PSFK: This Week In Brand Strategy & Advertising

Here is a look at some standout brand-building and advertising communications stories that have been catching our attention p lease click here to read:PSFK

JWT AnxietyIndex: A surprising message from J.R. Ewing: ‘Shine, baby, shine’

Larry Hagman, best known as oilman J.R. Ewing in the hit 1980s television show Dallas, is now the face of SolarWorld, a German solar energy company. Long a solar energy enthusiast, Hagman recently told The New York Times he was motivated by the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico to speak out. He added: “Since Sarah Palin is saying, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ I’m saying, ‘Shine, baby, shine.’”

That’s just what the actor says, with his trademark cackle, in a spot for SolarWorld’s new advertising campaign. We see J.R. looking disapprovingly at a portrait of his younger self in an oil field while a background TV screen gurgles with oil-spill images. He walks out of his house and we see a roof lined with solar panels. SolarWorld does an interesting thing here: It’s not only tapping into anxieties around the Gulf spill and the target consumers’ likely aversion to the “Drill, baby, drill” mind-set but is also showing how perspectives can change, even if J.R. is fictional.
JWT AnxietyIndex: Brand Answers for an Anxious World by Christine Miranda - New York

COFFEE AND DONUTS WITH JWT PLANNING: Cannes 2010 - Winning Case Studies from JWT

With more posts to come , here are two winning campaigns by JWT Italia and Capetown.

Heiniken - Auditorium by JWT Italia

Taking Consumer Engagement to the next level , the campaign idea by JWT Italia truly did made its Target Audience spend quality time with their favourite beer - Heiniken.


My First Book by JWT Capetown

The campaign not only instills the importance of ‘going green’ but it also contributed to the education of many underprivileged kids around the world.


COFFEE AND DONUTS WITH JWT PLANNING

brandflakesforbreakfast: Mad Men Style: You can read every outfit.

Ever watch those responsible for clothes on a set fret about the wardrobe? Ever see a grown art director cry at the "wrong wallpaper" on a set? Details are important. The wrong item can cause havoc, like when Dunkin' Donuts were accused of supporting terrorists due to a scarf.

As we wait for the next season of Mad Men, lets relive the excellent choices of clothes for each character. When Joan wears purple, she is wearing her heart on her sleeve. Delve into the Mad Men Style pages by the fabulous and opinioated Tom and Lorenzo. Every scarf and brooch is dissected as a reflection of what the character is going through. It's fantastic...brandflakesforbreakfast

Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good morning! Here is your news:

* Microsoft shipped a few early previews of Windows Phone 7. Engadget says it's "a little scary" how many technical issues need to be ironed out before the phone hits the market.

* Google will stop selling the Nexus One after it clears out of its most recent shipment of Nexus One phones.

* Now that Facebook has 500 million users, it has to figure out what to do when one of them dies.

* A Chinese glass manufacturer is holding up the production of white iPhone 4s.

* Verizon is ceasing sales of the Kin and shipping its inventory back to Microsoft.

* Motorola is selling off its networking wireless business for $1.2 billion.

* HTC and Samsung are disputing Apple's antenna claims.

* Mark Cuban is wildly bullish on facial recognition as the next form of check-in apps.

* Quicken appears set to screw over its customers, as it transitions to Mint.com.


Read more: Business Insider

WPP Marketing Insights: Our Top Ten Thinkers For Researchers by Tom Ewing, Kantar

Explaining people's behaviour is the basis of our industry. But that's not to say we don't appreciate a push in the right direction. Since the publication - and more importantly the runaway success - of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, we've seen a boom in "idea books" looking to uncover organising principles behind behaviour and decision-making. We've also seen a revival of interest in the idea of the individual - a public intellectual - who can explain these things. Go to any research conference and half the speeches will cite at least one book or writer with the scoop on why people act how they do. Thinkers are in.

But which thinkers? Not only is there a glut of thought for researchers to choose from - drawing on disciplines from economics to physics to anthropology - there's also a huge role for fashion. Sometimes an idea is so successful that it enters general business vocabulary - the "long tail" and the "wisdom of crowds", for instance. Other times writers fall from grace: despite giving his new book the research-friendly title Outliers, Gladwell himself has hardly been mentioned at conferences this year.

This article is a - wholly unscientific - survey of who researchers' current top ten thinkers are, based on names dropped at the MRS, WARC and ARF conferences this past March. Anyone actually speaking at the conferences was disqualified - so the worthy likes of Mark Earls (Herd) and Charles Leadbeter (We-Think) miss out. We hope you find the list enlightening - whether as a pointer to summer reading, or a bluffer's guide for the next industry bunfight.

To continue reading, please visit Kantar.com, and navigate to What's New > Inspirations.
WPP Marketing Insights

Landor.com: Blog: Happy birthday, Walter (great 60's video)

Those of us who work at Landor know that our founder and namesake, Walter Landor, loved a strong cocktail and a good party. So during the week of his birthday (July 9), we at Landor, in all our offices around the world, take a day to celebrate together.

Born on 9 July 1913, Walter would have been 97 years old today, and the firm that he founded in 1941 with his wife Josephine is now in its 69th year of existence. A pioneer in the field of branding and design, he is also famous for throwing celebrity-attended parties on one of the most unusual and memorable offices around: the Klamath ferryboat.

We recently unearthed and digitized a promotional film, The Decanter. Filmed in the late 1960s, it shows the start-to-finish process of several of Landor's designs for Old Fitzgerald whiskey. Narrated by Walter himself, the film depicts creative teams illustrating and critiquing designs, industrial designers fabricating models, and research teams conducting focus groups and testing in Landor's supermarket laboratory. And the whole thing takes place on the famed Klamath ferryboat, docked at San Francisco's Pier 5, which housed Landor's offices for some twenty years from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. It's a great snapshot of the origins of our firm and the elegance and stature of our founder...Landor.com

Design story: The Decanter from Landor Associates on Vimeo.