Spinning To Disaster: Gavin Newsom

I first learned of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to hit his self-destruction button over at Recruiting Animal's blog and, as a political consultant, I have been itching to write about it ever since. Wow ... the difference a couple days can make.Without a doubt, Newsom wants to apply the "celebrity spin" card in an attempt to save his political career, which, in my opinion, ended the day he said "I think...

Paying For Promotion: Turner Broadcasting

In a continuing tale of two companies that thought they were being bold with guerilla marketing, Turner Broadcasting Systems and Interference Inc. have agreed to pay the city of Boston some $2 million for the advertising campaign that caused a bomb scare. The campaign, which was originally budgeted in the thousands (with freelancers making a few hundred each), will be forever immortalized as one of the biggest abuses...

Bashing Ghosts: The Branding Foundry

The Branding Foundry, which is the brainchild of Rowland Hanson, the former Microsoft marketing "guru" who is credited with coming up with the name Windows, is already facing its first brand challenge. After a great write-up by venture capital reporter John Cook in Seattle, Kevin Young, president of the unproven and fledgling company, forgets his position and spends more time bashing ghosts (anonymous posters) than...

Writing Web Sites: AP Stylebook

Last night, I was caught a bit off guard when one of my students opened up the AP Stylebook to inform me my take on "Website" was wrong, according to the Associated Press. So naturally, today I started doing some homework on this particular rule in what many, myself included, call the writer's bible. Kudos to Debbie Weil over at Wordbiz Report for doing my homework for me and the rest of us back in 2003. She wrote Norman...

Killing With No Comment: Interference, Inc.

After several days of offering "no comment" about its part in the Cartoon Network's Boston bomb scare, Interference, Inc. has replaced its entire Web presence with with a single statement."We at Interference, Inc. regret that our efforts on behalf of our client contributed to the disruption in Boston yesterday and certainly apologize to anyone who endured any hardship as a result. Nothing undertaken by our firm was in...

Creating Panic In Boston: Cartoon Network

The Cartoon Network learned the hard way yesterday that guerilla marketing is fine unless it looks like guerilla warfare. That was the outcome of its marketing campaign as federal, state and local police swarmed around Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge as reports poured in of suspicious devices, closing roads, tunnels and bridges for hours.In total, 38 battery-operated ads featuring a character called a mooninite flipping...