This ought to be good for PR. Starbucks recently sent a coupon via email for free coffee to a number of employees in the southeast with instructions to pass it on to friends and family. “Unfortunately, it has been redistributed beyond the original intent and modified beyond Starbucks control. Effective immediately, this offer will no longer be valid at any Starbucks locations.” Or more simply put, “Oops! This is costing us more than we want to spend!” Found here.

After the recent video I posted about humans destroying the earth, I thought it was refreshing to see that not everyone is trying to kill off the environment. Travelocity has created a program called “Go Zero” which allows travelers to make a contribution to The Conservation Fund. The contributions are designed to zero out a travelers impact on the environment. For example, they claim that a $10 contribution will effectively negate the environmental impact of the flight time, rental car, and hotel stay of a single traveler for an average trip. I don’t know who determines what an “average” trip is, but it’s cool none the less and definitely a step in the right direction. For more info, take a gander at this article or visit Travelocity’s site.

While David over at AdFreak doesn’t want to come across as overreacting in his Dr. Scholl’s post, I’d like to encourage the opposite. Please, please overreact! Take a moment to sign this petition! Maybe my roommate and I will get through a TV-filled dinner for once without groaning about the state of the industry based on the commercials we see.

Need some creative inspiration, or maybe just to kill time at work? Check out Time Magazine’s 50 favorite websites.

Well, this week Apple came out and announced a recall of the batteries for their more recent Powerbooks and iBooks. Now this has to be one of the least surprising headlines of all time. Not only had Dell already announced a recall of their Sony Laptop Batteries, Sony being the same company that makes Apple’s Laptop batteries, but any man who has ever put a Titanium Powerbook Laptop in their laps will tell you that having children is no longer a concern. These things are hot, I mean really hot. How hot you ask? When future groups of extreme tourists go to Mount Everest and get lost, the first thing we should send them to help them recover is Apple Titanium Powerbooks. When Hell actually does freeze over and Donny Deutch starts talking about advertising again on the Big Idea, then the Devil will be ordering Apple Titanium Powerbooks to heat things up again. As the Boy Scouts step into the 21st century their manual will soon replace the sections “Starting a fire with flint” and “starting a fire with two sticks” with a section on “Starting a fire with an Apple Titanium Powerbook.” Now, don’t get me wrong I love Apple, the company, the philosophy, the interface and both Steves (The Woz and the other one), but, the moment Dell fessed and Sony started doing their Firestone impression I started wondering why Apple hadn’t taken the lead. Because, as I said before, the moment you put one of these laptops on you lap, it’s no secret that a skin graff might be a good idea.

Great video that takes a look at how we’re destroying the earth. Thanks AdRants for pointing it out.

More great links I’ve recently found from more great blogs: Long-time BMA-pal Jordan has been named one of the Top 20 Canadian Word-of-Mouth bloggers. Congrats to him, and the full list is at Buzz-Canuck. Ann at Daily Fix gives us some great background info on Eric Kintz. Eric is the VP of Global Marketing Strategy and Excellence for Hewlitt-Packard. Eric was also named on of the Top CMO Bloggers. Spike gives another fascinating update on the Fiskateers movement. Again, this type of ‘community-empowerment’ marketing is the future, today. Horn-tootin’ alert: Marc Fisher was kind enough to mention my ‘100 CDs For 100 Bloggers‘ idea in an article he wrote yesterday for The Washington Post. Mike’s back! One of our first commenters here was Mike Bawden, who runs the excellent Much Ado About Marketing. The blog was unfortunately down for several months, but Mike’s back in the saddle now like he never left, so stop back by! CK gives an opening night review of Snakes on a Plane. Sounds like she had as much fun as everyone else did on opening night. Agency.com drops their name from consideration for the Subway account, and now everyone is talking. Peter Kim comments on how we lost a planet, but gained a 5th P. My Web 2.0 Experience is a great blog where Chris jumps headfirst into anything and everything ‘Web 2.0′, and takes us along for the ride. Church of the Customer’s Podcast. EXCELLENT quality, and incredibly entertaining, the first one on ‘Marketing Without Fingerprints’ is probably the best podcast I’ve ever heard.

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 18: 1 - AdRants - 10,160 (LW - 1)(+35) 2 - Werbeblogger - 24,832 (LW - 2)(-176) 3 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 26,485 (LW - 3)(+247) 4 - Media Buyer/Planner - 27,282 (LW - 4)(+5) 5 - Adverblog - 31,096 (LW - 5)(+84) 6 - AdFreak - 37,428 (LW - 6)(-55) 7 - Adland - 37,620 (LW - 7)(-512) 8 - AdJab - 44,613 (LW - 8)(-983) 9 - AdverBox - 62,704 (LW - 9)(+1,713) 10 - AdPulp - 101,404 (LW - 10)(-587) 11 - Jaffe Juice - 107,929 (LW - 11)(-374) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 130,205 (LW - 12)(-4,321) 13 - Advertising for Peanuts - 149,726 (LW - 13)(+588) 14 - Logic + Emotion - 162,230 (LW - 14)(+1,310) 15 - TWENTY FOUR - 163,183 (LW - 15)(-4,265) 16 - AdverGirl - 166,221 (LW- 16)(+131) 17 - Russell Davies - 178,646 (LW - 17)(-2,788) 18 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 179,012 (LW - 18)(-3,912) 19 - Ad Blather - 195,434 (LW - 19)(-4,036) 20 - Room 116 - 238,680 (LW - 20)(+11,086) 21 - Experience Curve - 257,402 (LW - 21)(+11,529) 22 - CMM News - 296,909 (LW - 22)(+413) 23 - Designers Who Blog - 305,671 (LW - 23)(-2,216) 24 - Ad Hunt - 306,315 (LW - 24)(-1,051) 25 - American Copywriter - 351,541 (LW - 25)(+7,298) Yep, Alexa didn’t update last week either. I would like to say that they should by next week, but I have no idea, as we are in uncharted waters as far as Alexa-constipation is concerned. Next update(hopefully) will be next Monday. And if you want me to check out your advertising/marketing blog, feel free to email me a link and I’ll give it a look.

DesignInteract has a link to a great online game called Superpitch. Superpitch was created by plucky Chicago agency Hadrian’s Wall on behalf of their client Magnecote. This game puts you in charge of creating a presentation for one of three fictional clients. Basically, you choose your team members, create your presentation (i’m sure including magnecote gives you lots of bonus points) and then present to one of three clients. There is alot of great inside jokes, poking fun at both advertising agencies and clients. I’ve only played it once, and I got rejected by the box factory. But then again, I didn’t use Magnecote in my presentation. That’s always a sure way to fail. Right, Magnecote?

OR

How Cingular Wireless managed to throw away two perfectly good customers.

 "Customer Service" has been in its death throes for a while. I know that, but for some reason it still ticks me off. Last weekend really took the cake for me. I’m completely sick of big companies offering horrid customer service. I’ve been a customer of AT&T Wireless (which has subsequently been bought by Cingular) for four years. At the end of my first two year contract, AT&T called me and said "your contract is almost up, what can we offer you to keep your business?" Needless to say, I was impressed. And I walked away with a killer phone plan and a new two-year contract. Fast forward two years. My contract is almost up and Cingular is now running the show. No phone call from Cingular. So I call them. All I want to do is upgrade my phone for free. No plan change, no rate change, and I’m happy to sign on for another two years. I call and ask the customer service peon what he can do for me for a phone upgrade, and the conversation went something like this:

HIM: "you can have plan A or plan B from our normal list of plans"
ME: "but I don’t want to change my plan, I just want a new phone"
HIM: "sorry, we don’t offer any phones that work on your system, we’re phasing out the AT&T system. You should already be noticing degraded service and less calling area."
ME: "ok, so upgrade me to a phone on the new system and leave the rest of my plan the same"
HIM: "I can’t do that, I can only offer you plan A or plan B"
ME: "let me speak to your manager please"
HIM: "it won’t do you any good, we’ve had people go to the president of the company and he doesn’t care"
ME: "let me get this straight, the president of Cingular doesn’t care if he loses a four-year customer, and he expects me to pay MORE for less service (lower plan) than I’m already getting?"
HIM: "yes sir"
ME: "you realize, if I hang up I’m walking straight into a Verizon store to sign a new plan along with another Cingular customer (my mother)"
HIM: "Yes, enjoy your new phone"

So my mother and I walked straight into a Verizon store where the manager sold us a new plan along with two phones and we all walked out happy. The stupid part, however, was that I was happy with Cingular. I’d never had problems with the service. I just wanted to replace my two year old phone. For the cost of two phones (our Verizon phones cost us a whopping $25 each), Cingular could have kept two customers for another two years. So much for "rasing the bar".

A few weeks ago, I posted about the fact that if you leave your MacBook on your lap too long, you will find yourself 4 inches from the sun, with charred shorts, singed thighs, and a markedly broken spirit. Since I brought it up, I felt obligated to bring you this update: The Lapinator. Yup, you heard me. Someone has created a MacBook-oh-please-don’t-grill-my-pants device. Thanks to Uncrate for the trendwatch. Marketing this to Mac-ophiles will be a cinch. 25 bucks and you can have a sweet laptop AND still have children? SOLD.

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 17: 1 - AdRants - 10,160 (LW - 1)(+35) 2 - Werbeblogger - 24,832 (LW - 2)(-176) 3 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 26,485 (LW - 3)(+247) 4 - Media Buyer/Planner - 27,282 (LW - 4)(+5) 5 - Adverblog - 31,096 (LW - 5)(+84) 6 - AdFreak - 37,428 (LW - 6)(-55) 7 - Adland - 37,620 (LW - 7)(-512) 8 - AdJab - 44,613 (LW - 8)(-983) 9 - AdverBox - 62,704 (LW - 9)(+1,713) 10 - AdPulp - 101,404 (LW - 10)(-587) 11 - Jaffe Juice - 107,929 (LW - 11)(-374) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 130,205 (LW - 12)(-4,321) 13 - Advertising for Peanuts - 149,726 (LW - 13)(+588) 14 - Logic + Emotion - 162,230 (LW - 14)(+1,310) 15 - TWENTY FOUR - 163,183 (LW - 15)(-4,265) 16 - AdverGirl - 166,221 (LW- 16)(+131) 17 - Russell Davies - 178,646 (LW - 17)(-2,788) 18 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 179,012 (LW - 18)(-3,912) 19 - Ad Blather - 195,434 (LW - 19)(-4,036) 20 - Room 116 - 238,680 (LW - 20)(+11,086) 21 - Experience Curve - 257,402 (LW - 21)(+11,529) 22 - CMM News - 296,909 (LW - 22)(+413) 23 - Designers Who Blog - 305,671 (LW - 23)(-2,216) 24 - Ad Hunt - 306,315 (LW - 24)(-1,051) 25 - American Copywriter - 351,541 (LW - 25)(+7,298) Yep, Alexa didn’t update last week either. I would like to say that they should by next week, but I have no idea, as we are in uncharted waters as far as Alexa-constipation is concerned. Next update(hopefully) will be next Monday. And if you want me to check out your advertising/marketing blog, feel free to email me a link and I’ll give it a look.

Take a Stand for your Brand, a new book by management consultant Tim Williams, is a fantastic self-help manual for an industry hanging onto relevancy by a few Armani-stitched threads.

Advertising agencies continually exhort their clients to stick by their brand and stand for something unique. But if you examine even a small portion of the thousands of marketing and advertising agencies out there, they’re all saying the same things and claim their services are good for everyone.

While many hope to solve this problem by trying to act like they’re more hip, knowledgeable, and/or obsequious than the next guy, Tim Williams says we all need to take a step back and find what the core of our agency is really about.

He takes us step-by-step through the process of defining an agencies’ position, and then provides several tools for changing an agency’s culture and processes from the inside out.

Though a few of his nuggets of wisdom were simply too much for my young copywriter brain to handle, I really enjoyed and learned alot from this book.

What I liked best was Mr. Williams’ argument that an agency’s core principles and reputation are more important than anything else. And how he is able to explain so simply how to rebrand an agency from the ground up.

Mr. Williams also shows how an agency’s brand should determine what clients to go after, what specialties to pursue, what employees to hire, even how to redesign an agency’s working space.

And throughout, his friendly, engaging and quotable writing style gives the advertising industry the swift kick in the butt we all sorely need.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to YesButNoButYes’s Jellio for a seriously spot-on post highlighting the Ten Creepiest Icons in Advertising History. Along with a shout-out to the rabidly buzzed about Head-On commercial [as an aside, I like to play out this commercial at work using a tube of chapstick as a prop], Jellio’s crowning of Cookie Puss as the ultimate in ad-creepos was surprising, yet insightful. Sure, Crispin’s eeky-freaky BK King is the obvious frontrunner, but Cookie Puss’s eerie falsetto is nothing if not completely horrific. I may add the Honey Smacks’ Dig ‘Em Froggie to the mix, but mostly because my parents irrevocably frightened me with the horrors of sweetened cereals.

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 16: 1 - AdRants - 10,160 (LW - 1)(+35) 2 - Werbeblogger - 24,832 (LW - 2)(-176) 3 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 26,485 (LW - 3)(+247) 4 - Media Buyer/Planner - 27,282 (LW - 4)(+5) 5 - Adverblog - 31,096 (LW - 5)(+84) 6 - AdFreak - 37,428 (LW - 6)(-55) 7 - Adland - 37,620 (LW - 7)(-512) 8 - AdJab - 44,613 (LW - 8)(-983) 9 - AdverBox - 62,704 (LW - 9)(+1,713) 10 - AdPulp - 101,404 (LW - 10)(-587) 11 - Jaffe Juice - 107,929 (LW - 11)(-374) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 130,205 (LW - 12)(-4,321) 13 - Advertising for Peanuts - 149,726 (LW - 13)(+588) 14 - Logic + Emotion - 162,230 (LW - 14)(+1,310) 15 - TWENTY FOUR - 163,183 (LW - 15)(-4,265) 16 - AdverGirl - 166,221 (LW- 16)(+131) 17 - Russell Davies - 178,646 (LW - 17)(-2,788) 18 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 179,012 (LW - 18)(-3,912) 19 - Ad Blather - 195,434 (LW - 19)(-4,036) 20 - Room 116 - 238,680 (LW - 20)(+11,086) 21 - Experience Curve - 257,402 (LW - 21)(+11,529) 22 - CMM News - 296,909 (LW - 22)(+413) 23 - Designers Who Blog - 305,671 (LW - 23)(-2,216) 24 - Ad Hunt - 306,315 (LW - 24)(-1,051) 25 - American Copywriter - 351,541 (LW - 25)(+7,298) I know I know, this week’s Top 25 looks awfully familiar. Unfortunately, Alexa hasn’t updated their 3-month averages in almost 2 weeks, so that means we’re stuck with the same Top 25 we had last week. I don’t like it much myself, and the same Alexa-constipation affected this week’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs as well. Only other time this has happened was I believe the second week I did the list. Hopefully we should have an actual update next time. Next update will be next Monday. And if you want me to check out your advertising/marketing blog, feel free to email me a link and I’ll give it a look.

Some of you may remember my mention of Coke’s new spot Happiness Factory a while back. Yes, I really like this spot. After a bit of research last time, I found that it was a product of W+K Amsterdam, so I figured we’d never see it “for real” here in the states. Imagine my surprise when it was played before a screening of Pirates that I attended this weekend. I was psyched. The audience immediately quieted down and payed attention, laughing the whole way through. And seeing it on the big screen was an added bonus (A+ for that media buyer). Between the Coke spot and the Yaris vs. Yaris spot (almost short film) that featured two of these mini-monsters spitting at one another before speeding off in a chase scene that would have made both James Bond and the Super Mario Bros. proud, I was thoroughly entertained before the movie. Finally, the US gets to see some of the great ads that are coming out of Europe. Of course, I’m still waiting for Honda to bring over Impossible Dream or Choir, but Coke’s Happiness Factory is a good start.

David Sifry has FINALLY come out with his latest ‘State of the Blogosphere’ update. Here’s the quick highlights:

* Technorati is now tracking over 50 Million Blogs. * The Blogosphere is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago. * Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size every 200 days, or about once every 6 and a half months. * From January 2004 until July 2006, the number of blogs that Technorati tracks has continued to double every 5-7 months. * About 175,000 new weblogs were created each day, which means that on average, there are more than 2 blogs created each second of each day. * About 8% of new blogs get past Technorati’s filters, even if it is only for a few hours or days. * About 70% of the pings Technorati receives are from known spam sources, but we drop them before we have to send out a spider to go and index the splog. * Total posting volume of the blogosphere continues to rise, showing about 1.6 Million postings per day, or about 18.6 posts per second. * This is about double the volume of about a year ago. * The most prevalent times for English-language posting is between the hours of 10AM and 2PM Pacific time, with an additional spike at around 5PM Pacific time

My key takeaways: Most posting for English-language blogs happens from 12pm-4pm CST. I would have thought it would be from 8am-12pm or so. Blogs are being created at a much faster rate than just a year ago. If I recall, there were about 75,000 new blogs a day when I started posting on BMA last fall. Since the blogosphere continuing to double in size is the ‘money’ stat, the exponential growth in daily blog creation tends to get lost in the shuffle. If the blogosphere continues this pace, there will be 100 million blogs by next February. Wow. Click the link above to get the full report, as always, it’s great reading.

Making a corporate blog compelling and resonant without being pushy and creepy is nothing if not very, very, very difficult. I say this because I write one… and find it, yes, “very, very, very difficult.” Treating it loosely and without concerted intent would obviously be the desired model; but, at its core, a corporate blog is still mediated collateral, inherently slanted, if only by pure product design and company mission. Even if it’s not marketing, per se, it’s, well… “but-it’s-not-meant-to-be-marketing-marketing.” Sigh. A few companies have really hit the mark lately, notably Miller’s BrewBlog and Stormhoek’s “Freshness Matters” Blog (filled with brilliant handiwork by gapingvoid’s Hugh Macleod). I bring this subject up because I noticed today that Yahoo! has launched its own corporate blog, nicely named Yodel Anecdotal (Word up, Yahooligans, I dig that). Only a few posts old, I’m fancying it thus far. With a debut post entitled “Yet another self-serving corporate blog!,” it’s self-aware enough to be welcoming, and comprehensive enough to be a potential daily read. **Flickr nod to SteveFE. I assume that goat is yodeling? Yes?

Interesting article here about a study on how emotions affect our decisionmaking more than logic. If you’ll allow me to rant a bit, I personally think one of the greatest flaws in modern society is that we actually believe our decisions are rational, or that a rational decision is better than an emotional one. In my opinion, our everyday thoughts and decisions are a seething mass of emotion and irrationality, only rarely interrupted by a logical thought. Yet society, especially in the business and scientific world, is absolutely enthralled with this tiny percentage of “rational” thinking and denies the impact of emotions. And of course, this is played out everyday in the advertising industry, as ad strategies and concepts are researched, analyzed, and focus grouped just enough to wring out any emotional appeal they may have once had. Then they’re shot out into an increasingly uncaring public who would much rather be having their emotions toyed with by entertainment programming than look at some crappy ad. Another human trait that’s ignored by many marketing types is our willingness to rationalize an emotional decision. If a brand appeals to us strongly enough, we’ll tell ourselves it’s a “smart buy” no matter what. By the way, there’s nothing wrong with rational appeals in an ad. In fact, most great advertising is a combination of both. But usually, the emotional appeal is what draws us in and makes us remember. But as we are all too keenly aware, billions of ad dollars are thrown away on boring, watered-down, “rational” advertising so that a few people on the client and agency side can tell themselves they’re making a “rational” decision. So yeah, I guess that was quite a rant. I’m feeling really emotional today.

Another cool site to kill some time with. Check it out here.