Beyond Petroleum?

What happens when a petroleum company claims to be green, but really isn’t? Putting solar panels on a few concept stations doesn’t offset the environmental disaster in the Gulf. Of course for British Petroleum it is much more than an environmental disaster, this is a publicity disaster of the highest magnitude, and likely a big [...]

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US Airways, can you feel the heat?

I just noticed that my post on US Airways and the beyond-horrendous experience I had with them has attracted 2,559 visitors since it was launched one year ago today. I like to think that my blog post might have had something to do with the failure of the attempted merger between US Airways and United. [...]

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Wow, Adbase is still a hot topic

I wrote this post on Adbase, a service that blasts emails to agencies on behalf of photographers, back in February 2009. And it has engendered more comments (22) than any other post to our blog. I just got another one today. Here it is, along with my reply: Kimbrely Hi Doug, I came across your [...]

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Not to be outdone by Dentyne, GlaxoSmithKline launches “public service” advertising on Oscar night

GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical giant, recently launched a campaign against cervical cancer. They built a web site, helppreventcervicalcancer.com, to support this effort. It imparts facts and dispels myths about HPV and encourages concerned women to ask their doctor about vaccines to prevent cervical cancer. The glaring omission is that the site (not to mention the Oscar ad) make [...]

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That sucked, Dentyne!

How many of you were watching the Oscars when they announced they were going to talk about the absolute necessary items which any woman needed that night, and the challenge of getting them into one of those little purses? And how many of you watched with a weird curiosity, with a hope of getting some [...]

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Smile! (Go die.)

I remember one of the lasts straws working in retail. I was selling men’s ties, shirts, and suits at Nordstrom and I was heading back onto the floor when a manager walked past me and said with total seriousness and not a mote of irony, “Smile!” Snap. I could smell the marrow oozing out of [...]

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Stupid words

We’re having a most interesting challenge. We’re struggling with a term for our agency. As written here earlier, we’re not exactly a design firm (despite our past), or an interactive firm (despite our capabilities), or an advertising agency (despite all our experience), or a branding firm (despite our name).

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The US Airways Experience

Imagine arriving at a check-in counter at Kennedy International Airport after an hour and a half taxi ride in rush-hour traffic for a flight that leaves in half an hour, which you know you can catch, and being told that you are five minutes late checking in and therefore will not be allowed on the [...]

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How evil is Adbase?

Um, well, let’s see. Somewhere between local car dealer advertising and Satan. Why? Because they have made me hate photographers. And I love photographers. If you haven’t felt their talons sinking into your tender parts yet, Adbase is

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