You Sleep When You Die

A recent Ad Age article announced an effort to re-brand New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebration as “clean and wholesome.” The goal is to position Mardi Gras as offering more than drunkenness and debauchery. Those involved with the effort say that in addition to the more well known aspects of the celebration, Mardi Gras actually offers family-friendly activities such as parades and great food.

Of course New Orleans is a great city. It’s got history, architecture, culture, sports, cuisine, events and more. But aren’t those the same things that make Mardi Gras so FANTASTIC in the first place?!

Retailers are jumping ship in record numbers. They’re tossing out incumbent agencies and shopping for new ones, even going to “a creative shootout strategy between a roster of agencies.” In the past few months, Wendy’s, Volkswagen, Microsoft, Zappos.com, General Motors, Taco Bell, Wrigley’s and dozens of others have put their accounts into review or have hired new agencies.

Why?

A well-known brand recently announced the launch of its new spring campaign – featuring none other than Britney Spears. Given all of the negative publicity recent celebrity endorsements have generated – Michael Phelps, Alex Rodriguez and Chris Brown come to mind – I only have one question:

What were they thinking??

Several major marketers, including General Motors and Anheuser-Busch, are now asking advertising and media outlets to wait up to 120 days to be reimbursed for production costs and media outlays.

You have got to be kidding, right?!

I told you so.

A recent article in Ad Age announced the cancellation of many of the parties and other festivities scheduled at this year’s Cannes Festival. “You’d have to be tone-deaf to throw a big party this year in Cannes,” says DDB Worldwide CEO Chuck Brymer. According to the article, Cannes 2009 will be more focused on learning and improvement than parties and socializing.