8793: Contextual Counterpoints.

Adweek published a piece on the Psychology Today fiasco—tucked between banners and modules featuring a Black woman and Oprah.

8792: Toilet Gloves Ad Should Be Flushed.

This ad is wrong on so many levels—including its Black Panthers reference.

8791: Psychology Today Goes Psycho.

Psychology Today posted a story titled, “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” The author is Satoshi Kanazawa, whose last name, ironically, can almost be rejiggered to spell Kwanzaa. The publication pulled the story from its website after word spread and outrage ensued; however, the psycho babble can still be viewed at Something Awful. It all begs the question, “Why Are Publications Like Psychology Today More Culturally Clueless Than Other Publications?”

8790: Chinese Business Rules.

Attend this Chinese business school, and an hour later, you’re hungry for knowledge again.

8789: “Where Are All The Excerpts?”

Kiss My Black Ads posted an excerpt from “Where Are All The black People?” Andrew Bass Jr. managed to capture video on some of the action, although the footage quality is reminiscent of the Zapruder film. It’s hard to get a clear sense of what really occurred at the event, as the outtake mostly spotlights one panelist discussing White privilege. Not convinced that focusing on White privilege will move things forward, as the concept is too complex for privileged Whites to comprehend. Looking forward to hearing more from participants or journalists who were present. Catch the clip at Kiss My Black Ads or vimeo. And anyone with more details should feel free to leave a comment.

8788: Mickey Mouse Joins The Navy.

SEALing the news in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Disney trademarked “SEAL TEAM 6”—the name of the elite U.S. Navy SEAL unit that assassinated Osama Bin Laden. Look forward to an Abbottabad Death Ride at theme parks and animated feature film in 3D.

• Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there—with health and insurance benefits for employees in same-sex relationships. The company is poised to offer the benefits to its eligible workers when civil unions will be recognized in Illinois on June 1. Like a gay neighbor…

8787: An Hour Later You’re Nauseous Again.

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. Is Advertising Age celebrating with this article on Asian-inspired fast-food joints?

Table Set for Fast-Casual Asian Invasion

As Diners’ Tastes Evolve, Established Players Look to Grow, While Chipotle and Others Launch New Brands

By Maureen Morrison

Drive down any major U.S. thoroughfare, and you are bound to pass chains that sell hamburgers, fried chicken, tacos and sub sandwiches. But if you’re hankering for cashew chicken or Thai noodles, you’ll likely need to find a local establishment—at least for now.

Despite the maturity of the fast-food industry in the U.S., the Asian category is still relatively untapped on a national level. Among the top 500 chains in the U.S. only about 1.7% of sales are from Asian chains, according to Technomic.

Traditionally, fast-food chains have not seen as much opportunity in the sector due to several factors, including the large number of reasonably priced mom-and-pop restaurants and the fact that in some corners of the country Asian dishes weren’t considered mainstream enough for the average palate. But as the chain restaurant giants scour for increasingly scarce growth opportunities in the U.S., the sector is looking a lot more attractive.

“Historically the other fast feeders have had a huge head-start. But if you look at which segments have grown, this has been consistently growing at a small rate,” said Mary Chapman, director-product innovation at Technomic, which finds that last year fast-food and fast-casual Asian chain sales among the top 500 grew 9.3%.

But because U.S. consumers have been exposed to Chinese food for so long through local mom-and-pop establishments, they are increasingly interested not only in Chinese, but in expanding the Asian-culinary horizons to Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese and even Indian. According to a recent Technomic report on the Asian category, the number of consumers between 2008 and 2010 who said they would be very likely to order a Chinese-style beef dish jumped from 30% to 46%. “Asian’s got a high flavor profile—consumers want more interesting flavors,” said Ms. Chapman.

Ms. Chapman said that even in non-Asian restaurants, incidences of Asian appetizers and meals are up. Among the top 250 chains in the U.S., there were 19% more Asian items on menus in the second half of 2010 than in the same period in 2009. Even McDonald’s is in. The fast feeder last week reintroduced its Asian salad, which will be available through early September.

Population growth may also be a factor. Asians grew at the same rate as Hispanics from 2000 to 2010: 43%, according to the U.S. Census. There are 14.5 million Asians in the U.S. The largest population is Chinese, followed by Indian, which just surpassed Filipinos. The Chinese population grew 38.5% from 2000 to 2009 to just over 3.2 million.

Fast-casual is one of the better performing restaurant categories because consumers view the food as fresher, in part because they can see their order being made, said Ms. Chapman. And consumers also view Asian food generally as fresher.

In that case, Chipotle is opening up is Asian concept at just the right time. ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen will have one location (for now, anyway) in Washington and feature cuisine inspired by Thai, Malaysian and Vietnamese cuisines.

Chris Arnold, communications director at Chipotle, said that the Asian concept “absolutely lends to the Chipotle model.” He added: “We have long believed that Chipotle’s success isn’t necessarily about tacos and burritos, but rather it’s about a simple model that keeps us focused on doing just a few things, but doing them very well. With the same disciplined approach to ShopHouse, we think it will do well, too.” Mr. Arnold said there will be no advertising initially, so there is no ShopHouse agency.

Yum Brands is also tentatively getting into the space: Last week it made a bid to up its minority stake in Little Sheep, a well-known hot-pot chain in China, to 92.3%. Little Sheep also operates a handful of units in California and Texas.

Panda Express, though not available everywhere, is the dominant player in this country’s limited-service Asian category, with market share of 45.7% and U.S. sales of $1.4 billion in 2010, according to Technomic.

Whatever critics might think of the mall staple, “consumers say that they believe it to be fresher and healthier,” said Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst at NPD Group.

Panda Express plans to expand its number of restaurants over 70% to about 2,300 nationwide by 2015. Much of that growth is planned for the eastern part of the U.S. Still, with roughly 1,330 units at the end of 2010, the company posted 12.8% growth in U.S. sales, and a 4.9% increase in locations, according to Technomic.

As for Panda Express’ marketing plans, Glenn Lunde, chief marketing officer, said, “We are increasing our investment in guest-focused initiatives to continue our commitment to exceptional dining experience for every guest. This will always be our priority and best marketing strategy.”

In 2010, the chain spent about $6.5 million on U.S. measured media, nearly all of which was on spot TV. It works with Siltanen & Partners, Los Angeles, for creative and Pal8, Santa Barbara, Calif., for media.

Other regional restaurants have expansion plans. P.F. Chang’s fast-casual outlet Pei Wei—the No. 2 limited-service Asian restaurant in the U.S. by sales, according to Technomic—had 168 stores in the U.S. at year-end 2010 with sales of $310 million, and plans to open 10 to 12 units in 2011. Minnesota-based Leeann Chin’s, which had about 42 locations at the end of 2010 and estimated U.S. sales of $46.7 million, according to Technomic, has talked of franchising nationwide.

But with all this potential for growth, there lie some hurdles.

One failed experiment, perhaps too far ahead of the curve, was China Coast, which shuttered in 1995. The Darden-owned chain lasted five years and grew to 51 units before the company pulled the plug.

Ms. Riggs said full-scale development in the Midwest could pose challenging. “The most developed areas for Asian food are in the Mountain and Pacific regions of the country, and the Mid-Atlantic. … It’s going to be a challenge for these concepts in the Midwest, because people are exposed to other kinds of food less.”

8786: Hornitos Spot Shows Corporate Rape.

Copyranter and Not That Kind of Girl criticized a Hornitos commercial for depicting the deviant tactics of a twin brother duping his sibling’s girlfriend into having intercourse. Both bloggers categorized the evil twin as a rapist, prompting comments defending the spot via the stereotypical “Lighten up” perspective. Plus, Google-degreed lawyer wannabes declared the scenario does not constitute rape. The legal debates are semi-pointless, as the event is only a sales-oriented dramatization—although Biblical scholars might opine that Jesus’ statement regarding lust in one’s heart equaling adultery sorta makes the Hornitos villain a Ten Commandments violator.

The Hornitos commercial does clearly demonstrate an issue often examined by MultiCultClassics: advertising agencies avoiding responsibility for committing heinous social crimes. That is, Hornitos will and should catch heat for the awful message, while its agency gets off scot free. The insensitivity and cultural cluelessness of Madison Avenue is never publicly acknowledged—or even recognized, for that matter. Heaven forbid adpeople might see and/or admit to their collective ignorance.

The advertising agency culprit here is Euro RSCG Chicago. Now, the cries of rape may be questionable with the Hornitos spot characters. However, there is a body of evidence to build a rock-solid case against the Euro hacks, easily warranting culturally clueless charges that would lead to an immediate conviction. (Plus, some of the defensive comments at Copyranter and Not That Kind of Girl were surely typed by Euro employees.) And Euro is arguably raping Hornitos by billing the spirits company for unprofessional and brand-damaging work.

Fortunately for the corporate criminals at Euro and other stupid agencies, clients have not yet seriously considered pursuing the concept of marketing malpractice.

8785: McCann Hires Press Pal.

No one with a brain would ever confuse Goodby, Silverstein & Partners with McCann, but the two agencies now share a commonality: both have hired former Adweek writers for original-yet-ridiculous roles. Barbara Lippert was named Curator of Pop Culture at GS&P last February, while McCann just mimicked the creative powerhouse by tapping Eleftheria Parpis as its first Chief Brand Editor. McCann Creative Chief Linus Karlsson gushed Parpis will generate journalism-based content that displays the “creativity, innovation, and market leadership of the agency and inspires dialogue and fosters community throughout the agency’s creative network.” Can’t help but wonder if Parpis wrote that line of PR bullshit. It’s not a surprise that the ex-trade scribes generated positive press for their new bosses over the years, likely nurturing the relationships that ultimately led to job offers. In the end, Lippert and Parpis represent another addition to the list of characters that effortlessly land Madison Avenue positions ahead of minorities.

8784: NBA PSA 4 LGBT.

Advertsing Age reported on NBA players featured in new PSAs designed to stop anti-LGBT language. The campaign is officially called, “Think Before You Speak.” And unofficially called, “Shut the fuck up, Kobe.”

NBA Joins Effort to Stop Anti-LGBT Language

Ad Council Launching New PSAs in Basketball Conference Finals

By Karen Egolf


The NBA is joining the Ad Council and the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network to launch a new effort targeting anti-gay language among teens. The PSAs, which will debut May 15 during the NBA Conference Finals on ABC, TNT and ESPN, feature the Phoenix Suns’ Grant Hill and Jared Dudley.

The campaign, including TV, radio, print and Web, was created pro bono by ArnoldNYC. It’s an extension of the Ad Council’s “Think Before You Speak” and GLSEN’s “Changing the Game” efforts.

Almost 90% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens say they have been verbally harassed in the past school year, while almost half have been physically harassed, according to GLSEN’s 2009 National School Climate Survey.

The new effort tells teens that using words such as “gay” in a negative way can have serious consequences, showing that using such terms to say something is dumb or stupid is not acceptable on the basketball court or anywhere else. The PSAs tell audiences to visit ThinkB4YouSpeak.com for more information and to take a pledge against using anti-LGBT language.

“We’ve partnered with GLSEN and the Ad Council on ‘Think Before You Speak’ for several years, and while we’re proud to be able to turn our energy and talent toward changing negative behavior, there is unfortunately a lot more work to be done,” said John Staffen, chief creative officer, ArnoldNYC, in announcing the effort. “The NBA deserves big kudos for stepping up to the plate and being a part of this important dialogue.”

“Think Before You Speak,” the Ad Council’s first LGBT-themed campaign, has received more than $17.6 million worth of media exposure since its launch in 2008.

8783: C’MON WHITE MAN! Episode 8.

(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)

Adweek published the following story:

Goodby Announces Scholarship

Agency to pay tuitions for two African-American students to attend Hyper Island

By Gabriel Beltrone

Goodby Silverstein & Partners will pay tuition for two African-American students to attend 40-to-45-week creative programs at top digital school Hyper Island, the agency’s creative brass announced Wednesday evening.

Jeff Goodby, co-chairman at the agency, unveiled the scholarship during a One Show panel focused on the lack of diversity in the advertising industry, subtly titled “Where are all the black people?”

High school and college students can apply until June 6 for the scholarship, which can be used to attend either the interactive art director or motion graphics program. The fee for the program, covered by GS&P, is E 12,900—or a little more than $18,000 at current exchange rates. Winners will be responsible for travel costs to Sweden, where the school is headquartered, and their own expenses while there.

Hyper Island’s CEO Johanna Frelin said the partnership with GS&P is the first in a series of fellowships the school is planning.

Hey, MultiCultClassics pretty much predicted this scenario. A minority scholarship—now there’s an original idea. Why do the greatest minds in our creative industry always come up with the same “solution” for diversity? OK, shipping Black students to Sweden is kinda unique (although asking them to cover travel and expenses is rather rude). And one has to wonder if they’d have a better chance landing an advertising job out there versus the U.S. of A. But in the end, Goodby’s goodwill effort is the tired-yet-tax-deductible concept of launching a minority youth outreach program.

This is the second time Goodby has appeared in an episode of C’MON WHITE MAN! The first honor came after he named former Adweek columnist Barbara Lippert as his firm’s “curator of popular culture”—a fairly blatant mercy hire with a touch of cronyism. Yep, White buddies receive cushy jobs at a premier ad agency, while Black kids win partial scholarships to the land of bikini-clad Blondes.

C’MON WHITE MAN!

8782: UnCommon Controversy.

From The New York Daily News…

By inviting Common to the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama miss a golden opportunity

By Thomas Chatterton Williams

The conservative backlash against the Obama administration’s decision to invite Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr., the rapper known as Common, to the White House on Wednesday night for a poetry slam is both overblown and off the mark.

Citing the lyrics of a poem that Common recited during an HBO appearance, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and even the New Jersey State Police have all joined the chorus of voices depicting the emcee as “dangerous,” “controversial” and a ghetto “radical.” In fact, he is none of these things. Common, a Chicago-native formerly known as Common Sense, is — as far as these things go — a socially conscious lyricist who has toiled in relative obscurity for most of his career, and to some degree, still is overshadowed by his far more flamboyant and ignorant colleagues. He is what used to be called a “backpack rapper,” meaning that your white, pot-smoking college roommate would be exponentially more likely to find him interesting than would any gun-toting thug on the street. To criticize him as some diabolical “threat” to God-fearing, law-abiding Americans is both disingenuous and willfully blind to the overall body of his work.

However, there are some real reasons to be disappointed with the White House over this invitation. The truth is that the first black First Family has — or perhaps I should say “had” — an unprecedented opportunity and platform to push black America forward and away from the dumbed-down and omnipresent influence of hip hop music and culture. Michelle Obama could have used the occasion of her highly publicized poetry slam to highlight and promote the work of literary artists who are not part of the hip hop echo chamber. In fact, that is what she did do, but these other artists have been forgotten in the controversy surrounding Common. Why was it necessary to invite him in the first place?

As Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, put it, Common was invited to the event “partly because of his efforts to bring poetry to audiences that don’t get to experience it. And we think that’s a positive thing.” This is a problematic justification for a couple of reasons.

First, these audiences are precisely the ones that most need to be shown that poetry — and for that matter, literature, self-expression, black identity and life in general — exist outside of a hip hop vacuum. Using a rapper, even a backpack rapper, as the means of reaching out to these audiences only reinforces the very provincialism the White House is supposedly seeking to counter.

Second, it is our sad reality to find ourselves in an era in which the bar for what is considered to be “positive” is set so low that anyone who rhymes words together for a living and refrains from advocating selling drugs may be said to fit the label. No, Common is not the negative force so many conservatives would now have us believe he is. But neither is he anything all that great, either. He’s pretty neutral in the grand scheme of things.

On the other hand, the Obamas, since they took the national stage by storm several years ago, were and still are in many of our eyes truly positive examples not of black people but of Americans in general. On more than one occasion, the President has spoken candidly and bravely about a slew of cultural traps that continue to bedevil our nation’s black youth. And when he has spoken, we have listened. This is why it is so dismaying to see him undermine his laudable message and example through his and his wife’s sometimes too-close proximity to hip hop artists and powerbrokers.

We don’t need the Obamas to tell us that Common is a great poet or that Jay-Z and Lil’ Wayne are cool entertainers. That is the message we hear everywhere around us. What we do need desperately is for the Obamas to use their unrivaled visibility and influence to push us in new and uncomfortable directions. Sadly, this was another missed opportunity to do just that.

Williams is author of “Losing My Cool: Love, Literature and a Black Man’s Escape from the Crowd.”

8781: Milking Microsoft’s Marketing Melodrama.

Adweek reported on the Microsoft account shifts shafting JWT, presenting a different scenario than other stories that claimed client-side changes prompted the moves. Indeed, Adweek seemed to dump the blame squarely on JWT’s doorstep, citing the 2010 departures of Ty Montague and Rosemarie Ryan as “a turning point in the relationship.” Wonder if Montague and Ryan viewed JWT as a
Burmese prison and couldn’t wait to escape. And maybe JWT CEO Bob Jeffrey was actually directing his “unfair and anger-inducing” comments toward the ex-JWT duo. Ryan insisted that the company she formed with Montague will not pick up Bing business—but perhaps they’ll get a cut of Skype. Whatever. In a previous post, MultiCultClassics suggested Microsoft should program Bing so that searches for “crybaby” yield a result featuring a picture of the JWT CEO. Appropriately enough, a Bing search of “JWT Bob Jeffrey” displays the image below among the top results.

8780: Michael Jackson Is Back.

From Advertising Age…

Auto Marketer Mike Jackson Launches His Own Shop

Jackson & Partners to Focus on Retail Auto Advertising, Help With Reputation Management and Search

By Rupal Parekh

Longtime auto marketer Mike Jackson is returning to the agency side of the business, this time hanging his own shingle with shop Jackson & Partners, a joint venture with Las Vegas-based agency R&R Partners.

Mr. Jackson, the onetime marketing chief at General Motors, most recently served as senior VP-global sales and distribution at California-based electric-car and battery manufacturer Coda. Before that, he worked at digital agency Sarkissian Mason.

What’s unusual about the shop is who it’s targeting as clients and the type of work it plans to handle for them. Jackson & Partners will focus exclusively on retail auto advertising and helping the segment with reputation management, search advertising and strategy, and geo-targeted ads. Among his partners in the new business—which is a joint venture with R&R Partners—is veteran auto creative Gary Topolewski, who’s clocked a total of almost three decades working at the likes of Doner, Bozell, TBWA/Chiat/Day, D’Arcy and BBDO Detroit.

According to Mr. Jackson—the onetime marketing chief at General Motors—the idea for the shop came about while he was still in his prior post at Coda. Phil Motta, the chief development officer at R&R, pitched Messrs. Jackson and Topolewski in the idea and together they talked about the possibility of reinventing where auto retailers are reaching their customers.

“The dealers started off as some of the more inventive people in how they attract invention, but then it hasn’t evolved—it’s cliché and boilerplate,” Mr. Jackson said. “Unfortunately, it’s an afterthought for most brands, where they’ll say, ‘We’ve done most of the communications on a tier-one level, so let’s spend 10 minutes and do something on the retail level.’ There’s been an autopilot mentality about it but the opportunity we see is to increase effectiveness.”

According to Mr. Jackson, there’s also a big opportunity in terms of a wealth of ad dollars in the tier-three dealer vertical alone. “Even in the toughest of times in 2009, retail automotive dealers, their marketing measured spending was $5.5 billion,” he said.

That’s a significant sum, despite the fact that it’s dwindled from the estimated $9.5 billion size of the market in 2007.

“In the automotive business, it’s still about the dealer’s reputation in the marketplace and referral is still preeminent. And it’s not just word-of-mouth as it was for the past 30 years, it’s word-of-mouth on the internet,” Mr. Jackson said. Clients of Jackson & Partners will be encouraged to move messages away from price and trust to identify real relationships with consumers.

Mr. Topolewski concedes that dealers are “a big machine to turnaround.” But he said that’s also the attraction to the business from a creative standpoint. “There’s an opportunity here to do some positive things. [Dealer advertising] has been the butt of a lot of jokes but it’s time to get smart about it and have a knowledge of information about how people consume. The dealers are willing to try whatever they can to be relevant.”

8779: Can Procurement Cure Exclusivity?

Advertising Age presented a story featuring a roundtable of executives at the ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference discussing the topic of procurement. The trade publication added a second story on the same subject that spotlighted ANA speakers P&G VP-Global Product Supply and Global Brand-Building Purchases Stew Atkinson and Omnicom President-CEO John Wren.

Advertising firms—as well as sympathizers like Ad Age—seem quick to paint client-side procurement people as clueless vermin intent on reducing quality, hurting morale and sucking the fun out of our business. Yet the agency and network bean counters are equally awful, and potentially worse, given that their positions should make them acutely aware of their coworkers’ needs. Instead, agency accountants have successfully established that billable hours trump big ideas, and good enough is the new gold standard when quarterly profits are on the line.

The money managers of Madison Avenue have definitely gained power over the years, as evidenced by Adweek’s Top Ten Earners in Advertising, a Boys Club including three CFOs. Why, it’s only a matter of time before special Cannes Lions and One Show Pencils are introduced to honor outstanding achievements in fiscal responsibility.

Imagine if procurement focused on inspiring social change versus pocket change. For starters, agency compensation could be tied to meeting diversity requirements. Given clients’ recognition of increased U.S. multiculturalism, it would actually make sense from a business perspective to insist that Madison Avenue mirror the consumers being targeted. Agencies that cling to cronyism, nepotism and other assorted isms should face budget cuts—or simply get cut altogether.

Promises from professionals haven’t produced progress. So let procurement cure exclusivity.

8778: Heroic Black Woman.

Look, up in the sky—it’s a Black version of the school-bound superheroine!

8777: The King James’ Speech.

Apparently not to be outdone by the offensive prowess of Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, Miami Heat star LeBron James shot his own naughty remark during a post-game press conference. Responding to a dumb question aimed at teammate Dwyane Wade, James muttered, “That’s retarded.” Bryant wound up shooting a PSA to make amends for his anti-gay slur hurled toward a referee. Look for James to counter with an appearance at the Special Olympics.

8776: The Top Ten White Men In Advertising.

Adweek presented the Top Ten Earners in Advertising. Talk about literally putting a face on who’s in charge on Madison Avenue—a White male face, that is.

8775: Microsoft Moves Make Men Moan.

Advertising Age reported on the Microsoft account shifts that allegedly resulted from executive changes on the client side. The advertising agency initially feeling adverse effects is JWT. According to Ad Age, JWT CEO Bob Jeffrey decried the Microsoft moves as “unfair and anger-inducing.” Boo-hoo, Bob. It’s a little silly, however, to whine about the situation. After all, executive changes leading to reassignments happen on both sides of the table. Did JWT seek Microsoft’s input when Ty Montague and Rosemarie Ryan left their agency positions? Additionally, executive changes allegedly also prompted the recent break-up between CP+B and Burger King. And guess who was the first person to suck up to BK officials in the hopes of pitching for the business? Bob Jeffrey. Sorry, but there are far more unjust maneuvers being executed on Madison Avenue versus client headquarters. For Jeffrey to express outrage is asinine, hypocritical and just plain pathetic. Microsoft should program Bing so that searches for “crybaby” yield a result featuring a picture of the JWT CEO.

What’s Behind Microsoft Shift? Marketing ‘Chaos’

Yanks Bing, Windows from JWT Amid CMO Transition, More Account Moves in the Offing

By Rupal Parekh

There’s an oft-reliable rule of thumb in adland that dictates watching for a change in ad-agency relationships three to six months after a company has installed a new chief marketing officer.

But when Microsoft yanked the Bing and Office accounts from JWT barely three weeks into new Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela’s tenure—and while longtime CMO Mich Mathews is transitioning her way out—the speed of the shift prompted questions about what was behind the move, coming at critical time for the tech giant’s consumer-marketing initiatives.

Microsoft last week was mum on the reason for the agency changes, which JWT CEO Bob Jeffrey decried as unfair and anger-inducing. And more are said to be on the way, particularly relating to Windows Mobile, which is handled by CPB. “Microsoft works with a number of agencies on a variety of projects,” said a spokeswoman in a statement. “Beyond that, we have nothing further to share. We’re not commenting on mobile at this time.”

The roster shakeup is worrying to Microsoft’s other agencies, who now fear their relationships are also on the line. But the bigger concern is that the shifts are coupled with a lack of consumer-marketing experience atop the corporate-marketing division at a time of challenges, from Microsoft’s failure to answer the iPad to its inability to create buzz for a mobile operating system that trails Apple, Google and RIM.

Like Ms. Mathews, Mr. Capossela is a Microsoft lifer. The onetime speech assistant to Bill Gates was previously responsible for marketing business-to-business products such as Microsoft Office and Visio. While he’s said to be shifting into the CMO role, Ms. Mathews is technically still at the company and won’t be leaving until summer.

A top exec at one of Microsoft’s agencies described the marketing suite as in a state of “chaos” right now.

Said a person within the company: “These are big jobs at really important times for Microsoft and you have a business-marketing guy running consumer marketing at a time when Google and Apple are kicking our asses.”

(Several people whom Ad Age spoke to noted there’s a similar transition atop the ad-sales division, as Frank Holland, a longtime supply-chain executive, was last month named corporate VP-advertising and online business. Mr. Holland is a virtual unknown in the advertising and marketing world.)

While JWT was fired from the Bing account, the numbers suggest its advertising for the search engine, which it handled since May 2009, has been successful. Since then, Microsoft’s share of search has shot up from 8% of the overall market to 14%, according to ComScore, and it appears to be taking share from Yahoo and AOL.

The Bing move came just weeks before former JWT chief creative Ty Montague’s noncompete contract is set to run out and many suspected that the business, or at least a portion of it, would head to Co Collective, the shop that Mr. Montague and former North American Rosemarie Ryan founded last year. The pair were critical in JWT’s winning the business before they left to launch their own venture a year ago. But despite earlier ties to Microsoft and a recent hiring spree, Ms. Ryan insisted to Ad Age that rumors Bing work would land at Co’s door were simply not true. For its part, Microsoft said it has appointed Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Deutsch to take on the Office work, while CPB will create the next wave of Bing work.

The losses of Bing—valued at $116 billion alone—and Office reduce JWT’s status on Microsoft’s roster from one of the largest to one of the smallest, with just a couple of bits of business in China and Brazil, and will likely lead to layoffs. The agency declined to comment on how many staff could be affected.

When Ad Age asked who JWT believes was behind its dismissal, Jeremy Postaer, the JWT executive creative director on the Bing work, said: “That’s like asking who’s the guy that shot Osama. … Who really knows?”

8774: Spokespresident For Hire.

This ad looks like Bill Clinton is hawking the Men’s Wearhouse.

8773: Mayhem Doesn’t Work For Allstate.

It looks like when actual disasters strike, Allstate trots out Dennis Haysbert versus the lame Mayhem character. Guess the insurance provider realized it wouldn’t work for Mr. Mayhem to announce, “I’m the twister that decimated your community and killed your neighbors.”

8772: Coors Light Tastes Like Old Spice.

The World’s Most Refreshing Beer presents the least refreshing advertising. In fact, this commercial is a blatant rip-off of the Old Spice campaign. Draftfcb Chairman Howard Draft claimed only 20 percent of his agency’s work could be considered great. This Coors Light shit is clearly in the 80 percent.

8771: The New Adweek Is The Old AdFreak.

The new Adweek is three weeks old, so MultiCultClassics dropped by to view the progress. The Editor’s Picks features “The Week on AdFreak”—and the Most Popular list is comprised of ten AdFreak posts. Maybe it’s time to replace Michael Wolff with Tim Nudd.

8770: IHOP Divorced From Reality.

What’s more pathetic than proposing in an IHOP? Being excited about the restaurant’s cheesy omelets. And what’s more pathetic than that? Turning it all into a commercial.

8769: Trivial Tidbit.

President Gerald R. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr. Gee, wonder how that name would have played with Black voters.

8768: Trashing Trump.

The New York Daily News reported that Wanda Sykes is not among the Blacks that Donald Trump has a good relationship with.

Wanda Sykes says Donald Trump is racist, fame-hungry: ‘He’s not happy unless he’s relevant’

By Shari Weiss, Daily News Staff Writer

Count Wanda Sykes as one of the many people who won’t vote for Donald Trump if he runs for president in 2012.

“He’s not happy unless he’s relevant in some way,” she told The Vancouver Sun. “He wants people to be talkin’ about him.”

“I thought he would be happy enough to finally have a decent season of ‘Celebrity Apprentice,’ Sykes continued, “but, you know, he had to make a little bit more noise than that, I guess.”

But the comedienne isn’t one of the viewers tuning in to the NBC series and she would never consider an offer to compete.

“I would never want to be on that show,” Wykes said. “If I wind up on that show, it’s all over for me, I really messed up. I killed somebody. I murdered a whole family.”

Birthers, she said, are using the disproven notion that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in America as a cover for their racist beliefs.

“I feel sorry for ‘em; they’re just sad,” Sykes said of the growing group of which Trump is proudly a member. “I love that they’re hangin’ it on ‘Well, he’s not from this country’ when they should just face it: You’re havin’ issues because a black man is president.”

“That’s what it is, and you need to deal with that, to work with that,” she added.

But when it comes to the almost equally fame-hungry Charlie Sheen, who has been touring the country with a live show, Sykes doesn’t view him with the same venomous eyes she does Trump.

“I can’t get mad at the person,” says Sykes, “because it takes the audience to make them a celebrity.”

“But hey, if that’s how people want to be entertained, if people want to see a train wreck,” she continued, “Charlie Sheen does a really good train wreck.”

8767: Jimmy John’s Sandwiches Stereotypes.

Jimmy John’s has served up cultural cluelessness in the past, and this latest commercial continues the tradition with a hip-hop human sandwich.

8766: Thomas Calls Trump For Offensive Foul.

From CNN…

Trump’s disrespect for President Obama

By Etan Thomas, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Etan Thomas is a poet and author who plays basketball for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. He is a peace activist and actively supported Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. His website is http://etanthomas.com/

(CNN) -- Donald Trump’s most recent challenge to President Barack Obama took me back to my collegiate years at Syracuse University. I had studied for two weeks straight for a calculus class, harder than I had ever studied in my life. After I completed my exam, I was confident that all my hard work had paid off.

But the next day, my professor greeted me with accusations of cheating, saying three-fourths of the class had flunked. How could I possibly have managed to get a B minus without cheating? Thankfully, not all of my professors were cut from this same cloth, but I had my share of run-ins. One professor asked me on the first day what I was doing in his classroom, and shouldn’t I be in remedial English or Rocks for Jocks?

Why did I have to prove myself worthy of being in their classrooms? The vast majority of professors at Syracuse University were not like this, but the sting of disrespect from those encounters has resonated with me till this day.

Donald Trump questioning the president’s educational background took me back to those unfortunate memories.

President Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a degree in political science. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. But apparently Trump is not impressed. He suggested—without offering any proof of this baseless claim—in an interview with The Associated Press that not only was he a poor student, he didn’t deserve to be admitted to the Ivy League universities he attended.

Michael Eric Dyson described this situation perfectly when he said on “Face the Nation”: “Skepticism about black intelligence and suspicion about black humanity have gone hand-in-hand throughout the history of this country in feeding the perception that black people don’t quite measure up.”

I don’t think any other president in the history of the United States ever had his citizenship cross-examined, his religious faith challenged or his educational achievements put to question.

Trump rejects allegations of racism.

Is Trump fanning the flames of ignorance simply for personal gain, or does he truly believe President Obama has to continually prove himself worthy?

Unfortunately, Trump isn’t alone. In a CNN.com article headlined “Potential GOP presidential candidates react to bin Laden’s death,” Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum all gave statements about bin Laden’s death. Only Tim Pawlenty mentioned President Obama by name, and he had to include that it was, in fact, “President Bush who promised that America would bring Osama bin Laden to justice.”

Now, did some of the terrorists captured while Bush was in office reveal pertinent information that helped identify Osama’s courier? Did this information lead the Obama administration to the compound where bin Laden was hiding? Maybe.

But isn’t it also true that it was the wisdom and insight of the president that led to the abandoning of the Bush approach of bombing the entire area, leaving no man, woman or child standing? Didn’t the decision by President Obama to use special forces and a surgical helicopter attack help prevent the loss of many civilian lives?

By removing Osama bin Laden, President Obama has accomplished what Bush couldn’t do in two terms, no matter what he promised. So why is it still so difficult for the right to give him respect and credit?

The president should not have to prove anything to anyone. Yet, he has handled every unmerited insult with nothing but grace and class. He has risen above every act of insolence, and proved them all wrong. There is, as CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer described, “an ugly strain of racism that’s running through this whole thing.”

Going back to “The Donald”: I don’t think he is some cross-burning, Confederate-flag-waving racist. But I do believe he is a “Hey, what is that black guy doing here?” racist. He is the type of racist who wants black people “to stay in their place.”

It is a sad situation that a man who has earned a degree from Columbia University, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, has been elected as president of the United States and received a Nobel Peace Prize has to continuously prove himself as a man worthy of respect. He simply shouldn’t have to.

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Etan Thomas.

8765: Fuelling A Ship Of Fools.

Advertising Age reported Draftfcb London is buying 60-person digital agency Blue Barracuda. Perhaps Howard Draft will spin it off to realize his dream of running a small, interactive shop. Draftfcb CEO-president Laurence Boschetto gushed, “In the five years since DraftFCB was created, we have been focused on building our fully integrated model, which means one P&L, no silos. … Rather than infighting over budgets, our employees are able to put our clients and their brands at the center of all we do. Now we are committed to further enhancing our capabilities.” Wow, this guy is a delusional douche—and a fucking liar too. Draftfcb has more silos than the Atlas Missile System Project. Hope the folks at Blue Barracuda realize they’ll be “fuelling” a broken, sinking ship.

DraftFCB to Acquire London-Based Digital Shop

New Shop Will Be Called ‘Fuelled By Blue Barracuda’

By Kunur Patel

Interpublic agency DraftFCB will acquire London-based digital agency Blue Barracuda. The new entity will be called DraftFCB London “Fuelled By Blue Barracuda.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Blue Barracuda’s 60 employees will be immediately merged with Draft’s London office, increasing headcount 50% at the agency. Blue’s management team will also be integrated, with former CEO Martin Talks becoming Draft, London’s president of digital. The office will serve as the digital hub for Draft’s agency network in Europe.

Blue Barracuda, founded in 2002, handles digital strategy and media buying and planning for clients such as Pizza Hut, Getty Images and Roche Pharmaceuticals. Draft also gains access to Blue Barracuda’s offshore-production unit in Tallinn, Estonia.

“In the five years since DraftFCB was created, we have been focused on building our fully integrated model, which means one P&L, no silos. … Rather than infighting over budgets, our employees are able to put our clients and their brands at the center of all we do. Now we are committed to further enhancing our capabilities,” said Laurence Boschetto, worldwide CEO-president for DraftFCB.

While London in particular has been a recent hotbed for boutique creative shops, it has not seen as much mergers-and-acquisition activity as other markets. In recent years, the Big Four companies have snapped up agencies in emerging markets like China and Brazil. Meanwhile, London-based independents like Engine and LBi have set sights on growing stateside footprints with recent acquisitions in the U.S.

8764: Omnicom Versus Omnicom For Victory.

As previously noted, PepsiCo’s Propel Zero account went into “review” among a handful of Omnicom shops. And guess what? An Omnicom shop “won” the business. The Propel brand has propelled from Element 79 to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to new AOR Fathom Communications. Never heard of the place? Hey, most people have never heard of the Propel brand either, so maybe it’s a perfect match—as well as another perfect example of Corporate Cultural Collusion.

8763: Dumb And Dumber.

Bizarro Interview of the Week: Adweek Editorial Director Michael Wolff speaks with AgencySpy Editor Kiran Aditham. It’s a publishing hack who’s clueless about the advertising industry meeting a blog hack bereft of a clue on anything—the equivalent of, say, Sarah Palin being probed by Levi Johnston. Only less intellectually stimulating. And far less visually appealing.

8762: There Is No HHonor In The Big HHouse.

AOL News reported a Chinese Hilton Hotel executive convicted of connections to organized crime was sentenced to life in prison. Don’t expect to collect Hilton HHonors™ points for that stay.

Peng Zhimin, Chinese Hilton Hotel Executive, Gets Life In Prison For Organized Crime

By Rebecca Dolan

A top shareholder of the Hilton hotel in Chongqing, China was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for his connections with organized crime.

Peng Zhimin was convicted of bribery, prostitution, intentional injury, assault and other charges relating to organized crime, Agence France Presse reports.

Peng headed the Qinglong Property Development Companu, which owned the Chongqing Hilton Hotel in southwestern China.

Last year, the hotel was closed as authorities investigated an alleged prostitution ring being run out of the hotel.

Peng was arrested last July and his charges are connected to that investigation. Thirty-one others tied to Peng’s ring were sentenced to various terms of several years to life in prison.

The Hilton Hotel Group was reportedly fully cooperating with authorities.

After the raid, the Hilton was forced to close for a week and was stripped of its fifth star. The incident also prompted China to speed up an overhaul of its hotel star rating system, reports USA TODAY.

Chongqing, a city of 30 million people, is known for being a haven for underworld criminals. A crackdown on organized crime has led to more than 3,300 detentions and hundreds of prosecutions.

8761: Taco Bell Franchisees No Quiero Draftfcb.

Advertising Age reported Taco Bell franchisees are demanding that the account go into review, citing an unhappiness with the performance of incumbent advertising agency Draftfcb. However, Taco Bell corporate officials claim to be pleased with the agency, and insist there will be no pitch. Not sure if it’s appropriate to call the Taco Bell honchos meatheads or beef-filler-heads.

Taco Bell Franchise Council Wants Agency Review

But Fast Feeder Says It Is Happy With DraftFCB, Has No Plans to Make Any Changes

By Maureen Morrison

The Taco Bell franchise board isn’t happy, and it’s pressing for Taco Bell to launch an agency review.

On April 21 Taco Bell Franchise Management Advisory Council (Franmac) President Tom Cook sent a letter to franchisees airing a list of 14 grievances Franmac has with Taco Bell, encouraging franchisees to participate in a Taco Bell Town Hall call. It included the desire to launch an agency review, a complaint about the handling of the infamous Taco Bell beef lawsuit and a point expressing discontent over the fast feeder’s “value messaging.”

A follow-up email by Franmac was sent to Taco Bell restaurant owners detailing the 14 points of contention. The email popped up Monday on franchisee-community website Blue Maumau.

“A core responsibility of our advertising agency is to produce creative that effectively promotes our menu,” the email said. “Ads in the past 12 to 18 months have been largely ineffective, and we believe that an agency review should take place. Taco Bell Corporate, in conjunction with Franmac should immediately undertake an agency review. Without a doubt, we will learn new things, obtain fresh ideas, and be further ahead, even if we decide to stay with the incumbent agency.”

Mr. Cook’s letter specifically called for the review of the DraftFCB account. DraftFCB and Franmac referred calls to Taco Bell. Taco Bell Chief Marketing Officer David Ovens said in a statement to Ad Age: “We are very pleased with our longstanding agency partnership and have no plans to make any changes as we’re completely focused on building the business.”

Another gripe the email points out: “Until such time that sales return to 2010 levels plus an additional amount to adjust for 2011 commodities, allowable impact should be reduced to 5%, and all mandates should be delayed.”

During the company’s first-quarter earnings call on April 21, Yum Brands CEO-President David Novak said: “In the United States we had a challenging quarter, no doubt about it. Same store sales fell 1%, and our restaurant margins declining 1.6 percentage points. Taco Bell, our most profitable U.S. brand, began the year with strong momentum and grew same store sales 4% in the first period. Unexpectedly, our positive sales momentum was reversed when we were thrown a curve ball with the false claim around our food quality. This impact has lingered longer than we anticipated, given it was an imagined story vs. reality.”

Based on the email, Franmac isn’t happy with the PR push by Taco Bell regarding food-quality claim. “There has been a lack of PR efforts in light of the recent beef lawsuit,” the letter said, referring to the in January lawsuit filed against Taco Bell that accuses Taco Bell of false advertising for claiming to use “seasoned beef” or “seasoned ground beef” in its fare. Taco Bell responded to the suit quickly, launching an aggressive national print and web campaign countering the charges that its ground beef was mostly not, um, beef.

The lawsuit was withdrawn in April—with no money exchanged—and Taco Bell launched another campaign aimed at the law firm, Beasley Allen, that filed the lawsuit.

The email also said that “the value proposition as currently being executed is not driving transactions, and squeezing margins beyond a reasonable tolerance.” Many fast feeders have been heavily promoting their dollar and value menus during the recession, increasingly to the detriment of franchisees’ bottom lines, given the rising cost of commodities—especially beef.

This is not the first time a Yum brand has had a run-in with franchisees. The KFC National Council and Advertising Cooperative in January 2010 filed a suit against KFC that claimed KFC management ignored franchisee pleas to focus on fried chicken, and instead devoted the advertising budget to promoting the new grilled chicken. Through the suit the council sought to gain more control over national advertising. A Delaware judge in February ordered KFC and the franchisees to cooperate to determine the direction of the chicken chain’s marketing, as the judge ruled that both share control of KFC’s advertising.

8760: The Single Mother Of All Colleges.

It looks like Westwood College is the preferred school for single mothers. Although Christina is wearing a wedding ring, she only talks about her daughter—and hubby is nowhere to be seen. And what’s up with depicting two Latinas who have the same first name? Araceli S. was motivated to create a better life for her daughter and herself, while Araceli H. wanted to do likewise for her son and herself. Maybe the institution should write a new tagline: There’s Welfare, Or There’s Westwood College.

8759: The Growing National Doubt.

At the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Saturday Night Live Head Writer Seth Meyers joked about the release of President Obama’s birth certificate, noting how people have become overly suspicious about anything they have not directly seen. In other words, skeptics demanded to view the document before believing the truth—and many still want to take a closer look to verify matters. Yet barely a week later, it appears that President Obama is in a similar scenario, with folks now insisting to peek at photographs to prove Osama Bin Laden was assassinated. In this age of Photoshop® manipulation, why would anyone trust a hard copy anyway? The Doubting Thomases could touch the alleged bullet holes in the late terrorist’s head and chest and continue to question reality. Can’t help but wonder how Madison Avenue has influenced our culture of skepticism.

8758: Adweek Sinks Into The Sea.

Adweek refuses to get its act together, despite the reskinned website and proclamations of rebirth. After scooping the demise of the Condé Nast cafeteria and pooping on the demise of Elizabeth Taylor, the trade publication hit the tasteless trifecta with a piece titled, “Branding Bin Laden: How Osama’s death will affect the al-Qaeda name.” Um, the U.S. advertising industry is unofficially headquartered in New York City, where Bin Laden staged his most horrific crime. What in the world was the Adweek editorial board thinking? These morons are making AgencySpy look like a Pulitzer Prize winner.

8757: Time To Crash Into The Donuts.

America Runs on Contextual Advertising.

8756: Time to Fold The Big Tent…?

Has interest in The Big Tent totally evaporated? The posts have become increasingly infrequent. And the last two were authored by Old White Guys.

8755: Happy Mother’s Day…?

A headline declaring Osama Bin Laden’s wife was not killed in the raid appears beside a Coach banner ad expressing Happy Mother’s Day. Nice.

8754: Sugar Daddy Disabled…?

Not sure why, but this fashion spread is disturbing. Did the photographer have to put the Hefner character in a wheelchair? Based on the male talent’s agency listing, he’s got full use of his legs. Acting disabled as a joke is kinda, well, lame.

8753: No, Really, You Shouldn’t Have…

Not sure what’s worse—Procter & Gamble suggesting Always pads and Tampax tampons as a Mother’s Day gift or providing coupons for the cheapskate who might actually act on the suggestion.

8752: Dance, Chicken Queen, Dance.

There’s a semi-new Popeyes Chicken commercial with Annie the Chicken Queen boasting her fowl food beat KFC in a nationwide taste test—and the spokeswoman actually starts dancing. That’s right, a sassy Black woman dances over fried chicken. Can’t find the spot online yet. In fact, it’s tough to find any commercials featuring Annie. Nearly all the Web sources that posted about the character now show blank players with a line reading, “Video no longer available due to a copyright claim…” It looks like GSD&M, the agency whose staff refuses to take responsibility for the campaign, is trying to control the conversations—and the critics. At one point, someone noted that the actress playing Annie does not speak or behave anything like the Chicken Queen in real life, but MultiCultClassics is having trouble locating that source too. So check out this brilliant spoof before it gets yanked.

8751: Stereotyping With Staples.

How do you compete against Best Buy’s Geek Squad? Staples presents a commercial showing its computer repair department is staffed by Asians—because you know those Asians are digital wizards. That was easy.