Entries from January 2011 ↓

Everyone hates Joe Buck. This is an established truth, one that we’ve remarked on for years. The Fox broadcaster is so universally maligned, you expect his mother to publicly criticize him next. But no—now it is Joe who has been outed as a self-hater in Fox Sports Marketing’s campaign for the network’s Super Bowl telecast. The spots (directed by Smuggler’s Renny Maslow and edited by Arcade Edit’s Greg Scruton) feature Dr. Phil McGraw addressing a conflict on the Fox broadcasting team between those who’ve won Super Bowl rings and those who haven’t. Buck, as one of the non-winners (aka losers), is labeled a self-hater. In Joe’s defense, he denies loathing himself—though on Dr. Phil’s show, of course, this simply means you do loathe yourself, plus you are in denial. The press release explains further: “Sure, Strahan, Terry, Howie, Jimmy, and Troy have rings upon rings, but the sniping and feelings of inadequacy coming from Joe, Curt, and Frank has got to come to a stop.” Here’s hoping Joe will be somewhat less inadequate than usual come Sunday. Three more clips after the jump.

Alex Bogusky is putting meat on the bones of his plan to spark a consumer revolution. Along with collaborators Rob Schuham and John Bielenberg, he has unveiled nothing less than a roadmap for reinventing capitalism. Bogusky can’t leave behind his agency roots in one key area: It’s still all about creativity. This new kind of capitalism, he believes, needs to be built by creative people of all stripes. The end goal is a kinder, gentler capitalism that does more than help the rich get richer but “spreads love and prosperity to all stakeholders.” The spiel in his presentation is pretty New Agey, opening with water ripples and the disclaimer that the ex-CP+B creative chief isn’t a Communist. The overall point—that consumer empowerment, growing inequality and vast structural issues facing our planet are changing economic dynamics—is provocative. There’s definitely a chance Bogusky is on to something. He’s not alone: Havas Media Lab director Umair Haque is proposing many of the same capitalism reforms based on values like transparency, collaboration and sustainability. Whether what they’re proposing—a new kind of capitalism imbued with more focus on meaning beyond the bottom line—is possible is up for debate. Bogusky and crew plan to attempt it through a new open-source brand, Common, which anyone with a sustainable idea can use. The Common brand is devoted to “rapidly prototyping many progressive businesses that unleash creativity to solve social problems.” It’s an interesting vision and certainly puts a lot more flesh on Bogusky’s decision to turn his back on advertising to become a self-styled “consumer advocate.” You can watch the entire presentation over at Bogusky’s Fearless Revolution site.

Four hundred rabbis took out a full-page ad in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal to run an open letter to Rupert Murdoch. The letter (see the ad here, with the more readable text here) takes the News Corp. CEO to task for Fox News host Glenn Beck’s attack on George Soros, who is a Holocaust survivor. The letter also brings up Fox News chief Roger Ailes’s statements that those who criticize Beck are grumpy “left-wing rabbis.” The irony is that the rabbis paid Murdoch’s Journal some $232,000 to run the complaint, while at the same time drawing more publicity to another Murdoch media arm, Fox News. That dollar figure is based on the Journal‘s rate card (link goes to PDF); the rabbis probably got a discount. To recap, a Murdoch news arm creates a controversy, which leads to those offended paying another Murdoch news arm to publicly complain about it. My guess is Murdoch will ride out the controversy, content with Beck and Ailes stirring the pot while he cashes the checks of those who are aggrieved.