The Big Fat Marketing Blog

I can’t believe the uproar over the creative used in an email J. Crew sent to customers last week. J. Crew president and esteemed creative director Jenna Lyons shared a few of her favorite products in the email feature titled “Saturday With Jenna.”

One of those things is a hot-pink Essie nail polish, which Lyons’ young son Beckett is sporting in the photo. Horrors!

People seemed particularly upset by the photo’s caption, which reads, “Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.” more

The Direct Marketing Association is about to break what sure feels like an uncomfortable proactive silence on the Epsilon data breach. Without mentioning the company by name, on Thursday April 14 the DMA is scheduled to send a letter to its members from Senny Boone, the organization’s SVP of corporate responsibility.

The letter will mark the most public, if oblique, comments the DMA has made on the Epsilon matter without being solicited by reporters. The breach was first reported more than a week and a half ago.

Within the letter, Boone urges members to review a posted checklist for data-breach planning (which predates the Epsilon event). The checklist is available here. more

No Flippin’ Way! My wife bought me a HD Flip when our son was born less than seven months ago. Now it’s about to become as obsolete as Kodak Disc film (and Kodak Disc cameras!).

Cisco announced yesterday it was pulling the plug on Flip, the mini digital camcorder made by a company it acquired for $590 million just two years ago, Pure Digital. more

No matter what your marketing medium of choice is today—direct mail, email, social, TV, whatever—one thing is certain. Consumers are overloaded, and they’ll only give your message a moment’s thought before they decide whether to consider your offer or move on.

That’s why several emails from J. Jill this weekend annoyed me. I shop from the chain, which is why they email me just about every day, and send me a print catalog almost every week .

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If ever there was a self-promoting marketing machine, it would be Charlie Sheen. Whether his unorthodox method of self-promotion pays off in the future remains to be seen.

Sheen and his traveling band of devoted acolytes touched down at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford, CT on Saturday night. Since the Oakdale is literally in my backyard, I, along with my wife, Amy, and my sister, Kate, attended Sheen’s “Violent Torpedo of Truth: Defeat Is Not An Option” local tour stop.

Sheen has encountered a variety of hecklers on this tour, especially in Detroit and his Friday night show at Radio City Music Hall in New York City – which he constantly referred to as Radio S-h—y Music Hall.

At some point in his adult life, Sheen must have channeled legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, who said: “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” – although that famous quote was earlier attributed to former UCLA football coach Henry Russell “Red” Sanders.

At any rate, Sheen hit the stage at 7:55p and — besides spewing the f-word and mother-f word every five seconds – received a warm welcome from the Connecticut crowd. Sheen was “winning” and he loved it. more

Way back in May 1982, WABC-New York, the AM Top 40 radio station, made a much-ballyhooed announcement that it was going to abandon music in favor of an all-talk format.

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