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On The Waterfront!

It's on right now on TCM! OMG! OMG!

"You're in the CHURCH if I need you?" That's a girl with pluck!

And: an early Herman Munster sighting!

Damn you Flomax!

I'll argue all day long that prescription drugs should be able to advertise to consumers but I swear on all that's holy: hearing the term "weak stream" almost makes me re-think the whole thing.

Not only why, but kay why

If you read Lloyd Grove today and made it to the last item, then congratulations on your Kreskin-like powers of concentration! Also, you're probably a little embarrassed for Johnson & Johnson. And relieved to have missed out on that particular ideation session.

Really, brand managers, I'm appalled at this kind of crass commercialization. If patriotic holiday sex isn't sacred, what is?

Cincinnati: the obvious place to warm up for Hollywood

No matter where you stand on the all-important Finke-Gawker blow-up, the Deadline Hollywood Daily blog is incredibly informative. And now Finke makes a great argument for why Disney needs a P&G guy. Consumer insights matter when you sell detergent. I don't know for sure, but I bet they're helpful if you want to sell movies too.

Stan Richards is 74 freaking years old and still in this business

Does it surprise anyone else that Stan Richards is buying Rives Carlberg? This isn't usually how he does things, is it? And why does a Dallas agency, that just happens to have an international reputation, need a 38-person shop to gain "a significant presence in Houston?"

One thing's clear though. In the real world, everyone's still unable to explain what advertising people do. Here he is, Stan Richards -- the man who started the country's largest independent agency, a man who's been honored by the AIGA, WSJ and Inc Magazine, a man whose creative vision still guides us, a man whose turtlenecks will always be far more expensive than your turtlenecks -- and this is how his hometown Dallas Business Journal explains him to their readers: "Stan Richards of The Richards Group -- the mastermind behind the popular Chick-fil-A ads."

Life's work, summed up nicely.

Mistakes? We don't make mistakes.

Remember that scene in Brazil when Jonathan Pryce is driving to work? Yeah? Well, most people considered his car to be yet another gloomy visual clue to the de-humanizing oppression that surrounded him. Most people, that is, except Daimler.

I believe DealBreaker sums it up best.

We want healthy children and we want them to stay the hell away from us

Starbucks sells drinks that kids may like and, in one article, all the disparate pet causes of society's privileged factions collide.

It hurts when I do this

Not to dog-pile because I'd hate to be that mean -- really! -- but tell me again why consumers can't be trusted to judge pharmaceutical marketing messages but doctors can:

"Around the country, doctors in private practice have set up tax-exempt charities into which drug companies and medical device makers are, with little fanfare, pouring donations — money that adds up to millions of dollars a year....the tax-exempt organizations represent what some other doctors, as well as regulators and industry consultants, say is a growing conduit for industry money. The payments, they say, can bias the treatment decisions of physicians, may lead to suspect research findings and at times may even risk running afoul of anti-kickback laws."

I'm waiting for the AMA to call for a moratorium on all this. Waiting. Still waiting.

I'm pretty sure Hell will feel like a flight that doesn't ever land

Etiquette? They oughta be laws.

Crumb-believable!

For that alone, heads should have rolled at Kraft. Now other issues -- revenue, competition, blah blah blah -- have sped things up so PepsiCo's Irene Rosenfeld will be taking over.

I believe you're familiar with Ms. Rosenfeld's work. Baked Cheetohs. Zero trans fats. Two short years but so many, many press releases. Out in Plano, they must find a way to bravely carry on.

You just shut up, mediabistro!

He's the love of my life and nothing you say is going to change that!

Is this helpful?

In every brainstorming session, we are told there are no bad ideas. In the real world, oh honey. Just look at Home Depot's decision to reward clerks for doing a good job. Sounds laudable but: "industry experts question whether offering employees as much as $2,000 extra a month and $10,000 a quarter is enough to overcome what they say is a shortage of salespeople in the aisles....'The problem [with the plan] is that it doesn't solve the basic, core problem of having knowledgeable people working in your stores,' said George Whalin, founder of Retail Management Consultants. 'In recent years, Home Depot has spent very little educating people.'"

Turns out Home Depot's full of ideas. "[I]n attempting to cut costs, Home Depot's management had effectively replaced its more knowledgeable and experienced store staff with less seasoned employees, plunging many of its stores into relative disarray." But not to worry. The guys at corporate are getting taken care of. Really taken care of.

Flummoxed. I'm flummoxed.

In what may be the oddest answer an advice columnist has ever given, Steve Strauss actually encourages a small business owner to start an in-house ad agency. Evidently, it's as easy as printing up new letterhead! It will save so much money! And your bookkeeper has always wanted to get into TV!

Remember: it's easy to be funny in France. Just ask Jerry Lewis.

I dunno. Maybe Martin Sorrell's attempt at comedy won't go over so well with some people.

Happiness in the workplace

Really, shouldn't OSHA demand that every cube in America come equipped with a set of these?

Dallas history is different than regular history

An old theater-turned-nightclub that changed concepts every 6 months burned yesterday and Dallas is mourning the historic loss. Also lost in the fire were several small businesses: "Wednesday was the first day of summer, a start to economic boom times in the entertainment and shopping area. Angie Wood was working at Condom Sense when a stranger ran inside. 'Your building's on fire,' he said."

A condom store employee named Wood. Genius IS in the details.

On the bright side

Mark Cuban will be honored by the Gotham Awards for "'bringing independent cinema to mainstream America'" and for having "'introduced exciting and new distribution models.'"

Kinda makes up for that whole parade thing.

The enduring power of the Royale With Cheese

But I thought they hated us: "even as protesters sought to cast McDonald's as the embodiment of all that is wrong with fast food and American culture, the French never stopped eating its hamburgers. Indeed, for all the attacks on the company, McDonald's operating profit in France last year was second only to that of McDonald's in the United States."

My one and only live-blogging post

The Mavs player intros? My recommendation would have been to dispense with the over-wrought team video and just wheel out a cartful of 250,000 one dollar bills. Deal with that, weird flag-waving guy!

11:15PM UPDATE: Um. Yeah.