Why did diamonds get to be the love and marriage thing? Why do couples — everywhere — who wish to declare their love go out and pay big bucks for diamonds?
One reason I was given is that diamonds are so scarce.
But Donna Bergenstock, a marketing professor at Muhlenberg College, points out their scarcity is a myth, one created long ago by DeBeers, the South African company that's dug up most of the world's diamonds.
"There are … billions of dollars of diamonds sitting in vaults — in London, in South Africa — that DeBeers specifically keeps off the market in order to artificially raise the price of diamonds," she says.
The supply is so vast that if DeBeers hadn't controlled the world market for decades, diamonds would be much cheaper.

So why is this rock a symbol of love? Because DeBeers told us it was.
Since 1940, DeBeers' brilliant ad campaign has been convincing Americans that diamonds mean love.
According to Bob Garfield of Advertising Age magazine, the DeBeers campaign is one of the most effective ad campaigns of all time. Years of listening to this propaganda has convinced us that giving diamonds is an age-old tradition.
This is just a sales pitch. In the 1930s, when my parents were married, it wasn't customary for men to give women diamond rings.

Is it really just a sales pitch, or is there really something special about diamonds, a sparkle that makes them unique?
We tested that idea. We went to Grand Central Station in New York with two rings. One was a piece of cubic zirconia, worth about a dollar. The other was a $10,000 diamond.
I asked people which they liked more.
Most people could not tell the difference. Of dozens of people we asked, nearly half picked the cubic zirconia.
Yet women told us, even if they had preferred the look of the imitation, they'd still rather be given the diamond. "It just makes you feel like you're special," said one woman. "I know what I want on my finger, and it has to be the real thing."
We'll spend more for a rock because a South African cartel has run a great ad campaign? Apparently we will.

Much to the chagrin of Seattle-based Starbucks Corp., Playboy Magazine has issued an alert: ``Calling all coffee-making cuties!'' to pose nude for an upcoming issue featuring the ``Women of Starbucks.'' With the application process already percolating, the chain of more than 6,200 coffee shops worldwide, is anything but thrilled with the cattle call by the adult magazine to its coffee-making employees, known as baristas. The company on Thursday offered a frosty statement: ``Starbucks Coffee Company is aware that Playboy Enterprises has issued a call for entries for a 'Women of Starbucks' section in a future magazine. Starbucks is not affiliated with this project and does not endorse it. All further inquiries should be directed to the contact at Playboy, Theresa Hennessey.''

Hennessey, at Playboy Enterprises Inc.'s Chicago headquarters, said the magazine was already getting a lot submissions for the issue. ``Starbucks is such a big part of American pop culture, and Playboy is always trying to stay on top of the latest trend so it seemed like a natural fit, especially with all the beautiful women there,'' she said. Hennessey said that while Playboy had not approached Starbucks beforehand, it was sensitive to copyright and trademark issues. ``However we use or title the piece, we'll be using it within the boundaries of fair use of trademark law. By saying 'Women of Starbucks,' that's using it an a descriptive manner within the boundaries of fair use,'' she said. ``If the girls want to submit their photos and want to do something in their off time, they should be able to do that.''

In recent years, Playboy has scored big with other corporate-themed pictorials such as ``The Women of Enron,'' as well as 7-Eleven.

I'm from Iowa, and was laid off in December from Worldcom after working there for 7 years. I was originally MCI, until bought by Worldcom, who promptly drove the company to ruin, and fired thousands of workers.

On the odd time that I go to Walmart, because no one else has what I need, I invariably end up leaving a basket or cart of food setting on the floor somewhere. Store is too big, and checking out is too much of a pain to be worth the effort. I end up going to the smaller grocers anyway.

Today, Starbucks, Bank One and Visa are expected to announce the creation of a Starbucks credit card, set to make its debut in the fall. It will function as a traditional credit card and will double as a rechargeable Starbucks store card, allowing customers to prepay for purchases by loading money onto the card. With the Starbucks credit card, these payment options will be available on one card in the United States for the first time. Analysts described the partnership of the three companies as an innovative way for the financial institutions to gain market share in the heavily saturated and slow-growing credit card business

The decision to create a Starbucks credit card was based in part on surveys of Starbucks customers, who told the company that they had too many credit cards. Neither Starbucks nor its financial partners would release the terms of the credit card. The companies said it would be marketed in a variety of ways including direct mail and store displays. Mr. Schultz said that while he did not want Starbucks to be in the business of hawking credit cards, he did want consumers to have a special place in their wallets for the Starbucks card. "What I'd like this to be is their favorite card or their most-valued card," Mr. Shultz said.

14 February 2003 Nottingham UK

A comment on the marketing of love and romance, held in ASDA Supermarket Nottingham UK (part of the Wal-Mart chain). Rejected lovers returned themselves to the shelves and waited patiently for their next partner next to the price of a cheap quick fix divorce. Hanging around their necks were the ASDA discount stickers usually seen on goods going rapidly out of date.

Little bits of folded paper featuring love poems were hidden amongst the products around the store.

'Don't give your heart to Wal-Mart'
'Don't be a slave for the minimum wage'

'Roses are red
Violets are Blue
Shopping at Wal-mart's
Like sniffing glue'

They Rule is a website that allows you to create maps of the interlocking directories of the top 100 companies in the US in 2001. The maps and comments on the site have been created by other users.

Clear Channel owns over 1,200 radio stations and 37 television stations, with investments in 240 radio stations globally, and Clear Channel Entertainment (aka SFX, one of their more well-known subsidiaries) owns and operates over 200 venues nationwide. They are in 248 of the top 250 radio markets, controlling 60% of all rock programming. They outright own the tours of musicians like Janet Jackson, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Madonna and N'Sync. They own the network which airs Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Casey Kasem, and the Fox Sports Radio Network. With 103,000,000 listeners in the U.S. and 1,000,000,000 globally (1/6 of the world population), this powerful company has grown unchecked, using their monopoly to control the entire music industry. If you find this alarming, ClearChannelSucks.org is the place for you.

What's so special about Google that readers chose it as the Brand of the Year worldwide? Perhaps because it is absolutely the tool of the moment to make the best use of the Internet (the other perfect tool of our day). Started by a couple of techies, Google is kind enough to hide its high-tech interior from the public and give us nothing but a friendly, easy to use, clear, clean exterior.

Cunning Stunts Communications announce the launch of foreheADS™ - the medium that alleviates student debt whilst bringing a brand's message to the fore.

Cunning Stunts are developing a network of students to display brand logos or straplines on their foreheads. Ads are placed using a temporary transfer.

Students must display the ads for a minimum of three hours a day in highly visible locations such as the student bar, local pubs and high street shopping areas. In return, they will receive £88.20 for a week's work. Participating students will have to provide photographic evidence of the transfer in situ whilst out and about.

[....]

Cunning Stunts started in 1998. This makes us the first ambient and guerrilla marketing agency in the UK. Whilst we didn't invent the concept of PR stunts or indeed guerrilla marketing, we've certainly helped bring these non-traditional and ambient media forms to the fore.It's not just youth brands that are jumping on the ambient bandwagon,advertisers such as those from the FMCG and Financial sectors are now embracing this approach. Typically, these advertisers have used more traditional forms of media - Broadcast and Press, for example. However, as these media continue to fragment and people spend their spare time doing other stuff, they simply don't offer the mass coverage they used to.

Philip Morris

Our name change to Altria Group, Inc., reflects the fact that we are no longer the same company we once were structurally, culturally or behaviorally. This change better reflects who we are today and who we want to be in the future. It will focus attention on the qualities we want to convey such as superior performance, financial strength and a commitment to integrity and corporate responsibility.

We believe our new identity as Altria Group, Inc., allows us to communicate with greater clarity our corporate structure and how our companies manage their respective businesses.

Consumer Whore is for people who acknowledge that advertising and consumerism can be evil, but sometimes the ads are also the best thing on TV.

The truth about McDonald's and Coke is that each company realizes it needs to take steps to become a full part of the communities it wants to serve, if for no other reason than self-interest.

Peruse the official Web sites of McDonald's franchises around the world and you’ll find that nearly all of them are locally owned, and most buy at least half their supplies from local growers. [....]

But perhaps a recent endeavor by Coca-Cola better exemplifies how globalization and the profit motive improves local communities. [....]

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Feb. 5 — Federal prosecutors told jurors today that corporate greed caused Tyson Foods, the nation's largest meat producer and processor, to conspire to suppress its workers' wages by smuggling illegal immigrants from Mexico to work in the company's chicken plants in the United States. The government, which presented its opening argument in Federal District Court in its case against Tyson, also accused the company of flouting immigration laws by helping illegal immigrants to obtain false identification documents like Social Security cards and driver's licenses and by hiring a large number of the immigrants from temporary employment agencies to bypass the Immigration and Naturalization Service's electronic employee eligibility database.

"This trial is about corporate greed," said John P. MacCoon, an assistant United States attorney. "It's about what happens when a corrupt corporate culture makes the bottom line the all-consuming priority."

Lawyers for Tyson and the company's three co-defendants, two employees and a recent Tyson retiree who were accused of taking part in an illegal immigration ring, maintained that the company had done nothing wrong. Tyson blamed any misconduct on a few "rogue employees" who hid their actions from senior management at its headquarters in Springdale, Ark., and have since been dismissed or disciplined.

SAN FRANCISCO — Retailer Gap Inc. (GPS) Thursday said January sales at stores open at least a year rose 16 percent and forecast quarterly earnings above Wall Street expectations on good results from its holiday merchandise and a more favorable tax rate.

The No. 1 U.S. clothing chain company forecast fourth quarter earnings of 23 cents to 29 cents a share helped by a full-year tax rate of 39 percent to 42 percent. This was below the 47 percent rate it estimated during its third quarter earnings call. The lower rate was due in part to 'favorable resolution' of some tax audits and improved earnings performance, it said in a statement.

Maybe you pick a weekend afternoon, when the store is swarming with Gap employees and their plastic smiles. Even better are the slow periods, when the workers are dormant, awoken only by the sound of opening doors. On a busy day, you can enter all at once, fanning out as the Gap staff scramble to identify which of you might have the highest credit limit. On a slow day, you go in one at a time, timing your progress with a stopwatch to decide who lasts the longest. Either way, the goal is to enter through the main doors and beeline for the furthest wall. A single, cheery “Welcome to the Gap” or “How may I help you?” and you're out. Tagged. Done like dinner. It can all be over with a simple “Hello.”

If you make the back door, you're only halfway through.You slap a sticker on the wall as your marker (“Mind the Gap” is a popular choice), then try to make it back out the front door, again without being “greeted.” If you escape, check your time. The fastest turnaround wins the game.

Maybe you'd prefer to heighten the stakes. You're tagged? Now you have to try to convince the employee who caught you that he should quit his job. Or maybe you have to try to trade the clothes you're wearing for new ones. Or climb onto a counter and give a one-minute speech on the pitfalls of modern consumer culture.

On every Wal-Mart parking lot, there are a few brave souls, known as 98s to the rest of the store, who fight the never-ending battle--retrieving shopping carts. Braving storms, heat, cars, and three day old Gatorade®, these young men(and women) handle it all to get the customers what they want--a shopping cart. One store, Wal-Mart store #0766 in Florence, has a special cart crew. Coming from every walks of life and culture, these guys(and girls) contain the love of the lot within them. Each day is a new adventure and these brave souls are willing to face it. They are the proud, the few, the Wal-Mart Cart Crew.

Visit the MoCoW at the Disney Hole!

You're walking through bustling Center City Philadelphia and there it is: half of a city-block that might have been another temple to corporate consumerism, and instead, we have... The Disneyhole.

This hole, though, is more than just a hole: it is a monument; a massive ready-made artwork; and a vessel of possibilities, all rolled into one big, muddy hole in the urban landscape. With the Museum Of Corporate Welfare, Philadelphia has an opportunity to use this hole: a chance to reclaim some of the City's history and to make good on some of the promises that that bunch of rich white guys The Founding Fathers got at least half right way back in the 1700s.

The Museum Of Corporate Welfare is the world's first Interactivist Theme Park and Museum! We plan to build the first branch of MOCOW in the "DisneyHole", in the heart of the Philadelphia shopping district.

MOCOW combines the spine-tingling total-immersion virtual-reality games that you love, with the stomach-churning head-spinning muckraking information that society needs for a strong, healthy, democracy. Come with us to a magical place where learning is better than painless; it's totally awesome!