Corporate giant kicks ass Any good salesman knows that the trick to securing a purchase is the small talk. I've been out on the road with reps in my time and it's the idle chit-chat with the customer that often makes all the difference. When the sales pitch isn't...
Look who's stalking: cheeky Jaguar campaign uses anonymous letters According to the BBC last month, luxury car manufacturer Jaguar issued an apology for a direct mail campaign that provoked 37 complaints to the British Advertising Standards Authority. Anonymous...
Super Thursday looms. But how super are the ads? Although London's forthcoming Mayoral election is no doubt a pushover for Ken Livingstone in political terms, the competition's a little more intense when it comes to presentation. I recently received a booklet from the...
The Mystery of Carlos Soto: how the Dutch put Dalarö on the map At first it seemed like just another ordinary day on a small Scandinavian island. But something very strange was afoot. According to witnesses, no fewer than 32 residents of an otherwise normal Swedish...
Next time you visit the seaside, make it Koksijde One of the hardest parts of writing a blog about advertising creativity is the fact that you have to take the rough with the smooth. Or, to put it another way, you can't always define creative excellence unless you're...
Time travel and TV sponsorship A number of news sources reported this week the decision of the Omnicom Group to employ Robert Riesenberg as Chief Executive of 'Branded Entertainment'. In a nutshell, this business is all about media organisations and clients working...
Lone Ranger leads fight against junk mail Gerry Ranger has stacked up more direct mail than most people. According to the BBC, the pensioner from Gloucestershire, England collected over 700 mailshots in the course of a year in order to demonstrate the amount of...
Here's your change, sir. And a free advertising message... According to Newsstream, a highly innovative guerrilla campaign has been launched to promote the new American mini-series Traffic. The show, which is set to reach television screens at the end of January 2004,...
Why Bush is a bad man in 30 seconds or less An American online advocacy group has invited members of the public to create their own home-made, 30-second commercials that put the boot into President George W Bush. The MoveOn.org Voter Fund wants to air anti-Bush...
Tomfoolery in the Netherlands Should we feel sorry for Mr Johan de Boer? According to press reports in December 2003, the Dutch jeweller planned a highly innovative direct mail campaign, only to find that it had rather spectacularly backfired. The story goes something...