A recent example from National Rental Car. An associate rented a car from National for a week for about $125. She needed to extend the rental for a second week and that week alone was quoted at over $300. Wait. Not as stupid as it gets. After much discussion of how such a discrepancy could [...]

I just saw an online news article on DealBook with the headline “Greenhill Says 2 Executives Die in Plane Crash.”  The article goes on to explain that two of the investment firm’s executives died in the New Jersey crash of a private jet.   Right within the article is a display ad for CitationAir that [...]

I am commenting on the new State Farm campaign which I just say for the first time this morning. The situation of a wife catching a husband on line with his insurance agent and thinking he is talking with a woman leads one’s mind so far away from any kind of Expectation related to insurance, [...]

I have had a lot of discussions around this issue lately. It seems that most of us have two great fears.  The first is the fear of failure.  The second is the fear of success. By most people’s standards, I have led a life of success.  I am educated, can jitterbug well at the company [...]

The new Acura campaign is ludicrous. First of all, the situations, Gordon Ramsey hired for a Christmas party, and another I meant to remember for this post but cannot at the moment, are worst case scenarios of borrowed interest in that they are a far stretch from the Acura cars being sold, and secondly because [...]

The new ad for GE about the employees who make cancer screening machines that save lives is pure genius.   Employees do take pride in saving people.  People do want to thank employees.   This ad brings them together.  Very well done and makes a very good point. We don’t just have jobs.  We generally have a [...]

I have been meaning to compliment Dr. Pepper for awhile now, both for the new advertising campaign for the basic brand, as well as the TEN introduction. The brand campaign defies belief in that adults would never have such a good dance party without alcohol, but the party, the music and the editing makes me [...]

In the commercial production business, they talk of “practicals.”   A practical is that a cowboy or Indian in the 19th century should not be wearing a wristwatch or the sun should not be shining in the window at night. I saw what I consider a “practical” last night for media planning.   Chick Filet ran an [...]

No one yet knows the long term effects of the plethora of line extensions by major brands over the last few years. I  suspect that the brands which were either form factors (Oreo’s), or named for form factors (Wheat Thins) or both (Alka Seltzer) will suffer the most from line extensions that departed from their [...]

I realized that I had not heard from my car insurance agent in a long time, and could not remember even a bill. He is a State Farm agent and I have had one or more cars insured with him steadily since 1985 (26 years).   When I called them, I found that State Farm had [...]