Adverganza's Friday morning picks, 10.24.08

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

From Advertising Age:

--Starbucks is going to BBDO, except for those little details like confirmations.
--The number of people watching Sarah Palin's "SNL" appearance online is about to surpass the number that watched it on TV.
--Obama ahead in Busken Cookie Poll.
--Time Inc.'s Southern Progress unit lays off 30.
--3 Minute Ad Age: "The Most Dangerous Ideas About Public Relations." I was too scared to watch.


From Adweek:

--Social media no longer edgy, per Forrester.
--MPG says Obama has won the election. Or its new social media tool, Resonance, does.
--Harrah's picks Zenith.

From Brandweek:

--More people talking about Coke than any other brand.

From Mediapost:

--Who knew chips and presidential elections had so much in common?
--Film at 11! Edmunds.com predicts car sales will drop by 28.9 percent this month!
--Despite general economic crappiness, we still may be buying gadgets this Christmas.
--Liberal Democrats love their Internets.
--The relatively good news about newspapers: newspaper Web site users represent 41.4 percent of Internet users.
--Twitter is fastest growing social media site, with 2.4 million users. Better go tweet that.
--The Onion News Network goes global. I wonder if its humor, will, well, translate.

From Mediaweek:

--World Series viewership down 12 percent. Maybe they should just put all the baseball teams in big markets. How's that for an idea?
--The first phase of the Media Ratings Council's audit of Nielsen Online is complete. At this rate, the next one will be done by 2015.
--E! re-ups "Chelsea Lately."
--Marc Berman's Programming Insider: Baseball viewership may be down, but still leads. No one cares about the CW's "Stylista," in which contestants compete for an editorial assistant's job at Elle, surely the worst prize in reality show history.

From The New York Post:

--Since all's not OK, at OK!, there's a whole new gang in charge.
--Will the economy put some cold water on "High School Musical III"?

From The New York Times:

--The "B" word, bargain, is back.
--Speaking of bargains, the Associated Press' fees are getting cheaper.

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Advertisers are rethinking promotions, to focus on—you'll never guess—value. Subscription required, but I think you kinda know what it says.
--Not everyone was into that road that played "The William Tell Overture" for Honda. Free. A clip of the musical road is below, if you've never heard it.
--Gannett publishing revenue down 18 percent. Subscription required, but probably too depressing to read in its entirety.

That's finally it. Have a good weekend if I don't post again this afternoon.

McCain overdosing on Joe the Plumber

First two lines of this John McCain ad, which was posted to YouTube early this morning: "We are Joe the Plumber" and "I am John the Caterer." Watch if you must.

Adverganza's Thursday morning picks, 10.23.08

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

From Advertising Age:

--I'll just quote the headline on this one: "Cockroaches and New Balance in Rotterdam."
--Oh, God, no! Another review in which a client (in this case Hewlett-Packard's Technology Solutions Group), tries to pick the fairest holding company of them all.
--Recession blues? Go eat a Big Mac. Everybody else is.
--3 Minute Ad Age: More on that Ivanka Trump/Healthy Choice weirdness.
--Guns 'n' Roses ready to release its album. Dr Pepper all around!
--George Lois rants about Esquire, The New Yorker and Ad Age.

From Adweek:

--Bartle Bogle Hegarty won't unzip its jeans to defend the U.S. Levi's account.
--Some folks get hired by Amalgamated.
--What the hell is Reverse Radical Strategy? And what does it have to do with advertising? Maybe you should read this.
--Ad of the day: the U.S. Dept. of Treasury and the Ad Council tells teens to stay out of debt. So. where's the campaign targeted toward Wall Street execs?

From Brandweek:

--Grey gets the Green Earth Technologies CPG account. Wonder what Procter & Gamble thinks about this, or maybe those old-school conflict issues are, well, too old-school.
--Kimberly-Clark sees earnings dip but still wants to spend money on marketing.

From Mediapost:

--Five percent decline in holiday spending predicted. At what point does all of this become self-fulfulling?
--Wii Music goes on sale this week!
--Isn't it comforting to know that Chevrolet can still manage to advertise on the World Series? This time, it's to promote the Traverse.
--LinkedIn launches a B2B market research network.
--Who knew? 18-to-34-year-olds allegedly pay attention to marketing messages in emails. Sounds fishy to me. Sorry.
--Whole buncha companies, including Facebook, join the Advertising Research Foundation.
--Second year of C3 ratings shows cable up 10 percent.


From Mediaweek:

--Telemundo does a product placement deal for the Chevy Malibu.
--The Webisode lives: CBS and Saturn partner on a Web series called "Novel Adventures." It's about women in a book club, who, presumably, drive. Get it?
--Marc Berman's Programming Insider: on Tuesdays, it's between Fox and CBS.
--Yet more scanning of the brain, this time sponsored by Google and MediaVest.

From The New York Post:

--AIG hires Burson-Marsteller. What? Does it have an image problem?
--Are Wenda and Martha having trouble getting along?

From The New York Times:

--The New York Times Co. third quarter numbers are in, and they ain't pretty: print advertising revenue down 18.5 percent; 51.4 percent decline in profit; online ad revenue up only 2.5 percent.

Looks like that's it for the picks today. See ya.

Adverganza's Wednesday morning picks, 10.22.08

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

From Advertising Age:

--Ya-boo-hoo. Yahoo to lay off 10 percent of staff.
--It's not really a gPhone, but have you heard the gPhone is launching tomorrow? Here's a stream of the Publicis-created ad (and a link because the stream isn't working well), from WSJ.com (if you understand it, please write):



--Barack Obama is a BMW; John McCain is a Ford. Barack Obama is Google; John McCain is Wal-Mart. Barack Obama is Target; John McCain is AOL. OK, you do the rest. (blank) is a winner; (blank) is a loser.
--3 minute Ad Age: Here's what happens when political marketers, sellers of other goods, scan your brain.

From Adweek:

--The aforementioned reorg.
--Is Levi's jumpin' out of BBH? Well, it's putting the business in review anyway. (Yes, readers, I know that "Jumpin' In" was done by Cutwater, but liked it as a headline anyway. So there!)
--What recession? Omnicom Group's third quarter net income rises 6 percent.
--Trojan starts online campaign featuring shareable content.... hmmmm ... condoms ... shareable content.
--Boston's MMB goes into the movie business.
--For some reason, Adweek has done a 150th anniversary package about Macy's. Couldn't get the PDF to download but maybe you can.

From Brandweek:

--Even though Paul Newman is no longer with us, his brand very much is. Introducing all-natural Newman's Own pizza.
--Who knew Zima was still alive? Well, it's dead now.

From Mediapost:

--A guy actually takes the job of CEO at Hummer.
--You know times are tough when Coach cuts back on the number of handbags it's selling.
--AdMob closes on $15.7 million in funding from Sequoia Capital. In case you don't get it, in this market, that's impressive.
--Teens, not just cranky old boomers, search for health information online.
--More on that Adweek reorg.
--Jack Feuer tells us what disgustuing means, and how it relates to the ANA conference.

From Mediaweek:

--SI Kids in 3D.
--"Dexter" gets re-upped. Never watched it; just heard of that viral thing-a-ma-bob.

From The New York Post:

--Apple sells more iPhones than RIM sells Blackberrys.

From The New York Times:

--Bat Boy is back! And this time he's an LLC! (What I mean is the Weekly World News is back in action. Check out the Web site, where Bat Boy endorses Obatma, Obama's half-brother.)

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Film at 11! Broadcast network viewing down!

That's all she wrote. Or I wrote. Or something.

Thoughts on the latest AdweekMedia strategem

Sorry if I seem a little slow on the uptake regarding today's rather hefty layoff, of, by my count, at least 10 people from my favorite former employer, AdweekMedia. Wasn't in the office for much of the day, but here's what I think: even though the magazines will now, at last, share editorial operations, I still find it amazing the company has once again managed to sidestep what should be inevitable: combining the Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek brands into a single publication, kind of like, uh, Ad Age. Partly because it took me so damn long to post today, this isn't a new thought. As PaidContent.org's Rafat Ali said: "If they were really serious about long term viability, at least one of those three [magazines] should have been closed down, if you ask me, and possibly even two."
Instead, the company offers up a peculiar strategy in which there are still three magazines, but one staff. Does this mean reporters now have three bosses? That the magazines will carry the same content in different packaging? It's hard to tell from the official release, which says: "This integrated, yet industry audience-targeted approach to sharing content between brands is supported by the fact that only 1.5 percent of all of the print subscribers of Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek receive all three publications, which alleviates the potential for delivering repetitive content to subscribers." Well, I guess, but last time I checked, producing print cost money--producing customized print publications for three audiences with ever more interlocking interests costs even more, and to what advantage? As it's far easier to slice-and-dice content in customized form in a digital environment, that's where the three brands should continue to exist, if anywhere. Thus, it seems like the place for savings shouldn't necessarily be in cutting staff--too many talented have lost their jobs there--but in cutting down on other big costs, like three print publications, which, by the time they finally arrive, are increasingly an afterthought in a news-on-demand world. That takes courage, but better to make one massive, very difficult decision than dozens of smaller ones. Get on with it, people.

Adverganza's Tuesday morning picks, 10.21.08

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

From Advertising Age:

--E*Trade tells you how to survive a credit crisis. How come I'm not finding them very credible either?
--What do Verizon, Charles Schwab and Hewlett-Packard have in common? They are all clients who are pissed off at ad vendors.
--David Armano on how to work with the legal department and other roadblocks to your sterling social media initiative.
--Hey agencies! AssetLink is watching you.
--Everything you wanted to know about the ANA Conference that you didn't go to.
--3 Minute Ad Age: Who knew that WalMart shoppers were so into AC/DC?

From Adweek:

--Enfatico promotes! Wait, has that agency even opened yet?
--Time Warner Cable goes viral, letting people create their own "E: True Hollywood Story" vids about friends and family. If you've ever been in rehab, be very afraid. If you want to go do it now, click here.
--Fox getting serious about mobile.
--Barbarian's Benjamin Palmer on why agency people should stop dreaming about boats and motorcycles, and, um motorcycles in lakes.
--Pam Horan of the Online Publishers Association, shockingly, on why inventory managed by branded content sites is good.
--Ad of the Day: It's another Mac vs. PC or PC vs. Mac. Never un-brilliant. Was a problem with the audio for the ad on the Adweek site; a version from YouTube is below.

From Brandweek:

--Behavioral targeting doesn't always behave as it should.
--Dunkin' Donuts challenges Starbucks to a taste test, and has a whole freakin' Web site about it too. See the commercial below:



From Mediapost:

--The FTC is going to find out which marketers are really green.
--OK, coffee aficionados, so that Dunkin' Donuts taste test was done against Starbucks House Blend, not Pike Place Roast.
--At least toy sales were good during the third quarter.
--The new powers-that-be at the ANA.
--Online ad revenue just isn't making up for losses at magazines, newspapers and radio.
--Don't really follow this stuff, but if you do, Mediabank bought Mediaplex from ValueClick.
--The Electronic Frontier Foundation backs McCain ... at least on digital rights issues.
--Forgot to mention that Avenue A/Razorfish is now just Razorfish.
--Amazed no other network has done this yet, but, anyway, CBS launches the "social viewing" room.
--MySpace embraces the Android.

From Mediaweek:

--What the world has been waiting for: a podcast metric.
--Ex-Primedia CEO William F. Reilly dies.
--Marc Berman's Programming Insider: ABC on top.

From The New York Times:

--Don't read too much into strong attendance at the ANA. The hotel had a two nights' deposit policy and required 30-days' notification of cancellation, per Stuart Elliott.

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Too much going on here for my addled brain, but Lara Spencer of "The Insider" starring in commercials for Unilever's Bertolli which also features CBS programs. If you want to be bombarded with commercial messages, click here. Subscription required.

That's it. Have to go spend some quality time with a few Android apps.

More to come ...

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 10.20.08

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

From Advertising Age:

--More jumping on the bandwagon: I'm not talking about Colin Powell endorsing Barack Obama, but rather Ad Age already naming him Marketer of the Year.
--Pepsi doing quite a bit of hanging out with Peter Arnell.
--Guess what? There just might not be enough ad revenue to go around for all those Web 2.0 companies.
--How would a General Motors/Chrysler merger affect the marketing industry?
--Life sucks if you're a Quiznos franchisee.
--Joost tells Madison Avenue why it should still care.
--LeBron James could use a ring.
--Radio listening up; advertisers not listening.
--Will people pay $175 for a bottle of Canadian Club?
--R/GA 'fesses to seeing resumes from Wall Street, but it's probably not alone.
--3 Minute Ad Age: What a waste--the story behind Nike's shoes made out of trash.
--Bob Garfield on Hyundai's widget. Does anybody care when the world is imploding? Bob does, a little.

From Adweek:

--Comedy Central looks into leveraging live entertainment.
--Mother now lead agency for New Balance; BBDO still does some stuff.
--How we really feel about the presidential and vice presidential candidates' race, gender and age.
--The subtle differences between Hispanic, and general market, ad campaigns.
--Digital agency chiefs still bullish, at least on the surface.
--Barbara Lippert on why Sarah Silverman's "Great Schlep" had her "at douchenozzle."
--A lot of marketers planning to cut their budgets in Asia. Is there any safe haven? Apparently not.
--Profile of Acme Brand Co.'s David Caruso. No, not that guy on CSI.
--Ad of the Day (well, of Friday): "Mixed Signals" from Circuit City via Euro RSCG Chicago.
--What might happen with that iBeer vs. iPint lawsuit. Wouldn't it be nice if the parties involved could resolve this over a real beer?

From Brandweek:

--Pharmaceutical marketers fearful of social networking.
--Say goodbye to the "Big Bang" automotive launch (except for an upcoming campaign for the F150).
--Craft beers pose a challenge for those upstart imports.
--ANA attendees optimistic as they convened in the mystical world of Orlando.--
--Sure, it may aspire to taking over the world, but Google, nonetheless, tops the 2008 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Leaders List. For the full report, click here.
--Toys 'R' Us pitches itself as "where kids are a big deal."

From Mediapost:

--What Hewlett-Packard has learned from its social media efforts.
--Five lessons from outgoing Procter & Gamble CMO Jim Stengel.
--Film at 11! The National Retail Foundation sees a "price-obsessed" Christmas season.
--Nothing like financial turmoil and a presidential election to up that Web traffic. So I'm not the only one obsessively hitting the refresh button on financial sites.
--T-Mobile gets into the advergaming.
--Mygazines buys the farm.
--Heavy says it is "strongly positioned" for hard times in the ad business, while laying off 14 percent of staff.
--Now UBS cuts its ad spending estimate for 2009, by six percent.
--Murdoch says Fox Business Network is ready to be a "formidable challenger" to CNBC. All I know, is you can't get it where I live, or if you can, no one has noticed.
--NBC wants to cut its budget by $500 million, which for it is a mere three percent.

From Mediaweek:

--What will happen to the ratings of MSNBC, CNN and Fox News Network after the pre-election surge?
--Univision is beating the broadcast nets in Fridays for the 18-34 demo. How come advertisers aren't really noticing?
--Well, some say that the news this year has turned many of us into online news junkies for life.
--Nine months after he joined, Tom Beusse out as chief of Westwood One. CFO Roderick Sherwood III takes over.
--Appearance of Sarah Palin drives "Saturday Night Live" to its highest ratings in 14 years; ever since Nancy Kerrigan hosted. If you want to see it (Gov. Palin, I mean) click here.
--The slow pace of the magazine industry's new measurement initiatives.

From The New York Post:

--Will Sumner Redstone have to sell Viacom?

From The New York Times:

--Google could learn a thing or two from Microsoft when it comes to Washington.
--“It’s very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic,” and other quotations from the ANA conference.
--HSBC buys up New York (the magazine, for one issue, not the city). Though the way things are going, that may not be far off.

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Yahoo expected to announce layoffs, maybe more than 1,000. Subscription required.
--Paramount delays debut of two films. Isolated business decision or sign of a Hollywood pullback? Subscription required.
--Oliver Stone's "W" places fourth at the box office. I'm guessing we're just all sick of politics. Subscription required.

That's it gang. Have a good one.