In days gone by, if you were an American celebrity and you were looking for a little extra scratch – and we’re talking about a currently popular and active celebrity – you wouldn’t even think about doing TV commercials in the U.S. Chances are, you’d hedge by doing TV spots in other countries, not unlike Bill Murray’s character in Lost in Translation.
Well, those days of fear of tarnishing your brand have disappeared. Now we’ve got Ashton Kutcher selling cameras, Lance Armstrong shilling for Radio Shack, and Jennifer Hudson hawking weight loss products. No fear.
Now, it’s okay. But so what. Continue reading
Over the past few years, it’s been a sort of battle cry for folks who are trying to divine where marketing and advertising are headed. The meaning behind the battle cry? That marketers must accept that, in an age of heightened interactivity, consumers are the 
I just sat down in this cozy little independent coffee shop in my current city of residence (San Francisco) to write a little bit about Starbucks…and maybe a little about local versus corporate economies as well. I’ve actually been meaning to turn my attention to these guys for a while, ever since I noticed their new “fair trade” iconography gracing the bus stops of my fair city some months ago. You may have seen this, it’s large-scale representations of a very organic, very hand-knit looking light brown sack, which is, of course, how all fair trade coffee gets transported to our caffeine-starved shores. Tongue out of cheek, though, seriously, I like the campaign and the way Starbucks seems to be constantly evolving their brand.