Six of the Best: Facebook Friends or Foes edition

Photo: Friend or Foe? by Lighthelper :) (Flickr)

It's been a tough few weeks for companies on the social media front as this collection of stories attest:

1) Greenpeace vs. Nestle: How to make sure your Facebook page doesn’t become a PR trojan horse – Part 2: The BrandBuilder blog
I've written before about Nestlé's somewhat amateurish efforts in the social media space. But that was in the quiet backwaters of instant coffee where nothing much could go wrong. It was perhaps only a matter of time before disaster stuck, which it did when Greenpeace and others turned the Nestlé Facebook wall into a battleground as they aired their grievances about the company's use of palm oils and its supposed deforestation effects. Olivier Blanchard has a great, no-side taken, two-part series that analyzes what went wrong and what Nestlé could and should have done about it.

2) 5 Lessons from Social Media PR Disasters: The Atlantic
"Pop quiz for all of you hotshot social media mavens: Your client's Facebook fan page is overrun by angry protesters. What do you do?" Another angle on the Nestlé debacle plus lessons from several others including Domino's Pizza and Motrin.

3) Facebook Fans: You Get What You Pay For: eyecube
Rick Liebling says that when you dig a little deeper into Facebook Fan Pages, what you see is not a pretty picture. Nice stats mask "walls filled with off topic conversations at best, vile language and real antipathy for the brand at worst." Rick describes the case of TGIF which got hundreds of thousands of fans for its FanWoody Facebook page after a free burger promotion but ended up closing it down after it became a clearing house for complaints and worse about the promotion and TGIF itself. "TGI Friday's pretty much had to spray Agent Orange on their relationship with 600,000 people," Rick concludes.

Moving on to other social media:

4) Unsocial media and the unfriendly skies: What's up below deck? (Landor)
How do passengers express their gratitude to airlines for installing the technology that enables Wi-Fi on board planes? By using it to cause a stink any time something goes wrong, that's how. Exhibit #1: The Virgin America flight from LA to JFK that was stuck on a tarmac for several hours. That was reported "live" on Twitter. Then, of course, there was the big enough for two seats, Kevin Smith and his Twitter-expressed rage at Southwest. Kristin wonders why these generally media-savvy brands aren't: "using social media to their advantage in a way that reinforces what their brands are about."

5) The Social Media Bubble: Harvard Business Review
Umair Haque advances the bleakest and most negative hypothesis about social media that I think I've ever read. Worth reading just as an antidote to the normal breathless enthusiasm

6) Social Media Is Dead: Long Live Common Sense: slideshare
David Armano posted his presentation to the Chicago American Marketing Association. His key point: If companies want to integrate "social" in a meaningful way, they are going to have to modify process, staffing, training, culture and even leadership to get there. Some of the problems we've seen over the last few weeks show that there's still some way to go.

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy (and vaguely related areas). More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).

Brand Mix Meme of the Week: Merton on Chatroulette

So, for those who have just given up trying to keep up, let's start with: What's Chatroulette? According to the site listing, Chatroulette is "blablablabla" which pretty much sums it up. It's a website that pairs random people together for webcam-based conversations. Whenever you want, you can just leave one chat and start another. Such an unappealing concept from my point of view, until "Merton" came along and did this:



That piece of brilliance has been viewed almost 1 million times on YouTube. Not long after that video, Ben Folds performed a Merton tribute live before an audience at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina.



Notice the similarity between Ben Folds and Merton? So did lots of people and, ever since, there's been speculation about whether they are in fact one and the same. (Peter Kafka posted about this important question earlier in the week.)

As of the time of writing, I haven't seen anything that definitively answers this great mystery of our time. But now we have two great examples of Chatroulette's possibilities, which is two more than I ever thought possible. (And thanks to "Bam" for suggesting an answer to my home office dilemma.)

Fairfax CA: A Trader Joe's type of town

Photo: Fairfax Parade by Martin Bishop (Flickr)

Does anyone know a way, there's got to be be a way to make this news Brand Mix-blog-worthy--Men's Journal has chosen Fairfax (CA), my home town, as one of its 2010 Best Places to Live. (Let's just ignore the fact that the list, no offense to its citizens, also includes Houston.)

I already wrote about Fairfax once before, talking about how its tagline "Only in Fairfax" captures its spirit and state-of-mind. So what's the angle now?

OK. How about this? The Men's Journal article mentions that one of the charms of Fairfax is that there are "No chain anythings here" which is true as long as you don't count Bank of America as a chain. There are no Blockbusters, that's for sure.

It has its own ice cream shop (Fairfax Scoop), its own natural foods store (Good Earth Natural Foods) and many local bars (like the Sleeping Lady). It's the Trader Joe's model for a town vs., say, a Safeway model. Rather than have the same brands as everyone else which would make it look and feel the same, it has its own unique set of brands which makes it look and feel different. That makes it a candidate for a best place to live and, hopefully, just-about-acceptably worthy of a post.

Ingredient branding: perils and opportunities

Photo: Nemo, all grown up by motleypixel (Flickr)

I have a new article on ingredient branding that's been published by ChiefExecutive.net: Finding your Nemo: Surviving the Dangerous Waters of Ingredient Branding. Here's the speed-read summary:

1) What's Nemo got to do with it? As a clown fish living in symbiotic harmony with his sea anemone host, Nemo is a rare example of a win-win in the animal kingdom. But, for every Nemo, there are many, many more predators and parasites. What's true of the animal kingdom is also true in the world of ingredient branding.

2) The allure of ingredient brands: Companies are attracted to ingredient branding, smelling the whiff of opportunity. When brands are weak, bland, or undifferentiated, ingredient brands can add strength, color, and distinctiveness. When brands are commoditized, ingredient brands can add value. And if the ingredient brand is already well known and built by someone else, it can deliver these benefits very quickly.

3) Success! It can work. The Heavenly Bed is a spectacular success for Westin. Hemi, worked for Dodge and Techron worked for Chevron. But note that all these successes were proprietary ingredient brands launched by the companies themselves (vs. a partnership with another company).

4) Intel eats its hosts: Intel is the most famous of all ingredient brand cases. It was a spectacular success for Intel but pretty much a disaster for all the host computer companies. They were hooked and then sunk.

5) Any clown fish-like examples? There are a few: Starbucks coffee stores in Barnes & Noble Stores, the Oreo McFlurry at McDonalds and the Woolmark seal. These are partnerships where the partners have complementary skills and the ingredient brand does not threaten or take away the key brand equities/competencies of the host.

6) Lessons: The main lesson is to be really careful out there. The world of ingredient branding is a dangerous place, often best left alone. Better off to create your own ingredient brands if you can. If you feel the need to go off-reef and partner with someone else, then be especially wary. That enticing light may just turn out to be a nasty Anglerfish.

Six of the Best: Madness in March edition

Photo: My Bracket by GoonSquadSarah (Flickr)

The NCAA Men's Division 1 Basketball Championship is underway. The official title is a bit of a mouthful and that's why the championship is nicknamed March Madness. And that's where the trouble starts:

1) Why Is It Called "March Madness"? Slate (via Fritinancy)
Brendan Koerner traces the origins of the usage of March Madness. Turns out it was first used in a 1939 article by Henry V. Porter, an official with the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), describing the Illinois statewide high-school basketball tournament. Then, in 1982, Brent Musburger used the term while covering the NCAA championship. Eventually there was a legal showdown between the IHSA and NCAA with the NCAA claiming that it had common-law trademark on the phrase. The NCAA won that case but more litigation seemed likely so, instead, the two sides came together to form the March Madness Athletic Association, a joint holding company. This gives the NCAA a perpetual license to use the phrase in connection with its tournament.

2) March Madness: The do’s and don’ts: The FinancialBrand.com
As the championship has become bigger and bigger, more and more companies have tried to find ways to associate with it. But, as Jeffry Pilcher warns in this post, there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way is to use the term March Madness in promotions if you're not an approved, official sponsor. The NCAA looks for violations and, when it finds them, will sue and will win. Jeffry shows examples of financial companies who have done it the right way, capturing the spirit of the tournament to promote their businesses without violating the trademark.

3) College athletes' score doesn't add up: Marketplace
Here's where the boot is on the other foot. Jon Wertheim visits the age-old question of whether college athletes should be paid, focusing on a class action suit that has been filed on behalf of former Division 1 football and basketball players who allege the NCAA has violated their rights. The suit was triggered when UCLA star Ed O' Bannon saw that he was also the star of the NCAA Basketball video game. The NCAA can use March Madness in perpetuity--the case will determine if it also has the right to use an athletes' images in perpetuity free-of-charge.

Since the term March Madness is off limits, the brackets have emerged as the associative vehicle of choice. Some examples:

4) Bank Merger Madness: FirstBank (via The FinancialBrand.com)

Of the examples that Jeffry shared in his post, I liked this one the best. The copy: “Independently owned since 1963” is a nice reminder of its independent status in a time of heavy M&A activity. Ad from TDA Advertising & Design.

5) Fug Madness 2010: Printable Bracket and Play-In Contestants: go fug yourself
Jessica Simpson easily beat her sister in the play-in game and the Fug Madness tournament is now underway. Last year's winner Aubrey O'Day is not expected to repeat having had a quiet and relatively boring year. It may end up being an all-pop Lady Gaga v. Rihanna battle for the crown. What is Fug? You'll need to click to find out.

6) Who Will Be the Next Mingo? Name of the Year (via Fritinancy)
Another bracket. This one for name of the year. Last year's winner was: Barvkevious Mingo, an LSU defensive end. Will this year's winner be: Furious Bradley, Spartacus Bernstein, Hanukkah Wallace or one of the many others? We don't know yet because they haven't got the bracket posted. Hurry up!

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy (and vaguely related areas). More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).

Meme of the week: Fake Inspirational Crap

Photo: quality-for-you by dandeluca (Flickr)

Hashtag #fakeinspirationalcrap broke through on Twitter this last week. Admittedly not as loudly as #howyouathug (Samples: #howyouathug when i saw u get smacked in the club last week by ur girl.... and #howyouathug and and u cried on titanic talkin bout...''the soundtrack just duz it to me.'' But that hashtag seemed to attract ideas from a different gang of Twitterers.

Here are some of the best I saw from #fakeinspirationalcrap:

“If you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.” @dhmorton

"When the climb seems impossible, take the escalator." @word_czar

"There's no U in team." @word_czar

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; cry, and you get your own show on Fox." @word_czar (again)

"Haste makes more free time." @expatina

"Starve a cold. Feed a fashion model." @roncaldwell

"Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life." @williamstafford

Lazarus brands: Coming back from the dead

Photo: Van Gogh Museum - The raising of Lazarus (after Rembrandt), 1890 by MicheleLovesArt (Flickr)

Another post on the Credit Suisse report: 27 Great Brands of Tomorrow Today's topic: Lazarus brands. Credit Suisse thinks that down-and-almost-out-brands represent a great investment opportunity as long as you can figure out which ones have the hope of new life. Brands like:

1) Nintendo: Nintendo's fortunes tool a turn for the worse when Sony launched its Playstation which out-maneuvered the Nintendo Entertainment System. When its next launch, the Game Cube, also failed, Nintendo was on its last legs. Then came the Wii and now Nintendo is hot again.

2) Apple: It's easy to forget these days but, not so long ago, Apple was struggling. It had a loyal but small following for its PCs and laptops but its other initiatives (in particular, the Newton) had not worked out. When Steve Jobs returned as CEO, he repositioned the company as a consumer electronics brand and, oh yes, launched something called the iPod.

3) Coach: Coach's heyday was back in the 60s, driven by the work of designer Bonnie Cashin. Over time, it lost momentum, its designs became staid and dowdy and its sales started to decline. It was saved from oblivion by the energetic intervention of a new CEO who started a program of serious reinvestment and re-design. The reinvigorated Coach brand shot past all its competitors to become the #1 brand in the U.S. market.

4) Esprit: Esprit also started out in the 60s as the quintessential Californian-born brand. In the 80s, the brand became a fashion phenomenon hitting a peak of about $800 million global sales. Then the founders divorced, the competitors caught up and revenue-enhancing licensing proliferated, all helping start a downward trend, everywhere except Asia where it continued to thrive. After ownership changes, the brand re-emerged from its strong base in Asia to once again expand globally.

What's interesting is considering how these Lazarus brands got in and out of trouble. Nintendo and Apple stumbled when they failed to stay competitive in categories which are driven by innovation. When they finally delivered a product hit, their fortunes improved.

On the other hand, Coach and Esprit fell on hard times when they under-invested and over-expanded which gradually eroded their brand equity. These two companies were saved when they refocused and reinvested.

The Credit Suisse report lists brand failures that can be similarly classified. In the "failed to innovate" camp: Blockbuster, eBay, Saturn, Kodak. In the "under invested/over expanded" camp: Columbia Sportswear, Krispy Kreme, Pierre Cardin, Sears.

If I had money to invest in Lazarus brands, I would start by looking for a sign that the company was really serious about starting over--companies with new leadership teams that had come in and committed to new innovation or focused investment would be of particular interest. With that approach I might have cottoned on to Coach, Esprit and Apple and made a nice chunk of change.

Previous post in the Great Brands series:
1) Great Brands of Tomorrow: How the 27 great brands of tomorrow were selected and Credit Suisse's bullish assessment of brand investing.
2) How imitation is hurting Chinese brand development: Why some Chinese brands will have a hard time breaking into global markets until they start developing some authenticity.

How imitation is hurting Chinese brand development

A second excerpt from the Credit Suisse report: 27 Great Brands of Tomorrow. This time, an interesting question about intellectual property protection (pp22-23):

Is the lack of IP protection in China actually hurting domestic brands more than their international brand competitors?

The thought is that Chinese entrepreneurs are not motivated to develop innovative and unique brands because their good ideas will be knocked-off without repercussion. It's easier for them to adopt a Wal-Tussin-like Private Label strategy and borrow liberally. But just like imitative Private Labels, this means that Chinese brands are limiting themselves. It may not hurt them too much in their home market but their lack of authenticity will hold them back from effective international expansion.

Previous post in the Great Brands series:
1) Great Brands of Tomorrow: How the 27 great brands of tomorrow were selected and Credit Suisse's bullish assessment of brand investing.

Even more on Great Brands:
1) Great Brands Make Great Investments: Landor colleague Allan Adamson celebrates the fact that a Wall Street firm has finally recognized that brand can be a source of competitive advantage.

Six of the Best: All video edition

It's a all-video edition this week to celebrate the fact that Logorama won an Oscar for best animated short.

1) Logorama by Francois Alaux and Herve de Crecy



From the website: "Spectacular car chases, an intense hostage crisis, wild animals rampaging through the city... and even more in LOGORAMA!" It's a 16-minute satire about a crazed Ronald McDonald tearing around in a city of 2,500 logos that eventually gets destroyed in a chaos of disasters.

2) Alma by Rodrigo Blaas (via love all this)



Another animated short. Rodrigo Blaas, who worked on Disney’s Up, Wall-E, Ratatouille, Cars has created this "eerie and beautiful" short film about a child drawn to a store full of toy dolls. A little creepy!

3) The Carousel from Mad Men



I linked to this in a post a couple of weeks ago but, in case you missed it then, here's the great scene from Mad Men where Don Draper sells the hell out of his idea for the slide wheel:

Nostalgia.
It’s delicate, but potent…
Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound.
It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.
This device… isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine.
It goes backwards, forwards.
It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.
It’s not called the Wheel.
It’s called the Carousel.
It lets us travel the way a child travels.
Around and around and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.

4) Handsome Men's Club: Jimmy Kimmel Live



Where does handsome come from? From the within-side. A host of handsome plus Jimmy Kimmel and Jennifer Garner. Clap clap.

5) "Different" by Youngme Moon (via brandflakesforbreakfast)



Xplane produced this video for Youngme Moon of the Harvard Business School, to promote her new book Different: "An intimately drawn meditation on the meaning of business differentiation." The video is great.

And now a (real) public service announcement:

6) Continuous Chest Compression CPR - Mayo Clinic Presentation



Remember, 100 times a minute. And keep on going! Could save a life.

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy (and vaguely related areas). More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).

Sears selling Craftsman tools at Ace stores: How screwed up is that?

Photo: Craftsman Tools by tedmurphy (Flickr)

A couple of years ago, Edward Lampert, Chairman of Sears Holdings, signaled his intention to sell Sears' proprietary brands such as Diehard, Craftsman and Kenmore through other retail outlets. Now Sears has announced a series of deals bringing his plan to life:

• DieHard: Accessories will be sold by retailers in the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico. (Batteries not included!)
  
• Sears Auto Centers: Will be offered as a franchise opportunity to car dealers
  
• Craftsman tools: 10% of the tools will be sold through Ace Hardware in all 4,500 stores beginning this June

Back when this idea first surfaced, I offered a very balanced list of "pros" and "cons." Let me be unbalanced this time round. This is a bad idea that will hasten the demise of Sears retail stores. At a time when most other retailers are investing in their Private Label brands to create unique customer experiences to help differentiate themselves, Sears is trading away its strongest brand assets. While zagging while everyone else is zigging can sometimes be the right thing to do, this is not one of those times.

In an interview with Marketing News Exclusives, Guenther Trieb, the Sears SVP in charge of this initiative is quoted as saying:

“The fact is, unfortunately, not 100% of Americans shop at Sears. We want to reach those customers who do not come to our stores, who prefer to shop elsewhere. … Once we grow the customer base, there’s a much better chance some of those customers will go find [a greater] selection at Sears of Craftsman and Diehard [products].”

Alternative interpretation: Customers who've been schlepping to Sears because that's the only place to get Craftsman tools, DieHard batteries, Kenmore appliances etc won't have to go there anymore.

There is one scenario where this strategy makes sense: If the company's planning to shutter most/all of its stores. Then it would clearly be important to give these brands the opportunity to thrive elsewhere. Is that where this is headed?

Great Brands of Tomorrow

The Credit Suisse report on 27 Great Brands of Tomorrow (11mb pdf!) starts off with a strong argument for the power of brand investing:

An underappreciated investment thesis. There are few true competitive advantages in modern industry: scale, proprietary technology, monopolies, and network externalities come to mind. We believe brand is an equally powerful and even more sustainable advantage, but one often ignored by financial markets owing to its intangible nature. Our research indicates that companies focused on brand building consistently generate outsized long-term growth, profitability, and returns. An equal-weighted stock index of companies that spend at least 2% of sales on marketing outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 400 basis points annually since 1997; the top quintile of these companies outperformed the market by an amazing 17% per year.

Now that's what I'm talking about! Credit Suisse admits that its use of marketing spend as a proxy to identify brand-oriented companies is "overly simplistic." Pretty amazing that even this crude measure works as well as it does.

Credit Suisse's report picks its 27 elite brands of tomorrow based on a deeper analysis of their potential. Most of the picks are brands that are "transforming," making the leap from niche/emerging players into powerful mainstream brands. Brands like Trader Joe's and Hyundai. These are brands that offer investors attractive returns, some risk but not as much as early-stage brands that may never make it over the hump once the initial rush of growth and enthusiasm is over. Only two early stage brands make the list: Facebook and Comac, a Chinese aircraft start-up.

The 27 brands distinguish themselves in one or more of what Credit Suisse believes to be three core sources of sustainable brand value creation. These are: aspiration, innovation and scale, each one on its own capable of creating a great brand but even stronger in combination. The strongest brands of all manage to combine all three--McDonald's, Apple, Disney, for example.

A second filter that Credit Suisse uses to identify high potential brands is how they fare against a list of "must haves" vs. "can't haves." Must haves include: authenticity, quality, brand-centric corporate culture. Can't haves include: brand over-extension, short-sightedness and alienation of core market. This list points to the need to make sure that business growth is achieved by leveraging brand strength rather than destroying it.

Overall, Credit Suisse is bullish on the outlook for brand investing. It thinks that brand investing works especially well coming out of a recession as consumers are less inclined to make purchase decisions based purely on price. It also believes that there are many brands from developing markets that are poised to breakout internationally in the next few years. The top 27 brands has many of these brands including: Taj Hotels and Mahindra from India, Li Ning from China and BIM, the Turkish discount food retailer.

Six of the best: Foursquare hit or miss edition

Photo: foursquare blackboards @ Southside Coffee in Brooklyn! by dpstyles™ on Flickr

Is Foursquare going to be this year's Twitter? I have some resistance to trying the latest thing just for the fun of it and I signed up. Should you too? And, if you are a marketer, should you already be thinking about ways to use Foursquare to grow your business? Or can you afford to wait? Here are a few posts that talk about what Foursquare is and what it might become. (For those who have absolutely no idea what Foursquare is and want to find out, start here)

1) Foursquare: Phenomenon or Fad: Mindshare
This report decides that the answer to the question about whether marketers need to start taking notice of Foursquare yet is "a resounding maybe." On the plus side, the report notes that Foursquare has become the favorite of opinion-leading blogs such as Mashable and TechCrunch. It's also come up with an ingenious game-based model for getting people to play/participate in these early days before it reaches the critical mass it needs to be really useful. We are all gluttons for points.

2) Why Foursquare clowns around: Thought Gadgets
Ben Kunz explores this game angle in a bit more depth. He notes a curious trend in social media: "Most of its tools start out as perceived toys, worthy of laughter, and then gradually migrate to the mainstream" It doesn't take long either. In the early days, those using Facebook, Twitter and, now, Foursquare are laughed at. Then, just a few months later, anyone not using these tools looks like they are out-of-touch. Ben says that the game-like mechanics of these new tools may seem silly but they are actually the engines that help grow the number of users and their activity levels.

3) Are virtual worlds over? Raph Koster
The game-like mechanics that Foursquare and other social media use are just one of the things that they have co-opted from virtual worlds. They've take so much, in fact, that perhaps there's no need for virtual worlds any more? Raph explores this question his readers volunteer a lot of opinion too.

4) Foursquare, Baby, Foursquare: TechCrunch
Foursquare has around 450,000 users and just passed the one check-in/second milestone. But it's not so big that you'd expect it to already have attracted attention from the likes of Condé Nast, Marc Jacobs, the New York Times. But it has. The latest deal is even more surprising. Foursquare is now prominently featured at the Miracle Mile Shops attached to the Planet Hollywood hotel in Las Vegas in a deal worked out with the help of place-based social media site, LocaModa.

5) Foursquare – Dodgeball On Steriods – Is Going To Be Huge: Social Strategy & Design
Kudos to Karl Long. He predicted that Foursquare would be a breakout hit right from launch. His pick this year: Social calendar Plancast, "a service for sharing your upcoming plans with friends."

6) Are Modern Web Apps Killjoys? ReadWriteWeb
Is Foursquare making us enjoy life a little less? In this interview, Adam Greenfield says he doesn't like Foursquare because it made him less social. For a while, he enjoyed "checking-in" at places he visited. Then he found himself spending time on that vs. actually enjoying the place and socializing with those around him. As the post points out, all technology can be anti-social and Foursquare is not nearly as bad in this regard as a cellphone, or even a camera.

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy (and vaguely related areas). More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).

Brand Mix: Video of the week

For those who haven't seen it yet, here's the latest from OK Go:



Per OkGo on YouTube: "The official video for the recorded version of "This Too Shall Pass" off of the album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky". The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The "machine" was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs ( http://syynlabs.com/ ) over the course of several months."

How are they going to top that?

Celebrity ad contradictions: Julia, Jeff and Jon

This is something I noticed while I was under the influence of watching Lost. This trio of ads all seemed to express celebrity contradictions of some kind or another. I'll leave it up to you to see if this post makes any more sense than Lost does.

1) Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Healthy Choice



Many/most celebrity endorsement ads fail because it's just not believable that the celebrity would use and enjoy the product. Remember pre-tree Tiger and his Buick spots? So, how to use a celebrity spokesperson like Julia Louis-Dreyfus to endorse Healthy Choice? The answer: Have her in the spots but don't have her endorse the product. That's unusual and a bit contradictory, right? I think that these ads, with great execution, get the balance between credibility and promotion just about right. It's a decided improvement over previous efforts. (The whole "Spokesperson" series can be seen here.)

2) Jon Hamm for Xfinity



Do you want a celebrity for themselves or for the character they portray? This is not Jon Hamm speaking here. It's Don Draper and, as we all know, he's a real pro.

3) Jeff Bridges for Hyundai



Finally, there's the case of Jeff Bridges who has been the voice-over for recent Hyundai ads but will be temporarily replaced by other actors for the seven spots planned to air during the Oscars. He's not done anything wrong. In fact, it's the opposite. He's nominated for best actor in for his role in "Crazy Heart" and the show has rules against ads that feature celebrities running near segments of the program that feature those same stars.