Adverganza's Tuesday morning picks, 10.28.08

Wherein I scan the Tuesday morning headlines so you don't have to.

From Advertising Age:

--More bad news about the newspaper industry. Today's downer? Almost universally crappy circulation figures.
--Google says that lots of people pick their carrier at least partly based on the handsets they offer ... which in its case better mean that everyone is flocking to T-Mobile.
--TD Ameritrade, E-Trade say its high time to look for new, beleaguered customers.
--MTV launches a site that is pretty much an homage to Hulu. Check out the MTV site here, and Hulu here.
--3 Minute Ad Age: Is China the new Cannes? Well, Terry Savage just showed up at the China International Advertising Festival.

From Adweek:

--The idea behind GSD&M Idea City: purpose-based branding.
--Jeffrey Davidoff named CMO at Orbitz. Used to work at Whirlpool. You know ... airline tickets, dishwashers ... it's all just marketing.
--MDC Partners' Miles Nadal goes on a bit about innovation.

From Brandweek:

--Less gift cards predicted in your stocking this year. Sorry.

From Mediapost:

--Macy*s partying to celebrate its 150th birthday like its 1929.
--Big marketers adopt new "Smarter Choices" nutritional label for the front of packages. Do products like Doritos get a "Dumber Choices" nutritional label? Won't this be hell on those carefully-designed packages? And furthermore, what do I know?

From Mediaweek:

--Heads rolls at Wenner Media, but, hey, the layoff is only two percent.
--ABC makes budget cuts. No heads roll, but there goes the holiday party.
--Tiffany's goes downscale. I meant more affordable.
--The people at Kia must be cursing the weather in New York today. Does anyone want to play basketball outdoors in this?
--Aegis, Interpublic and Publicis high on digital going forward as they release their quarterly earnings.
--On the other hand, online display may be down by as much as ten percent, says an RBC analyst.
--Now that Dolly Parton is all over this white space issue, it finally got my attention.
--Yesterday Brightcove snagged The New York Times, today it's AOL.
--What Dr Pepper fans like to listen to. It's not Guns 'n' Roses.
--Obama's 30-minute infomercial now slated to air tomorrow night on CBS, Fox, NBC and Univision. Why no ABC? Because otherwise millions of Americans would miss "Pushing Daisies."
--Top digital exec at HGTV, Freddy James, named head of program development and production.

From The New York Times:

--Joel Moss Levinson, who has won $200,000 in cash and prizes for making user-generated commercials, is crowned Mr. UGC! (By me, anyway.) An example of his handiwork, which inexplicably won him free nights at Best Western, is below. Get me David Lubars, stat! Or maybe not.





--Missed this from yesterday. Times' readers favorite portrayals of Madison Avenue. Hmmm ... "Putney Swope"?

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Missed this from yesterday: Twitter for Dummies. Free.
--Here comes the shakeout in online ad networks. Subscription required.
--Mitch Williams: broadcaster, salsa maker, goat. Free.
--Who said there's no good news out there? These days you can get a tattoo at the mall! Free.

I'll report back on today's outing. A trip to Taco Bell for Steal-a-Taco Day.