Starbucks gaining ground in tea-drinking China

"TIANJIN, China (Reuters) - Once a week, Wu Shafei, 22, and Li Jing, 24, meet at Starbucks (SBUX.O: Quote, Profile, Research) in a busy shopping district here for Frappuccinos and fruit salad -- it's a fashionable place to while away a Saturday afternoon.

"And the price is reasonable," Wu Shafei, a student, said.

At the next table, trade company employees Yu Xiaoli, 24, and Liu Peng, 22, said they, too, come here because they like the environment even though they think the frothy lattes are rather expensive.


These are typical Starbucks customers in China, a tea-drinking nation where a cup of coffee the first thing in the morning is a foreign concept.

The Seattle-based chain, which is ubiquitous in the United States, aims to grow to 40,000 stores around the world, half of which will be abroad."

(Source: Reuters)

TBWA creative department stands at 4 billion

In similar stride with OpenAd.net (whose tagline is the world's biggest creative department), TBWA is now making use of the immense talent outside the walls of its agency by briefing the entire world on certain projects. It's a great development in the advertising business - one that certainly disrupts the way we work in true TBWA fashion.

“TBWA now claims to have a creative department of about 4 billion people.

Major marketers such as Chipotle Mexican Grill and Converse have already turned to consumers to develop ad creative, and Frito-Lay's Doritos even offered a Super Bowl spot to the best consumer-turned-adman. But the London office of TBWA is trying an experiment by going a step further, crowd-sourcing almost all of its clients' needs.

Within the next two weeks, the agency plans to ask its clients, which include Apple Computer, Nissan and Pedigree, for permission to post briefs on the shop's site, encouraging visitors to submit ideas for anything from campaigns to events. Anyone who wants to demonstrate their ideas in person-and get a coffee-will also be able to walk into the lobby of TBWA's London offices and use a computer, art board or other equipment to define their thoughts.

'We're at a point of change for creativity,'' said Steve Henry, executive creative director, TBWA London, who is spearheading the experiment he calls ``the next stage'' of YouTube. ``The old-fashioned model of an agency pumping out an idea'' has been replaced by a new model which involves consumers in `co-creation' or ``multidimensional Ping-Pong or chess,'' he said. ``You've got access to a global creative department of 4 billion people,'' he said.

Lee Clow, chairman-chief creative officer, TBWA/Worldwide, said: ``It's all part of this massaging of this new media world that we live in and sometimes the funky, crude consumer-created content has a charm that's interesting.''

Some agency executives were cautious about prospects. Ed Cotton, director of strategy-consulting firm Influx, part of Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, Sausalito, Calif., said he was taking a wait-and-see attitude on exactly which briefs would be placed, and how the agency would ``incentivize'' contributors. Mr. Cotton was involved in one of the earliest examples of consumer-generated content with a campaign for Converse that invited consumers to make short-films for the sneaker brand.

The TBWA project's prototype website provided a few words of caution for contributors. ``Any idea you submit becomes the property of TBWA,'' it stated. ``But we promise-any idea we use, you will get paid for.''

(Credit: Alice Z. Cuneo for Advertising Age)

Pass the lamb and mint chips

How's that work? Someone walking through the supermarket (in this case Choitram's) suddenly gets a craving for lamb and mint chips?

Feed your face

It's a tough chore making ice-cream appear unattractive and revolting. This backlit display at the Mercato mall parking lot does the job brilliantly. Kudos to the copywriter and art director. The Oakleys are a nice touch - brings the 'killer cone' to life don't you think?

the dirtier the better

Siemens Appliances UK have launched a website where you can have fun getting a T-Shirt filthy with all sorts of stains - lipstick, grass, oil, wine, baby food etc. (the stuff we always manage to ruin a good shirt with). Each month between Nov and Jan the winning entry gets a state-of-the-art Siemens autostain removal washing machine.

(credit: Adverblog)