Tackling a real marketing challenge: Major League Soccer

Seattle Sounders FC of Major League Soccer are one of the year’s big marketing success stories. An expansion team, they’ve sold every available seat and then some; they sold a huge number of season tickets; they’ve become the hot ticket in Seattle. They’ve created a compelling atmosphere inside the stadium. Paying special attention to the on-the-field [...]

Update on Bank of America’s bad advertising

From the Drudge Report today: Bank of America posts $2.24 billion in losses on home loan defaults.
Maybe their borrowers defaulted because they took BofA’s advice, and bought pizza to make dough?

If you’re going to make bad advertising, why not make it REALLY bad?

That’s a pretty cute headline I saw in the lobby at my local Bank of America the other day. “Buy Pizza, Get Dough.” Get it? Don’t worry, not many other people do, either.
It made me think of some less cute headlines that have been in the news lately:

BofA to Get $20B More From TARP, Plus Backstop [...]

Which Wieden+Kennedy do you prefer?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know they’re built for different purposes. But which do you prefer: The Wieden+Kennedy official site, or the blog from the Portland office?  And why?
Personally, I like the blog infinitely more. My guess is that the fancy corporate site has outworn its welcome. The days when figuring out what a website is [...]

“5 reasons you no longer need an ad agency”

This post by Sean X Cummings covers a favorite topic: the evolution of the ad agency business. There’s plenty to agree and disagree with in Sean’s post. If you’re currently with an agency, or own one, maybe you’ll agree with the post, and at the same time think: He’s talking about OTHER agencies… We’re different.

The Martin Agency loses UPS; picks up Expedia, Sun Life Financial

Just a reminder of what a tough industry this is: Last week, The Martin Agency withdrew from its bid to retain UPS as a client — a client for which it has created stellar and effective work.

Innovative websites

It’s becoming more and more rare to run across a website and think, “I wish I had done that.” Or even, “What rock have I been hiding under?” Here are three such sites — taken together, they may help you see the role of the corporate website in a new way.

Marketing promos that went horribly wrong

Were they bad ideas, bad execution, or both? You decide.
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Bad month for United Airlines

Is customer service becoming more important every day? Or does it just seem that way, now that consumers have so much social media power at their disposal? (See Bad Day At The Beach.)
The video above, “United Breaks Guitars,” chronicles how the gentleman’s guitar suffered at the hands of United baggage handlers (see [...]

Bad day at the beach

A friend of mine took his family to Virginia Beach for the weekend. They stayed at the stately old grand resort where the wealthy once frolicked, before they all owned beach homes of their own.
On the first evening, on a brick sidewalk in need of repair, just outside the main building, his teenage daughter tripped [...]