October 09, 2000
Burgermeisters boast Jack, mints From the "My premium can kick your premium's butt" department: Jack in the Box has debuted its fifth line of "Wide World of Jack" collectible action figures, inspired by the clown-head CEO who stars in the fast-feeder's advertising via Kowloon Wholesale Seafood, Santa Monica, Calif. The six new figurines are Astrona...
October 02, 2000
Easy riders -- until rain came In 1967, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson rode with the Hell's Angels and wrote a book about it. In 2000, Ad Age Reporter Richard Linnett rode with the Capitalist Tools and writes for Adages: BMW graciously loaned me a brand new R1200, its version of the Harley-Davidson, aka hog. Our gang included Laurence Kuykenda...
September 25, 2000
Speed Stick ad is armed & odorous To prove deodorant advertising doesn't have to be the pits, Y&R Advertising, New York, created a scratch & sniff ad with scent strip for Colgate-Palmolive Co.'s Lady Speed Stick. The ad breaks in October magazines. In case you wonder what a Speed Stick lady's underarm smells like, the new fragrances are Orchard Bl...
September 18, 2000
Paper goes `Extra' mile for Olympics Chew on this for Olympic coverage. The San Diego Union-Tribune is coming out with its first-ever "Olympics Lunchtime Extra" during the run of the Sydney Games. Out-of-home and local magazine ads supporting the "Extra" edition broke late last week, timed to the kickoff of the Olympics. The advertising from Matthe...
September 11, 2000
P&G takes stock in new investors Here's a performance measure you don't often find in an annual report: Accentuating the positive in his letter to shareholders, Procter & Gamble President-CEO A.G. Lafley boasts of 200,000 new P&G shareholders in the past year. They bought all those shares unloaded by institutions when P&G's stock plunged 50% betwee...
September 04, 2000
Who's that in the fancy pants? Who really wears the pants over at Cliff Freeman & Partners? Recently, Mr. Freeman showed up in the office wearing a pair of trousers that put all doubts to rest. Cliff is the real thing. Mr. Freeman was sporting a pair of Coca-Cola pants, circa 1970, given to him as a gift by the daughter of Pete Regan, his exec VP-...
August 28, 2000
Toyota wants to keep him on team San Francisco 49ers star quarterback Steve Young may have retired from football, but he's still in the game. SF ad shop Hoffman/Lewis says it's in the process of trying to sign Young to continue as star of its Northern California Toyota commercials despite significant changes in the Young brand. Steve's no longer th...
August 21, 2000
Eviscerated over e-mail The danger of fingers that move faster than your brain is now painfully clear to a Coca-Cola account director in the Singapore office of Leo Burnett Co. The adperson wrote to his Burnett colleagues in an e-mail that "the clients [i.e. Coke] are already difficult enough and at least the compensation [of TV bonus spots] will ...
August 14, 2000
New `Mad'-ness in race for prez Just what we need -- another presidential candidate with a goofy smile. While the GOP was whooping it up in Philly, another contender was throwing his hat into the ring in Sonoma. Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman launched his campaign at a National Hot Rod Association race Aug. 4. Alfred's running (or driving) mate: D...
August 07, 2000
Write stuff: Chapter 1 Is Ted Sann becoming another Gertrude Stein? The chief creative officer of BBDO Worldwide's New York office -- who's a graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop -- appears to be presiding over a salon of successful authors. Peter Smith, 35, an assoc. creative director who toils by day on ads for Visa, Schwab and Fri...
July 31, 2000
`Jane' buffs up for August issue Fairchild Publications' August issue of Jane both mocks and appropriates swimsuit issue convention, splashing "Take back the swimsuit issue" on its spine and reveling in a 12-page section, plus centerfold, featuring scantily clad guys. Four different covers feature bare-chested shots of wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Jo...
July 24, 2000
New packaging flours at Gen. Mills It's a sad day for die-hard fans of the powdery poof. The flour explosion that usually erupts from the traditional paper packaging for the baking essential will soon be history, at least for General Mills' Gold Medal brand. This fall, General Mills will introduce a resealable plastic bag for Gold Medal in the firs...
July 17, 2000
It must have been a rerun Readers of The Times of London must have been a bit disillusioned when they tuned in "The E-Millionaire Show" last week (see related story on Page 3). The newspaper's TV listings promised what would have been an otherworldly appearance by "advertising guru J. Walter Thompson" (who died in 1928), as part of the show's cele...
July 10, 2000
`Jump'-starting award efforts Want an ad medium with great mileage at award shows? Take the bus. At the recent annual meeting of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, speaker Brian O'Neill--the O in San Fran agency GMO/Hill, Holliday--shared 50 of his favorite outdoor ads. One was for the jobs section of British newspaper The Guardian; th...
July 03, 2000
Serving burgers with Krystal McKinney & Silver, Raleigh, N.C., really did its homework to bag its first fast-feeder, southeastern burger chain Krystal Co. "Once we got the strategy down, our creative team blew out every idea through that dimension of their business, from business building to internal communication," says Prez-CEO Don Maurer. To mak...
June 26, 2000
NYPD quashes Conspiracy What started as a bit of guerrilla marketing ended up as a suspected hate crime for NY production company Conspiracy. Trying to get the attention of big ad agencies, Conspiracy staffers were spray-painting various messages on street corners near the shops' offices. When a bystander offered to help, and began painting "Media ...
June 19, 2000
Bless is more for ugo.com Entertainment site UnderGroundOnline (ugo.com) is hitting the road, with the blessing of a Buddhist monk. Sifu Shi Yan-Ming, Shaolin monk and well-known kung fu master, blessed one of two Tech Trucks that UGO now has traveling the Left and Right Coasts on a four-month "Road Rave Tour." That might seem rather metaphysical f...
June 12, 2000
X-panding to 3 `Premiere' covers Premiere's X-ellent adventure for this summer comes with its July issue, featuring three "collector's edition covers" tied to 20th Century Fox's "X-Men" flick. Hachette Filipacchi's movie mag created its first split-run cover last summer for "The Phantom Menace," but according to Editor in Chief Jim Meigs, "We're no...
June 05, 2000
Some flakes at JWT/Detroit J. Walter Thompson USA's 13th floor in Detroit, occupied by the creative staff, was a winter wonderland for the recent meet-and-greet with prospective new client Ski-Doo, which the office is pitching with affiliate Groupaction, Montreal. Six inches of snow blanketed the floors and desks, though it's unknown how well a Sk...
May 29, 2000
Debonair debs fete shop's 50th The board of Kerker Marketing Communications doesn't don dresses every day -- just about every 50 years. The independent Minneapolis agency celebrates its coming of age -- specifically, age 50 -- June 8 with a "Kerker cotillion." The invitation features the board members, garbed in gowns, with the lines "You are cordi...
