In recent weeks, the saga over the fate of JCPenney has been all over the media and advertising industry trade publications, most recently with a warranty spat involving a customer unhappy with a defective engagement ring. We’ve been tracking the situation and decided to dig into the history of the brand and its founder, James […]
Commercial brands are increasingly engaging with social movements in order to better ground and express their core values. Working out the ethical implications of this sort of approach can be tricky; they have to be considered carefully on a case-by-case basis. We know that brands capable of recognizing and aligning with social trends can attract attention through – and reciprocally reinforce awareness of – the causes they espouse. But this raises the question of distinguishing positive social trends from negative ones.
The US electorate has been locked into a bitter divide over the Presidential election for the past year and a half, and while voters can get caught up in issues of the moment, in some ways, it really doesn’t matter who wins. The basic realities of the global market will continue to come into sharper […]
