the16thminute

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First thing we do, let's kill all the dead celebrities

It all started with poor wonderful Fred Astaire being unearthed to schill for a vacuum cleaner. Then it was John Wayne giving his famed growl up from the grave for a few cans of beer. There have been a bunch of others, Steve McQueen, Audrey Hepburn and the King of the Zombies – Orville Redenbacher, in a performance that would have done George Romero (and no one else) proud. The latest addition to this necropolis was a Dr. Martens campaign showing Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, Joey Ramone and Joe Strummer wearing the brand’s boots in Rock & Roll heaven.

Global warming grows cold

The actual environmental threat is still hot but the celebrity pile-on should be put on the endangered species list.

The aliens aren't coming! The aliens aren't coming!

Just like journalists book publishers like to ride in a herd. There is a new herd forming and it needs to be put down.

I'm going to miss Steven Colbert

The fall of Don Imus is a leading indicator of a change in the cultural weather.  Although you can argue his  was a special case -- a combination of particularly ignorant language targeted on "normal people," not the rich and/or powerful -- it looks more like an extreme moved toward the moderate in the American psyche. If that's so,  either he's going to be followed by some other of our leading yappers or they are going to turn their volume way, way down.

Pet food recall catches brands with their product down

The poison pet-food disaster could be the end of the not-really-premium brands.

Lack of viral infection kills "Life"

Despite all the initial media buzz and business interest in this virtual social site it really never got a first life.

(RED) isn't showing a lot of green

What big feel-good marketing tren has passed its sell-by date?  Hint: (BLANK), white and blue.)

Time to retire this 12 Step program for PR disasters

The second A in AA stands for Anonymous, unless you're a celeb in need of a brand rehab.

BrandBlog?

Welcome to the 16th minute -- the blog that tracks things that have used up their 15 minutes of Warholian fame. Ideas, suggestions and snarky comments always welcome.

Who the heck am I to get to make this decision? Just your average ordinary Super Hero ... wait, wrong blog. I'm Constantine von Hoffman, a senior reporter for Brandweek Magazine and sometime stand-up comedian with more than three decades experience at making snarky comments about things.

Allow me to also point you to four other Brandweek blogs:

• Snackable Content where Ken Hein tracks the latest in mobile marketing (PS -- he has the best logo of all of us, not that I'm tooooooo jealous);
• Brand Wiki is Todd Wasserman's take on interactive marketing and its discontents;
• BrandweekNRX is where Jim Edwards covers what's happening with Big Pharma, which is a lot as it means all licit drugs except caffeine;
• At Short Takes, Rory Thompson does for marketing what Lewis Black does for general info on the Daily Show: catches all the news that fall between the cracks and makes me laugh about it.