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Advertising blog that covers the industry including guru tips and insight, news and information on advertising jobs.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'television'
Stop the Assault on Women
This week, Fox Sports and Burger King drew ire for an offensive animated segment poking fun at Jessica Simpson’s weight. The segment, aside from being in bad taste, was beyond insulting to women of all ages. Both Fox and Burger King have issue...
Boobs in the Media: Walking a Fine Line
Life just keeps getting weirder and weirder. One day, boobs are good; the next, they’re banned in Britain on billboards for their portrayal of headlamps. Britain is the last place you would think the girls would be put away. Britain is (in)fam...
Driving the World: Michelin’s First Global Ad Campaign
Michelin launched its first global advertising campaign last week to shine its headlights on Michelin’s USP, high beams illuminating the many benefits derived from its distinguishing characteristics. Its theme, “The right tire changes everything...
The Future of Entertainment and Advertising
I just finished watching a Twitter reality-show pitch, and I have to say, I’m interested. The reality show, @whoisthebaldguy, has viewers following him on Twitter and making suggestions on what he should do next. It’s a great concept and ...
Jobs and Accountability for All. Except HR?
I have been applying to various agencies, consulting firms, digital design houses, and the like, and one of the so-called Human Resources’ policies has moved on my “corporate irritation scale” from irk’d off to pissed off. F...
Are Advertisements to Blame for the Demise of the Evening News?
As the death knell sounds for the evening news, there may be a few culprits to blame who have gone unmentioned. One of them is advertising. This is not because ad rates have dropped for evening news shows or because demographics have skewed to older ...
Crème de la Crap: The Tracy Awards for Worst Advertising
Just how many advertising messages are we exposed to on a daily basis? In Data Smog, author David Skenk writes that the average American’s exposure to advertising has grown from “560 daily advertising messages in 1971. By 1997, that numbe...
Advertising and Football: A Perfect Match
Football is here, the glorious season of games, players, stadiums, grill-outs, and beer. What many people don’t realize is that it’s also the beginning of the newest advertising campaigns. Yes, we all know that the Superbowl is a haven for new, w...
Got a Minute? Watch a Movie!
Imagine telling an extremely intricate story in a few minutes, something like War and Peace (560,000 words, or approximately 1,400 pages in paperback). Better yet, condense the events of your Labor Day weekend into three tweets on Twitter (420 charac...
Is Advertising Anti-Culture?
At a recent speaking engagement, David Simon, the creator of HBO’s “The Wire,” opined that advertising single-handedly wrecked the quality of television. The need to sell products put the onus on show creators to get more people wa...
Infomercials: What They Can Teach Us
I know there are not many people who would say they like watching infomercials, but we can learn plenty from them. Think about it: every time you hit a channel showing an infomercial, you stop, even for just a second, to watch. No matter what the pro...
Mike’s Hard Lemonade Marketing to Wrong Audience
Mike’s Hard Lemonade has recently come out with a series of commercials that is targeting the wrong demographic. Many of its commercials feature men ages 25 to 30 who are manly bachelors trying to decipher how to advertise the drink (my persona...
Vegemite: Kraft’s Relaunch Leads to Top Global Brand Affinity
Sometimes the past is filled with wonderful memories of friends, music, good times and lots of laughter. Or, the past should remain exactly where it is, especially when remembering you sense of fashion, your bodily piercings, and that mullet with the...
Jon and Kate Plus 8,000: The Big Ad Gig
It was bound to happen. The advertising business is about to get its own reality show. The Big Ad Gig is a competition where aspiring ad creatives are invited to enter video submissions and creative books for a chance to win one of four paid freela...
Observe and Assort
Fox Television has taken viral marketing to a new level. Everyone should take notice. Spawning from the new hit series Fringe, Fox has launched an ad campaign unlike any seen before. Rather than relying on the staple marketing ploys of late nig...
Sharpie Confessions: A Life-Long Obsession
Ok, ok. The world now knows about my secret Sharpie obsession, or at least all the customers and employees at my local Staples. There it was, a behemoth of Sharpie infatuation, a display with every color you could imagine – teal, sky blue, navy AND...
Media Consumption Patterns: Reaching Teens
Did you hear the one about the 15-year-old who decided to run his own study on the media consumption patterns of teenagers? It’s quite the research… er… story… lesson. Ben Kellogg of Group SJR forwarded me the article after we...
Losing Money to Keep Relationships
I am going to use an example involving polar bears to start out this conversation on agency/client relationships. It may seem like non-converging subjects, but it will come around. I like polar bears. I don’t want to own one or anything, and I&...
The Best of the Worst
After Cannes and all the recognition many commercials and agencies have received, I feel it’s only fair to nominate five commercials that are on the other side of the spectrum. Usually, I like to write about advertising commercials or campaigns tha...
R.I.P. to the King of Endorsements
Today we say goodbye to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Over the next few months, the general public will dissect all things MJ — what will happen to his three children, and what his musical legacy will become. I’m more interested in i...
Advertising is Irrelevant?
AdWeek and Harris recently released a poll asking those not involved in the advertising trade what they thought of advertising’s “relevancy.” The results show that most find that our jobs, as a whole, are rather irrelevant. Advertis...
Digital Television… Buzz to Bust
Much anticipated, the switch to Digital Television, or DTV, finally took place on June 12, 2009. Despite over 1.5 years of warning, many found themselves with no programmings that fateful day. The original switch date of February 17, 2009 was pushed ...
Teen Does Back Flip in WheelChair: HowStuffWorks.com
How does White Collar crime work? What if the safety harness on the roller coaster broke? What are 10 inventions we use daily that were first used at NASA? How does WiFi operate? Who is Aaron Fotheringham? Aaron Fotheringham is the seventeen year-old...
Large Breasted Women: Sleep Well Tonight
And now, from the lighter side of advertising… Kush Support is a company that manufactures and markets what they call “breast supports.” These are not your surgically prepped and sterile packets of silicone or saline installed at th...
Is the CEO “Fit for TV?”
It’s one of those tough predicaments: your client wants to be the spokesperson for your new TV spots…well, his new spots. He’s the man driving the company-the brand-no matter how much time you’ve put into it. A very charismati...
Building Brand Affinity: Commercials Still Can Work
I know. I know. The NBA finals are over and Kobe is in bed cuddling his trophy but I had to post this funny Nike Basketball commercial that played throughout the finals. When we talk about building true affinity for brands we must emotionally tap in...
Microsoft Spots? So-So. Feeding the Hungry? Bravo!
Microsoft launched two “Hulu-esque” online TV spots this week that star Dean Cain, the actor known as Superman from the TV series “Lois & Clark.” The spots are a bit surreal, much like the Hulu commercials that have were r...
Boone Oakley Advertising: Creativity Isn’t Words. It’s Action.
I’ve written a couple times on Beyond Madison Avenue about the difference between agencies that talked about being creative, or social, or cutting edge, and then comparing them with those that actually were. There are certain errors that will k...
“G” Thing vs. EA Sports: Integrated Branding
I couldn’t help but to express my utter annoyance of brands that put all their hard earned money into sponsorship options without that sponsorship/product placement being truly relavent. Key example: Watching the NBA Finals you have Gatora...
It Ain’t Crosby
Bing was on last night, and no, it’s not Bing Crosby. Microsoft, tired of watching Google cash in on the search engine game, has been testing their super secret search engine for some months now under the ultra-secret name, Kumo. (It is hard to...
