Advertising Week kicked off in New York Monday morning with a "Memoriam for Advertising." Now Declan Stone may need to update his new Logo R.I.P. book sooner than expected.

If 24/7 Wall Street's soothsayers have an accurate crystal ball, it’s time to slather on some Avon products, pull on some Pacific Sunwear shades and an Oakland Raiders jersey while reading Salon.com’s story about American Airlines on your BlackBerry.

These are six of the 10 brands mentioned in 24/7 Wall Street’s new list of what 10 big name brands could disappear in 2013. The others? MetroPCS, Suzuki, Talbots, and Current TV. 24/7, ever so slightly tongue in cheek but in a wake-up call, too, believes these brands will either be bought out or go out of business before the big ball in Times Square drops at the end of 2013.

According to the website's prognosis, American Airlines is “inefficient.” BlackBerry-maker RIM has “lost its edge.” Pacific Sunwear “no longer has the capital to compete.” At MetroPCS, “investors have abandoned.”

All 10 of the companies suffered from at least one of the following:Continue reading...

Overstock.com announced in January that it was rebranding its URL to O.co as a speedier online shortcut to its wares. In June, it unveiled the new name and logo at the O.co Coliseum in Oakland, CA (above) in time for a U2 concert, a signage change that following Overstock's six-year deal in April for naming rights to the home of NFL's Oakland Raiders and the Oakland Athletics MLB franchise.

"Our customers associate 'O' with Overstock.com, which made the transition to O.co seamless. As a Savings Engine, this is the next step in adding more visibility to our shortcut," said Overstock.com Chairman and CEO Patrick Byrne in a press release. "Naming the facility O.co Coliseum demonstrates our commitment to seeing through the execution of the new domain."

"Overstock.com is clearly at the forefront of digital marketing and their decision to use a .CO domain in such a big way, underscores their willingness to lead the market and to disrupt the status quo," commented Juan Diego Calle, CEO of .CO Internet SAS in the same release. "With the exponential growth of mobile commerce, where shaving milliseconds means gaining a strategic competitive advantage, customers around the world can now reach the company's products and services quickly and securely by simply typing O.co — the shortest possible URL in the world."

Now, however, the company is backing off from the new name because customers couldn't find its snappy new URL.Continue reading...

Oakland Raiders running back Darren McFadden may be a rising star, but he has a long way to go to take on the king, by which we mean Michael Jordan.

MJ hasn’t played professional basketball since 2003 and hasn’t won a championship since 1998, yet he has one of the strongest, shiniest brands of any celebrity out there.

Forbes estimates “that Jordan earned $60 million over the past year mainly through his endorsement deals with Nike, Gatorade, Hanes, Upper Deck, 2K Sports and Five Star Fragrances.” Of course, he also has five restaurants and a car dealership of his own in North Carolina. Plus, he’s got a day job as the majority owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats.

During Jordan’s playing days he was earning $50 million annually at his peak from sponsorships. While many of his sponsors have been with him for some time, Forbes notes that 2K signed him last year to be on the cover of NBA 2K11, which went on to sell five million panels  and become the best-selling NBA video game in history.

Jordan's deal with Nike started when he graduated from college in 1984. The five-year deal, worth $2.5 million, must have felt like big bucks to him then. The Jordan brand now pulls in more than $1 billion annually, “with MJ getting a piece of the action,” the site notes. “The Jordan Brand’s market share of the U.S. basketball shoe market is 71% according to SportsOneSource,” Forbes reports.Continue reading...