Lewis Lazare: It was a night suffused with nostalgia for five decades of often hard-hitting local television news and those who brought it to us. Saturday night's 50th anniversary Chicago Emmy Awards also was notable for one development that had the crowd of 450 broadcast pros atwitter: Joe Ahern was in the audience.
Lewis Lazare: Circuit City is on life support. For some time now, the beleaguered electronics retailer hasn't offered a clear, sustained marketing message, which hasn't helped a bad situation. Circuit City's latest television advertising effort from Euro RSCG/Chicago isn't likely to buttress the chain's fortunes.
Will it be the public at large who finally determines how Chicago positions itself to win the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics?
Sponge, the Chicago agency founded by former DDB/Chicago Group Creative Director Paul Brourman, got a big boost in June, when it became agency of record for AutoZone, a national retailer of auto parts and accessories. Since winning the business, Sponge has produced two campaigns for the chain. The newer, for a Duralast ceramic auto brake product with proprietary technology, debuted last week with the tag line "Proven Tough."
Lewis Lazare: Hard to believe, but the so-called Happy Cows have been happily touting the virtues of California milk and milk products to a national television audience for eight years now. Those cows apparently have bonded so strongly with the American populace that the California Milk Advisory Board and its ad agency, Deutsch/Los Angeles, are launching this week their most elaborate Happy Cow campaign yet.
Lewis Lazare: Despite wave after wave of bad news that has pummeled the Chicago ad industry in recent years, several bloodied local ad vets were happy when they heard Dan Fietsam was returning from the Publicis shop in Seattle to become Energy BBDO/Chicago's chief creative officer, succeeding Marty Orzio.
The Chicago Blackhawks are getting all the ink, but let's not forget the city has another bona fide professional hockey team, the Chicago Wolves.
It's sometimes chilling to contemplate the future of advertising. Especially television commercials aimed at young adults -- considered the primary target for much advertising today. Many of these youth-oriented ads, of course, are executed by young people in the same age bracket the ads are targeting, so these creatives know well the sensibility they're trying to reach.
United Airlines and Aer Lingus have inked a codeshare agreement that, beginning Nov. 1, will allow United international customers to book connecting flights on the Aer Lingus network. The agreement covers all six of Aer Lingus's United States gateway airports, including O'Hare, J.F.K. in New York, Orlando, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. And beginning in April, 2009, Aer Lingus will be able to place its code on UA's domestic flights, giving Aer Lingus passengers from Europe access to some 200 United States destinations United services. The agreement also allows United's Mileage Plus members to earn miles on Aer Lingus codeshare flights.
Lewis Lazare: Chicago's Comcast SportsNet has established itself as the go-to cable channel for watching many of the city's top professional sports teams, including the White Sox, Cubs, Bulls and Blackhawks. Some sports fans might understandably argue whether all the aforementioned teams are truly top drawer, but regardless, CSN is where to watch them play.
Now we know what happened when Lor Gold, 58, abruptly exited Rivet, an agency founded in Chicago several years ago principally as a repository for conflict accounts when Draft merged with Foote Cone & Belding. Rivet's former managing director/chief creative officer has surfaced as the new global chief creative officer at TimeZoneOne, an agency with offices in Chicago and Christchurch, New Zealand. TZO came to Chicago several years ago to try to build its business in America around the fact that it could service clients quickly and efficiently because of the large time difference between Chicago and it's New Zealand flagship office, where 70 percent of the agency's operations are based. TZO describes its work methodology as a "follows the sun" approach with a 24-hour workday. TZO hasn't exactly bowled over the American marketplace yet, but it does list among its clients Croc's, American Medical Association and School of the Art Institute.
Lewis Lazare: A major change in Bud Light advertising begins Saturday. For years, Bud Light and its lead ad agency, DDB/Chicago, relied heavily on punch-line humor to popularize the brew. The ads, mostly aimed at a young adult male demo, helped build Bud Light into the behemoth it is today.
Lewis Lazare: Mayor Daley is crowing about his $2.5 billion lease deal at Midway Airport. But before everyone starts celebrating along with him, it's time for a reality check. Though the dollars sound big and enticing, there are absolutely no guarantees this 99-year lease deal is going to work out for the would-be operators or the city or, most crucially, Midway passengers.
Southwest Airlines will start non-stop service between Chicago Midway and Minneapolis/St. Paul in March, 2009.
Lewis Lazare: As Americans confront new financial and other national crises almost daily, the importance of the looming presidential election grows ever clearer. How thoughtful, then, of one of America's biggest burger chains, Burger King, and its ad agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami to craft a quite clever new commercial that accomplishes two tasks every effectively -- encouraging us to cast a vote for a new president on Nov. 4, while also informing us that Burger King customers can have their burgers their way.
The consortium in the deal to lease Midway Airport is no stranger to operating airports. The core party in the consortium, Vancouver-based YVR Airport Services, has been operating airports for more than 12 years, ranging from its home base Vancouver International Airport to small and mid-size airports in British Columbia and other parts of Canada. YVRAS also operates airports in Santiago, Chile; the Dominican Republic; the Bahamas, and Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Lewis Lazare: The Chicago Blackhawks want to be loved again by hockey enthusiasts and the larger universe of sports fans. To make that happen, the Blackhawks have been doing a lot of things right, such as starting to televise games.
Lewis Lazare: In the wonderful world of Disney theme parks, it's always about celebrating the good times for the proverbial children of all ages. For several years now, Ned Crowley and his creative partner, Jon Moore, have lovingly tended the Walt Disney theme park advertising account, first at their former agency Leo Burnett/Chicago and now at McGarryBowen/Chicago.
Lewis Lazare: John Michael Sy, a 26-year-old local accountant with a passion for rap, has won out over some 230 contestants who submitted 30-second commercials in a Tide-To-Go online competition. Sy's Tide to Go commercial, which won in a public vote, will wind up in the national spotlight on the season premiere tonight of NBC's "The Office."
Lewis Lazare: Before the economy went into a tailspin, health insurance was a major topic of discussion on the presidential campaign trail. But the Chicago-based American Medical Association still believes health insurance for all Americans is a matter of utmost importance as Barack Obama and John McCain vie for the presidency.
The Chicago 2016 organization has a new director of marketing and communications, Valerie Barker Waller. She comes to the Olympic bid committee from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where Waller was vice president of marketing and public relations. Waller assumes the 2016 Committee's day-to-day marketing responsibilities from Mark Mitten, who will have the new title chief brand officer. During her nine years at the museum, Waller is credited with helping reframe the role of marketing and public relations at the museum, which annually attracts more than 14 million visitors.
Lewis Lazare: Never assume you've seen it all when it comes to television advertising. Because some creative is going to prove you wrong. We know the hotel industry is on the cusp of a downturn given the rapidly deteriorating economy, the financial services industry collapses and other factors. Now surely is not the time for hotels and motels to resort to the hoariest of comedic gags to market themselves.
Five years ago, Hampton Inns, a unit of the Hilton Hotels Corp., introduced an ad campaign that put new lyrics to the show tune "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from the classic musical "My Fair Lady" to lure business travelers to the nationwide chain of mid-range hotels.
Lewis Lazare: Say what you will, this is turning into one heck of a fascinating presidential campaign. So it's to be expected that advertising types consumed with creating images and branding would take a special interest in the drama unfolding on the campaign trail.
Grant Hill is out at DDB. A widely admired advertising production executive, Hill had spent the entirety of his 26-year career in DDB's Chicago office, helping to grow and manage a production department once considered among the best in the ad world.
Timing means a lot. But electronics giant Sony's timing couldn't have been worse this month when it decided to give Chicagoans a taste of one of the most innovative approaches available to advertise a product -- in this instance Sony's line of Vaio laptop computers. The Vaio line took a big hit earlier this month when Sony announced it is recalling 440,000 laptops because of concerns about overheating.