I gave my first webinar on Friday to about 200 PR professionals. It was a rather bizarre experience as I talked into the great cybervoid for forty five minutes without any human interaction. If it weren’t for the handful of attendees who proffered their thanks via subsequent emails, the silence would have been […]

Talking about popping your own tires– this story blows my mind.  Brandweek reported this week that the auto industry is fighting proposed legislation to increase auto mileage:
The auto industry takes on the government beginning this weekend with an ad campaign that warns consumers that proposed increases in fuel standards would drive up the price of […]

BRANDWEEK revisited the infamous Boston bomb hoax today to see what impact if any it had on the guerrilla marketing industry. The consensus among practitioners like Interference, Geek Factory and Renegade is that demand for non-traditional programs is enjoying explosive (pardon the pun) growth. Why? Many marketers were exposed to the potential impact […]

Just in case you felt like jumping on the green bandwagon, here’s a cautionary tale about a supermarket chain in England called Sainsbury that made a lot of noise with an organic shopping bag. Londoners lined up to buy it. Keira Knightly was spotted sporting one. Then according to Treehugger, the fit hit […]

I really feel for Sam and his guerrilla gang at Interference. Their promotion for Cartoon Network has literally blown up in their face. If you haven’t heard about this fiasco yet, see the press clip below. You might wonder how an agency or a client could even consider placing suspicious looking devices all […]

I’m a little behind on this one, but so is Victoria’s Secret. According to a Wall St. Journal story back in early December (I told you I was behind), Victoria’s Secret mails about 350 million catalogs a year and just recently decided to shift to paper that is either 10% “post-consumer waste” or has […]

One of the tenants of Marketing for Good is that you should never do anything that actually annoys or irritates your target. Even if you achieve short term attention-getting disruption, the long-term consequences of creating ad “pollution” will be bad for your brand. A recent study by Forrester as reported by Promo Xtra […]

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Marketers are always tempted to push the envelop and believe me we’ve recommended some pretty crazy ideas over the last ten years at Renegade. But there is a line that when crossed breaks the bonds of trust between brand and consumer. Trust is everything when […]

One of the challenges of writing this blog is figuring out what is good and trying to determine what will make life a little better. For example, yesterday I alluded to my concerns that banning trans fat would not necessarily make life better. (As a side note, I like my glazed Krispy Kreme […]

Business 2.0 reported in a story called “YouTube for Dead Guys” about a new product called the Vidstone Serenity Panel. Evidently, a sizzling rise in cremations is hurting the mortuary business so morticians are killing themselves trying to come up with new revenue sources. For about $2k, Vidstone provides a Ken Burns-style video tribute of […]