Advertising Industry Archive

Burger King is promoting a 99-cent kids’ meal in a TV spot featuring SpongeBob Squarepants even though the company joined a campaign to reduce the use of cartoon characters to promote junk food (see video below). Anyone who buys the meal gets a SpongeBob toy. BK’s ads are handled by Crispin, Porter & Bogusky. In September 2007, Burger King signed on to the Children’s Food...

More...

Someone inside the creative staff at GSD&M Idea City appears to be determined to lose the Popeyes Chicken account by disavowing a campaign the agency created for the fast-food client (see video below). The move will likely enrage GSD&M’s management and further strain its relationship with creatives there. The AgencySpy blog declared Popeyes new TV spots to be racist yesterday...

More...

Marilyn Chambers, the porn star whose career got a rocket boost when it was discovered she was also the model for Procter & Gamble’s Ivory Snow detergent, was found dead in her Los Angeles home Sunday night, the LA Times reports. She was 56. Foul play is not suspected. No cause of death was given. Chambers was the wholesome mom on the early 1970s Ivory Snow box; at about the same time...

More...

Pepsico has sued Coca-Cola claiming that Coke’s ads for Powerade attack Pepsi’s Gatorade in a misleading way. The suit will have two major effects in the war between the two brands: It will distract Pepsi’s Gatorade management from their primary duties; and it will draw attention to Coke’s original claim, which is that Gatorade is somehow inferior because Powerade...

More...

Prudential is in talks with Manchester United to replace AIG as the club’s shirt sponsor, according to the BBC. Man Utd need at least £56 million (about $100 million) to replace or increase the revenue from AIG. The club’s AIG deal ends with the close of the 2009/2010 season, which means that some of the U.S. taxpayer bailout money has found its way into the pocket of Cristiano...

More...

WPP chief Martin Sorrell got a lot of flak for the Enfatico climbdown last week. He’s left with a 10-year lease on an office building in Manhattan that he now may not need. He dragged a major client into a pr storm. And whether the Dell-Enfatico relationship will even survive in the long-term is now an open question. For this, the New York Post dubbed Sorrell a “clumsy...

More...

Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty is staging a competition for anyone who wants to design a new logo for its “global innovations unit” BBH Labs. The prize? $1,500. Designers are asked to submit only rough comps before the decision over the final work is made. The move has sparked some anger. The Denver Egotist says: You fuckin’ serious? The very fact that you’re running a contest means you...

More...

Mostly eclipsed in the Enfatico fiasco (Enfiasco?) is WPP chief Martin Sorrell’s latest punch in his personal fight against Publicis boss Maurice Levy. In an op-ed written for Italian pub Positano News on the global economy, Sorrell noted: Some have said that, intellectually, recessions are exciting or fun. That is callous nonsense. Telling someone who has lost their job or business that...

More...

Even though everyone expected it, it’s still a surprise: Enfatico has been wrapped into Young & Rubicam, effectively killing* WPP and Dell’s grand experiment of a giant new international agency to serve only the computer maker. (See correction below) No layoffs have been announced as yet, but there is only one reason for such consolidation — to eliminate the redundant...

More...

A source tells BNET that three California agencies — TBWA/Chiat/Day, Team One and Saatchi & Saatchi – made a round of layoffs yesterday and Tuesday. Here’s the count: Chiat: 40 Team One: 25 Saatchi: 20 Team One made no announcement in order to guard the feelings of the affected employess, the source says, The source also noted that there’s a lot of free talent on...

More...