MattCreamer.com

I just sat through a really interesting session on private-equity firms’ growing interest interest in the marketing business, whether in brands or in agencies or media sellers. The star was Anton Levy, who led General Atlantic’s deal for a majority stake in AKQA. Levy took a stab at altering the pervasive image of private-equity firms […]

[Read more →]

The big speaker was Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer who’s trying to change the business community’s view of Microsoft from a stodgy software-maker to a media innovator that’s at the center of digital future. In other words, Microsoft is trying to become a full-fledged ad seller. Ballmer, of course, is bumping up against the perception that […]

[Read more →]

I’m now in Phoenix, holed up in the Arizona Biltmore, the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired resort compound, in anticipation of the Association of National Advertisers conference, which kicks off later today. Should be a great event this year. Speakers include Al Gore, Steve Ballmer, AT&T marketing chief Wendy Clark, P&G’s Jim Stengel, not to mention a […]

[Read more →]

In this week’s Ad Age, I took a look at whether traditional media companies now struggling with content models–i.e. how to get paid when everything’s going free–had anything to learn from Thom Yorke & Co.

[Read more →]

The biggest business news of the week so far is Sprint CEO Gary Forsee’s decision to step down a couple years after a merger with Nextel, a deal that’s shaping up like a whopping failure. There are a lot of lessons here: the difficulty of combining distinct corporate cultures, the dangers of letting customer […]

[Read more →]

This just landed in my Facebook inbox, sent by a media-savvy friend who was one of the media and marketing business’ early heavy-users a few months back and who I thought was ignoring my messages.
“Oops I suck. Can we transfer to regular email? I’m kind over my addiction to Facebook.” 
Sure, it’s focus-group of one, […]

[Read more →]

A quick look at my record collection suggests I probably have about 500 CDs that are burned version of discs that friends bought, copied between 1992 (when I started listening to music) and 2004 (when I stopped buying CDs). I’d guess I’ve probably copied 500 of my own purchases for other people over that same […]

[Read more →]

My editor Judann Pollack turned me on to this nugget. Here’s Jane Hilk, a marketing VP at Kraft, on a new push to market cheese slices–yum!–by promoting grilled-cheese sandwiches. Part of the push involves a MySpace video contest called “Have a Happy Cheese.” Pretty badass, right? Kraft agrees.
“I’m not going to deny it; it’s a […]

[Read more →]

This is huge news if you care at all about how traditional media companies and marketing approaches are adapting to a digital world. Radiohead, an enormously popular British band that’s long been able to balance both critical acclaim and underground cred with mass appeal, announced last night that customers will be able to set their […]

[Read more →]