Watch out for that crib!

The Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled 2.1 million drop-side cribs made by Stork Craft Manufacturing last Tuesday after a slow reaction to four deaths because of the product. The reaction of the crib company was pushed along by the recall and now families are scrambling to keep their children safe.

At issue are Stork Craft drop side cribs where one side moves up and down for parents to pick up their children more easily. After 4 infants suffocated because of the drop feature and 110 incidents occurred of the drop side detaching completely, the CPSC made the decision to act by recalling all of the cribs.

Stork Craft offers a free kit to permanently attach the drop side and Stork Craft executives believe that the deaths would have been easily preventable if the parents had used the kits. The drop side feature is in review by the CPSC and may be banned altogether, eliminating the extra steps of installing the kits.

For more information on the product recall, check out the Dallas Morning news site.

I am very surprised by the slow action of the crib company after they knew about four infant deaths and many incidents where children could have been seriously hurt. It may seem like enough to offer the free installation kit for concerned parents, but I am waiting for Stork Craft's public apology to the parents of the dead infants. Until then, I can not give them any respect for their attempts to make things right.

AT&T Strikes Back

The new Verizon commercial playing off of the "There's an app for that" Apple iPhone campaign is causing tension between AT&T and Verizon. The commercial shows two people, one with AT&T coverage and one with Verizon, talking on their phones with maps of the U.S. over their heads. The maps show 3G coverage that each cellular provider offers. Verizon covers the entire country with red dots of coverage while AT&T's map of coverage pales in comparison.

AT&T is suing Verizon for leading customers to believe that the areas without red dots have no coverage at all. The maps only display 3G coverage and AT&T wants customers to know that it does not mean that no coverage exists in the other areas. A federal judge denied AT&T's request for an order that would force Verizon to pull the ads off of the air.

In response, AT&T has whipped together an ad campaign aimed at correcting the misleading information in the Verizon campaign. The ad features Luke Wilson standing in front of a checklist that outlines the ways that AT&T remains superior to Verizon. While AT&T admits the ad is not of the same quality as Verizon, they suggest that the comeback is essiential to maintain the company's reputation.

Watch the new AT&T ad here.

After seeing the Verizon ad for the first time, I remember being confused because I thought I was hearing an AT&T ad, but I was seeing a lower quality commercial than AT&T usually puts out. "There's a map for that," sounds so much like the familiar "There's an App for that," that I do a double-take whenever the Verizon ad comes on. Let's hope the lawsuit goes well so we can save everyone the confusion.

For more of the story, click here.

The Key to Tiffany&Co.

Last week, Tiffany&Co. China followed the current trend of luxury brands in East Asia and turned to a new online campaign that asked for some public involvement. Tiffany&Co. asked prominent Asian photographers to submit photos displaying the new Tiffany Key collection to be displayed alongside the new "Journey behind the door" campaign. The website is in Chinese, but you can visit to see the full collection of photos. The website also allows community involvement in a section that allows anyone to post their own interpretation of the new campaign. Contributors with the most comments will be awarded with Tiffany's products.

Luxury brands like Tiffany&Co. traditionally advertise in print magazines like Vogue and Elle. Tiffany's choice to allow community involvement as well as move to an online medium was a big step. The step took the company from an exclusive feel to an inclusive feel. If only Tiffany&Co. America chose to do the same, the American public would be able to interact with one of the oldest jewelry brands.

More information on the campaign's story can be found here.