Help the bees make more ice cream

Find the copy on this Häagen-Dazs ad to be a little peculiar. It says, "Honey bees are dying, and we rely on them for many of our national ingredients. Help us save them." Like bees main function in the world is to make more ice cream laden in fat, therefore helping us continue the obesity epidemic? If that's the case, we don't need no bees.

People can't stop making Doritos ads

I've embedded the Doritos video above not because it's very good but just to illustrate that the hordes are once again getting all hot and bothered about making Doritos commercials. In other words, if many people in the biz are burnt out on the idea of letting consumers make commercials, many consumers apparently aren't. This one features six toes, when, to me, even thinking about one toe and food in the same breath is pretty unappetizing. You can view other Doritos consumer-generated ads at the YouTube DoritosYouMakeIt channel.

Might want to rethink this logo

Saw this on Keith Olbermann's show last night. It's the suggested new logo for Britain's Office of Government of Commerce. But tilt your head to the left for a sec, and then look at the logo. Hmmm. Olbermann quoted a government spokesperson as saying the new logo "is not inappropriate for an organization that is looking to have a firm grip on government spending."

Don't underestimate Mark Kingdon's Second Life

I sensed some surprise earlier this week when Organic CEO Mark Kingdon said he was jumping to Second Life. And some negativity too. Wrote AgencySpy: "Unfortunately, joining Linden Labs [owner of Second Life] at this point is like joining Napster after Metallica finished sodomizing them a few years back -- the crest of the wave for Second Life was at least two years ago and there is nowhere to go but the inevitable fade to oblivion that is a couple of years off." That could be true, but there's good reason not to underestimate him in this situation. First, he is very passionate about social media and was very articulate about what it meant for advertisers early on. Second, and more importantly, most people don't remember what he inherited when he joined Organic, but since I was there—on my way out the door, granted—I do. It was December 2000. We'd laid off 25 percent of the shop's 1200 employees only days earlier, and he comes in as CEO. (Lucky me, I had accepted a job with Ad Age, keeping the wolf from the door for a little longer.) Within the next year, the shop went down to roughly 200 people. Hard decisions had to be made. Most offices had to be closed. Remaining clients placated. And though Omnicom hovering in the background helped, the shop at that point was a publicly-traded dot-bomb flirting with extinction. Obviously, that didn't happen. Not only did Kingdon help get Organic through that, but he stayed on for more than seven years. It's an outcome no one would have predicted, and yet it happened.

Copyranter says it isn't so after all

Never thought of Copyranter as being sheepish, until I got an email alert about a comment to my post covering his untimely departure from blogdom. All it said was: "I, uh, was premature." Yes, after saying Friday that he would no longer post to Copyranter, but that he was still interested in getting a paying blog gig, Animal NewYork took him up on his demand for blogging wages, making this the shortest retirement since Roger Clemens picked his steroid-filled needle back up and decided he'd pitch again. (OK that was an insane analogy since we know that bloggers don't take steroids, but, hey, whatever.) Mr. Ranter says he will also post to Copyranter but won't be as prolific as he used to be, but at least for his first post-coming-out-of-retirement post he gave us "half naked men with cats." All is right with the world.

Meatloaf, Tiffany find paradise in a Go Phone

Saw the short version of this AT&T spot starring Meatloaf for the first time last night, but, honestly, I wouldn't have known the woman in the commercial was former mall rat Tiffany if it wasn't part of the YouTube description of the spot. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" was also used recently in a promo for HGTV's "Sleep On It" for those keeping score.

My morning listening to Radiohead remixes

OK, so I re-used my headline from this week's Social Media Insider on this post because someone said they liked that headline. The entire purpose of this post is to point to that column. So go read it, already, wouldya? And for the record, I like the Thomas Dolby remix of "Nude" better than Radiohead's version.

Googling Mike Chapman, the new 'Adweek' editor

Like most Adweek watchers, I did a little Googling last night to figure out who Mike Chapman, the new editor, is. Not that I was expecting that I'd know who the new editor was beforehand—most of the usual suspects that I've been in touch with weren't interested in the job—which can be read either way. Either it's a good thing that Adweek went fishing outside of the usual pond, or they've gone so far afield—by not hiring someone with a strict journalism background, but what appears to be a data guy—that the whole enterprise is going to turn into a bunch of long-winded analyst reports and charts. If you remember Adweek as the magazine of breaking news and lengthy features by reporters who could actually write, that would be not so good, but we won't really know what this all means until it happens. OK, here's what I found:

—His bio on eMarketer (scroll down a bit).
—A panel he's set to moderate at Digital Hollywood in a couple of weeks.
—The announcement about him going to eMarketer from The Economist in 2005.
—A summary of a 2006 report he did about podcasting. You can buy the full report for only $695.
—What appears to be his bio as a member of the team at a Web 2.0 company called Simpatico Networks.

Couldn't find him on Facebook, but with a name like Mike Chapman, might be hard to find. (Trust me, as Cathy Taylor, I know).

The online component of that VW campaign

So, in case you missed it, VW is also running banners asking people to vote on what the people want as part of its new campaign. The current vote is about whether people want only one spouse or not, and, as of right now—despite intensive recent promotion about the joys of polygamy aside—the people want only one spouse. They have also voted "yes" to a long list which includes the following: "a colony on Mars," "the coyote to catch the roadrunner" and "political candidates to take lie detector tests." The supposed link here is that VW also gives people what they want, but coming from an old-school VW Beetle with a strong German accent, all I can think of is, well, Hitler—who wasn't exactly a man of the people. Maybe I think that way because my husband was a German major.

'Adweek' has a new editor

No details at this point, but I'm hearing the new person was announced internally, allegedly someone with a heavy data background. Watch this space for more info. UPDATE: OK, here's the skinny. The new editor, who will report to Alison Fahey, is a guy named Michael Chapman who has been most recently at eMarketer, but has spent more of his career at The Economist Group and its data-driven Economist Intelligence Unit. For those who think that Adweek is going to become a house organ for Nielsen data, there's your fodder. As for Fahey, she is becoming publisher/editorial director at Adweek, which has been known for awhile now. I've mainly stayed away from personally commenting about all of the comments made here and elsewhere about her management style. I'll leave it at this: I hope Chapman is a really, really strong personality, because in order to make any kind of imprint, he'll need to be.

An 'Adweek' interview with IMG's CMO

If you need a perspective realignment, you might want to check out the interview at Adweek.com with Robert Birge, CMO of IMG, who talks about the sponsorship deals and content production work the company does surrounding vents like Wimbledon and New York Fashion Week. And check out those groovy guy glasses! This is the first time I've noticed that the videos at Adweek.com are embeddable, which may be new. Good idea, at any rate, and something I don't think you can do at AdAge.com.

Alter egos are hot and AT&T's got some

Looks like there's a whole bunch of these alter ego commercials out there for AT&T. Here's one above. I had previously only seen this one. Beginning to wonder if alter egos are a trend, what with that Facebook app for Coke's Burn and all.

Say it ain't so, Copyranter

Copyranter hangs up his keyboard.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 04.21.08

Wherein I scan the Monday morning headlines so you don't have to.

From Advertising Age:

—BBDO's strange entry into the printing business.
—Matt Creamer takes a dip into the Venice Festival of Media.
—Millward Brown's annual list of the top brands. Tide makes it to no. 6.
—Olay for You now appearing at WalMart.
—Horror! Starbucks starts a coupon program.
—Account losses start Element 79 rumor mill.
—Layoffs at Campbell-Ewald portend GM's digital budget shift.
—Garfield says ads for the Alliance for Climate Protection are "99% sanctimony free," but that doesn't mean he likes them.

From Adweek:

—More on the return of live commercials.
—Trade publishers, including Adweek owner Nielsen Business Media, create their own online ad network.
—It's never too early to start the upfront.
—A huge, comprehensive upfront special report.
—ABC's Mike Shaw on how the upfront is changing, while not going away.
—Optimedia's Antony Young on how the upfront is changing, while not going away.
—The digital upfront, such as it is.
—A new branded entertainment venture, Filmaka, has some big backing.
—Is Y&R ready to roll?
—Barbara Lippert on the Electrolux appliances campaign featuring Kelly Ripa. Decides Ripa is a hot appliance who doesn't cook. You can see the spots here.


From Brandweek:

—Trying to make The Hulk hot again.
—Clorox goes green with its Green Works line.
—And now, the eco-friendly loyalty program.
—Insurance companies upped their ad spend a measly 6 percent in 2007.
—Are Crocs road kill?

From Mediapost:

—Pregnant and new Moms are patient zero for word-of-mouth about brands.
—Sony advertises about "knowledge transfer" which sounds sort of sci-fi to me.
—People who shop green are "gullible" and "confused." Great.
—Interpublic chief Michael Roth made $11.1 million in 2007, according to an AP calculation.
—100, um, redundancies at AOL's Platform A.
—Jeff Berman to be named MySpace's president of sales and marketing.
—Sprint was official wireless provider for the Pope's visit. Would be really impressive if he could text the guy upstairs.
—NBC will re-brand Oxygen. Would be funny if they renamed it too—something like Ozone.
—BIGresearch says automotive advertisers spend too much money on TV.
—Adweek's not alone. U.S. News & World Report to go to 36 issues a year.'

From The New York Post:

—Is Bloomberg LP looking to buy The New York Times Company? Via a Newsweek story.

From The New York Times:

—Marines try to recruit chicks.
—Gannett's earnings drop 9 percent in the first quarter.
—More on the rise of ad networks.
—Sports coverage in the controversial era of the blogger.

From The Wall Street Journal:

—What? Web audience tracking isn't perfect? Free.
—Macy's changes again, going local with its marketing. Free.