Adverganza's Tuesday morning picks, 05.27.08

Wherein I scan the Monday and Tuesday morning headlines because I'm not so much of a wonk that I would actually work on Memorial Day:

From Advertising Age:

—Close-up of Vincent Bolloré, the man who would have Aegis.
—How the China earthquake has given a boost to beleaguered Olympic sponsors.
—No matter what the company does, no one likes getting charged for luggage by American Airlines.
—Why it's good that the Gap isn't advertising on TV.
—More on "Starbucks Cups Feature Tits!"
—Did you know you spend $500/year on Big Macs?
—UPS will continue to win with Big Brown.
—There's money in moving to Microsoft search.
—Jonah Bloom likes brands that market themselves usefully.
—Wow. I doubt Bob Garfield will ever eat Cheetos again.

From Adweek:

—Great quote on why Nike dropped Crispin: "They were in love with the idea of Crispin more than the actual work from Crispin." Read on here.
—Digital agencies you may or may not have heard of that you should be watching: 360i, Big Spaceship, Deep Focus, EVB and Schematic.
—Story about DaVinci that barely mentions Synarchy.
—Inspiring entire countries to social change.
—Marian Salzman on how marketers might respond to the recession.
—Joseph Jaffe explains why most viral marketing sucks.
—Barbara Lippert on advertising which is considered breakthrough that she thinks isn't. You go girl. Totally agree with you. Cadbury's "Gorilla"? So what!

From Brandweek:

—More on the frightening "we'll pay your gas" trend.
—Who wants a piece of online ad video pie?
—Yeah, sure. Candy that's good for you.
—How those iProducts have hurt car stereo companies.
—Q&A with Procter & Gamble's green guru.
—Are you ready for caffeinated snack chips? I hope not.
—Scary findings from The Change Report, here, here and here.
—Hey, agency people: Only 15 percent of you get it.

From Mediapost (they seem to be on a tourism jag this morning):

—New York brings back "I (heart) New York." Why the state ever dropped it, I've no idea.
—Other state tourism campaigns still expect us to burn lotsa gas this summer.
—Michigan proves the return on investment of its tourism dollars.
—Rand McNally says Americans are changing their travel plans this summer because of high gas prices, but not that much.
—Family trip planning on the Motel 6 Web site, GoIn6.com.
—A fragrance called Bond Girl 007?
—Stuff about email marketing, here, here, and here from Mediapost's Email Marketing Summit.
—Twenty percent of homes not ready for digital conversion. What tells me that some people just have better things to do?
—Ten percent of Washington Post staff leaves via buyouts.

From Mediaweek:

—Mike Shields reports from Microsoft's annual agency/advertiser summit.
—Despite what you may have read, advertisers and agencies still love American Idol.
—Univision employees (heart) Joe Uva.
—Lehman Brothers projects network upfront revenue to decline by 3 percent. The villain? Cable.

From The New York Post:

—How networks are building their own on-demand options.
—The Carl Icahn "I Can't Blog" counter, which tallies the days, hours, minutes and seconds since Icahn's last blog post. We're up to 116 days.
—Linens 'n' Things may close even more stores.

From The New York Times:

—More on our lack of preparedness for the digital conversion. Unfortunately, I own the TV located on the left in the picture. Damn.
—Rob Walker asks if dead brands can be resurrected.
—The networks don't like redlasso.com.
—Who knew there was this much to know about people who twist balloons?

From The Wall Street Journal:

—Page one feature on August Busch IV's fight "for his legacy." Free.
—Why the success of "Indiana Jones" isn't quite as much a boon for its studio as you might think. Free.
—Gap brings the sites of its four retail chains closer together. Subscription required.
—Some marketers are getting into opt-in text message ads. Free.

OK, that's it. Have a good one!