I’m not a huge football fan, but I AM a huge advertising fan.  So, when I went to watch the game I brought along some magazines to read at the same time.  I believe my sister said something to the effect of “oh, Caitlin brought her coloring books to play with at the kid’s table during the game”.  Nice.
So while I may have been the only dork at the party watching the ads so closely, the moment I hopped on Twitter I found hundreds of other nerds like me watching …

I have to say, I’ve been really enthralled by all of the logos making headlines over the last few months.  Seems like everyone wants a logo makeover and we’ve seen the good, the bad, the Gap, and now even Starbucks is joining in with it’s newest logo where they’ve opted to remove their name entirely.  Like Prince.
So why are all of these brands so eager to shed their logos in favor of something trendier, cleaner, more or less colorful, and just plain different?
I thought about it while I got my …

This week an article came out about Amazon launching its own movie studio.  At first, it appears to be an altruistic project in which Amazon will help aspiring film makers get in front of producers and potentially make a movie.  Then, at the bottom of the article you’ll notice that if the chosen script gets made into a movie and grosses over $60 million in ticket sales the film maker will get…….drumroll please…… $400,000.
hmmmmm…….  it’s like Top Chef for movie makers.
Here’s why this is interesting for brands.  Amazon needs to …

This contest is so smart I just had to write about it.  It’s  sponsored by CB2 and The Selby which is an incredible photo blog about people in their creative spaces.  Todd Selby shoots people in their apartments or lofts and is kind of a tastemaker of who’s cool right now.  He also shoots spaces as they are and not all styled and Martha Stewart-ed up so it’s appealing to people who want to design their own cool space and are the kind of people who troll through home blogs …

Forever 21, if you’re not familiar, is an insanely popular store for the 20-something set and a place that I personally refer to as a “happy place”.  Maybe I have spent upwards of 2 hours at the one in Chicago because there’s so much to look at and get ideas from (there’s nothing wrong with that right?).  You want to know “what the kids are wearing” these days?  That’s your place.
They get cool bloggers to work with them, they figured out that they need to market different styles under different …

When I heard about this whole “bros icing bros” thing I rolled my eyes. I hate the word ‘bro’ first of all and was kind of horrified by the whole premise of the game. Basically it’s where a guy presents another guy with a Smirnoff Ice and he has to chug it on one knee. He can also retaliate if he happens to have a Smirnoff Ice in his pocket and then the guy who tried to “ice” him has to drink both.  Lots of people accused …

I’ve been thinking about Crayola for a few days now.  The fact that I don’t see much of their marketing in my everyday life (potentially because I don’t watch cartoon channels or have kids) and the fact that creativity is so big now makes me feel like I should be seeing them.  Then I saw this video:

This made me really start thinking about ways that Crayola could make itself a little more attractive to an older crowd.  So I went out and checked out their online presence (at my office …

I wasn’t overly surprised to see Converse sponsoring an artist. I was, however, surprised to see them sponsor a tattoo wizard from Oaxaca Mexico. Dr. Latka’s first major US exhibition will be at the ICA in Boston which Converse is sponsoring as well. They’ve started with a pretty edgy video about his inspiration in which he says “this is where people come to cry, and bleed.”
I know that most brands would be scared to death to put something like this out and I like it because it’s …

I met  Marcos at SXSW because he had an amazing coffee mug-carry-thing which I noticed because I have a coffee radar that makes me see or smell coffee in any increment.  Sometimes it’s normal like at a coffee shop and sometimes it causes me to yell things like “nice mug!” in a group of strangers that are talking about Facebook.
So Marcos tells me that it’s a Gorilla Coffee mug-thing and that it’s the best coffee ever.  He then proceeds to tell me this urban legend about a guy who was …

I happened to be in Chicago this weekend and decided to go on a “food tour” which basically means we just find all the best Chicago food we can.
Hot dogs were first on the list so we headed over to Hot Doug’s which was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Top 13 Places To Eat Before You Die (the other places on this list are all over the world and are some of the tippity tops like French Laundry…. so you KNOW this place is gonna be great).
When we pulled up the …