Advertising Industry Archive

Give Lamar Advertising kudos for being even-handed even if it’s no good at winning new business: The company censors liberal billboards just as much as it censors conservative ones. Lamar declined to sell space to an atheist who wanted to put up an ad alongside Alabama’s I-20 that said simply, “Imagine No Religion,” according to The Birmingham News: “It was...

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Jeff McClelland, former CEO of Cliff Freeman & Partners, blasted the shop’s founder as a control freak who is stuck in the past and is threatening the future of his own shop, Adweek reports. CF&P has been on a downward spiral for months. The storied shop now has only one significant client left — Baskin Robbins – and fewer than 20 staffers, writes Noreen...

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WPP chief Martin Sorrell gave an interview to an Indian blogger at Cannes in which he claimed that a client was suing a media buying agency for not guaranteeing a price reduction on its fee. Sorrell’s claim came in a Q&A about how tough clients are becoming in the recession, something that BNET has noted here and here. As an example, he said agencies were not just promising reductions...

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Owners of Burger King restaurants in India might want to shut their doors for a couple of days in case their sites are trashed by Hindus angry that the chain used an image of the goddess Lakshmi sitting on top of a meat sandwich in an ad (pictured). The ad ran in Spain and has since been withdrawn. (Click on the images to enlarge them.) Ask Saatchi & Saatchi what happened when they used...

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Nike confiscated a video of LeBron James being dunked on at a pickup game he organized. The censorship has turned into a negative publicity tidal wave from which Nike cannot escape. Brand managers and PR folk take note. This is a lesson about transparency in the digital age. In failing to understand that, Nike Basketball senior director Lynn Merritt (pictured) has done the dumbest thing a brand...

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Lamar Advertising is famously litigious, in part because every single aspect of its media requires local zoning approval but also because it has the delusional belief that the only regulation that governs it is the First Amendment right to erect a billboard free speech. But the company has become even more dependent on its scorched earth legal strategy this year as it pursues a policy of...

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Thomas Murray, vp/general manager at Valassis, told a Michigan state court that he was aware his agency’s web servers were used to make anonymous attacks on News America Marketing on a coupon enthusiast web site. BNET first reported that Valassis had allegedly used “sock puppets” on BringBacktheCoupons.com in April. Murray told the court that he did not know who had made the...

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Richard Shenkman, a Connecticut ad executive whose company produced a TV show for Oprah friend Gayle King, was arrested and hospitalized Tuesday after he took his wife hostage at gunpoint, demanded the police shoot him and get a priest to adminster the last rites, before he finally burned down his house. His wife, Nancy Tyler, left the house unharmed after a 9 ½ hour kidnapping. Gunshots and...

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It might be the beginning of the end for Clear Channel Outdoor. CCO put out a statement before the long weekend saying it was “actively pursuing alternatives” regarding its debt situation. CCO owes its parent, Clear Channel Communications (confusing, yes?) $2.5 billion. It tried to borrow $3 billion three weeks ago in to pay off the note but couldn’t get a deal done. If you...

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Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser will force their ad agencies to choose commercial production vendors from a pre-approved shortlist of providers, according to Brandweek. The vendors would then have to agree to fixed prices for two years. The move will affect Reckitt agency Euro RSCG and P&G’s Saatchi & Saatchi, Grey Group and BBDO. The news sounds dull — please,...

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