Global Creative Director Steve Hayden here.
This is just too good to pass up. Commenting on New York Times ad columnists Stuart Elliott's three month vacation and his replacement by Jane L Levere, George Parker writes, "...for fucks sake Jane Baby... Get off your arse and write about advertising... Otherwise, just rename the column... Jane L. Levere's really fucking boring column that has nothing whatsoever to do with advertising, 'cos it's much easier to re-write PR releases from the media companies that take me out to lunch and get me fucked up." Exactly.
Floyd Hayes from CunningWork has put together FiveOnFriday, which he says will become a weekly video update covering the world of advertising, marketing and cool stuff. In this debut show, Hayes highlights recent campaigns both online and off, recent news and Nike's iPod sneakers. If you want a quick hit on what's up in the world of advertising, The quality is low but it's the first one so give it a chance. You can view the debut episode here.
Neil Boorman is going to gather together all his branded possessions, place them in a pile, douse them with lighter fluid and set the whole thing on fire. He's doing it as some sort of protest against the ruling power brands have over an individual's life and one's definition of that life. Of course, in a sick twist, he's doing it all to promote his own brand, a new book called Bonfire of the Brands.
Yahoo is previewing their new homepage layout and has a video from founders David Filo and Jerry Yang explaining the change. As with all other recently launched sites, Yahoo has moved to the wider 1024 width, up from 800. It's a pain resizing the broswer window all the time so the sooner everyone (including uss) moves to 1028, the better. The new Yahoo have navigation button along the left side and Yahoo services such as Mail, Messenger, Music, Movies and Weather to the top right. It's not bad looking but one does wish for the good old days when yahoo was the search and directory giant with a no-fuss inteerface like Google currently has. Oh well, Yahoo went content and Google is sticking with search.
Copyranter points us to Gawker today where the New York gossip site has, with the click of a button, allowed its readers to banish all ads from the site except for evian water who is sponsoring a detoxed version of the site for two weeks. Once the button is clicked, all ads disappear except for some subtle mention of evian, some soothing snow-capped graphics and a means for those who publish an RSS feed of their site to "detox" their own RSS feed. The sponsorship was done in partnership with Mediavest and Feedburner. This is what the Adrants RSS feed looks like "detoxed."
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Software developer Teletype has filed a suit against the Audit Bureau of Circulation alleging the organization turned a blind eye to Laptop magazine's inflation of its circulation. The suit, filed last week according to Newsday, names Laptop publisher Bedford Communications, Bedford executives Edward Brown and John Jay Annis, defunct distributor Inflight Newspapers and former Inflight executive Remy Lehner. In the suit, Bedford is accused of paying Inflight "to accept delivery of tens of thousands of copies of Laptop magazine each month in return for paperwork showing that Inflight had 'accepted' the copies for distribution" but were never delivered.
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Advertising Age has a very cool new design. It feels much more contemporary and easier to dive into. It's taken on a wider width as many recent relaunches have. The headlines are easier to read. The redesigned email newsletters look great too. The contents of the print edition will be available to subscribers Sunday night. It's all a welcome change.
While we like articles that quickly come to the point, one letter Page Six stories, well, even Page Six needs at least a couple sentences to maintain interest. Take a look at this Page Sixe page Bucky Turcosent us. Relieve us from what book? Oh, and that contextual ad placement? Priceless.
From time to time over the years we've featured billboard spoofs from Dribbleglass. They are always funny, always twisted. Perhaps because they've amassed such a large collection of tricked out billboards, they've just published a book called Twisted Billboards along with a set of refrigerator magnets that feature the boards. Slap a couple on your fridge and tell your friends that's what you do for a living. It'll make for a far more interesting conversation then showing them your actual work.
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