PR message not received

The recent 3-hour closure of Starbucks stores around the country was intended to show consumers that the chain was dedicated to improving the quality of their beverages. As a PR effort, one would think it was highly successful, since news and media picked up the story and made sure that everyone knew they wouldn’t be [...]

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The meaning of meaning nothing

In a great article on AIGA recently, Grant McCracken discusses the beauty of the un-designed, the things that just happen that spark a positive reaction. Specifically, he discusses sounds, like the one made by a plastic coke bottle as it works its way through the mysterious tunnels and slides to land – thunk – into the [...]

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A really, really bad idea

Ok. So you want to build a new brand, specifically one that competes with a global powerhouse. In a brainstorming session, some genius suggests giving away money. Who doesn’t want money? That would make people love us! So you pick a huge, overcrowded city and hide your signature vegetable in a public area, then release [...]

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The word game

Ever work for a company whose main goal, it seems, is to sell itself on a pile of words that actually don’t mean anything at all? Communications, digital, solutions, marketing, strategies… seriously. What company is going to tell its customers that they do NOT offer solutions? Instead these words are tossed around interchangeably in a [...]

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Why is mean funny?

In a deliciously nasty opinion column on AdAge, Richard Rapaport skewers the recent tendency for advertising to be… well, nasty. Using several examples of ads that use sophomoric witticisms or put-downs in an attempt to make their product seem cool, he postulates that this cutting humor is either a reflection of the downturn of the economy [...]

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