We welcome guest columnist Sean X Cummings who, in response to the ongoing Yahoo/Microsoft acquisition dance along with Google's response, has several things to say about the deal and how the pace of technology growth is out pacing the ability of some marketers to keep ups with and master the influx of new media.
The Microsoft/Yahoo deal is often analyzed on the differences between technology companies, and media companies, offline, and online, threats to companies within that world, and outside, and those who interfere. Much of this misses more fundamental issues.
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"Are you self-centered, arrogant or conceited? Do you have a strong need for recognition? You must have a Mac, according to new research."
The above video says people with an open personality (eh?) are 60 percent more likely to own a Mac.
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According to a comScore study commissioned by Starcom and TACODA, online ad clicks aren't as demographically diverse as your deluded CEO thinks.
80 percent of them come from only 16 percent of online users. They are generally young, underpaid and male. You know, like the dev dork of yore.
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It seems a new commercial for Australia's Commonwealth Bank has the land of down under angry for two reasons: the bank left Australian agencies behind and came to American agency Goodby Silverstein to create the work. And, secondly, they think the campaign, itself, sucks. Even Australian ad legend John Singleton got in on the hating and called on the bank's CEO to pull the ad because it is "obscene" and a "waste of money."
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At the risk of igniting a shit storm, were those Salesgenie ads really that racist? Let's examine. The ad where the Indian guy is berated by his boss is an illustration of an employee being berated because his sales are down.
We have to imagine that happens quite a lot no matter where in the world people live. We also have to imagine there are quite a few instances in real life where the boss is white and the employee is Indian.
If the tables were turned and an Indian boss was shown berating a white employee for his lack of sales, would the ad still be racist? Or is it racist because the Indian employee has an Indian accent? Maybe it's racist because the boss is a bloated fat asshole.
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AOL just now released its results for the top-ranked ads in its 6th Annual AOL Super Sunday Ad Poll, sponsored by Verizon. Here's the top five:
1. Budweiser Clydesdale/dalmatian ad
2. Bridgestone squirrel spot
3. Coca-Cola's Balloons
4. Life Water's Thriller
5. E-Trade's talking baby spot
"Advertisers bring their 'A' games to the Super Bowl commercials, and Budweiser scored an impressive victory this year as the best of the best," gushed GM Derrick Heggans of AOL Sports. Nothing new there.
Gotta say we're glad the Coke Balloons spot made it into somebody's top five. But what'd we tell you? There's no beating Rocky. Maybe next time, Charlie Brown.
Here's a contemporary homage to the classic Volkswagen ads created by Doyle Dane Bernbach, NY. This version was put together by DDB, Paris. Adland has more. Some, like this one, position the 60-year-old van as politically transcendent as well as timeless.
Hey. Didn't the Dharma Initiative in Lost use VW vans?
Adrants reader Sunil pointed us to this sleeper controversy. Did Airtel rip one of its India-based ads off this Cannes-award-winning New Zealand Telecom spot?
We're inclined to say no. The idea of two boys, innocent of politics and bonded by communication, is pretty attractive. We find both spots pretty moving in a Prince of Egypt sort of way. (Remember? "MOOOSEEEEES!")
Slapping down the UK's Advertising Standards Authority which didn't like a recent ad Ryanair ran in three newspaper which featured an image of a model in a school girl outfit with the copy, "Hottest. back to School Fares," Ryanair head of communications Peter Sherrard said, "This isn't advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected self-appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising."
Sherrard went on to site the common practice of British newspapers which feature topless women within their pages on a regular basis and stated the airline would not withdraw the ad as requested by the ASA which received 13 complaints.
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Advertising Age's Laura Martinez comically comments on the launch of a line of jeans from Fiorana which are cut to accommodate the stereotypically Latina butt such as the ones attached to Jennifer Lopez, America Ferrara or Vida Guerra (OK, she's Cuban but still).
Fiorana President Mike Braden tells us, "The Latina body is different in waist and hip structure. When wearing Anglo cut jeans, there is always a fit problem around the waist area." Martinez ponders the point by wondering why she, who is of Latina descent, does not possess the bootylicious qualities Braden seems to believe all Latina women possess.
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