http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/valleywag.com.png http://valleywag.com/tag/officemax http://valleywag.com/tag/officemax Congratulations, bloggers! OfficeMax has granted all of you — each and every one of you — "exclusive access" to top marketer Bob Thacker! You can meet him next Friday, in fact! And by "meet," OfficeMax means "listen to him read part of a speech on a conference call." A thought for all you bloggers: If you want exclusive access to Thacker, why not look up the number for OfficeMax's headquarters in Naperville, Illinois and just call him? Heck, I'll save you the work: 630-438-7800. That seems easier.

]]> Valleywag-372989 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:40:00 PDT Owen Thomas http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=372989&view=rss&microfeed=true Ah, the promise of online advertising: An age in which companies will finally be held accountable to their customers. But are their customers accountable to anyone? Consider this: 26 million people created 123 million dancing elves for OfficeMax and passed them on to their friends. All of it made "OfficeMax" one of the top twenty search terms during December, on a budget of less than $500,000, according to AdAge. Good for Toy New York, the agency behind the ad. Bad for the rest of us. Viral marketing: It's sick.

]]> Valleywag-347209 Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:00:10 PST Nicholas Carlson http://valleywag.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=347209&view=rss&microfeed=true