Watch ad economy instead of Wachovia

Hard for the ad biz to seem very relevant these days what with the economic meltdown and all, so looks like everyone has latched onto the story of Ogilvy losing Wachovia before it ever had it, along with other musings about what's going to happen to the agencies for other down-and-out and assimilated banks, like Washington Mutual. Would far rather see column inches be spent on what the economic crisis means for ad spending, and fortunately, a few stories about that are starting to trickle in, as depressing as they are to read. This morning Mediapost's Diane Mermigas has a column this morning telling readers not to "get too comfortable" with the already downbeat ad expenditure forecasts, and couldn't agree more. (Yeah, I, too, write a column for Mediapost.) Even the reports released in the last few days, if you read the fine print, were compiled well before the events of the last few weeks. Little did those who wrote them, or us who read them, know that we hadn't seen nothin' yet.

American Express touts its Members Project

American Express just posted this commercial to its "Members Project" channel on YouTube. It's basically a retrospective of clips from spots, using a lot of editing creativity, by AmEx commercial endorsers, including some footage from a spokesperson gig that Jim Henson did back in the day. It ties back into the "Members Project"—in which AmEx cardmembers suggest, and vote on, worthy initiatives to get $2.5 million in funding from American Express. Via Ogilvy.

Forget "Mad Men", now Bernbach is on Twitter

At the risk of declaring that Twitter has jumped the shark, now I've gotten an invitation to follow Bill Bernbach on Twitter, in a move probably inspired by the "Mad Men" twitterers. Bernbach seems confused by Google's new browser, Chrome, and is trying out the Avis "We try harder" slogan on anyone who will listen. Seeing Bernbach on board gave me the idea that maybe I should start impersonating David Ogilvy, but somebody already thought of that, and the Twitter D.O. even claims to be having dinner with Betty and Don Draper on Thursday night. Maybe I'll be Mary Wells. Anyway, this whole Twitter impersonating thing probably has jumped the shark. While I was putting together this post, I got an invitation to follow Dr. Benjamin Spock, who is following more than 700 people but hasn't posted a damn thing.

Danica Patrick's alternative homemaker universe

Pretty amusing video at this URL to support Danica Patrick's Motorola sponsorship, of course timed to this weekend's Indy 500. Premise is that instead of being a race car driver, she has a home show a la Martha Stewart. Of course, as the picture at right shows, her ideas are a little off-base. Much better than that GoDaddy stuff she does. Via Ogilvy.

Andy Roddick's mojo is a caveman

So in preparation for the upcoming ABC series, Cavemen, that leftist rag the Village Voice has devoted many column inches to an interview with the actor—who, as we've said repeatedly, is not in the Geico spots—who will play the starring caveman in the series. His name is Nick Kroll, he compared the early attempts at putting on his caveman makeup to "rubbing fiberglass on my face" and his commercial claim to fame was playing Andy Roddick's mojo in the ill-fated American Express campaign from a few years back. Above, is the second "Mojo" spot, after Roddick had been bounced out of the U.S. Open in the first round. (The first one isn't posted anywhere I could find.) I guess maybe we could call this whole caveman/mojo thing six degrees of David Ogilvy.