Archive for June, 2011

Daily Buzz 6/30

Burrell Tackles Sustainability Effort for Toyota Everyone on our planet has an equally compelling stake in a green future. But not everyone thinks about “green” in exactly the same way. When Burrell approached Toyota about developing a green marketing campaign directed at African-Americans, we knew from long experience working with the African-American community that any successful campaign [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6-29

Sony Shareholders Make Waves at Annual Meet Sony CEO Howard Stringer got a grilling at his company’s shareholder meeting Tuesday. After the Tokyo-based electronics behemoth reported its third consecutive year of losses and the seventh straight year of losses for the television division, shareholders reportedly spoke up to complain about declines in the share price. According to The [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6/28

More Changes at A-B, as a Top Marketer Leaves for AT&T In more post-merger turnover, Anheuser-Bush’s top media-buying and sports-marketing executive is heading for the exit, bolting the nation’s biggest brewer for a top marketing job at telecom giant AT&T. Mark Wright, A-B’s VP for media, sports and entertainment, will depart on July 15, the brewer said [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6-27

Consumer Divide Grows Between Haves and Have-nots The rich — and marketers who cater to them — just keep getting richer as everyone else struggles through a so-called recovery. That fact of economics could reshape marketing strategies this year, and for years to come. Last year, the only growth in spending came from people making $100,000 or [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6-24-11

New Approach Ads in Games As the number of people playing videogames on smartphones surges, two new companies are touting a way for advertisers to reach the potential customers—without annoying them. The start-ups, Kiip Inc. and Tap.Me Inc., are moving beyond the familiar mobile banner ads, letting marketers sponsor rewards or extra tools within the game. The idea [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6-23-11

Nokia Maps New Ad Focus Nokia Corp. is preparing a new weapon in the fight for its survival: mobile advertising. The struggling Finnish handset maker wants to use a new partnership with Microsoft Corp. to make its flagging Navteq map unit a force in mobile advertising, a fast-growing market that is expected to more than double in [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6-22-11

Comcast Reduces Wait Time for Cable Guy Comcast plans to reduce the time customers wait for the cable guy after a consumer website last year voted it worst company in America. Comcast will shorten its cable repair and installation windows in all markets from as much as four hours to two hours or less by 2012. The [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6-21-11

Top Ad Brand Spending by Category and Social-Media Ranking Ad Age asked social-media tracker Infegy to examine the sentiment of online conversations around the top 200 megabrands as ranked by 2010 expenditures in measured media. Infegy tracks posts on 40 million online sources including blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other networks and analyzes the sentiment of the [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6-20-11

Funny Business Wrigley just couldn’t get on board with the necrophilia. “I wanted to do this sketch where this guy is at the morgue, and he basically bribes the attendant to let him have an extra five minutes with his dead spouse,” says Will Arnett. The actor, who with his Arrested Development co-star, Jason Bateman, co-founded DumbDumb, [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 6-6-11

How, and Why, Farmers Insurance Got a Seat in ‘X-Men’ Classroom The latest commercial from Farmers Insurance starts out fairly typically. Using the insurance marketer’s current University of Farmers storyline, and featuring character actor J.K. Simmons (”The Closer,” “Spider-Man”) as professor Nathaniel Burke, the ad also features a few surprise pupils. Instead of insurance agents, they’re [ READ MORE ]