Advertising Industry Archive

McNeil Healthcare has posted a series of scripts on a web site for cold medicine Benylin that workers can use to call in sick. A British employers’ organization is furious that the drug company, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, is encouraging staff to stay home during the recession. Among the suggested phone calls that employees with coughs and aches should use is this one: Hi [boss's...

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The Ogilvy Group cut about 150 staffers today, about 10 percent of its workforce, according to Adweek. The move had been predicted by Ad Age yesterday. The job losses come on top of 50-100 staffers laid off last year. The layoffs are likely the first of a wave of thousands that will go through many WPP agencies. Network boss Martin Sorrell said there would be cuts to mature parts of his company...

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Leo Burnett has agreed to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that it overbilled the U.S. Army by $20 million on its advertising account. The suit alleges that Burnett systematically overbilled the government by pretending that agencies it owned were independent subcontractors. It funnelled the excess billings into a secret account, and the agency’s CFO was let go when he complained...

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Campbell Soup has placed an ad in gay magazine The Advocate. The ad, which shows two lesbian parents and their son, touts Campbell’s Swanson line of broth. Predictably, the placement has stirred a ludicrous “controversy,” with the right-wing American Family Association accusing the company of embracing the “homosexual agenda.” Campbell has brushed off the...

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Dunkin’ Donuts breaks Hill Holliday campaign — Coffee and doughnut chain Dunkin’ Donuts breaks a new $100 million advertising campaign today that features the slogan “You Kin’ Do it.” The new effort, which was created by Dunkin’s Boston-based advertising agency Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos Inc., is the latest iteration of the chain’s “America Runs on...

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BBDO grabs two Pepsi accounts from JWT — In India, agency will now handle 7UP as well as Quaker Oats. [Source: Business Standard] Australia’s worst ads — a tampon ad featuring a beaver and a Domino’s pizza ad in which a character named Many Toppins uses the made-up term “Supercalafreakinawesome” were the most complained about by the Aussies last year. See...

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WPP is to cut “several thousand” jobs from its 100,000 headcount, according to the Guardian. Layoffs will come “where staff costs exceeded 60% of revenue,” the paper said. The company immediately denied the report. The denial was odd, given that WPP boss Martin Sorrell has himself confirmed there will be layoffs across WPP in the near future. There has also been a steady...

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GITAM/BBDO Israel has created an ad for Wrigley’s chewing gum brand Orbit that shows a man in police custody looking into an interrogation light. The light, originating outside the frame, appears to be coming from the brightness of the interrogating officer’s smile. The noir-ish ad says, “Orbit; For whiter teeth.” The ad, published in December according to Ads of the...

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David Beckham has split with Pepsi, a brand with whom the soccer player has had an advertising contract for 10 years, according to Ad Age. The report doesn’t cite a reason for the split but offers this piece of background: It’s worth noting that he’s among the most expensive sports endorsers in the world, which may make it more difficult for marketers to fit him in tightening...

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Lamar Advertising is linked to a probe of Pittsburgh’s former development chief, a public official who was discovered to have received 2007 Christmas gifts from the company, including a surround-sound system. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a proposed Lamar electronic billboard in the city’s downtown was nixed last month by city officials. Initially, Lamar had received a...

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