NEW YORK – With the announcement that CBS will cancel As The World Turns, we wonder why this television classic is not finding a new life in the new media with its producer, Publicis’ TeleNext? Perhaps it might, as officials are searching for new venues, and appear not to beMORE HERE
With GE’s pending sale of NBC Universal to Comcast, we look back at the pieces of NBC and RCA that still survive. GE purchased NBC’s parent company RCA in 1986; it actually reacquired it, as it was once the same company. GE quickly dismantled the company. RCA’s consumer television business,MORE HERE
One of the unsung 20th century creators is Richard Whorf (1906-1966), the sometime actor who was director of the Beverly Hillbillies. Whorf was also a dancer, a designer, a producer and a writer. Whorf has a whole world view that is well to appreciate; namely traditional with a warped viewMORE HERE
Saturday Night Live and British Airways’ new LCY-JFK flight one are two different business ideas illustrating an important idea, namely adaptive reuse. Traditionally, adaptive reuse is applied to historic preservation of buildings. It is a very specific idea; to properly understand it you need to go and read James MarstonMORE HERE
Catching the film Escape from the Planet of the Apes on Planet of the Apes weekend, the movie was packed with brands. Surely there are more, but these were the ones that are highlighted, just after Zira and Cornelius, previously confined to a zoo, head out of their international pressMORE HERE
Hey Mark Mothersbaugh. Bring out the Minimoog, and start out the set by flashing a Warner Records logo behind the stage. Whip it. Step on a crack. Devo, that red-topped de-evolutionary band from the 1980s New Wave era is back, thanks to Warner Brothers Records, their original label. Devo fansMORE HERE
20 years ago, Gillette introduced a campaign that completely re-energized its brand and company. It was “The Best A Man Can Get” and its zippy song, sung by the nation’s top jingle-writer and singer Jake Holmes, talked about “looking sharp” and showed a succession of non-celebrity, clean-shaven normal men goingMORE HERE
Ripplewood Holdings had sent an American classic into bankruptcy. Read BrandlandUSA’s stories about how to save this American icon: The potential of Reader’s Digest in a Web 2.0 World. What to do about the magazine (and company) now that it is in bankruptcy. Hint: They need to channel the Wallaces.MORE HERE
PLEASANTVILLE, NY. – That private capital has been unsuccessful in a leveraged buyout of Reader’s Digest Association Inc. should be no surprise. Private capital like Ripplewood Holdings has failed in all manner of media plays. The reality is that during a downturn, a company can’t be expected to be payingMORE HERE
PLEASANTVILLE – So I am reading Peter Canning’s biography of Dewitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, American Dreamers, and seeing how the Wallaces affected so many lives positively, not only with what they accomplished in their philanthropy, but how their philosophy helped shape America at a critical time. I also wasMORE HERE