CNN is starting a late-night Friday talk show hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos next month, the network said today.

Mr. Stroumboulopoulos, a longtime host on Canada's CBC, was hired by CNN in April for a Friday interview show to begin this summer, but it wasn't clear what time slot he would take. Now "Stroumboulopoulos," as it will be called, is scheduled to begin on Sunday, June 9, following the season finale of Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown," before moving to its regular timeslot on Fridays at 11 p.m. on June 14. 

"Parts Unknown" has done well for CNN, with new   episodes averaging 740,000 viewers, according to Nielsen, far more than CNN had been attracting before Mr. Bourdain arrived.

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Twitter is attempting to deepen its links to TV -- as well as skim TV ad budgets -- with a series of new media deals and technology to target ads at TV viewers.

Twitter's ad pitch has been consistent over the past year: advertising on Twitter in conjunction with TV makes TV ads more effective. "Our perspective is everybody in digital has it wrong; they have ben going to market with an either-or proposition," said Twitter global head of revenue Adam Bain. Twitter is a bridge to these different screens and experiences."

Today, at an Internet Week event, the company unveiled a series of media deals and a targeting tool designed to bring TV advertisers on to Twitter. Twitter already has partnerships with ESPN, Turner Sports and the NBA to distribute video clips; today it announced a host of new partners including A&E, Clear Channel, Conde Nast, Vevo, Major League Baseball, WWE, Vice and others. 

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Nielsen has partnered with IBM to put its Watson technology to work for advertisers. IBM will make the data-parsing system which famously outwitted "Jeopardy!" champions in 2011 available to companies for CRM, customer call centers and other purposes through its new Watson Engagement Advisor offering. Over the next several months Nielsen aims to apply the Watson technology to improve measurement of ad effectiveness and media planning.

"There's lots of information and data in the public domain that the average practitioner … typically isn't taking advantage of and Watson would use all of this information to come up with the best possible answer," said Randall Beard, global head, Advertiser Solutions at Nielsen.

A 26-year-old media planner....asks questions like, 'Who are my best prospects in the telecom category?' and 'How much should I budget for next year,'" said Mr. Beard. Using Watson, that media planner could tap into data she might normally ignore.

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Cable networks are rebranding themselves, and pay-TV operators aren't pleased.

At least six channels are changing their names and programming this year to attract more viewers, advertising dollars and higher subscriber fees from cable and satellite companies. News Corp.'s Speed, for instance, will become Fox Sports 1 in August. NBC Universal, which changed Versus into the NBC Sports Network last year, it now switching G4 to the Esquire Network, with upscale programs for men.

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Twitter announced a new kind of Tweet today designed to allow marketers to easily collect personal information from Twitter users, if they chose to provide it.

The format, an expanded Tweet called the "Lead Generation Card," includes a button that with one click allows the user to provide their name, email address and Twitter handle to the marketer as a request for a deal, more information or further communication.

The format is designed to help businesses collect leads -- those interested in more information about a product or a service. It's the latest "Twitter Card," an expanded Tweet that contains content far beyond the 140-character limitation of Twitter messages, including images and video.

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The debate over the value of mobile advertising typically focuses on what effect, if any, it has on brand lift, sales and getting consumers into stores. But advertisers have been wasting money on mobile in the literal sense because a significant portion of the ads they're paying for never properly display on devices.

Now, networks and publishers are being pressured to more accurately report how well they deliver ads in an attempt to legitimize the industry and increase mobile-marketing spending.

Apple's iAd earlier this month became the first major mobile-ad network to be fully accredited by the Media Ratings Council as adhering to the standards the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Mobile Marketing Association jointly released earlier this year.

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Credit reporting company Equifax has named Dentsu's 360i its lead agency as it reevaluates its approach to data and analytics.

The shift comes after Equifax selected Publicis Groupe's Digitas as its lead agency in August 2011. 360i will focus on direct-to-consumer integrated marketing efforts for the brand's credit and identity protection services.

Said Digitas in a statement: "We have mutually agreed to part ways after two years of partnership. We have high hopes that success will continue to follow both companies and we wish each other the very best."

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Walmart has hired Dan Bartlett, the head of public-relations firm Hill & Knowlton's U.S. unit, as exec VP-corporate affairs.

Mr. Bartlett, 41, who also worked on former President George W. Bush's presidential and Texas gubernatorial campaigns, will start in late June, Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart said today in a statement. He will oversee external communications, government relations, sustainability and the Walmart Foundation, the company said.

Mr. Bartlett replaces Leslie A. Dach, a former Democratic strategist, who announced he was leaving in March. Mr. Dach had previously held senior positions in Democratic presidential campaigns and handled work for the Clinton administration. He also was vice chairman of Edelman, a global public-relations firm.

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StyleHaul announced that Alison Kennedy has been appointed chief revenue officer. She will be responsible for managing and driving revenue both through sales and global product development, as well as developing an enhanced distribution platform. Ms. Kennedy brings more than 14 years of experience to the position. She was previously the senior vice president of global sales and product strategy at Glam Media Inc. Her latest launches include a social dashboard with a unique partnership measuring social content as well as Private Marketplace with Rubicon.

Kirk Chartier has been named chief marketing officer for online lender Enova International. he will oversee worldwide brand marketing and business strategy across the global lender's product lines. He will also be pursuing new-product opportunities in the U.S. Before joining Enova, Mr. Chartier was chief marketing officer at Chicago-based online broker OptionsXpress. Prior to that position, he worked as business strategy practice leader at Atlanta-based Zyman Group, now a part of MDC Partners. He received a master in business administration from Syracuse University, a bachelor's degree in economics from Holy Cross College, and a bachelor's degree in engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Sue Davidson has joined the R/GA New York office as the senior VP-analytics and accountability. She will lead R/GA's global team of more than 40 digital, social- and advanced-analytics specialists focusing on turning data into actionable insights for R/GA's new and existing clients. At Market Evolution, Ms. Davidson was responsible for client delivery, operations and business development of the New York office. Prior to Marketing Evolution, she served as senior partner-director of insights planning at MediaCom. Ms. Davidson holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and an M.S. in behaviorial biology from the University of Maryland.

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My old boss, Stanley E. Cohen, Washington editor of Advertising Age for 42 years before retiring in 1987, died May 6 of renal failure. He was 93.

Stan joined Ad Age from Broadcasting Magazine in 1943, when Bureau Chief John Crichton (and later Ad Age editor) left to join the Navy. A recent graduate of Cornell and Columbia universities, the job interview he had for the Washington opening was the last he would ever have.

"Even though it was 30 years ago, I still vividly remember sitting aside Stan as he edited some of my first copy for Advertising Age with his rapid-fire, two-index-finger, hunt-and-peck-style typing on the keyboard," said David Snyder, now publisher at Crain's Chicago Business, who was hired by Stan in the D.C. bureau of Ad Age one week after his college graduation. "He took raw copy -- very raw -- and made it sing."

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Cory Berger has joined Pereira & O'Dell as managing director of the New York office. In his new role, Mr. Berger will manage the day-to-day operations of the office which currently serves clients like Corona and Reebok. Previously, he was the vice president of business development and client services for the digital and social agency Noise. Prior to Noise, Mr. Berger held position at various leading agencies including Mother New York, Momentum Worldwide, and Euro RSCG.

Vizeum has appointed Nadine Young as the communication agency's new chief strategy officer. In this newly created position, Ms. Young will be responsible for developing insight-based strategies and communication plans that enable brands to engage with their consumers in unconventional ways. Bringing over 15 years of experience at leading media agencies to the table, she most recently served as managing partner and group communications director at Mindshare. Before moving to the U.S. to join Mindshare, Ms. Young held a variety of positions at media agencies in the U.K., including ZenithOptimedia and AW Media.

MDC Partners has named Andre Coste the chief financial officer of the newly created MDC Partner Network. He will be responsible for partnering with the agency executive teams to drive efficient and effective growth and optimize financial management, as well as providing guidance and expertise as MDC agencies seek to expand internationally. He brings nearly 30 years of management experience to the job, the last 10 of which were spent at Publicis Group. Most recently, he served as global chief financial officer for Publicis.

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Adrienne Lofton Shaw has been announced as Dockers brand's vice president and chief marketing officer. In this role, she will be responsible for creating and leading the Dockers brand strategy and overseeing the company's global marketing efforts. Most recently, she was the senior marketing director at Under Armour, Inc., responsible for the global brand strategy for men's, women's, and youth products, as well as accessories. Prior to working at Under Armour, Inc., Ms. Lofton Shaw held marketing positions at Target Corporation, General Motors, Planworks/Starcom MediaVest and Gap Inc.

Veteran digital executive Jason Rapp joins Science Inc. as the managing director. In his new position, Mr. Rapp will find and develop new opportunities for the Science portfolio and offer strategic counsel to the firm and its existing portfolio companies as they mature and grow. He is also an executive, investor, and adviser to digital media and technology companies. Prior to joining Science Inc., he was the president and member of the board of directors of Maholo.com. From 2006-2009, he was a senior executive in Barry Diller's IAC corporation. Before IAC, Mr. Rapp was an executive at The New York Times Company, serving as associate general manager and head of operations for NYTimes.com.

Leesa Eichberger is the new chief marketing officer at Jenny Craig. She will be responsible for the strategic direction and implementation of the company's marketing initiatives. Ms. Eichberger brings 20 years of marketing-management experience to the company. She has previously held leadership roles at Vonage and Cingular wireless (now AT&T mobile), as well as various advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather.

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Brazil, say hello to Mother.

The independent agency -- which has offices in London, New York and Buenos Aires -- agency is all set to open its fourth location in 2014, and has appointed Gustavo Sousa, the Brazilian creative director most recently of Mother London, to global partner.

Mr. Sousa lives in New York, where he leads the shop's Stella Artois account, but has been spending a significant amount of time working on Mother's expansion in the Latin American region. The agency would be making its second foray into South America, with its first office there being in Argentina. 

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Gone are the days when world-weary travelers preferred hotels that reminded them of home and provided a respite from the location they were visiting. Today, savvy travelers expect hotels to not only provide the creature comforts of home but while stay true to their surroundings.

To meet that need, execs at Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide are taking an unusual step -- temporarily relocating the team to fast-growing markets to determine what will make their hotels stand out.

"There was a time, going back 25 or 30 years, when an international hotel brand was like an embassy or a consulate in a foreign country. It was somewhere you went to feel safe and secure, like a home-from-home," explained Phil McAveety, executive VP-chief brand officer at Starwood.

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Brazilian slums were in the news recently when video taken from a police helicopter in Rio de Janeiro showed bullets raining down on a drug trafficker from one of the city's notorious favelas. The episode reminded Brazilians that the slums and drug lords are still doing business in spite of broad-scale pacification efforts.

The shootout comes at a time when an ad agency in Rio wants to teach poor people in the slums how to be consumers.

The agency NBS (for "No Bullshit" -- no kidding) has set up an office in one of the worst slums in Rio after conducting more than 800 interviews with inhabitants from ages 18 to 65 regarding their expectations and hopes for the area.

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This music video created by Volvo for the dance group Swedish House Mafia cleverly bridges the gap between branded content, product placement and social media. Swedish House Mafia disbanded in March after five years together, so Volvo, and its agency Forsman & Bodenfors, approached them about making a film in which the trio are seen going their separate ways in the brand's new XC60 cross-country vehicles.

While the music video is a poignant tribute to the band who -- at least for now -- will be saying goodbye to the fast-pace life of touring and traveling, it's also an elegant illustration of how the new car can pull its drive away from frenetic city life to more peaceful environs.

Director Adam Berg filmed it beautifully against a moody Scandinavian landscape, and the soundtrack is a cover of one of their early hits, "Leave the World Behind," by singer Lune. The YouTube video has already created a social buzz, and there's also an interactive website, leavetheworldbehind.com, featuring the video and behind-the-scenes information. Scenes from the video will also feature in TV and print commercials by Volvo.

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Ever forget to record a TV show and wish there was another way to do it? Brazil's largest satellite provider, Sky, is testing a way for subscribers to record shows via Twitter.

The technology, which was developed by Sky's digital agency in Brazil, AgenciaClick Isobar, generates a Twitter hashtag that works like a record button. According to the agency, the concept is a response to noticing that consumers were turning to Twitter and other sources for information about TV shows rather the schedule of programming on Sky's website.

Sky, which is majority owned by DirecTV, is rolling out the service to subscribers starting today.

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At Univision Communications' upfront presentation, President-CEO Randy Falco posed the question "What's better, more or less?" Mr. Falco was playing the role of the deadpan moderator in a commercial spoofing AT&T's ubiquitous TV campaign in which four small children debate why it's better to have more, or be faster.

In the Univision version, Mr. Falco horrifies the kids with a scenario in which they go into a donut shop but get only half a donut. The kids rant charmingly about ridiculous, mean people who would steal their money by giving them less than they paid for.

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Hispanic consumers will soon say 'hola' to a new family: the Rojos, courtesy of Wendy's.

Hispanic marketers frequently latch on to the idea of family. According to Technomic, a family-friendly atmosphere and authentic and healthful menu offerings are particularly important for Hispanic consumers compared to the general U.S. population.

Most of the spots throughout the campaign will be in Spanish, although Mr. Bahner said that Wendy's will air an ad later this summer "that you will understand whether you speak English or Spanish."

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The U.S. Hispanic market will have a judge after all this year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as LatinWorks' Sergio Alcocer was named this week to the film jury.

Mr. Alcocer, president and chief creative officer of the Austin-based U.S. Hispanic shop, was a Cannes judge in 2011 on the print jury.

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Walmart was named the first Marketer of the Year by AHAA: The Voice of Hispanic Marketing at the Hispanic group's annual conference on Wednesday in Miami.

Tony Rogers, Walmart's senior VP-brand marketing and advertising, and Greg Warren, VP-creative marketing, accepted the award by Skype after being stranded in Chicago on their way to Miami.

In its announcement of the new honor, AHAA cited Ad Age's coverage of a Walmart presentation from the October 2012 Association of National Advertisers' multicultural marketing conference, where the two Walmart execs pledged that the company would double its 2013 multicultural ad spending. The move was part of a sweeping initiative to move the company from a silo-like approach and ensure everyone takes full responsibility for multicultural marketing.

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The top five U.S. Hispanic ideas, chosen this week in awards organized by the Hispanic creatives' group Circulo Creativo, include the first abs-building yogurt for men and an environmentally-friendly tent that doubled as a Glad trash bag at Austin's SXSW festival.

If these ideas don't seem particularly Hispanic -- although a Hispanic agency is behind each one -- it's just another sign of how integrated Hispanics have become in what WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell, speaking at this week's Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) conference, called the "new mainstream."

In an advance look at Hispanic work that might do well next month at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, here are the U.S.H. Ideas awards' top five:

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Michelle Gass, a longtime Starbucks executive is leaving to join Kohl’s in the newly-created role of chief customer officer.

The Ad Age Woman to Watch honoree had just this month been tapped to work with CEO Howard Schultz at the company’s Seattle headquarters as part of a senior leadership team. She leaves a 16-year career at Starbucks, where she most recently headed its Europe, Middle East and Africa unit. In contrast, her new role at Kohl’s, based in Menomonee Falls, Wisc., will be exclusively domestic -- the third-largest U.S. department store chain operates 1,155 stores in 49 states.

Ms. Gass, who will report directly to chairman-CEO Kevin Mansell beginning next month, will be responsible for marketing, e-commerce and omnichannel experiences. The retailer has been without a chief marketing officer since Julie Gardner departed late last year. It’s unclear whether that role will remain unfilled, given Ms. Gass’ responsibilities for marketing.

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What happens when you put 600 candy marketers in a room with thousands of retail buyers? A sugar-filled pitch-a-thon where no packaging detail seems too small or sales stat too regional.

"We dominate North Texas," Mike Sanderlin said at this week's Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago when asked about his cotton candy brand, called Cotton Candy A La' Cart. His pitch? Unlike other brands, it is packaged in transparent bags so "the kids can see it."

Like so many others, Mr. Sanderlin is looking to close deals at the three-day event, which is expected to draw some 15,000 people from across the globe. Buyers are seeking the next big thing in candy, while marketers large and small are hoping to fill orders as fast as they can. All the while, mascots like a walking Sour Patch Kid roam the exhibit hall, which is filled with enough free samples to induce a weeks-long sugar high.

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The future of the airline industry has got to be brighter than its present, according to Marty St. George, senior VP-marketing and commercial strategy at JetBlue Airways, in the latest "#AFewGoodMinutes" interview from Allen & Gerritsen.

"It's not as bad now as it was even two years ago, but you still have legacy airlines trying to compete on who's got the nicest prison cell," Mr. St. George said. "We're in a different class than that and I think the whole industry is going to be better off if we all up our game a little bit."

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Among leading industry observers and the media, there's widespread consensus that dramatic changes in the business landscape have made the role of CMO ever more complex. Globalization and technological advances have left organizations struggling to adapt their strategies to meet the heightened expectations of consumers. These developments have created more dynamic and potentially more profitable opportunities for companies that can infuse marketing into every facet of the enterprise.

While the challenges are widely acknowledged, solutions have proved to be in much shorter supply. Prescriptions have ranged from replacing the CMO with a chief customer officer to doing away with the CMO altogether. It's little wonder, then, that many CMOs are struggling with the lack of concrete direction about what their role should be, let alone how to make a tangible impact on the organization.

To address these challenges, we created the CMO Program. A critical component is to instill a broader perspective among CMOs for the complexities of global opportunities. Accordingly, we have assembled a roster of instructors that include leading faculty and practitioners from Fortune 500 companies. The course, developed for future leaders of Fortune 500 companies across a range of industries, combines the latest research and insight from academia, mentoring from CMOs and CEOs, as well as hands-on problem solving to build capabilities through experiential learning.

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Yesterday I spoke at the International Council of Shopping Centers annual convention in Las Vegas on a panel called "Hispanic Markets: The Next Gold Rush." If you have been to La Gran Plaza Mall in Fort Worth or the Dessert Sky Mall in Phoenix or the newly inaugurated Plaza Mayor at the Crossroads in Oklahoma City, you have experienced one of the newest phenomena in the world of shopping centers -- Hispanic malls.

This is the brain-child of Jos De Jess Legaspi, a former advertising executive turned real estate developer who almost single-handedly has created a new format in retail shopping experiences specifically focused on Hispanic consumers. "I got into real estate while trying to help retailers reach out to the Hispanic community," said Legaspi, the founder and president of The Legaspi Company, who has over 30 years of experience in Hispanic retail marketing and owns 10 Hispanic shopping malls in California, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Georgia.

While he acknowledges that each mall he develops is "keenly nuanced" by paying special attention to "local community mix," Legaspi has found success by creating "community-oriented centers with virtual 'cultural' anchors."

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Kmart’s “Ship My Pants” campaign was a huge viral success, so the retailer’s attempting to capitalize on the buzz with the release of another video ad.

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DraftFCB is doubling down on its new Los Angeles office, naming longtime Yum Brands account lead Rahul Roy as managing director of the agency.

Mr. Roy, who has significant ties to key creative clients KFC and Taco Bell, is tasked with revamping DraftFCB's Southern California operations with Eric Springer -- who is an alum of Deutsch Los Angeles and indie agency Pitch. Mr. Springer was named chief creative officer at DraftFCB Orange County in December. Mr. Roy and Mr. Springer will report to Michael Fassnacht, president of the agency's Chicago office.

The actions signal a move on behalf of the agency to better service its key Taco Bell client, as well as grow its client roster on the west coast. DraftFCB in recent months started moving the majority of its Orange County operations to Los Angeles, where the agency's Taco Bell account is managed. The agency's Orange County office will now effectively operate as a service office due to its proximity to Taco Bell's headquarters, and not one that seeks its own clients.

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22-year NBC veteran Marianne Gambelli has joined independent media shop Horizon Media as exec VP-chief investment officer.

Most recently, she was president of NBC broadcast sales and responsible for the company's network prime-time, news and sports advertising.

"I've worked with Horizon Media for many years, and have been consistently impressed with their creative mindset and personal approach to driving business value," Ms. Gambelli said in a statement.

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Tyler, the Creator. Rick Ross. Lil Wayne.

Brands like Mountain Dew and Reebok have turned on a dime on the recording artists they've struck deals with and dropped talent in light of a small group of critics making a lot of noise. I don't want to defend any of the content that was deemed offensive. But it's important to examine how that content got attached to a brand and subsequently made its way into the world.

In other words, marketers must take a step back and examine their own culpability in these crises.

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Baby-boomer marketers should be salivating over the 105 million-strong millennial market. Born between 1982 and 2004, millennials make up the first generation that actually outsizes the influential-but-aging boomers. So why are so many senior marketers missing the opportunity -- and their piece of $200 billion in spending power?

Why are they convinced the methods and media that have worked over the past 30 years of their careers will continue to produce results with tech-savvy millennials, even though they have vastly different media habits?

Among other things, baby-boomer marketers need to accept the fact that millennials have not inherited their parents' love for the "touch" of paper. They do not naturally go gaga over double-page spreads of either editorial or advertising in magazines. They do not feel compelled to seek their fashion and beauty direction from the magazines that served as bibles for older generations.

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There is a false assumption when talking about what goes viral. It's something like this: "Viral is what happens to great content."

It's a nice thought. Sometimes it's even true. But as much as we'd like to believe that well-scripted, beautifully produced and properly placed content always goes viral, again and again we see examples of how that's just not the case.

When we look at the most popular form of content on YouTube right now, we find something called "shopping-haul" videos. These are webcam videos of teenage girls and young women showing off clothes they just bought. Bad video, bad sound -- and still many of these pieces of content soar to tens of thousands of views.

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It was in San Francisco in the 1990s, and my boss took me to lunch to ask if I was interested in becoming CEO of the agency office there. I replied that I had never thought of myself as a CEO of an agency and needed a day to consider it.

Can you imagine?

Here I was, at the agency for a year and a half, and not once had it occurred to me that I was capable of running the place. So when the offer came, it came from left field. I have to believe that reaction stemmed from being a female executive in a sea of not so many; a man in my position would likely have been expecting the top job since day one and when it was offered, taken it as his due.

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Fueled partly by the rising Dow, and partly by pure entrepreneurialism, we're in a state of creation. Agencies are popping up from coast to coast, even in places like Chicago.

I'm pretty sure it's written in the Ad Executive Code of Conduct that after a decade or more, it is mandated that any and all founders of agencies author an article on what they may have learned. So now for some advice from a guy who started his career by failing typing tests at N.W. Ayer, J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather and Grey.

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I was prepared for Phil Knight to be one cantankerous dude, hiding behind those fierce sunglasses you see in pictures of him.

But when he arrived for our video interview (sans sunglasses), the chairman emeritus of Nike was unguarded and unassuming, still bearing a resemblance to the runner he was more than a few years ago at the University of Oregon. The press clippings said he ran a 4:10 mile back then, but when I mentioned the time he said "close enough." I asked him what the actual time was and he said 4:13. "I like 4:10 better," I said. "Me, too," he said.

So that's how our conversation got started. Dan Wieden, who introduced Phil at the Advertising Hall of Fame induction last week, said he had to talk Phil into the "Just do it" slogan, but Phil told me his reputation for not liking advertising was misunderstood.

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You might have noticed a new addition to our cover with this issue. At the far right of the Advertising Age logo we have inserted this statement: "What's news to what's next."

My dad's tagline for Ad Age was "The national newspaper of marketing." Then we switched to "The international newspaper of marketing." Since 2007, we've had nothing to describe who we are and what we do.

Maybe we felt it wasn't necessary to explain ourselves. After all, we've been around for 83 years. The New York Times, which has been publishing a lot longer than we have, is "All the news that's fit to print" (which doesn't say much for its digital offerings, now driving its circulation).

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I don't understand why NBC is so anxious to show Jay Leno the door. Late night is about the only thing working for the network.

Ratings for "The Tonight Show" have reached a seven-week high, with over 3.5 million viewers. Sure, the ratings spiked after Jay started insulting NBC brass over the network's miserable performance on prime time and their treatment of him. But handily beating Letterman and Kimmel is one of the few things NBC can boast about.

Meanwhile, things at the "Today" show continue to deteriorate in full view of the show's dwindling audience. If NBC doesn't want Jay on "Tonight" any longer, how about hiring him to replace Matt Lauer on "Today"?

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In most of the world (the U.S. excluded), ad agencies get rebates from media companies based on their "pooled buying" power. In other words, they get cash returned, above and beyond their normal commissions, based on all the money they spend for all their clients.

Clients aren't routinely informed about exactly how much of these rebates is generated by their particular spending. Even when clients press for answers, they often allow agencies to keep the extra money so clients can continue to pay lower fees.

In the U. S. the pooled buying concept never really gained a foothold. But now agencies have the opportunity of using similar pooled buying and selling techniques to gain additional revenue in the digital-media realm. In this case, the money doesn't come in the form of media rebates but from buying low and selling high, a technique called arbitrage. Agencies are able to sell high because they add audience and behavior data to the original digital-media buy.

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BIO

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BIO

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News item:

Yahoo! to Acquire Tumblr

Promises not to screw it up

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Remember that time Bloomberg News got caught using subscriber information from Bloomberg data terminals to spy on the financial industry?

Oh, right, that pretty much just happened. But conveniently for Bloomberg, a bigger journalism-related scandal -- the revelation that the Justice Department was spying on the Associated Press (a story that will haunt the Obama administration forever) -- broke, overshadowing the Bloomberg scandal.

So you may have missed Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler's admission and apology, titled "Holding Ourselves Accountable," that was published in the dead of the night last Monday -- at 12:11 a.m. ET. In it, he owned up to the fact that Bloomberg News reporters had access to "limited client information" for Bloomberg's financial-data-terminal business, a sibling division of the Bloomberg empire that serves more than 300,000 subscribers on Wall Street and beyond.

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Advertising Age makes a cameo appearance in Reddit's new ad-sales pitch deck in the form of a quote grabbed from my recent column about the social-news site: "Reddit has become, simply put, mainstream media." (See slide 3.)

Reddit's new sales and strategy boss, Mike Cole, sent me the whole deck last night and I'm sharing it with you here because, well, it's pretty funny. It tries to make the case for Reddit's reach, cultural power and user engagement using the lingua franca of Reddit: goofy images.

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Greg Karber -- a self-described "writer, performer, video-maker, cultural critic and entrepreneur" based in L.A. -- doesn't mince words. His YouTube video titled "Abercrombie & Fitch Gets a Brand Readjustment #FitchTheHomeless," starts with the words "Abercrombie & Fitch is a terrible company," and things only get more harsh from there. Scroll down below the video for the back story.

Though Abercrombie-bashing has been in fashion for years now, Karber appears to have struck a nerve with the media stunt his video outlines: He's started a campaign to get people to donate Abercrombie & Fitch clothing to homeless people to punish the teen and collegiate clothier for its elitist attitudes.

Karber's video shows a screenshot of a headline, "Abercrombie Says It Would Rather Burn Clothes Than Give Them To Poor People," from a site called Elite Daily ("The Voice of Generation-Y"), which cites a two-year-old interview with an unnamed A&F district manager who said the chain declines to donate its damaged and defective clothing to the needy because, well, Abercrombie is an aspirational brand that doesn't belong on the poors.

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1. Google CEO Larry Page will rethink default privacy settings for Google Glass after embarrassing Google Glass video footage of him pleasuring himself -- by Googling himself (Larry Page net worth, Larry Page private jet ...) -- leaks to Valleywag.

2. In the wake of President Obama's joke at the recent White House Correspondents' Dinner about the rise of BuzzFeed as a media phenomenon -- "I remember when BuzzFeed was just something I did in college around 2 a.m." -- congressional Republicans will launch a formal investigation into exactly what post-toke munchies Obama consumed at Columbia and Harvard (chips? candy bars? day-old pizza?) in an attempt to get him in trouble with first lady Michelle Obama, who is famously an advocate for a healthful diet.

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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg may have been able to sway public opinion with a multi-million-dollar ad campaign promoting new gun-control measures, but his message, transmitted often by gun violence victims, swayed few votes where it mattered most -- in Congress.

In the end, the Senate voted largely along party lines this week to kill even the most modest new gun-control measures. Efforts to place new regulations on firearms aren't likely to be resurrected in this Congress.

Mr. Bloomberg's organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, hired a team that included SKDKnickerbocker and Tom Synhorst of DCI Group, dividing the work by political party, in essence tapping each to do what they do best -- run ads taking aim at the other side.

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"Republicans need to tell Donald Trump to shut up and get off the stage," said political consultant James Carville at the 4A's Transformation conference.

Strong statements by Louisiana native Mr. Carville and his wife, political consultant Mary Matalin, set the tone for a lively panel on the impact of branding and marketing on the presidential campaign. Chris Weil, CEO of IPG's Momentum Worldwide, moderated the panel.

Ms. Matalin, a Republican, kicked off the panel with a statement describing Mitt Romney's campaign operation as "two cans and a string."

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When you think about it, your typical political ad isn't much different from the pitch in a dating profile: "Here are my qualifications. Please like me!"

But a recent ad from Pete Snyder, former CEO of New Media Strategies, makes that connection abundantly clear and weirdly hilarious.

Snyder is aiming for the Lieutenant Governor's seat in Virginia. The next step in the process is getting the nomination at the Republican convention in May. And at the moment, he's in a crowded field of seven.

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Illinois state Rep. Robin Kelly is in the news today because she won a Democratic primary election held yesterday in Chicago. She was one of more than a dozen Democrats looking to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and she came out on top with a little help from a friend: Mike Bloomberg. The New York mayor has thrown his financial support behind Kelly specifically because she's in favor of gun control. (Mayor Bloomberg has been especially vocal about the need for new gun-control laws since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.)

CNN reports that Kelly's chief rival for the Democratic nomination, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, cited the nonstop barrage of negative ads against her in her concession speech. "There was $2.3 million dollars minimum spent against me," she said. "Someone timed it. Every seven and a half minutes there was a commercial."

What's remarkable about the negative messaging against Halvorson is not only that it made gun control a central issue, but portrayed the National Rifle Association as an unambiguous villain. For instance, in this spot from Independence USA, a Bloomberg-backed PAC, Halvorson and fellow candidate Toi Hutchinson are criticized for winning "A" ratings from the NRA. "They can't be trusted," a voiceover intones darkly.

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Blondes may or may not have more fun, but at least in the case of Beyonce, blonde makes for a more popular ad.

Last week H&M rolled out two ads [below] featuring the pop star. In one, her hair is blond and she's wearing a swimsuit, in the other it's brunette and she's wearing a revealing dress. Both ads feature the same song and similar dance routines.

The ad featuring Beyonce as a blonde scored significantly better with consumers, and 16% of consumers mentioned the singer by name, according to research from AceMetrix. In contrast, in the ad featuring Beyonce as a brunette, attention scores were lower and only 7% of consumers referenced the singer by name. Of course, it could be that the Beyonce in a bikini outperforms Beyonce in a wet, clinging dress.

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"Fake Apple Store," "Tater Tot" and "Barnacle." All are contenders in the naming of Victors & Spoils' new conference room, the latest crowdsourced project launched by the Havas-owned agency.

It sounds over the top to put out a brief to come up with a moniker for where you go rehearse powerpoints or furtively call your spouse, but the truth is, crowdsourcing on this occasion is probably a fairly efficient way of doing something that normally seems to eat up a lot of staff time at agencies, marketers and, especially, at tech companies.

To underscore how weighty a decision it can be, here's a Quora thread on the topic, and here's a very lengthy Reddit thread on the topic. Any number of Yelp, Ask and other pages exist with lots of earnest askers for help, and responders too.

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Dove took over the web this week with a moving video that uses a forensic sketch artist to show women that they're more beautiful than they think. Now comes the inevitable parody -- in which guys test their own self-image.

Here's the parody:

And if you haven't seen it yet, here's the original, the latest from Dove on the "Real Beauty" theme:

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If you're an ad person, and you're on Twitter, you've probably caught at least a few #AgencyLife tweets in your stream.

The hashtag, which was fueled by the blog Adland, caught on like wildfire Thursday in the span of just a few hours, with hundreds of tweets by ad people eager to poke some fun at themselves and blow off some steam. Makes sense; ad folks usually tend to have a good sense of humor. But many people were expressing that the missives didn't feel like mere jokes and rang a bit too close to home.

Below is a selection of them. That last tweet has to make you wonder about the state of morale in the business today.

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How does Don Draper measure up to the competition? And how does the work of today compare with that of the '60s? Check out some of the classics from advertising's golden age and see how far creativity has come -- or not.

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Anthony Del Monte

A recent episode of "Mad Men" highlighted something all of us in the agency world already knew to be true -- small agencies are often brought to the pitch table by large clients because of their outstanding creative prowess, but are rarely awarded the account. The big-client relationships go instead to the larger agencies because of their perceived ability to marshal resources (read: manpower), when there's a need for multiple services.  

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We can change the world. It sounds crazy, but it's true. In fact, if our ultimate goal is to create breakthrough brands, we have no choice but to make lives better.

At this point, I think we can all agree that advertising is going through a revolution. Search, social, mobile and ad avoidance technologies have disrupted this industry. The notion of building a brand through interruptive messaging is antiquated. Consumers have too much information at their fingertips. Traditional tools for influence no longer work as well as they once did.

This industry is filled with some of the smartest and most creative people in the world. The brands that are producing incredible results are simply taking that expertise and pointing it inward at their own behavior rather than outward at messaging. Great brands are created by starting with a platform that improves people's lives.

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In April 1998, Andy Grove, then president and CEO of Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, introduced the idea of the strategic inflection point. He described this, in "Only the Paranoid Survive," as "a time in the life of the business when its fundamentals are about to change. They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient."

This is the point at which many agencies now find themselves -- though often they seem to be in denial. They moan and groan about the cost of participating in RFP-based new-business pitches, but aren't positioning themselves to adapt to clients' changing expectations, so they can compete for the new business.

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I was at a luncheon recently and my client (who is a young GenXer, smart, and very modern is her business and personal lifestyle), told me that she was appalled at how most of the guests were looking at their small screens rather than at the speaker during a talk that must have taken many hours and care to prepare.

It's an all-too-familiar sight at conferences and presentations. What's going on? Have we lost our sense of decency and proclaimed rudeness as the rule for an audience? Are we suddenly in an era of exceedingly boring speakers, and resorting to multi-tasking -- returning e-mails to be productive while tuned out? Is there a national epidemic of Attention Deficit Disorder? Or are we audience members actually listening, and commenting on the content of the presentations on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google +, etc. Maybe it just looks rude?

I have heard suggestions that presenters ask the audience to turn off their phones during the presentation. Some companies make employees and guests check mobile devices, as they would a coat, before entering an auditorium. But we are living in a world where people expect access to their mobile devices at all times. That makes all of this sound like an attempt to change human behavior and ignore new communicating habits.

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This the final extension. Due to many requests, the deadline has been extended to May 15. We will not be accepting any entries after this date For more information about registered for the awards, or for the conference in Portland on July 24th and 25th, at which Dan Wieden will serve as keynote speaker, go here.

Advertising Age's 2013 Small Agency Awards is open. Now in its fifth year, the Small Agency Awards recognize the power of being small and independent.

More and more marketers recognize small agencies are not only nimble but often highly creative and innovative. And we think so, too.

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A year or two from now, Foursquare users may not have to take their phones out and manually check in to each location they visit, co-founder Dennis Crowley said in the latest "#AFewGoodMinutes" interview from Allen & Gerritsen. Foursquare may check them in automatically.

But won't that raise a few privacy concerns? Should we really tell corporations everywhere we go, as we go there?

"Whenever you're kind of inventing the future this happens," Mr. Crowley said. "I can think of the number of people who were like, 'I will never get a cellphone because I don't want people calling me all the time. And I will never get on Facebook because I don't want to share that stuff with people. And Twitter, that's not for me.' And this is just the natural progression of things."

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Brands looking for ways to capitalize on Instagram or other social media platforms can hesitate too much, according to Shiv Singh, global head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages.

"We often work with the assumption that people do not want to hear, or care, about brands, and that it's an intrusion in their lives and that they would be happier people without their brands," he told "#AFewGoodMinutes," the new series of video interviews with marketers, agencies and innovators by Joel Idelson, senior VP and creator of opportunities at

Allen & Gerritsen.

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Russell Simmons, founder of hip-hop's Def Jam records and later the clothing label Phat Farm, said Wednesday that he was opening Narrative, a digital marketing, entertainment and technology company.

He talked with Joel Idelson of Allen & Gerritsen about the opening he sees, moving to Los Angeles and where Hollywood is failing.

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Various claims filed in April 2012 as part of a race discrimination lawsuit against Interpublic Group of Cos. have been tossed out by a New York district judge. However, one claim made by Trinidadian employee Joy C. Noel -- that Interpublic failed to promote due to her skin color -- has been permitted to proceed to trial.

The trial begins on June 3, according to court documents.

When Ms. Noel filed suit in Manhattan federal court last spring, she sought a whopping $50 million in damages. She claimed that in her many years working for the company, Interpublic fostered an environment where discrimination based on race and color is condoned. She alleged that she was passed over for promotions because Caucasian and light-skinned Hispanics are treated more favorably than African-Americans or other dark-skinned employees. Ms. Noel has been at Interpublic since 1993 and is still an employee there.

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Marketers are plowing more and more resources into digital strategies, and often multicultural budgets are pilfered to pay for it.But this may be a critical mistake, because multicultural consumers are key influencers in the digital space, as well as in a brand's relevance to popular culture.

Michelle Ebanks, president of Time, Inc., multicultural brands ("Essence" and "People En Espaol"), puts it this way: "Both Hispanics and African American women are driving digital adoption, and marketers with digital strategies would benefit greatly from understanding them as leaders of digital behavior."

Thomas Newman, president of Interactive One, observes, more broadly, "Our research has shown that both Hispanic and African American consumers tend to jump on trends early ... recent examples include early adoption of social networking, early adoption and higher usage of smartphones, and over indexing on specific next -generation platforms such as Twitter."

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More and more, marketers are backing away from the idea of targeted multicultural advertising in favor of a "general market" approach. It's a philosophy that seems to fit the current mood of America.

"We're not as divided as our politics suggest," proclaimed a newly re-elected Barack Obama during his victory speech. With Americans split down the middle on seemingly every issue -- from guns to health care, from abortion to the deficit -- we did manage to come together and reelect our first African-American president.

But the nation is still hardly as unified as the president's rhetoric would have it. Two recent studies suggest, for example, that it may be a grave mistake for marketers to assume that Americans see eye to eye when it comes to race.

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How often do we see or hear in the media about a black man rescuing a black woman? Tarzan rescued Jane; Matt Dillon rescued Miss Kitty; Superman rescued Lois and Spiderman rescued Mary Jane. Now, finally, we have a popular black example: Django rescues his wife, Broomhilda, in the film "Django Unchained."

While true love is not restricted by race or gender, black love, between a black man and black woman, continues to be a really big deal in the black community. Just about every February, popular black magazines focus on "Black Love." Both Ebony and Essence's February cover stories this year stayed true to this tradition.

For years and years, we had not seen many black loving couples in mainstream media. Remember "L.A. Law" in the '90s? Most of the (white) lawyers were embroiled in a love relationship or love triangle, except Blair Underwood. Really? (If I'm wrong, please set me straight!) Hollywood has made some strides, but it has been slow in coming.

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The company encouraging marketers and publishers to use SnapTag QR codes says it didn't infringe any patents in developing the system, but it faced a patent lawsuit last year all the same and settled in December. So what does growing patent litigation mean to the marketing world? Brian Heidelberger gives his view.

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With over 400 million people predicted to have Smart TVs by 2016, there is an impending "appification" of the TV that presents an enormous opportunity for brands, content creators and media companies. But chances are, few reading this blog have considered rethinking their content strategies for Smart TV consumption, not to mention the accompanying monetization models.

In part, that's because much of the skepticism about the value of the technology is justified. It's true, for instance, that many Smart TV components remain underutilized by consumers. The most successful apps have been video apps, such as Netflix. Software development for anything more complicated than basic streaming -- especially gaming -- has been a challenge because of Smart TV's notoriously slow (and quickly out-of-date) hardware. But manufacturers remain committed to the technology, and are taking significant steps to correct its flaws.

The latest report from IHS Screen Digest predicts that Smart TVs will account for 55% of the market by 2015 and by 2016 will account for two-thirds of the total units shipped globally. In addition, relatively inexpensive auxiliary devices like the Google TV box and the Xbox can turn any TV into a Smart TV in less than 15 minutes. An expected updated Apple TV that would run the iTunes ecosystem would accelerate Smart TV adoption. Inevitably, Smart TVs will become a key component of many households' connected-device ecosystem.

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In the mid-90s, the pop band Barenaked Ladies sang out scenarios for their fantasy, "If I had a million dollars." Today, in Silicon Valley and due north in Redmond we have a new version playing out where Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft are all figuring out what they would spend a billion on.

While the targets -- Tumblr, Waze and Nook -- make for fascinating discussion of fit and valuation on their own, together they show something interesting about the future of these goliaths beyond the personal computer. They're looking well beyond the personal computer, but in different ways.

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The majority of Madison Avenue's ad-tech stack has been built around the dated cookie-based approach. Yet cookies were never built for marketing and advertising; they were conceived to help web masters control session management.

Much of the pressure to reform in our industry has centered around third-party cookies. The use of third-party cookies could be significantly restricted, if not totally disallowed. First-party cookies are still in play and will be allowed, as of this point, which will essentially allow publishers to control site-side experiences, not just advertising.

In a world with third-party cookies banned, first-party cookie owners would have a large advantage, at least in the short to medium term. I assume that in the long term another cookie-like approach will be created to replace third-party cookies.

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As much as we all talked about 2013 finally being the Year of Mobile, I'm convinced that it actually is going to be the Year of Video. Here's why:

Viewing is growing on video, with more time spent on more devices. Too much is made of falling network prime-time ratings. According to our estimates at GroupM, overall video consumption is up year on year by about 3.7%, assisted by viewing of streaming video on PCs, connected TVs and mobile devices. According to the latest comScore, on average, 183 million Americans view 215 videos each month online. Mobile's big boost is also being driven by video, with Cisco forecasting that by 2016, two-thirds of mobile traffic will be viewing video.

Dynamic content is growing audiences. The rules are being re-written on the back of strong original programming investment. Cable network AMC's "Walking Dead' was the second highest rated show on prime-time television, beating top network shows such as FOX's "American Idol" and ABC's "Modern Family" in straight 18-49 ratings. Netflix's "House of Cards" reportedly pulled in 2.7 million viewers in its first 12 days, which is about the same as what premium cable network Showtime's pilot of "Homeland" achieved in live and on-demand viewing when it launched in 2011.

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