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Stephen Foster
Stephen is a former editor of Marketing Week and London Evening Standard advertising columnist. He wrote City Republic for Brand Republic and is a partner in communications consultancy The Editorial Partnership.
By Stephen Foster on February 6, 2012
Ouch! No wonder Ford’s lawyers spent the weekend on the phone to General Motors and, no doubt, broadcaster NBC about this Super Bowl spot, ‘Apocalypse,’ for Chevy’s Silverado truck – its point being that Ford trucks break down whereas Silverados don’t. There’s barely been a dull moment since Joel Ewanick took over as marketing chief [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged apocalypse, chevy silverado, ford trucks, general motors, gm, Joel Ewanick, Jose Mourinho, knocking copy, lawyers, nbc, real madrid, special one, super bowl, Youtube
By Stephen Foster on February 6, 2012
How do you top last year’s Eminem Super Bowl epic for Chrysler? Sign up American icon Clint Eastwood to tell 100m or so viewers in the US and countless more around the world that it’s only “half time in America” and the old country, led by Detroit, is coming out fighting in the second. The [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News, Politics | Tagged chrysler, Clint Eastwood, Eminem, Hal Riney, half time in america, imported from detroit, morning in america, Ronald Reagan, super bowl ad, wieden+kennedy portland
By Stephen Foster on February 3, 2012
Global marketing giant Unilever, which is currently reviewing its $6bn global media roster, claims that it’s succeeding in its aim of driving down ‘non-productive’ ad agency and production costs. It spent $8.2bn on marketing last year, a two per cent increase on the big hike seen a year before. But the company’s chief financial officer [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Media, News | Tagged agency fees, commodity prices, cost-cutting, Jean-Marc Huet, Keith Weed, low growth, procter & gamble, production companies, Reckitt-Benckiser, unilever
By Stephen Foster on February 3, 2012
Film director David Lynch’s last effort for his eponymous coffee enlisted the aid of valuable Mattel property Barbie and the ad was promptly pulled. For his next effort Twin Peaks director Dave has eschewed such controversy but still produced a characteristically moody (and better) spot. Pity his budget doesn’t run to the $3.5m required for [...]
Posted in Clients, Creative, News | Tagged barbie, David Lynch, david lynch coffee, mattel, super bowl
By Stephen Foster on February 2, 2012
Is there any point in an industrial business-to-business giant advertising in the Super Bowl? Well GE and agency BBDO think there is and this ad to be aired on Sunday is clearly banking on a fair number of the game’s huge audience swigging Budweiser as they do so. ‘The power that makes the beer’ is [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged bbdo, beer, Budweiser, GE, power that makes the beer, schenectady, super bowl, Thomas Edison, turbines
By Stephen Foster on February 2, 2012
The numbers for Facebook’s forthcoming IPO (share offer) are truly staggering: the offer of a tiny tranche of stock could raise $10bn, the company might be valued at around $100bn and founder Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) will be worth around $27bn, making him one of the richest people in the world. And the company only started [...]
Posted in Clients, Finance, Media, News | Tagged advertising, AOL, apple, entertainment brands, facebook ipo, games developers, google, Mark Zuckerberg, payment revenue, valuation, yahoo
By Stephen Foster on February 1, 2012
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has banned a McCann Erickson ad for L’Oreal’s Revitalift Repair anti-ageing cream as the picture of L’Oreal ‘brand ambassador’ and Oscar-winning actress Rachel Weisz was ‘digitally enhanced.’ Actually it’s had more retouching than the average collapsing Old Master painting (montage of the real Rachel and L’Oreal’s version from The Telegraph). [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Media, News | Tagged ad ban, advertising standards authority, asa, Daniel Craig, football association, james bond star, L'Oreal, mccann-erickson, Rachel weisz, revitalift repair anti-ageing cream
By Stephen Foster on February 1, 2012
UK TV viewers have been known to assault their TV remotes as they, in turn, have been assaulted by noisy and banal price comparison website ads. DDD Chicago shows how it should be done here, with a well-crafted ad that sums up beautifully the left brain/right brain battle people are faced with when contemplating some [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged arcade, biscuit filmworks, cars.com, ddb chicago, Geoff Hounsell, Matt Collier, price comparison websites, super bowl, Tim Godsall, Wayne Robinson
By Stephen Foster on February 1, 2012
Lord Bell (Tim Bell as was) and Piers Pottinger are reported to be organising a management buy-out of Bell Pottinger, the PR company they founded in 1989 when Bell left ad agency Lowe Howard-Spink (& Bell). Bell Pottinger, currently owned by Chime Communications, the marcoms company Bell heads, is one of the UK’s biggest PR [...]
Posted in Agencies, Finance, News, PR | Tagged Bell Pottinger, Burson-Marsteller, chime, fast track vccp, Hill & Knowlton, Lord Bell, lowe howard-spink & bell, management buyout, Piers Pottinger, PR, Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP
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