Brands

While on the surface, it just looks like a horribly designed T-shirt sounding the death knell for the GOP, Gawker exposes the potentially nefarious branding strategy behind this $24 eyesore.

Urban Outfitters is filled with irony beyond the messages on its shirts having been founded by ultra-conservative Richard Hayne but being one that caters mostly to liberal twenty-somethings. Hayne seems to be testing the "they'll buy anything" notion here, baiting his target audience to buy this grade school-designed "R.I.P. GOP" T-shirt as perhaps part of some pro-GOP social experiment. To quote Johnny Rotten, "Ever feel like you've been cheated?"

More: "Starbucks Food Redo: Yea or Nay?"

With a 90% overhaul of its food menu that includes a switch to items such as organic fruits and gluten-free cakes, omnipresent chain Starbucks is aiming to trim our fat and offer a wholesome complement to its $10 lattes.

To lure its customers to pay as much attention to its bakery as its baristas or their laptops, the brand has chosen the print route to promote the makeover in an ad from BBDO, New York. But does this health-conscious reinvention, which was a company "top priority", make Starbucks more attractive or even less appealing?

In a recession, people just want their caffeine and a little tummy-filler so does Starbucks' quality alone merit your money over McDonald's or Dunkin'? Or could you care less about name recognition altogether and just settle for a $1 bagel and the the diesel fuel they call coffee at the deli down the street?

More: "Cankles, It's What's for Dinner"

Total Immersion, the Euro/L.A.-based cats who've helped spearhead the augmented reality movement, are at it again with a new project for Nike. Teaming up with Wieden + Kennedy, the company's launched an augmented reality slot machine that will debut this weekend in Chicago at the laboriously titled Nike 6.0 BMX Open Dew Tour.

A BusinessWire press statement breaks down how it works:

"Every visitor to the Nike tent will receive a scratch-off card, offering a chance to win a pair of Nike 6.0 shoes and additional prizes - all based on the spinning wheels of the first-ever AR-generated slot machine. To activate the slot machine, the attendee displays the card in front of a camera, and his or her image is projected onto a larger screen. On screen, the card morphs into a big 3D slot machine that then appears in the attendee's hand. The slot machine counts itself down and automatically spins - and if three matching images appear, it lights up and rings to celebrate the winner. Several winners will be declared daily."

The slot machine is just one of a couple AR installations that attendees can revel in, giving them a BMX experience minus all the cuts, bruises and glory.

Via

More: "Eddie Van Halen Rejects Nike's Dunk"

It took only nine years, but French Supreme Court La Cour de Cassation has found cosmetics behemoth L'Oreal and hiring firm Adecco guilty of racial discrimination.

The case dates back to 2000, when L'Oreal was recruiting sales folk to push its Fructis Style haircare product line. Brand Republic reports that "one of the requisites was that staff should be 'BBR', an acronym for the colours of the French flag and widely used to signify someone who is white and of French descent. It also wanted the women sized between 8 and 12."

L'Oreal and Adecco were fined $41,500 each for their misdeeds and ordered to pay the same amount to anti-racist group SOS Racisme, who initially brought the case to the French Supremes. Still, it seems that nearly a decade later, the brand has been none the wiser as it allegedly whitened Beyonce's skin for an ad and was rejected by its own brand ambassador, Bollywood starlet Aishwarya Rai, with its request to appear in a similar campaign.

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More: "When Branding Goes Too Far"

It's no secret that Abercrombie & Fitch does a good job hiring hot people to mope around their ear-drum-destroying stores to "fold clothes" (read: look sexy). Bottom line, they're walking mannequins — which makes it strange that a young, attractive woman with a prosthetic arm was relegated to the stock room when her secret was discovered.

Riam Dean, who is suing A&F for about $40k, apparently doesn't fit into A&F's "Style Guide". Her mother e-mailed Jezebel to say: "[Abercrombie] hired her unaware that she had a disability, however when they were made aware, within 6 shifts, they removed her from the shop floor and wanted to hide her in their stock room because her prosthetic hand was breaking their "Look Policy". [...] her minor imperfection was repeatedly pointed out by various staff members who harassed her for wearing a mini cardigan (which she was instructed to wear over her usual uniform). After only her 2nd shift on the shop floor, she was told that they could not have her being seen on the shop floor, as she looked different to everybody else and asked her to report to the stockroom while they found a replacement."

Following the conversation with the manager who told her she'd have to remain in the stockroom, Dean said she felt as though "[the store manager] had picked up on my most personal, sensitive and deeply buried insecurities about being accepted and included."

OK fine, she was definitely not treated well. But every crap job I've ever had has asked me in no uncertain terms whether or not I have any disabilities. So what's that about? Can someone send me an A&F application?

There's more, here.

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More: "Product Placement: Abercrombie And Fitch"

Ad Lab proprietor and Hill Holiday emerging media strategist Ilya Vedrashko has posted a little Flickr-logue that highlights the making of his agency's newly launched "Dunkin' Run" web/mobile app.

The pics, all twelve of them, capture the app's humble whiteboard beginnings, blueprints, an email and the, um, excitement of a test Dunkin' Run. A post from a creative, Vedrashko perhaps, on the Hill Holiday blog says that initial positive reaction stems "more from the recognition that the app uniquely fits the character of the pink and orange inclusivity of the Dunkin' brand. As our planner once said, Dunkin' Donuts doesn't just serve coffee, it also fuels the 'hope and ambition and 'energy and drive" of America.'" But isn't that what John Mellencamp songs are for?

Anyhow, the somewhat nifty app lets one invite co-workers, friends and family on a "Run" via mobile web, regular web or your iPhone, place orders and ehhh..just read the rest of the FAQ for yourself.

More: "Dunkin' Donuts Beats Starbucks in Natl. Taste Test"

Forget the "Grand Slam", the "Moons Over My Hammy" and Denny's other classic artery-clogging fare. The diner franchise is again turning the dial up to 11 and the calorie count to well over 1,000 to please its influx of late-night patrons with the Rock Star Menu Mach III.

The third iteration of Denny's foray into amplified dining features customized dishes including the country-fried "Unstoppable Breakfast" from Rascal Flatts, the French toast "Sumwich" from Canuck rockers Sum 41 and even a vegetarian "Band of Burritos" offering from mall punks Good Charlotte.

We'll just have to wait and see, though, if this latest lineup can top last year's fried-tastic fare such as Hoobastank's "Hooburrito".

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Check out this "G" moment, as it's called on the NBA Web site, from this year's NBA finals. There's a bunch of them, but we only shared one. Anyway, you'll notice a bright orange cooler in the background (thanks, you know who you are), in the corner of the court. I guess the banners weren't working anymore.

More: "Oh Gatorade, You're So Not a 'G' Thing"

The PussyCat Dolls have a new song called, "Hush, Hush" and of course all the kids are crazy over it. But what drove us crazy was the confluence of terribly placed products in the music video, including Campari, a Nokia cell phone, an HP laptop and oh, Perez Hilton.

Just a day after being published on YouTube, the video above has more than 80k views — which is precisely what the above mentioned brands wanted. But let's break down the placements and why it's a perfect storm for marketers, despite looking really bad.

The video consists of a few different scenes, all of which include mostly-naked PussyCat Dolls and then some kind of product. The least annoying of those was Nokia's. At 30 seconds in, we see a bathing pussycat looking at her phone and it's barely noticeable that it's even Nokia. Fine.

A 1:37, an HP notebook enters the scene. It's carried through "the club" by some random faceless dancing extra who delivers it to the DJ, who immediately opens up the pink-flowered laptop and begins futzing with it. C'mon dude, you've got spinning to do! A better execution might have been a passover of some random chick who is sitting in the club in sweats and a high school running t-shirt — playing on the laptop. She thought this was a Starbucks, but it turned out to be an annoying club — and now her daily blog post will have to wait.

At 1:52 we see flashes of Campari — bottles, labeled glasses and even the booze itself, all brown and tasty looking. But where's the Jack, Bud Light and obligatory "soda"? Alas, this isn't a real club, it's one paid for by pretentious liquor and out-of-place computers.

The final installment of the strange placements, and arguably the most important one, is none other than Perez Hilton himself. He's hard to spot at first, but can be spotted at 2:26 wearing a t-shirt that reads, "Hush Hush Featuring Perez." Might not seem like a big deal except that, of course, Perez posted the video right there on his site. And in a day it's garnered some 80 thousand views.

As bad as all these placements are (well, excluding Nokia), the whole thing is packaging genius. Who knows if Perez was paid for his time on this (though I'd bet he was), but his site was the launch vehicle for the video and that alone was probably enough to get Campari, HP and Nokia salivating at the opportunity to throw their products into the mix — no matter how out of place they seem.

Update: A friend notes that the laptop/DJ scenario really makes no sense because the DJ is already spinning. So what, is he checking his e-mail?

More images after the jump.

More: "Why Advertising on Perez Hilton Beats the Hell Outta TV"

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Obviously the Starbucks (SBUX) money maker is in the crapper lately but it's pretty obvious that it's not really due to branding — or at least that's the perception. Starbucks presumably has problems because they finally got some competition from chains with basically the same product and a reigned in bottom line. Here's a few things we've noticed about the in store experience:

The baristas have gotten nicer. There was a long period of time when they were kind of pricks sometimes, probably because a lot of people complain about their lattes not having enough foam or whatever — but the brand promises that your coffee will be perfect since you have to take out a mortgage to get one. Fine. Somebody must have smacked the in-store folks.

And not only has the politeness factor increased (something you'll never find at McDonald's/Dunkin, btw) but now the baristas get all excited about pouring the milk for you. Not only is this efficient but it also brings the service level (in that sense) up to snuff with McD's and Dunkin, who automatically do the same and probably save coffee by doing in. And time refilling those jugs of milk/cream/cottage cheese.

The coffeemaker has dropped the price of a cup of coffee — signifying another playing-field-leveling move and a shift in brand perception. So much of Starbs' rapid growth was due to the astronomical cost of their brews, garnered in a relatively competition-free environment. That's part of why so many people disliked the brand and now that reality has set in, more people will be able to enjoy their coffee without making a sacrifice. Or, more importantly, feeling like they can only drink there once in awhile.

Finally, the brand is getting into social media. It's a little annoying to say that but at least they're getting their customers where they live. As a brand, Starbucks is more approachable (IMO) that McD's or Dunkin. It's where you go to meet someone for an interview — meeting at the other two = lame. There's very little to differentiate the two, but what Starbucks has is ambiance, which equates to comfort, home, friendliness — and that's always a good thing.

There's more about this, after the jump.

More: "BBDO Finally Gets Its Props From Starbucks"

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