Advertising Industry Archive

January 2009

Sprite pitch down to two — Wieden & Kennedy and Bartle Bogle Hegarty are facing off in a pitch for marketing duties on Coca-Cola’s Sprite brand, according to executives close to the matter. [Source: Ad Age] Mediaedge wins Sony LatAm — WPP Group’s Mediaedge:cia has been awarded planning and buying for Sony Electronics Latin America after a six-month review, the client...

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Former Young & Rubicam CEO Peter Georgescu has found a new life — as an artist’s muse. Georgescu is best known as the man who took Y&R public, triggering an exodus of newly rich managers and leaving Y&R a shell of its former self. But for New York University art student Danielle Baskin, Georgescu is a source of artistic inspiration and an enduring mystery. Seeking a...

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Calvin Klein has deliberately produced a steamy commercial that it knew had no chance of being aired on TV. (See video below.) The ploy is an increasingly common one among advertisers who realize they can find larger audiences online than they can on TV. The ad features six models, barely dressed in CK jeans, writhing on a sofa and feigning sex. The footage seems to be take from a hidden...

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Leo Burnett in Chicago laid of 75 staff, following its $15.5 million settlement of charges that it defrauded the U.S. Army account of $20 million in billings. The cuts come just one month after Publicis chief Maurice Levy said he did not “foresee” jobs cuts in his agency network. The cuts bring the BNET Ad Agency Layoff Counter to 6,902 jobs lost. The loss of $15.5 million in cash...

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Ad blog Adrants has been sued by Virgin over its mistaken post that Virgin had taken advantage of the US Airways Hudson River airline crash with an ad calling the crash “Just one more reason to fly Virgin.” Virgin sued Adrants even though the blog corrected its item with a note saying, “UPDATE: Clearly, this ad is fake.” A cache of Adrants’ original post...

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WPP chief Martin Sorrell is in Davos, thinking big thoughts. Wearing a jaunty blue-and-white scarf to protect himself from the snow, he was stopped in a corridor by CNBC reporter Becky Quick (wearing the tightest sweater ever seen on TV). In a three-minute interview, he said some moderately revealing things, including: That his financial and automotive clients are still investing. That client...

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American Apparel “almost went bankrupt” before Xmas according to internal emails allegedly stolen from CEO Dov Charney’s porn-based advertising/clothing empire. Now the SEC is eyeing the company, according to the New York Post, based on the emails. Back on Jan. 15, BNET noted that American Apparel gave Q4 sales guidance of a 10 percent uptick in revenues and a 3 percent...

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AKQA is now the AOR for The New York City Ballet — The agency will be responsible for social media stuff, a website re-design and a new ticketing system. [Source: AgencySpy] NBC still selling Super Bowl spots — Five hours of pregame coverage also open. “Traditionally, much of the pregame inventory moves the week of the game,” said NBC spokesman Brian Walker. “Given...

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Americans are economizing on toilet paper and stocking up on Snuggies and Slankets, the blankets with sleeves advertised in direct response TV ads. Ad Age reports the two developments separately, but really it’s the same story: A look inside the scared mind of the embattled U.S. consumer in a recession. She’s so frightened she’s even cutting back on the unthinkable (bathroom...

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Mark Brown, a media development manager at ValueClick, is being crucified on the web simply for doing his job — trying to persuade sites to generate revenue for themselves by using his ad network. It’s all because he failed to check an email before hitting send. Brown recently used the email contact form of ShoeMoney, a blog that covers web-based affiliate marketing. He wrote,...

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