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The
M
arketing Ideas of
Marketing
2005
18
D ECEMBER 19, 2005
www. b ra n dwe e k.com
By the Brandweek staff
O
ur inaugural edition of “The Best & Worst Ma rketing Ideas” reminds us of the old joke about sex and
pizza: When they ’re go od, they’re re a lly good; when they’re bad . . . they ’re still pretty good. Unfo rtunate ly, the lat ter half
of that equ ation does not hold true for marketing. When it’s bad, we ll, it stinks.
Take, for example, the makes-yo u -want-to cringe ad that Boeing and Be ll Helicopter Text ron ran in the Sept. 24 issue of The Nat i o n a l
Journal. “It descends from the heave n s,” the copy boasted about the V-22 Osprey airc ra f t, which is pictu red lowering troops into a
m o sque. “Iro n i ca lly, it unleashes hell.” So indisputably tasteless was this bit of braggadocio that Boeing immed i ate ly renounced its
own message as “of fe n s i ve” and apologized to Islamic re l ations groups in the U.S. for the ad’s conte n t.
Plenty of marketers had something to apologize for in 2005. At the top of the outrage list are Merck (Vioxx) and Wal-Mart (the healthcare memo). Next come assorted questionable tactics and campaign clunkers: Coca-Cola sullied its classic 1971 commercial (“I’d like to teach
the world to sing”) with a dismal rap remake for Coke Zero. Blockbuster tried to pull the wool over customers’ eyes with its “End of Late
Fees” initiative. Nike ripped off a punk band’s album cover for a skateboarding tour poster. Von Dutch gave us—yikes—an energy drink.
There we re lots of bad ideas in 2005, but there were several go od ones, too. Dove and Cu rvation we re pitch perfe ct in their campaigns aimed at “real” women. Mi ller cleve r ly suckered Bud into a sparring match while keeping the beer cate go ry fo c u sed on ta s te.
The NHL made some bold changes and sco red a strong comeba c k. Even the drug industry came up with a winner in Lunesta.
In the last 12 months, marketing took place against a backd rop of events that shook the world, from the tsunami disa s ter to Hurricane
Katrina to fears of avian bird flu and momentous change in Iraq. It’s wo rth reminding ourse lves that, at its best or wo r s t, marketing can
only accomplish so much. To the winners, we say kudos. To the lose r s, hope to see you on the other side of the coin next year!
#1 Best
Use of Shameless
Sex in Advertising
PARIS HILTON/CARL’S JR.
Say what you will about the overexposed hotel
heiress and her frothy, oh-by-the-way-here’s-aburger TV ad for the Carl’s Jr. re s taurant chain:
It denigrates women. It insults our intelligence.
It threatens our children. Fact is, it worked. The
spot, from Mendelsohn/Zien, Los Angeles, garnered more media impressions in May than the
McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” ads generated during
any month in 2005. Critics described Hilton’s
moves in the ad, which included soaping up a
Bentley in a skin-tight swimsuit, as sof t-core
porn. Yet network executives somehow got past
their initial reservations. The ad aired during
sports programs, on Desperate Housewives and
on season finales of The O.C. and The Apprentice.
www.brandwe e k.co m
#2 Worst
#3 Worst
Atte m pt To Rec re a te
a Cl a ssic Moment
Atte m pt To Di cta te
Pro d u ctPlacement
CO CA-COLA “CHILLTOP”
SPOT FOR COKE ZERO
McDONALD’S PAY FOR
PLAY IN RAP MUSIC
Coca-Cola hit all the right notes when it released its
joyous “Hilltop” ad in the U.S. in July 1971. Thanks to
to the spot, created by McCann Erickson, audiences
were convinced Coke indeed wanted to teach the
world to sing. The cherished work was tarnished,
however, when the cola giant launched Coke Zero
Pay-for-play brand mentions in rap song lyrics have
long been the subject of speculation. While it’s
unclear whether any money changed hands on the
using a remake of the classic commercial. The new
ad, from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami, involved
little known artist G. Love rapping on a rooftop in
Philly, with painfully awkward lyrics: “I’d like to teach
the world to chill. Take time to stop and smile. I'd
like to buy the world a Coke and chill with it a while.”
The spot fe ll on deaf ears, particularly with the
drink’s male target
audience as nobody
sang along. It also
failed to co nvey the
new product’s decidedly murky attributes. Does it have
zero calories (ye s ) ?
Zero sugar (yes)? Or, more likely, zero customers?
P-Diddy/ B u s ta Rhymes hit “Pass the Co u rvoisier,”
Run-DMC is said to have received
$1 million for its 1985 song, “My Adidas.” Rapper
Petey Pablo was also upfront about where he was
getting his checks in the song “Freek-A-Look”
(“Now I got to give a shout out to Seagram’s
Gin/Cause I’m drinkin’ it and they payin’ me for it.”)
Yet no marketer ever announced its intention to be
mentioned in a rap song before the fa ct. That is,
until McDonald’s began working with
M aven Strategies, Lanham, Md., in March.
The fast feeder tried to horn in on the creat i ve process and made public that it was
w i lling to compensate any rapper who mentioned McD’s, provided the shout-out was
cleared by McD’s brass. As of press time, no
one had taken the company up on its offer,
though the idea of Ronald joining forces
with the Insane Clown Posse is an intriguing one.
DECEMBER 19, 2005
19
Best & Wo rst
#5 Worst
#4 Best
Pro m otional
Meltd ow n
Timing on a
New Pro d u ctLaunch
SEPRACOR/LUNESTA
THE SNAPPLE POPSICLE INCIDENT
S e p r a cor re c e i ved ample praise for the successful launch of its new sleeping pill Lu n e s ta, as the brand hit the airw aves with dreamy TV spots fe a-
If you’re a beverage maker planning to promote your new fr ozen snack by
unveiling the world’s largest popsicle, you would probably make sure it was
turing an animated moth that soothes insomniacs. Less well examined is
the one element that the co m p a ny didn’t have any control ove r: timing.
Lunesta was stuck in the Food & Drug Administration’s approval process
at the same time as several other drugs, most notably Ambien CR, the
“controlled release” version of Sanofi-Aventis’ cate g o rykiller. But the Feds
said OK to Lu n e s tafirst, and held Ambien CR back for a few months. Also
indeed fr ozen all the way through. Well, Snapple didn’t. Its event planners gave
us one of the bigger oopses of the year on a hot day in late June when the giant
melting popsicle unleashed a river of Kiwi Strawberry gushing down 17th Street
in New York (a city that’s sticky enough in the summer, thank you). On the bright
side, the snafu garnered the brand quite a lot of press at tention, as the fire
department had to be ca lled in to help with the cleanup. Alas, the Guinness Book
sitting on a bureaucrat’s desk in Wa s h i n gton while Lu n e s ta got off the
block: Takeda’s Roze rem and Pfize r’s Indiplon. How much was the delay
worth to Sepraco r? About $100 million, according to its Q3 sales report.
of World Records froze the Cadbury Schwe p p e s-owned brand out of the record
books. The handlers couldn’t fulfill the stunt’s requirement to stand the rapidly melting pop up, not a surprise to anyone on hand.
#6 Best
Pi tch to
‘Real’ Women
* TIE: DOVE CAMPAIGN FOR
REAL BEAUTY & CURVATION
INTIMATE APPAREL
Unilever got so much
at tention for the fuller- f i gured women in its Dove
“Real Beauty” campaign,
e ven Bi ll Maher chimed in.
“What’s all the fuss?” he
said. “They’re all do-able.”
Such is the state of body
image in this country,
where, despite the existence of 60 million
women at or above size 14, a size-10 female
appearing in an ad can be ca lled “fat” without
co n t r ove r sy. As Un i l e ver got people buzzing
over its beauty marke t i n g, VF Co r p. reaped
greater success from its Cu rvation line of intimate apparel. Launched in 2003 and on track
to hit $100 million in sales by ’08, the brand
(ahem) expanded its partnership with Queen
Lat i fah in June. The act ress/rap star has been
appearing in Cu rv ation ads and on product
packaging, creating a positive image in part i cular for women of color. You go, girls!
Hits &
Misses
20
#7 Worst
Pi tch to
‘Real’ Women
JESS I CA SIMPSON JEANS
#8 Worst
Sucker Punch by a
Challenger Brand
MILLER DRAWS BUD INTO
SPARRING MATC H
H e re’s a guaranteed strate gy to sabotage your
own plus-size celebrity clothing line: Start by
being rail-thin and gorgeous. Nex t, get a role as
With half of the beer market under its sa i l s ,
Anheuser-Busch could be excused for not paying
Daisy Duke in the D u kes of Hazzard movie
remake. Do a bunch of inte rviews describing the
diet and exe rcise regimen you used to become
e ven thinner in order to squeeze into Cat h e r i n e
Bach’s old shorts. Explain to the media that, in
choosing your cut-offs for the movie, “I tried on
too much at tention to distant No. 2 Mi ll e r
Bre w i n g, at least publicly. That is, until Mi ll e r
bowed its “Good Call” campaign, featuring mock
NFL refe rees throwing penalty flags at Bud and
Bud Light drinkers for imbibing brew with “less
ta s te.” Bud soon engaged its rival tit for tat,
so many jeans . . . Lucky Jeans, and then Levi’s is
in one [scene], but the main Daisy Dukes are
Lucky and her jeans are True Religion.” Then
launch your own line of size 12-24 jeans, ca lled
J e s s i ca Simpson Denim, at Avenue, a specialty
re tailer for larger women. Have your father and
spoofing the Mi ller refe rees with TV spots showing the refs pilfering Bud and Bud Light for their
own consumption. “W h at surprised us is a market leader with their dominant share would
s p e c i f i ca lly ca ll us out in their advertising,” sa i d
Vi ctor Ru t s tein, Mi ll e r’s dire ctor of brand devel-
m a n ager Joe Simpson te ll U SA Today: “We
have people 300 pounds or 90 pounds
come up to Jessica and say, ‘I’m just like
you’ . . . It’s not about the outside. It’s what ' s
inside.” And of course, do all this while hoping consumers are too busy obsessing ove r
o p m e n t. Rat h e r
than co n fuse
consumers,
h o we ve r,
the
spots lent cre d ibility to Mi ll e r’s
the breakup of your marriage to notice the
massive disco n n e ct in all the foregoing.
Good Call ca mpaign and gave
some extra mileage to the “m o re ta s te” debate.
Miss: Kraft Cheese Crumbles goes off tune when it frankensteins EMF’s classic song to create “Crumbelievable.” Hit: Diet Pepsi ad makes a mocke ry of
Coca-Cola’s many, many diet drink launches as a fo rklift carts off multiple vending machines. Miss: The orange Eminem iPod ad, which kind of looked like
the Lugz shoe ad, which kind of looked like a Honda ad. Hit: Papa John’s makes a meatball out of Domino’s Pizza for its Apprentice product placement
send-off. Miss: Grand Theft Auto’s hidden “Hot coffee” videogame porn saw Rockstar Games racing to make apologies to get the title back on shelves.
D ECEMBER 19, 2005
www. b ra n dwe e k.com
#9 Best
#10 Worst
Way to Cut
Your Losses
Handling of
an Overall Image Crisis
TRADING “LOW- CARB” FOR “LOW-SUGAR”
MERCK/VIOXX
Most food companies didn’t start rolling out their low-carb entries until well after the
Atkins craze hit its peak around early 2004. Kraft, for instance, finally launched a line
Spending millions to advertise a painkiller with a less- c e rtain risk profile than existing drugs was dumb enough. Advising its staff in written memos how to talk their
of South Beach Diet products in early 2005. By then, most people realized that once
you went off the diets, you quickly gained the weight back. And a lifetime free of pasta and bread appeals to very few. But once the fad had run it course, the companies
faced a dilemma: what to do with all this low-carb stuff? For Kraft, General Mills and
Unilever’s Slim-Fast, the answer was simple: repackage. Instead of “low-carb,” make
the label read “high-protein” or “low-sugar.” By cleverly shifting the emphasis, mar-
way out of questions about that risk profile, and having those memos published by
Congress . . . With one misstep after the nex t, Merck turned what could have been
a simple but expensive product withdrawal into an indictment of the entire pharmaceutical industry. Sales collapsed for all painkillers. This month, the New England
Journal of Medicine alleged that Merck doctored the results of a 2000 clinical trial
of Vioxx to cover up a handful of deaths. Merck was hit with $253 million in dam-
keters also changed the science. After all, if a food has few carbohydrates, it will either
be made up of fat or protein or some combination thereof, but by slapping those labels
on, the products managed to be full of something else entirely.
ages in one recent lawsuit, while another case yielded a mistrial. Some have suggested total damages could hit $50 billion. In October, Merck said it had re s e rved
only $675 million for legal liabilities. Ouch.
#11 Worst
Public Health
Co n t roversy
#13 Worst
#12 Best
Attempt at
Reincarnation
Atte m pt
at Reincarnation
DUPONT’S CHEMICAL MESS
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
MARTHA STEWART
Last month, former DuPont employee Glenn
Evers claimed the company has knowingly
been selling a potentially cancer-causing
material ca lled Zonyl RP, which is used to make
co atings for french fry boxes, pizza box liners
and microwave popcorn bags. Zo nyl RP could
C a ll it the National “Houdini” League. The NHL escaped
a near- d e ath situation when it emerged from the
cancelled 2004-05 season with a fan-friendly atmosphere
and focus on ente rtainment. A plethora of rule changes
Given the mixed response to Martha Stewart’s
comeback, it’s not clear that absence makes the
heart grow fonder. Though Martha emerged
contain unsafe amounts of C8, a chemical
found in nonstick products such as Teflon.
DuPont documents dating back t0 1987 stated that C8 was leaching from Zonyl RP at three
times the amount
allowed by federal food
safety limits, and that
DuPont “suppressed the
info r m ation so it didn’t
face gre ater government
scrutiny.” If the chemica l
is found to be harmful to
humans, which DuPont
denies, its use may be
stopped and companies
using the product will
have to scramble to find
an alternative.
intended to increase goal scoring and excitement we re
supported by a Hollywood-s t yle campaign, “My NHL,”
via Conductor, Los Angeles. The NHL boasted record
at tendance figu res for the months of October (16,820
ave r age per game) and November (16,818). Howe ve r,
games on OLN, the league’s new TV partner, have ave raged about a 0.2 rating, less than half of
w h at ES P N ’s NHL games drew in 2003. The
l e ague ta kes a break in February so players
can part i c i p ate in the Wi n ter Olympics, in
lieu of an All-S tar Game, allowing those at hl e tes an opportunity to perform their tricks
befo re a big national TV au d i e n c e .
from prison more popular than when she went
in, her short-lived Apprentice series suggests
t h at viewers may have had their fill of the
domestic diva (or at least they do not care for
her tycoon side). Her more humble daytime TV
talk show, Martha, is doing better; it’s been
renewed by NBC. Meanwhile, Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia is discussing plans to
expand Martha Ste w a rt-branded housewares
in Km a rt stores. Some say Martha is overexposed. We say: Stick with what you know.
#14 Worst
Idea for a Brand Extension
VON DUTCH ENERGY DRINK
If someone said, “Neo-Nazi, drug-taking, beatnik, hot-rod customizer,” obviously you’d think, “Great inspiration for a new energy drink!”
Not. This year, even the mall rats in Siberia knew that wearing Von Dutch (the label inspired by the California hell-raiser who, according to
one exposé, had all the above qualities) was no longer cool. Thus, the progenitors of the ironic trucker hat had to find revenue somewhere
else. And so, defying logic, they extended their clothing brand into soda cans produced by Coke. No comment from Ashton Kutcher.
Miss: GlaxoSmithKline was surely depressed when its Paxil was kept off of shelves for six months after the Feds shut its sub-standard plants down. Hit: Mountain Dew’s giveaway
of an Xbox 360 every 10 minutes for the nine weeks leading up to its official launch. Miss: 24 Hour Fitness ads showing Lance Armstrong biking and exercising outdoors. (Does he
re a lly need a gym membership to do that?). Hit: KFC’s 99-cent chicken Snacker sandwiches. Launched in March, they scored as the best sandwich launch in the chain’s history.
Miss: Land Rover hiring pr maven and Hampton’s menace Lizzie Grubman to promote an SUV. Hit: Target’s targeted takeover of a summer issue of The New Yorke r.
www.brandwe e k.co m
DECEMBER 19, 2005
21
Best & Wo rst
#15 Best
#16 Best
Newfangled
Footwe a r
New Pro d u ct
Verging on Self-Parody
GEOX SHOES
G I L L E TT E ’SFUSION RAZOR
If the shoe breathes, wear it. That could be the motto at Geox, the Italian
footwear brand that’s been on a tear in the U.S. with its “breathable” shoes,
which are made with tiny perforations to keep feet cool and dry. Some 30
In Fe b r u a ry2004, The Onion ran an op-ed putat i vely written by Gill e t te CEO
Jim Kilts headlined, “Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades!” The joke was
on them, howe ver, as Gill e t te was indeed preparing a five-blade razor ca ll e d
patents cover technology including a rubber membrane inside the sole that
a llows perspiration to escape but keeps unwanted moisture, such as rain,
from entering the shoe. Geox shoes include classic styles such as loafers and
boots. The company also markets a small range of apparel made with breathable shoulder inserts that operate on the same principle. In November, Geox
e s tablished a two-story flagship store on New York’s tony Madison Avenue,
Fusion, set to hit the market early next year. It wasn’t the first time co m e d ians beat Gillette to the punch. In 1975, Saturday Night Live ran a
fake commercial for a three-blade Gillette razor called
TripleTrac with the tag, “Be cause yo u’ ll believe anyt h i n g.”
Twenty-three years later, Gillette came out with a threeblade razor ca lled Mach3, a huge hit. Apparently, there’s a class
followed by a new location in Boston’s Natick Mall. It is planning 10 additional re tail locations next year.
of men who won’t be happy until they’re shaving with a device that
looks like a washboard on a stick made up of dozens of blades.
#17 Worst
Movie Pro m otion
Faux Pas
GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’
In
late
October,
Paramount Pictures felt
the heat for packin’ heat
on posters promoting
the Nov. 9 release of rapper 50 Cent’s semi-autobiographical film Get
Rich or Die Tryin’. In urban
areas, parents and community activists protested the image of Cu rtis
“50 Cent” Jackson sporting a gun in one hand and
a mike in the other. (In another shot, he brandished
a baby and a weapon.) Activists in Los Angeles convinced the studio to remove billboards in dubious
areas near schools and day ca re centers.
Brooklynites rallied against the ads and the violence-glorifying film. 50 Cent, a former crack dealer who likes to brag that he was shot nine times
before devoting his life to music, shrugged off the
boycotts and said the controversy was selling tickets. But not too many: Get Rich b a rely cracked
$30 million after a month in theaters.
#18 Worst
Hidden Agenda
#19 Worst
D eceptive
Adve rtising
WAL-MART’S
HEALTHCARE MEMO
BLOCKBUSTER’S
“END OF LATE FEES”
Wa l -M a rt ca n’t seem to stop shooting
itself in the fo o t. The retail behemoth
gained valuable pr points with a time-
Desperate times ca ll for desperate housewive s—er, measu re s—which may explain why Blockbuster assumed it
could get away with its hairsplitting “End of late fe e s”
ly re l i ef ef fo rt in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina, but then exposed its unsavo ry
side in a leaked healthcare memo to its
board of directors. In it, Wa l -M a rt evp
S u san Chambers re commended way s
to cut costs on employee healthca re
campaign. Getting hammered by Netflix and OnDemand
cable, the video rental chain eliminated its much-maligned
practice of charging late fees. Ads depicted joyous customers celebrating this new era of rental freedom. In re a lity, howe ve r, customers would have to pay the fu ll purchase price for a video if they kept a movie for more than
benefits (ironic, considering less than
half of Wal-Mart’s rank and file actu a lly h av e benefits), such as discouraging
unhealthy or disabled people from
w o rking at Wa l -M a rt. To ensure this,
the memo stated, employees
a week. Some customers complained that they we re
c h a rged a restocking fee of $1.25 if they tried to re turn the
video after that timeframe. Lawsuits ensued with
B l o c k b u s ter agreeing to amend its communications to
explain the new practice and pay more than $500,000 to
settle claims that it
should be fo rced to perform some
phy s i cal activity such as gathering
carts in the parking lot. The proposed plan promised to save WalM a rt more than $1 billion per year
by 2011—money it could presum-
misled consumers.
In the end, the
chain likely succeeded only in
keeping more customers away from
ably funnel back into its pr machine.
its doors.
Hit: Fruit tattoo. Miss: Tony the Tige r’s Tiger Power cereal went out with a whimper instead of a roar. Hit: Friendster and MySpace make cyberspace a little more communal.
Miss: Oral-B’s Triumph toothbrush touting an “on-board computer.” (Do we really need computers to help brush our teeth?). Hit: Jose Canseco’s tell-all tome Juiced. No one thinks
the steroid slugger is a liar anymore. Miss: The Pontiac Solstice parking itself on The Apprentice and then having too few vehicles for sale when demand was revved up by the
appearance. Hit: Harry Potte r. The new book and film still have the same old magic. Hit: Burt’s Bees’ environmentally friendly print ads (right down to the recycled paper stock).
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DECEMBER 19, 2005
www. b ra n dwe e k.com
#20 Worst
#21 Best
Atte m pted Survival
by an Airline
Trend for
Creative Advertising
INDEPENDENCE AIR
BROA D BAND VIDEO TECHNOLOGY
While other airlines can throw pension obligations at taxpayers or may catch a lenient
bankruptcy judge, Independence Air has had no such luck. US Airways held on until
America West adopted its debts, assets and brand, while United enters its third year under
Chapter 11. Northwest and Delta, which will jettison the Song sister brand in May, hope
they can follow that shining example. Independence parent Flyi, however, gets only 60
The 30-second TV spot may be dead, as industry watchers never tire of saying, but
what about the 88-second spot or the 127-second spot? Thanks to growing broadband penetration, marketers are now able to make spots as long or as short as
they want. That’s because on the Internet there are no station breaks. Witness,
days from its Nov. 7 bankruptcy filing to find a white knight in a court supervised auction;
liquidation is more likely. The carrier’s wounds were self-inflicted. It initially decided to sell
fares only through the Web and call centers, cutting itself off from business travelers who
use travel agents and computer reservations. It also attempted to connect regional jet passengers with longer-haul flights in large markets. The plan fizzled when money woes
forced Independence to postpone delivery of the long-haul planes from Airbus.
for example, a 2:44 minutes ad from Nike that shows Brazilian soccer sta r
Ronaldinho. The segment, which is not a traditional TV spot by any means, merely shows Ronaldinho opening a shoe box, lacing the shoes and then hitting the
goal post like a champ. The Nike swoosh is visible throughout, but not in an inyour-face way. So far, the video has been viewed 1.9 million times, which is a bigger audience than that of, say, Fox News. This is a far cry from banner ads. For creatives, this opens up a new world free of time constraints and network censorship.
#22 Worst
#23 Worst
#24 Worst
Trend for Creative
Advertising
Ove rhyping of a
Ma rketing Trend
Uncool Move by a
Cool Brand
TiVo SEARCH
While Internet adve rtising is
flourishing, most pundits
agree that the picture for
traditional TV spots is
much bleaker. Once again,
TiVo is our culprit. The
company is planning to
introduce a feature that will
let viewers search TV ads
the way they now search for
products on Google.
So, if you’re in the market for a ca r, you can set
your TiVo to re cord eve ry car ad out there.
Now, think about it. If yo u’re planning to look
through 20 or so car ads, what do you want to
see? Quirky commercial spoofs and moonlight
rides set to obscure Nick Drake songs?
Or, would you rather see a more straightfo rward list of the ca r’s features? Duh. If this TiVo
technologyta kes of f, expect more TV spots to
look like info m e rcials (and we need more of
those like a hole in the head). On the bright
side, there will be fewer fa rting horses, singing
sa l e s c l e rks and hotshot creative directors.
BLO GS
Blogs provide almost no new information. They’re
frequently inaccurate. They contribute to the hysterical polarization of our nation’s political discourse.
And they’re often written by people who can’t, you
know, write. So naturally marketers have flocked to
associate their brands with them. Seriously, it’s not
entirely clear why so many marketers have rushed
to get themselves name-dropped in one of the most
unreliable media environments yet invented, but
we’re sure there’s a PowerPoint presentation on
their ROI being prepared as we write this.
NIKE CO-OPS “MINOR
THREAT” FOR AD CA M PAIGN
A 1984 album cover from the punk band Minor
Threat features a grainy, black-and-white shot of a
skinhead asleep in a sta i rwe ll, one of the most
famous images in alternative pop culture. It was no
surprise that Nike would be forced to apologize to
the band for copying the image without permission
in a “Major Threat” themed skateboarding campaign.
“This was a poor judgment call,” Nike said in a note
to the band and its record company, sending its
street cred in that culture back to the starting blocks.
#25 Best
(Hardly Noticeable) Product Placement
ZERO HALLIBURTON ON LOST
ABC’s hit drama Lost features shipwrecked people on a South Pacific isle. Think Survivor, but with no Jeff Probst
to drop off Coke and Pringles. Despite plotlines that might bring the crew in contact with packaged goods, the
show has steered clear of product placement. Even a dream sequence by an obese character featured a fake
candy bar. Thus, it was a real coup for Zero Halliburton (not the Halliburton once run by Dick Cheney) to get
its metal attache case a rare brand spotlight. Thanks to a deal negotiated by Los Angeles agency UPP, various
cast members tried throwing it off a cliff or stomping on it to pry it open—with no luck. “You’re wasting your
time, man. If you pick the lock on a Halliburton, I’ll put you on my back and fly us to L.A.,” one character says.
Miss:Guess put the Hindu god Ganesha on tank tops with the words, “Handsome elephant,” thus pissing off the large community of Hindus in America and Canada. Hit: Overstock.com’s
Sabine Ehrenfeld in those strangely alluring “It’s all about the O” ads. Miss: Dell’s customer service fiasco leading to Jeff Jarvis’ now-infamous blog. Hit: Using cell phones for scavenger
hunts. Budget Rent a Car shows it knows how to go mobile. Miss: The New York Daily Newsled hundreds to believe they’d won $100,000 in a sweepstakes snafu leading to reader protests
and front page New York Post fodder. Hit: Online advertising: For marketers, the Internet is finally living up to the hype of the late ’90s.
www.brandwe e k.co m
D ECEMBER 19, 2005
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