In advertising bigger is only one thing, bigger.

Over the weekend Publicis and Omnicom announced their intention to merge. Of course the public statements were all about improving client service, the creative product and overall effectiveness of their work. There is, however, really only one thing this merger is about:

Money.

Not to be too cynical, but the benefits to the clients in this are few and far between. Maybe somewhere there's a big data angle here to help the new company better compete with Google, but even the clients don't expect much to change. Anheuser-Bush InvBev VP of Marketing, Paul Chibe was quoted in Ad Age as saying, "It doesn't change anything."

So this larger holding company will gain efficiencies in back room operations, be able to consolidate some real estate, and probably jettison a few thousand newly redundant staff members making it less costly to produce the same amount of work. All reasonable business moves.

I can guarantee you, however, the monetary gains from increased efficiency won't result in lower rates charged to clients.

I'd love to be Maurice Levy's real estate agent today...

A brand is not a veneer

I'm not sure if this story is about the power of a brand or the depth of some people's stupidity.

Since I learned about it on the Colbert Report, I'm guessing it's the latter.



Either way, it's a good story and yet another reason why branding gets a bad rap... (sorry).

This is another example of what I call veneer branding, taking an ordinary product and applying a brand to the surface in an attempt to make it more valuable. In this case it works – shockingly well – but it's the rare example. Kanye's following is either passionate enough or so utterly blind that they're willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money for anything that has his name on it. Good for him.

But every time he adds more benjamins to his bank account by charging $120 for a product that's not substantially different from the one that's available at Target or Walmart for $5, he's making a withdrawal from his his brand bank.

All he has to do is look at Plymouth, TWA, Circuit City and Hydrox and the thousands of other brands that slapped their names on undifferentiated products to turn a profit.

What Kanye's doing isn't really branding. It's profiteering.

It's the product, stupid

Two years ago, Chrysler captured the attention of hundreds of millions of people with this ad on the Super Bowl.



After spending over 14 hours in a Chrysler 200 on a drive from Madison to Chicago to Minneapolis and back to Madison. I can now state unequivocally that almost every dollar they spent on that ad and media placement was a complete waste of money.

This fantastic commercial drove millions of people to showrooms to get behind the wheel of a car that is underpowered and noisy, with uncomfortable seats, lousy handling characteristics and a derivative, uninspired design. Consequently, even with this phenomenal launch spot, the 200's sales rank a distant 6th in its category behind the Camry, Accord, Altima, Fusion, Sonata and Malibu.

Worse yet, I doubt anyone who actually bought one of these dogs will ever buy another Chrysler again no matter how good their next Super Bowl ad is.