Welcome to the KPC blog! Here you’ll find fresh commentary on all things marketing and research, from historical anecdotes on marketing and research to the latest in advertising today. If it strikes our fancy, we’ll be blogging.

The Maverick Brand

Is Tom Cruise's new approach to PR crashing and burning?

It might be too soon to tell, but these paragraphs touch on something important:

"More skeptical observers caution that while there is the risk of long-term damage to the Cruise brand, it will take an awful lot of spotty behavior to undo the massive amount of goodwill he's built up over the years.

"There's a school of thought that it's always good to be discussed, but the recent coverage was so negative," said Mark Lisanti, editor of Defamer.com. "Someone who's as big and famous as he is, it's hard to tell whether people will forget."

"It does get a little risky when the coverage diverts from his craft and into personal stuff," said Sean Cassidy, president of Dan Klores Communications. "You begin to obscure who he is and what he does."

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what he does next.

Trippy...without Melting in Your Mouth

M&M's have joined what I like to call the kaleidoscope school of TV spots. This spot is eerily reminiscent of those iMac ads from a few years ago and the Pop Tart ads that ran at the same time (neither of which I could find online).

Personally, I love the ads - the color, music, design, etc. But at this point, they're not really new, are they? Not considering how many high profile brands have used the same concept.

I'd love to know how effective they are.

Fascinating

That's the only way to describe the intersection of pop culture (theoretically trashy pop culture, at that) and policy-making described in this Economist article. If nothing else, Blair's Labour government probably deserves some A's for effort and creativity...
Permalink - 7/1/2005