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.

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 ...

Adverganza's Friday morning picks, 10.10.08

Here's what's worth reading (or maybe, with all of the shitty financial news out there, avoiding), in marketing, media and advertising:

From Advertising Age:

--The AdMarket 50 dropped 6.2 percent yesterday. But look on the bright side! The Dow dropped even more!
--Obama looking to buy a 30-minute block on major TV networks, possibly a roadblock, on Oct. 29th. Now try that on for size, John McCain.
--Something about advertisers and Web-TV shows at nbc.com. Sorry, enthusiasm waning.
--Q scores about to get smarter about the Hispanic market(s).
--Three-minute Ad Age: What Ask.com is going to do now that it blew $100 million on an ad campaign that didn't work.

From Adweek:

—More detailed story about Obama's 30-minute TV buy, including why McCain probably doesn't have the money to do the same thing.
—Your chance to choose the industry's most influential execs. On the list: Warren Buffett, Stephen Colbert and David Kenny.
—Google helps marketers target those ultra-cool iPhone owners. I am not one.
—Two shockers from Nielsen: Financial firms are spending less in advertising and shoppers won't buy as much this holiday season.

From Brandweek:

—Phew! Turns out gum can be good for you.
—Citizen's Bank will give you a dime for every paperless electronic transaction you make. Great for global warming, but can this cure the global financial crisis?

More to come after exercise class ... sorry I neer completed these, gang.

Adverganza's Thursday morning picks, 10.09.08

OK, it's day three of my experiment to do the picks every day. The kiddies are still asleep, so let's roll. When the picks roll, they roll big. (And if you don't get that joke, here's a clue.)

From Advertising Age:

--Does this mean Jerry Seinfeld out, Common in?
--MindShare buys Michaelides & Bednash, which, according to this story, "practically invented media planning." Never heard of 'em.
--Mother sells some of its sausage. I didn't even know it had sausage. Anyway, this'll be a trend if Brooklyn Brothers sells some of its chocolate.
--Some of the pizzazz out of Yaz.
--Three-minute Ad Age: Actual footage of Ocean Spray's cranberry bog in Rockefeller Center (see photo above, or read Mark Dolliver's singular take on the midtown bog at AdFreak).
--Film at 11! Eric Schmidt says the Internet is "a cesspool." (Yeah, that was taken out of context. Go click on the link, wouldya?)

From Adweek:

--Movie ads now allowed on Oscars. Frankly, I'd never noticed that there weren't any.
--AdSense goes game.
--How can 82 percent of TNS shareholders be wrong?
--Rich Gagnon doesn't think that we've nothing to fear but Google itself.
--Ad of the Day: the Routan Babymaker 3000. Scare your friends! Your fiance! And your future or current spouse!

From Brandweek:

--Progresso, Campbell's sling soup at each other.
--Dissolvable tobacco. Ewwww!

From Mediapost:

--Yep, people are shopping at discount stores.
--Here come the "disease-modifying" osteoarthritis drugs. Just in time for me to become an old biddy!
--More on that Honda campaign that causes rumble strips to play the "William Tell Overture." (Here's someone driving on it on YouTube. Sounds a little pitch-y to me. The actual ad doesn't drop until Sunday.)--Up with Dough Boy, down with that guy my 4-year-old refers to as "Chef Boy."
--The good news about faltering car dealerships: they are focusing more online.
--Google consoles beleaguered travel advertisers.
--Uh-oh. The Center for Digital Democracy is asking states to investigate targeting practices on Facebook and MySpace.
--Search guys say, "What me worry?"
--Nielsen now has its convergence panel up and running. I've heard that people sometimes use more than one medium.
--The Star-Ledger lives to see another day.

From Mediaweek:

--Forbes.com decides to become a financial adviser.
--The second presidential debate draws more audience than the first, but still not as much as that Biden/Palin smackdown.

From The New York Post:

--Liz Claiborne (who's dead by the way), Narciso Rodriguez part ways.

From The New York Times:

--We know a bit about the social graph in Wasilla, Alaska, but now Vaseline has discovered what it is in Kodiak.
--Stuart Elliott's story about the campaign to tell teens to watch their language is currently #7 on the Times' business most-read hit parade.

From The Wall Street Journal:

--Goldman Sachs down on the outlook for advertising. Hey, guys, just because your business is tanking doesn't mean you have to piss all over ours. Subscription required.
--Ever heard of the NFL's Coach Stilo? He doesn't really exist but the League is all over him. Free.

OK, we're done. Hope everyone appreciates that I did part of this with a 4-year-old in my lap.

Adverganza's Wednesday morning picks, 10.08.08

Day two, my friends, of my picks-every-day experiment. Pray for me. ("My friends" is a hilarious reference to John McCain. Laugh already, would you?)

From Advertising Age:

—Hyundai buys all of the spots General Motors had bought for the Oscars. There's a metaphor here somewhere.
—Crispin wins the Old Navy account. Look for ads starring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld looking for deals on hoodies. Oh, wait, I'm confused.
—"The Sarah Palin Micro Economy." Yes, Tina Fey is a big part of it.
—Google's Tim Armstrong wants to hold a town hall with the Association of National Advertisers to discuss the Google/Yahoo deal. Tom Brokaw would moderate. Ha! I meant Gwen Ifill.
—Three-minute Ad Age: Bad economy got you down? Talk to Reader's Digest Association's Suzanne Grimes.

From Adweek:

—TNS says political ad spending will break a record, at $2.5 billion. The good news? That's way more than the $1.4 billion spent in 2004. The bad news? TNS originally predicted it would be $3 billion.
—The ups and downs, um, of Levi's "Unbutton Your Beast" campaign.

From Brandweek:

—Duracell, Maggie Gyllenhall, campaign to power smiles, etc.
—All about CRM at HP.

From Mediapost:

—Diddy as Frank Sinatra?
—Despite the lousy economy, people apparently still need their gadgets.
—Car dealerships, just like Darwin's theory of evolution.
—Woo-hoo! Internet ad spending up 15.2 percent in the first half of 2008 per the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Boo! Growth flat between first and second quarters.
—Magazines better than TV at ROI, per Marketing Evolution. Strangely, I don't think this study was released at the American Magazine Conference.
—Mediapost introduces Red, White & Blog.

From Mediaweek:

—People actually watching Major League Baseball playoffs. Well, it's a great diversion.
—What Michael Eisner said at the Veoh Forum.
—You can buy stuff on YouTube.
—American Magazine Conference attendees try to "carefully connect" with people who still read paper.

From The New York Post:

—Thanks for playing, Linens 'n' Things!
—Keith Kelly does a roundup of the American Magazine Conference ... and you are there!

From The New York Times:

—Hey teens! The Ad Council says watch your language!

From The Wall Street Journal:

—Honda Fit all over Sony, sites that is. Free.

OK, gang. That's all she blogged.

Adverganza's Tuesday morning picks, 10.07.08

As an experiment, I'm going to try to do the picks every day, partly because I know it won't be quite as hard as doing them on Mondays when there is so much content out there. Is this sustainable? Probably not. Among other things, the kiddies have Thursday off for Yom Kippur. BTW, if I don't include a publication, it's because it had nothing new on it site, or it had something new on its site that was so dull I wouldn't want to bore you with it. Here goes:

From Advertising Age:

—Magazine publishers talking revenue at the American Magazine Conference. And we're not necessarily talking ad pages.
—Yeah, the AdMarket 50's stocks fell like a stone too.
—TNS surrenders.
—It's going to be an ad, ad, ad, ad virtual world in Sims 3.
—Three-minute Ad Age talks to National Geographic about online communities.

From Adweek:

—SMG roadkill, courtesy of General Motors. Agency cuts 5 to 10 percent of staff as dealer business goes to some other shops.

From Brandweek:

—Coke strikes a deal with a Monster.
—Coldwell Banker sets up a 10-day sales event, dropping home prices by as much as 10 percent. If the owners comply, that is, since ultimately it's up to them. (I know these things. I have my real estate license.)
—Will people drink Glenlivet or some kind of rot gut now that the economy is down?
—Mayors all hepped up about a green revolution.
—Pringles unveils a can creator, so you can design your own can. It's for a good cause!

From Mediapost:

—Sign of the times: Toyota offering 0% financing on most of its vehicles. Not the Prius though.
—KFC airing this ad in Nashville, saying it will donate $20,000 to world hunger relief if anyone, a questioner or a candidate, mentions world hunger during the debate tonight.
—Millenials love them causes.
—Hockey star representing haircut chain, but, weirdly, no mention of mullets.
—The first post-financial crisis ad spending prediction is out, but at least the numbers are very modestly up. Trying to maintain that the glass is half full, I am.
—Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg addresses the American Magazine Conference.
—Diane Mermigas thinks that AOL and Yahoo should get together.
—Young men would rather give up TV than the Internet. (Of course, the Internet can be TV if you want it to be, not the other way around.)

From Mediaweek:

—Newsweek hires Hearst's Pamela Raley as chief revenue officer.
—Film at 11! State of magazine publishing "incredibly fragile" says Hearst exec at American Magazine Conference.
—Everything you wanted to know about the new Food Network magazine.

From The New York Post:

—Couldn't have said it better myself. Dealer advertising "is stuck in park."

From The New York Times:

—Ads try to convince consumers that they really don't need to stick money in their mattress. Stuart Elliott poses the central question of creating ads for Washington Mutual: "How, then, to create a campaign that would project confidence in an institution that will be remembered as having suffered the largest bank failure of its time?"
—Old ads for cigarettes, including a recommendation from doctors that people smoke Lucky Strikes. Those were the days.

From The Wall Street Journal (didn't have time to figure out whether these were subscription required or not. Blame Internet Explorer):

—More on that WPP/TNS deal.
—Ready for the Whopper Bar?

OK, gang, off to exercise class.

Who knew Droga 5 was behind "The Great Schlep"?

Maybe you've seen Sarah Silverman's video "The Great Schlep", above (not necessarily safe for work), which urges Jewish grandchildren to visit their grandparents in Florida and plead with them to vote Obama. (And withhold further visits this year unless that condition is met.) What I didn't know, until I read The New York Times this morning is that Droga5 co-produced it. Among other reasons Silverman thinks everyone should vote for Obama is that, "He's honest and he's kind and quite frankly he's probably our last hope of ending this country's reputation as the assholes of the universe." There's also a semi-serious Web site, that asks people to "Donate to the Schlep" and has some cool schlep swag (schlep schwag?).

McCain says Obama's a dangerous guy

To make this blog fair and balanced, I'll try to keep track of the most viewed YouTube videos on both presidential candidates' channels over the next few weeks. While Obama (see below) had over 134,000 views for a lengthy video about McCain's role in the Keating Five, McCain's most viewed in the last day or so is this commercial painting Obama as a dangerous guy, with 77,000 views. Not that YouTube views are a proxy for who will win the election, but interesting, nonetheless.

Obama amps up McCain and the Keating Five

I haven't exactly jumped into the election campaign on Adverganza, but some interesting stuff is popping up on the YouTube channels for both Barack Obama and John McCain. Above, what is one of the leaders among the video's the Obama campaign posted today: a 13-minute-plus video on McCain's involvement with the Keating Five of the savings and loan crisis. Shows you what a sorry state we're in that more than 135,000 people would watch a video this long, only hours after it had been posted. (There are more than 550,000 views so far for a 35-second teaser. The long form video is also posted on an Obama campaign-backed site, called keatingeconomics.com. Still amazed that Joe Biden didn't mention the Keating Five once in the vice presidential debate since that seems to be the smoking gun, if there is one, on the subject of John McCain and the economy.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 10.06.08

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

From Advertising Age:

—So, 78 percent of us have curtailed spending in the last few weeks. That ain't good.
—The consumer touchpoints of the Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays.
—Cool chart of great deals at major retailers.
—Something about CPG margins, if you're a SKU wonk.
—Here's a PDF to Ad Age's annual A List. But, hey, I'll tell you the ten who made it, in order even: The Economist, Women's Health, Elle, Every Day with Rachel Ray, National Geographic, Fast Company, New York, People Stylewatch, House Beautiful, Conde Nast Traveler.
—Simon Dumenco's first annual American Magazine Vanguard Awards in which magazines, most of which you've never heard of, get props for expanding beyond the printed page.
—What your local ad exec thinks of the government bailout package.
—Wal-Mart is rocking the recession.
—Price of a 30-second spot drops 4.1 percent. In an irrational world, that seems, well, rational.
—Jonah Bloom on Kurt Andersen's "Very Short List." Dump all your feeds and read only one thing a day!
—Bob Garfield gives three stars to drinkability. Guess he was thirsty.
—It's not a water bottle, it's a "personal hydration vessel."

From Adweek:

—Ad industry strangely mum about the bailout bill.
—So, yeah, some ad agencies stand to lose some accounts what with all those bank consolidations.
—A few temperature changes at 72andSunny. OK, that was a dumb metaphor.
—Video beyond the pre-roll.
—Ex-WPP Italy exec Marco Benatti and WPP face off in court today.
—Google and Yahoo search deal isn't soup yet.
—It's gonna suck to have an automotive account in the near term.
—Online resources that help reporters out.
—Just because your religious don't worship at the alter of consumerism.
—Catching up with ex-Wieden creative Jim Riswold, who is still very much alive and making fun of Hitler in his spare time.
—Does Joseph Jaffe have money in his mattress?

From Brandweek:

—Just because nobody supposedly smokes anymore doesn't mean cigarette companies aren't great marketers.
—Should Wendy's be focusing on quality?
—Bailout isn't bad for Botox sales.
—General Mills and Kraft start word-of-mouth networks.
—Shaun White takes over "South Park" to launch his video game.

From Mediapost:

—Infiniti goes global. What do ya wanna bet the brand'll scale back its aggressive expansion plans?
—Kodak, via EVB, lets people become superheroes.
—Didn't know that chains like Panera Bread are referred to as the fast casual segment.
—AT&T in 3D!
—Procter & Gamble picks a Hispanic stylist to promote Head & Shoulders to the Hispanic market. Wow, how logical.
—That other Facebook founder leaves Facebook.
—Microsoft launches another search incentive program.
—Two rivals to WebMD merge.
—iPerceptions says advertisers should eschew display for text ads in the downturn.
—Gator is dead for good. Hooray!
—Read this story about Google TV.
—Vice presidential debate pulls in 69.9 million viewers; presidential debates pulls in only 28.6 million viewers.
—New York AG files suit to delay the launch of the Portable People Meter.

From Mediaweek:

—The AdweekMedia Hot List. Here's the list, in order, since you don't want to click through ten pages, do you? Better Homes and Gardens, Elle, Men's Health, Real Simple, Gourmet, Martha Stewart Living, People, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan. For those keeping score between the two top magazine lists, there is only one book that made both lists: Elle. Ad Age named People Stylewatch, and AdweekMedia named People.)
—Feature on Real Simple.
—Screw AG Cuomo. The Portable People Meter goes live in eight markets.
—Advertisers not in panic mode ... yet.
—NBC primetime not the talk of the town.
—On the other hand, people are loving the football.
—The cable upfront was up 9.3 percent.
—Brides.com to do live streaming of bridal fashion shows.

From The New York Post:

—Story about Tina Brown's new thedailybeast.com. Hipsters are supposed to read it. Does anyone refer to themselves as a hipster?

From The New York Times:

—EBay cuts its staff by 10 percent. Says it's not due to the economic downturn. Hmmm.
—More on the opposition to the Google/Yahoo deal.

From The Wall Street Journal:

—Want to invest in an independent movie? Free.
—Is anyone interested in a $25 pack of razor blades? Free.
—Guess what? Saturday Night Live's ratings are up. Free.
—Cookbooks are hot. Free.


Much more to come ...

Will there be an Ad-Media-Brand-Week?

You may have noticed that I haven't posted about Adweek lately. Not much to post. But then one of my industry observers pointed me to this story which ran in Folio yesterday, predicting, among other things, that " a considerable consolidation of editorial staffs" might happen at Nielsen Business Media including, according to what Folio says are "two knowledgeable sources" the possible combining of Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek into one news operation. This idea has been bandied about over there for the last few years, but given the way the economy is, I'm wondering if this time it doesn't have the ring of inevitability to it.

Should the bailout be called a rescue?

Lengthy story in Advertising Age this morning about how the positioning of the bailout helped doom it in the House earlier this week. For one, people now seem to think that "rescue" may have been a better term than "bailout" all along. On the one hand, I couldn't agree more; on the other hand, I sense that most Americans won't really believe this is all happening until it hits them squarely in the credit card. The reason the perception that this is a bailing out of Wall Street persists is that the effects of the credit crisis hasn't been felt by most people. If you turned off all news sources and just went about your business these last few weeks, the most you might notice is that the economy isn't quite trucking along the way it was a few years ago. Even hearing about the crisis on the news seems somehow distant, as though we're reading reports of a tsunami in Asia, but meanwhile, back home, the sun is shining and the birds are singing in the trees.

Hard to take the Popeil out of Ronco

Inadvertently funny New York Times story today on the rebirth of Ronco, without Ron Popeil. Seems the new commercials use footage of Popeil (who is still alive), but the investor group that bought the company a few years ago, also has some guy named Mark Solley sorta kinda reprising the Popeil role. It just ain't the same. For fun, I've posted an old Popeil commercial here. It was fun trolling YouTube this morning for old Ronco commercials, reliving the birth of such great advancements as the Battery Tester and the Solid Flavor Injector.

Will Internet spending get squashed too?

The prevailing wisdom, this recession around, is that the Internet will continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace, while every other medium tanks. But you gotta wonder, with sales at some automakers dropping by a third, whether that's really going to be the case. According to TNS Media Intelligence, Internet spending was up 8 percent in the second quarter, which, by the medium's standard is fairly anemic. Throw a whole bunch of freaked out car advertisers into the stew, along with a healthy dash of other ad categories that cut back, and that number starts to drop downward. Fasten your seat belts, people.

Watch ad economy instead of Wachovia

Hard for the ad biz to seem very relevant these days what with the economic meltdown and all, so looks like everyone has latched onto the story of Ogilvy losing Wachovia before it ever had it, along with other musings about what's going to happen to the agencies for other down-and-out and assimilated banks, like Washington Mutual. Would far rather see column inches be spent on what the economic crisis means for ad spending, and fortunately, a few stories about that are starting to trickle in, as depressing as they are to read. This morning Mediapost's Diane Mermigas has a column this morning telling readers not to "get too comfortable" with the already downbeat ad expenditure forecasts, and couldn't agree more. (Yeah, I, too, write a column for Mediapost.) Even the reports released in the last few days, if you read the fine print, were compiled well before the events of the last few weeks. Little did those who wrote them, or us who read them, know that we hadn't seen nothin' yet.

Hard to avoid DeGeneres/Cover Girl hype

So, this Ellen DeGeneres commercial for Cover Girl better be good. Procter & Gamble has actually bought search ads for it, which must've popped up in by Gmail because of all of the Google Alerts I've set up that are keyed to advertising. If you click on the search ad, you're sent to a landing page in which you can input your email address to get a sneak preview of the commercial, and give Cover Girl your mobile number, for some reason that escapes a curmudgeon like me.

Did Michael Phelps really learn Chinese?

I know this commercial isn't exactly brand spanking new, but don't you find it weird that this entire commercial is about Michael Phelps learning Chinese using Rosetta Stone but he never speaks even a syllable of Chinese?