Prius having headlamp problems

Nice to know Detroit is not the only place having auto trouble. Amid the launch of the third-generation Prius hybrid, Toyota is taking a beating online and in court by owners who charge that some older models of the popular car have faulty headlights that can cost more than $1,000 to replace.

Starbucks overhauls and adds more food items to their offerings.

Starbucks is unveiling a raft of new products tomorrow that represents the largest food launch in the company's history. The chain is staying with its tactic of long-form newspaper ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today to support this push.

Pitchman Billy May dies

Mr Oxiclean, Billy May passed away on the weekend, leading to speculation if may have been connected to a minor head trauma from an object that struck him during a rough landing on USAIR. Nothing has been conclusively proven yet, but investigations are under way.

Netbooks and Notebooks - they are different. How to spot the differences and ensure you make the right purchase for your needs.

Netbooks-Notebooks

Michael's commercial contribution

Michael Jacksons passing marks the end of a music icon. His passing appears to be putting the emphasis on his positive contributions, rather than his bizarre personal eccentricities. In recent years his reclusive life had lead to no contributions whatsoever. But in his glory days in the 80's few could challenge his ability to not only create music, but build a marketing powerhouse around his product.



Obama's Made In America theme is being carried into the corporate marketing world. All the uncertainty is causing some corporate think tanks to rally the flag and band together.



That's it for this week. Coming up next week - Viral that moves mountains. Have a great weekend.

Canne Report

Innovators are battling the new media influence.

LEADERSHIP

From Harvard Business -- GM's new chairman knows nothing about building cars. Good or bad?
GM Chairman

Will Alice bring packaged goods back to the web?

Package-goods marketers tried -- and largely rejected -- e-commerce about a decade ago. But their interest has rekindled lately, and a novel start-up named Alice.com is betting they're ready to party again like it's 1999. (adage)

Creative Burst for Wednesday -- How an old school approach won at Canne for Tourism Queensland.

Canne

Why Facebook is more important to the environment than solar panels.

The growth of social networks indicates a fundamental shift in patterns of human behavior. The unsustainable practice of ever-increasing consumption of physical goods, and expressing oneself through what one purchases and displays, is being replaced by increasing consumption of virtual goods through virtual channels. This is good news for the sustainability of our economy.

Advertisers are giving TV networks the short end - for the first time.
TV Ad sales

The Prius makes a Whistling Sound.

Toyota Prius new campaign is based on a whistle.

A very well written position on why Social Media is not the be all and end all.

I hate Social Media

Creative Excellence Fridays - Viral Packaged Goods

Happy Friday. Packaged goods are the theme today. First we look at a viral case study from Proctor & Gamble. It'll be a bit of an investment in time as the episodes are about 3 minutes each in length. The product? Tampex. The tact? To have a teenage boy, suddenly wake up "missing his man parts" and summarily start to take on female characteristics. Will it work? You be the judge.

Here's the article behind the blog from Ad Age. Zack16

Here's the link directly to the viral. Zack16Link

If you just want a really good laugh then skip ahead to this one. Very well done piece from Luvs Diapers.



Have a great weekend!

You Tube losses are a mystery

Google has no incentive to release actual figures on how much You Tube is losing every day. Some say it's in Google's favour to keep it a mystery to licensing fees are minimal for all the copyrighted material currently residing on the portal.

Coming up on Creative Excellence Friday - a Viral from Proctor and Gamble that might surprise you.

Stravinsky and the Daily News

Today we celebrate the birthday of Igor Stravinsky.
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Russian: Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский, Igor' Fjodorovič Stravinskij) (17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, considered by many to be one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music.

Newspapers. Their struggle continues. Some are starting to charge for their archived content. But how much is too much?
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=137333

Canwest circling the wagons

Canwest has been given another extension to reorganize and try and get their financial house in order.

Here's a great article on turning celebrity athletes into bloggers.
Athlete Bloggers

Smarter Phones

Seems like your cell phone will do anything today. Smart phones will now enable you to use them like a bank card, track your lost phone through a remote connection and even provide GPS advanced services.

Creative Excellence Fridays - How fast can they make it happen

It's amazing how quickly corporations can react on events in the news, or in this case sports.
Roger Federer won his championship match in record time last weekend at the French open. He tied Pete Sampras for most grandslam titles. Nike was almost as fast in releasing their congratulatory commercial. Gee, I wonder if they had two commercials (at least) produced. One for heavily favoured Raphael Nadal and one for Federer. The answer is definitely yes.



In keeping with the tennis theme, The British are getting warmed up for Wimbledon now. And British retailer Robinsons is stoking the fires and attaching itself, Nike style, to the event.



Wrapping up this week - Conan Obrien's sidekick, Andy Richter stars in a hilarious send off of car commercials.
Enjoy. And have a great weekend!

McDonalds goes green. (If salads count)

Project Runway contestant Lucian Matis, CityLine style consultant Lisa Rogers, and Kavi Kavi design trio Monika, Dipika, and Ravika Gupta are McDonald’s newest brand ambassadors. McDonalds has had issues over the years convincing the general public there is proper nutrition in their food. If you've ever seen the documentary "Supersize it" you'll know exactly what I'm talking about it.

LuluLemon is happy to be slowing things down.
Executives at Lululemon Athletica Inc. say the retail chain was growing too fast even before the recession hit and are using the downturn as an excuse to slow down and focus on its products and people.

Lululemon chief executive Christine Day said her plan since taking over the top job a year ago has been to slow growth to about 15 stores a year compared with the company’s previous goal of 35 new stores annually.

Coming up tomorrow on Creative Excellence Fridays - How fast can they make it happen.

Cadbury secret revealed after 40 years

Well not really. It would be like the Kernel revealing his spice cupboard, but it's a unique idea for a live and interactive promotion.

Starting June 22, Torontonians can hear about the Caramilk secret by plugging their personal headphones into one of 50 interactive audio boards within the city’s subway system.

Listeners can chose between six different interpretations, as told by: a five-year-old boy, a Cockney man, a speed-reader, a fax machine, a Xhosa tribesman and a whale.

What Danica Patrick Could Do for Nascar, Sponsors
Danica
Nascar might just have an answer to the soft economy that's hurting TV ratings, live attendance, and sponsor recruitment: Danica Patrick.

On the reading list this week
How Customers Think

Bing rollout sizeable

The rollout of Microsofts new search engine is quite substantial. Bing has landed.

Conan gets a lift on his first week out.
Conan

Obama continues to be on the cutting edge

Heralded as a revolutionary in grass roots marketing, Barack Obama was able to gather legions of campaign workers and more importantly funds for his now legendary presidential campaign. Even turning his back on the public funds, he raised money privately for his campaign. That is all now in the books, but he continues to use cutting edge mediums to make his point using a text messaging blitz to the middle east.

Creative Excellence Fridays The King

Burger King has been making a lot of noise lately with some cutting edge creative. They started last year by launching a series of R rated virals and created several according to their various target audiences. The CMO of Burger King said, in a speech to the creatives in Denver this week, "Pushing the envelope is always what is needed, but to let fear be your inspiration".

This is the "ghetto" version (language warning)


Other unconventional targeting used the launch of the Simpsons movie and a backhanded endorsement by Krusty the Clown.




In entertainment news this week, no surprise here, Conan got the newbie lift he was hoping for in the ratings.
Conan
Have a great weekend!

Todays flavour Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle's 15 minutes of fame seem to be continuing for now. She may have lots the competition but her talented underdog story seems to be winning a few hearts of ad agencies.

And speaking of underdogs -- Did you know China has their own version of Ugly Betty?
ChinaBetty

And finally - GM bought the google search term "GM Bankruptcy".
A Google search using that term turns up a sponsored link that states,
"GM -- We Will Emerge: Yes, We've Filed. However, Service & Warranties
will Still be Honored."
They may be down, but their PR firm is not. The massive rebuilding of the brand has begun.

Twitter blocked in China

Marking the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, The Chinese government has blocked Twitter to prevent a ground swell of sentiment surrounding the event.

Tiananmen

And in other Social Networking news - Realtors are finding an excellent way to market themselves using Facebook, in place of more expensive and traditional mediums like print.

Facebook

Old school meets new school

I was at St Lawrence Market on Saturday morning and two fresh faced 20 somethings approached me and asked if I'd like a free sample of Frank's RedHot sauce. I'm a fan so of course I said yes. The tiny bottle came with a hand out card that talks about a contest on Facebook. I thought, this is refreshing. Old school real live people with upbeat positive attitudes making the first impression, then I have the option of going digital and texting or going to facebook to enter the contest.

TV Buzz.
Conan made his debut on the Tonite Show last night. Lots of bits. His old sidekick Andy Richter is back. It appears like those two will need some time to get their old rhythym back. Will Ferrell was the first guest and Pearl Jam was the first musical guest. Not a bad first night.

General Motors announced bankruptcy protection yesterday. And today is being proclaimed as day 1 of the New GM. Here is one of the commercials relaunching General Motors.

GM says farewell

Well, it's not goodbye. It's more like an old Coca Cola slogan, "The pause that refreshes". GM announces restructuring today which is a technical term for "cutting out the fat". Auto analyst Dennis Derosier argued it may be government money not well spent.

Tonite - In entertainment news, Conan Obrien takes the helm of the Tonite Show after 16 years of Jay Leno. You can bet he'll be pulling out all the stops. The buzz was enough to force the NHL to reschedule the Stanley Cup playoffs to two nights in a row rather than risk having an over time game run into Conan's debut.