Starbucks Nipple Frenzy

AdAge has chimed in now about the whole Starbucks logo redesign and we thought we would chime in…

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

I mean for shit fucking’s sake, we certainly are a country recessing into an age of pointless conservatism aren’t we? What is with America and their utter misguided ideas involving the human body, and sexuality? Is it the Christians? I mean i’m always down for a bit o’ fun bashing the fundamentalists but it seems this extends to your normal run-of-the-mill Protestant Christan. It’s absolutely rediculous. First of all, Starbucks is paying homage to their original logo, the very roots of their brand that launched this rediculously overpriced and not very good coffee giant. It’s not like they’re creating this just now, this WAS their original logo. I find it hilarious that while in places like Europe they heavily sensor violence and openly show (clean) nudity, like in shampoo commercials, in America we’re the other way around. It seems so..backwards.

NEVERmind the fact that if you really want to bitch about Starbucks how about their murky fair trade policies, labor relations, hostile monopolization and globalization practices, the Ethos controversy, and much more?!

CP+B Loses Nike

So it’s pretty rare that we see CP+B fall on their ass, but i guess you could say when it happens it happens BIG. The cat’s out of the bag and sources have reported that Nike and Crispin Porter + Bogusky have parted ways after only 13 months under unknown specific circumstances but probably something to do with disagreeing on the creative direction.

I mean isn’t it typically so? I’m willing to bet this half eaten candy bar that basically how it went down is that CP+B came up with these wild and crazy (yet probably pretty kickass) creative ideas that Nike didn’t want to do. Nike probably felt it compromised the brand integrity and when push came to shove neither backed down. This is how it works folks. I mean in all fairness though, CP+B is just not the type of agency to handle Nike…it’s just not their thang. Nike has such a “set” brand (and this can be good or bad) but ultimately they just won’t go for rocking the boat, and CP+B is known for that. Ah well. Wieden better have partied their fucking ass off.

Cellular South Selects Y&R

-By Andrew McMains

NEW YORK Young & Rubicam here has landed creative duties on Cellular South, a regional telecommunications provider based in Jackson, Miss., the client confirmed today. Estimated billings are $30 million, per sources.

The WPP Group shop added the account without a review. Previously, Omnicom Group’s Martin/Williams in Minneapolis handled the business.

Media duties, also at M/W, are shifting to WPP’s Maxus here, according to the client.

“From a strategy standpoint, we do make changes from time to time. And, at this point, we felt [it was] best to make a change,” said a client representative.

Interactive duties remain at Huge, an independent in New York.

Cellular South, which describes itself as the largest privately-held wireless provider in the U.S., focuses primarily on four states in the Southeast: Mississippi, Tennessee and parts of Alabama and Florida.

Past major media spending on the brand has ranged between $5-10 million. Last year’s total was nearly $10 million, up from about $6 million in 2006, according to TNS Media Intelligence. This year’s spending, however, will increase “significantly,” according to the rep, though he declined to provide a specific figure.

Y&R, which referred calls the client, announced the win internally today via an e-mail from New York managing partner Shelley Diamond and co-executive creative directors Scott Vitrone and Ian Reichenthal.

The agency’s creative is expected to take the form of TV, radio, outdoor and in-store ads, as well as promotions

The Creativity Awards Gala (Boozefest)

On Tuesday, Creativity had their own little awards thing and some of the people that you-wish-you-were- friends-with, and some of those you’re-glad-you-aren’t showed up in full bloom. Were we there? Were we not? I’ll leave it to your imagination. Fortunately, Creativity knew how to throw a party. They said it best in their own words:

“So in the spirit of consistency here’s a summary of the magical night’s events: Booze. Laughing. Talking. Booze. Awards. Smiling. Booze. Laughing. Talking. Booze. Fun.”

DAMN skippy. That’s how you do a fucking party. If everyone’s drunk off mother lovin’ minds, who really gives a flying fuck what piece of metal you’re holding in your hand right? I mean everyone KNOWS who the players are at the ballgame…But seriously, most of these things are jokes. Kudo’s to Creativity for not being one. Yet. Did any juicy gossip get passed around through half slurred sentences? You tell us.

See more of the fun fest.

Deutsch/LA Taps Dr Pepper

AdWeek reports that Valencia Gayles, founder and former president and CEO of the independent minority marketing firm True Agency, has joined Interpublic Group’s Deutsch/LA to lead the newly won Dr Pepper account, according to Mike Sheldon, agency president.

Well hats off to them, Deutsch has definitely had some good times with their wins on Dr. Pepper, Playstation, and Saturn. Hopefully they can breath some life back into the ailing and almost dead creative industry around LA…yeah we know, we’re skeptical like you are. Now that they’ve got some accounts back, maybe this time around their creatives will stick around longer than a month.

T.A.G. Shows the Good Shit

There are times (well lot’s of times) where big agencies try to spin off smaller “nimbler” agencies that are dubbed “interactive” or “digital” in a desperate attempt to get a spot on the digital/interactive bandwagen. More often than not these fail miserably *cough* Tequila…however, there are those rare times when it seems to be going well and things fall into place.

Such a rarity is T.A.G. spawned out of the hellfires of the McCann Erikson SF agency, T.A.G. was created as a way of keeping key Microsoft creatives Duchon and Edwards — not to mention the client — happy and micro-focused on the all-important Xbox and Zune assignments.

“I don’t know a lot of other agency cultures,” says Duchon, who moved through Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami, JWT in New York and TBWA\C\D, San Francisco. “But T.A.G. is all based on being open to a lot of people and having strategy and creative as the driving forces. There’s so much work to go around, there’s no animosity or grabbing on to things. A lot of people have contributed to the work.”

Blah blah blah, yes yes…you’re oh so unique and have a culture above everyone else.

Anyways. Certainly the work deserves the awards that’s it been getting, and boy has it snapped up a lot. The recent TV commercials have also done a great job at expanding the campaign, albeit a bit late

Famous Footwear Taps Campbell Mithun

Famous Footwear has tapped Campbell Mithun as its new lead agency and appointed Willie Smith svp, marketing for the 1,100-store footwear chain, which is owned by Brown Shoe of New York.

The client spends about $20 million annually on ads, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

I don’t know too much about Campbell Mithun, i think they’re pretty low key – it should be interesting to see what they do with this account. Their agency site scares me a bit with the whole pills thing though. Your agency on drugs? Oh yeah.