Adverganza's Friday morning picks, 10.17.08

Wherein I scan the Friday morning headlines, so you don't have to:

From Advertising Age:

--Google gets even vaguer about the future of search.
--"Microsoft, Once Again, Officially Not Interested in Yahoo" Nice headline.
--Real Simple's TV show a true joint venture.
--3 Minute Ad Age: the money machine that is customized M&Ms. Did you ever hear that eating green ones makes you horny?

From Adweek:

--Google's net income rises 26 percent; Wall Street happy for once.
--Today's Ad of the Day is below for Holiday Inn Express. (Sorry, it didn't have an embeddable link at the Adweek site.) Mark Dolliver likes it, while admitting that the connection between the newborn baby and the "Stay Smart" tagline is tenuous, even if it is utterly amazing that the baby cuts its own umbilical cord. Other spots in the series are available here. Via Fallon Worldwide.



--Now Bebo is trying Webisodes. I'm so done with them.

From Brandweek:

--So, Kmart is trotting out the layaway plan. Will that work in an instant gratification society? Maybe this is what the presidential candidates mean by sacrifice.
--Gap won't run any TV ads for the rest of its fiscal year, shifting some money to non-traditional media.
--The FTC cracks down on those annoying male enhancement spammers.

From Mediapost:

--Karl Greenberg muses that maybe the ANA conference should have been held at Motel 6.
--Marketers should focus on "inferior brands" right now, says Booz & Co.
--"Hey! Nielsen" shuts down, to be replaced by something mysterious and consumer-centric.
--AdBrite lays off 40 percent of staff, only a week after Sequoia Capital's "Come to Jesus" meeting with companies it's funding.
--Fox and the CW show improvement in a C3-ed world.
--Tom Calderone named president of VH1.
--Are magazine publishers discounting by as much as 75 percent?

From Mediaweek:

--Eleanor Griffin named top editor at Southern Living.

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Who is the bad economy good for? Suze Orman and her endorsement deals. Subscription required.

Have a good weekend!

Busy times at Obama's YouTube channel

So, at campaign Obama, someone stayed up late last night doing a lot of editing. First, there's the new commercial above, aimed squarely at what most pundits agree was John McCain's best line last night--that "I am not President Bush. If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." It once again trots out the Obama camp's assertion that McCain has voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time, more or less confirmed because at the end it has footage of McCain saying that himself. There's also old footage of McCain from The O'Reilly Report saying how much he supported George Bush, and six edits from last night's debate of Obama's stance on a variety of issues.

Slow times at McCain's YouTube channel

Spent a little time today checking into what the McCain and Obama campaigns have been posting on YouTube lately. Found the treacly McCain commercial above, which was posted yesterday and has about 10,500 views. Otherwise, things over at Camp McCain have been a little slow. The most recent posting before that was 6 days ago, a pretty bland talking heads commercial in which people tell why they stand with John McCain.

Great ... a freecreditreport.com CGM contest

So, if you're hard up, you can enter freecreditreport.com's submit your own video contest and win $15,000. But you'd have to be really hard up, wouldn't you? Here's a Web site called freecreditreportband.com all about it.

Adverganza's Thursday morning picks, 10.16.08

Wherein I scan the Thursday morning headlines so you don't have to:

From Advertising Age:

--Did you hear the stock market went down yesterday?
--Did you know yesterday was Global Handwashing Day? Turn back the clock and wash your hands. And watch those Nepalese SMS-ing while you're at it.
--Droga5 finds its Method.
--3 Minute Ad Age: the latest in the Portable People Meter controversy.
--Group M uses social networking to try to get its employees to go digital.

From Adweek:

--Here's something Obama and McCain agree on: they're both pissed at YouTube for pulling down some of their stuff.
--Location-based ads might be good!
--Google doing an Entertainment Tonight for YouTube people? It's called Poptub. There's a snippet below.


From Brandweek:

--Maybe throwing soup at each other isn't all that great an idea.
--And now Wrigley and Trident are throwing gum at each other, with the FTC presiding. Ew.
--Film at 11! "Presidential candidates who include Internet, wireless and other forms of new media as a key part of their election campaign are more likely to attract young voters than candidates who do not."

From Mediaweek:

--Slackening ad spending got you down? Go into the search business.
--How NBC is doing in terms of its content being seen on alternative platforms.
--News Corp.'s IGN caters to those women gamers.

From Mediapost:

--It's about god damn time: Pizza Hut launches an ordering app on Facebook.
--Did you ever think of the word "purity" in relation to the prepared meals made by CPG companies? I never did, either.
--McCain can't evaluate YouTube clips before they get taken down. But, really, would he have the time?
--The iPhone cannot be killed.
--JP Morgan "cuts eBay to neutral"; says it runs on a crappy platform.
--Technorati launches ad network, buys AdEngage to get it running.
--Having just hired Lauren Rich Fine, now ContentNext has hired a dude from The Wall Street Journal.
--Google TV Ads integrates with a direct-response TV ad platform used by huge media agencies. Maybe we can all just get along after all.
--C3 crown goes to ABC so far in 18-49.
--Diane Mermigas on 7 new business models needed by broadcast networks. I think selling more t-shirts would be a good start.

From The New York Post:

--CNBC fights back, running new "In Cramer We Trust" promos, after Fox Business News slammed Jim Cramer. Can't find any spots that carry this tag online yet. Sorry to be so freakin' lame.

From The New York Times:

--If you don't want to be depressed about the marketing business, don't read Stuart Elliott's walkup story to the Association of National Advertisers conference, starting today in Orlando.

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Guess what? Those nasty campaign ads haven't really worked. Worth looking at this free feature for the stream of all of the campaign ads this season.

That's it, folks.

Adverganza's Wednesday morning picks, 10.15.08

Wherein I scan the Wednesday morning headlines so you don't have to:

From Advertising Age:

--Lawsuit involving the iPhone and beer. No, it's not about drunk-dialing.
--Oh, so now it's have a Pepsi and a smile.
--Yeah, like this is credible. Ivanka Trump doing a blog as part of a ConAgra deal in which she says she can relate about how boring it is to bring your lunch to work.
--Yesterday's 3-Minute Ad Age: are you ready for the revolt against paper? Maybe you're already part of it.
--Today's 3-Minute Ad Age: Denny's feeds starving musicians, lets them loose in kitchen.
--Important Information Enclosed: Direct Marketing Association thinks it can still grow despite stinky economy.

From Adweek:

--John Paulson to head Grey's G2.
--Alex Bogusky, John Hegarty and five people who are famous outside of the ad industry are named to the Art Directors Club's Hall of Fame.
--Ad of the Day: yesterday, it was Deutsch's Happy Cows; today, it's the British Columbia Dairy Association.

From Brandweek:

--OfficeMax offers up four private-label brands of pretty office supplies. Or maybe I should say stylish.
--Dawn wants to know if you have "hand talent." Not sure I do.
--Marketers reap 38 cents of profit per word-of-mouth conversation. Please don't tell me that you could actually throw that number on a balance sheet.

From Mediapost:

--A company I've never heard of says that online display ad rates were down in the third quarter, from 27 cents to 23 cents.
--JP Morgan Chase, feeling flush with all that government cash, cuts AOL's ad revenue forecast. to a piddling 8 percent increase for next year. That a newspaper company could be so lucky.
--Yahoo reminds people it still has its own search engine.
--Was wondering when this would happen. Lauren Rich Fine leaves Merrill of America to go to ContentNext Media as research director.
--Andy Lack joins Bloomberg as CEO of lots of stuff.
--You mean Rachel Ray wasn't already hawking stuff on QVC?

From The New York Post:

--A story about the ad below from Fox Business Channel, asserting, basically that Jim Cramer is lame. Says a CNBC spokesperson: "It is a predictably desperate attempt by a completely irrelevant network with ratings so pathetically small they refuse to make them public." Nice use of adjectives.



From The New York Times:

--All about those new Apple laptops. If you're really into Apple's usual self-congratulatory bullshit, with what sounds like snippets of Arcade Fire, click here. If you merely want to examine whether or not Steve Jobs has lost weight, click here. Check out the bony hands. Or were they always like that?
--More ad slogans that spin off the credit crisis. Try this line on for size: "“Just as our ad stated in the 1940s, during these uncertain times, Brooks Brothers is still the investment you can trust.” Then how come my husband's Brooks Brothers blazer only lasted about three or four years? I've had clothes from H&M last longer.

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Marketers will cut back on experimental media. This time around, that doesn't seem to include mainstream Internet spending, but things that are considered fringe, like mobile, because we all know that so few of us have mobile phones. Ha!

OK, I'm done. May post later but I'm trying to get emotionally beyond this whole Madonna/Guy Ritchie split.

Adverganza's Tuesday morning picks, 10.14.08

Wherein it was Columbus Day yesterday, so I'm scanning the Monday and Tuesday morning headlines so you don't have to:

From Advertising Age:

--Carat president Scott Sorokin leaves; replaced by Martin Cass who has a lot of experience with some client named Procter & Gamble.
--Did you hear the market was up today?
--Ad Age's annual list of 30 Power Players in marketing. P&G's Marc Pritchard tops the list. Six of the 30 are women.
--YouTube's video search ads.
--Film at 11: The TVB thinks General Motors is spending too much on spot.
--What can agencies do about clients who lose their liquidity?
--How the advertising and marketing worlds handled themselves during the recession of the 1970s.
--The credit crisis makes fast food slower, but still doesn't explain why it took 20 minutes for us to get our McDonald's order yesterday.
--Don't drop the cause now!
--Forget the grande latte, the real news at Starbucks is ... oatmeal.
--Print cozies up to Google and Yahoo.
--Everyone's flocking to local banks.
--Two-year report card on DraftFCB; yes, George Parker is quoted, telling the agency to "shut the fuck up." Here's George's take on telling Ad Age to tell DraftFCB to "shut the fuck up."
--Things are good in the funeral marketing business.
--Bob Garfield says that both Obama and McCain are liars.

From Adweek:

--Interview with former Ogilvy & Mather president Ken Roman, who has written a book about David Ogilvy. What a blast from my past.
--Adweek's take on the shuffling of the deck chairs at Carat. No, don't read too much into the deck chairs metaphor. It's 11:00 p.m. and I'm tired.
--So BMW goes and hires some consultancy from London to handle its media review. What-evah.
--Pepsi considering cheating on BBDO.
--Everyone wants viral, but no one is good at measuring up.
--How can the beauty of search extend to display?
--It's time for a profile of thehappycorp's Doug Jaeger, who also got this little job recently at the Art Directors Club.
--Barbara Lippert on Tina Fey's Sarah Palin.
--WPP's plans for TNS.
--Are you ready for jimbobkrause?
--More depressing predictions about the future of Detroit.
--Wonderful remembrance of two employees (fortunately, only one just left for the Great Beyond), by Court Crandall of Ground Zero.
--Avi Dan on why advertising ain't what it used to be.
--Ad of the Day: more Happy Cows from Deutsch.

From Brandweek:

--Some brands love a crappy economy. Maybe yours is one of 'em.
--Ford's Mark Kaline to join Kimberly-Clark as its first global media director.
--Affluent people still into redoing their kitchens.
--Timex becomes a sponsor of the ING New York Marathon. Get the synergy?
--MySpace launches MyAds, a CPC solution for smaller advertisers.
--Beware the popping of the "Brand Bubble."
--Big marketing presence = big Web site traffic.
--Krispy Kreme goes to China, does other stuff.
--Add one part David Fincher, one part LaDainian Tomlinson, to one part Troy Polamalu. Stir. Voila! It's a Nike ad.
--So, long Cosmo Girl. (The print version, anyway.)
--InChairTV, for that captive audience strapped to the chair in the dentist's office.
--First episode of "30 Rock" this year available online only for a week before it airs.
--Film at 11! AdGooRoo says more advertisers are buying Microsoft's Live Search.
--Consumer magazine ad pages down 9.5 percent.

From Mediaweek:

--A bunch of shows have been showing increases of more than one million viewers once DVRs are factored in.
--NBC relaunching local station Web sites, to focus on less on the TV stations they are affiliated with, more on the cities they live in.
--New Newsweek chief Tom Ascheim asking Roger Black and Jonathan Karp to "reimagine Newsweek" as though it weren't a pamphlet. Ha!
--This week's Magazine Monitor.
--Mike Shields on what ails Yahoo, and what Yahoo should do about it.

From The New York Post:

--Big media companies with lotsa debt are about to have a touch time on it. Tribune Co.? Univision? Clear Channel? That means you.
--Now too many people want to leave the Newark Star-Ledger.
--Is Apple about to introduce a laptop for under $1000?

From The New York Times:

--Uh-oh. Newspaper online ad revenue flat.
--This Halloween, look for "scary savings" and "Deals so good, they're scary." You get the point.

That's all folks. Found that The Wall Street Journal's stuff was boring. Or maybe it's just boring to read about advertising when the really hot news always seems to involve Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson.

More to come ...