Recently put to brand-pasture by bankruptcy, legendary airline retailer SkyMall is already back in action.

The Atlantic reports on the rapid resurrection.

It turns out, though, that we shouldn't have skipped over the “denial” part of things so quickly. Because SkyMall was not dead—not then, and, fortunately for consumers, not now. SkyMall would not go gently. #BringBackSkyMall, the brand's Twitter feed hashtagged its tweets—a stream of which have been steadily flowing, news of the bankruptcy notwithstanding, since January.

Last night, its triumphal return was sealed in a tweet marketing something described as "#hipster dog bed"

#LoveIt! RT @LauraKeeney: This is not a drill. I repeat, NOT A DRILL. @SkyMall is back. #CanDogsEvenUseHashtags pic.twitter.com/uB8DDsWacz

— SkyMall (@SkyMall) May 26, 2015

The brand necrophilia comes courtesy of "C&A Marketing, a New Jersey-based distributor and retailer that specializes in brand revamps" which paid $1.9m a few weeks ago for the company's remains. If you've bought something from the undead brands "Polaroid" or "Ritz Camera" lately, well, same folks.

A quick litmus test, of how good these guys are at marketing, fails hilariously:

Update: C&A Marketing writes in:

HI Rob

I read your article about SkyMall, and I just wanted to correct one thing that you have wrong toward the bottom. The image you show is actually Fuji cameras, not Polaroid cameras and has nothing to do with C&A Marketing. They are manufactured and sold by Fuji. Many people get them confused with Polaroid cameras.

Yes, indeed they do. Read the rest

Yesterday, I blogged about Bob Basset, the Ukrainian steampunk leatherworker, discovering one of his designs in the Design Toscano catalog without credit or royalty. The publicity that the Internet gave to Basset's cause caused Toscano to contact Basset and offer him a royalty, and they blame an unscrupulous supplier who claimed the design as its own:

To clear up the issue on the Steampunk piece that has some of our customers questioning our motives we would like to explain.

The statue was produced and offered to Design Toscano as one of a portfolio of new sculptures to review. There was some confusion between Mr. Bob Basset and the factory that produced this piece for Design Toscano. Mr. Mike Stopka, president of Design Toscano, spoke directly with Mr. Basset and explained that Design Toscano had been mislead in the creation of this piece. Mr. Basset and Mr. Stopka have worked out a generous plan that the artist will get compensation for his work and Mr. Basset has graciously allowed Design Toscano to continue to sell his fantastic work of art. Design Toscano is appreciative to its customers who informed us of this oversight and as always we celebrate artists and their creative work

To clear up the issue on the Steampunk piece that has some of our customers questioning our motives we would like to explain.

(Thanks, Seth!) Read the rest