This is John Reinan’s weekly marketing column for MinnPost.com. See also Mike Keliher’s earlier take on the Old Spice campaign. Retailing tycoon John Wanamaker famously said that half the money he spent on advertising was wasted — he just couldn’t tell which half. A century later, a shirtless stud has once again prompted debate on [...]

Okay, full disclosure. I worked in Target’s communications department for nearly two years, so I might be a little biased. But if anybody watched the series finale of THE best TV show of all time – LOST – you probably saw a heavy ad rotation from the discount retailer. To be honest, I haven’t loved [...]

Tiger Woods was disappointed in his game at The Masters, but I’d say he showed much better on the course than he did in the new Nike commercial that debuted the day before the tournament.  If you haven’t seen it, Tiger stares solemnly into the camera while listening to the voice of his deceased father.  [...]

While catching up on my favorite shows this weekend, and drinking an ice cold Coke Zero, I noticed a healthy amount of in-program product placements. At times I felt like the placement was a little clumsy and forced,  and other times, I wondered if it was paid product placement at all. An Ad Age article told [...]

I want to add a note to Alli’s Super Bowl ad post from yesterday. Tom Fugleberg of OLSON made this point to me in my MinnPost column on the Super Bowl adstravaganza. Increasingly, these high-profile ad spots are being used as entry points to other marketing efforts. In this year’s Super Bowl, VW’s ad directed [...]

We just bought a couple new laptops, so that must mean we have more job openings, right?  Indeed we do! The first will be issued to an emerging superstar with serious social media chops, strong writing skills and a little gravitas to boot.  Ideally, our new Client Relationship Director would be a highly creative and strategic thinker who [...]

Editor’s note: This is John Reinan’s weekly marketing column for MinnPost.com. To view the original, go to http://bit.ly/7Layqc. I’ve been fascinated to see marketing with a homoerotic subtext enter the most macho of realms: the National Football League. Head & Shoulders shampoo has tapped as its celebrity spokesperson Troy Polamalu, an All-Pro defensive back who’s [...]

Editor’s note: This is John Reinan’s weekly marketing column for MinnPost.com. To see the original, go to http://bit.ly/7BA4Y2.  The Twin Cities have long held an outsized position relative to their size in the advertising world. Both on the client side and the agency side, this cold Omaha has produced groundbreaking work for more than half a [...]

I’m usually pretty generous with my assessments of marketing efforts. It’s a tough business and I don’t want to be throwing stones at hard-working, creative people. None of us bats 1.000. But the Dodge Ram ad in heavy rotation right now sets my teeth on edge a little. You know the one: “My name is Ram. [...]

It’s hard to imagine the position once held by LIFE magazine. From the 1930s through the 1950s, it was possibly the single most important and influential advertising medium in the world. Even when I was a kid in the ’60s, when TV advertising had really begun to eat LIFE’s lunch, the weekly arrival of the [...]