February 14, 1994
Nielsen Marketing Research is on the verge of achieving the unthinkable: reclaiming not one but two clients from Information Resources Inc. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and the McNeil Consumer Products Co. unit of Johnson & Johnson, worth a combined $6 million to IRI, are pulling up stakes at a company that hasn't lost a client to Nielsen in nearly tw...
February 14, 1994
The linkup of Knight-Ridder and Bell Atlantic Corp. for an interactive TV test is the latest sign that barriers between publishers and telephone companies are breaking down. Knight-Ridder, the nation's second largest newspaper group, will explore ways to develop news, information and advertising services as part of Bell Atlantic Video Services C...
February 14, 1994
Publisher Jamie Masada has a lot of comedians working for him. While many magazine publishers might say the same in jest, Mr. Masada is dead serious. After all, he publishes Laugh Factory magazine. It began in 1983 as a single page of jokes duplicated and handed out to people waiting in line at the Laugh Factory, Mr. Masada's Sunset Boulevard com...
February 14, 1994
Your letters column frequently deals with advertisements that are incorrect or in poor taste, but the worst ad I've seen was printed in your own magazine. In the Jan. 17 issue of Advertising Age a two-page spread for the New York Festivals had the audacity to compare their annual of advertising with the Holy Bible, calling the Bible the good book,...
February 14, 1994
With regard to James Brady's Dec. 13 column on the proposed Disney theme park in Prince William County, Virginia, he rearranges geography to set up a straw man (or park), whereby Disney becomes the despoiler of hallowed ground. The Route 28/Bull Run/shady tree location he writes of is about 10 miles east of the Disney location. Now, even by Long ...
February 14, 1994
I have read with interest the letters you have published from Roger Purdon and Dick Briggs, urging Coca-Cola to return to "the pause that refreshes." Roger, as I recall, argued that McCann should return to refreshment as a basic selling proposition. Now, I retired in 1982 and pulled back from Coca-Cola before that. In these past 12 years I have no...
February 14, 1994
I can't help but respond to a letter from Edward E. Smallwood, who reprimanded you for use of the word "verbal" as meaning "oral" in an article that read, "Detroit's Big 3...have agreed verbally or in writing to participate in the interactive TV system test" (AA, Nov. 15). Your usage is quite acceptable. Refer to "Webster's Dictionary of English U...
February 14, 1994
PHILADELPHIA-Jim Nealey really knows how to time a shoot. The VP-group creative director for Foote, Cone & Belding's office here flew to Los Angeles Jan. 16 to start shooting Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages TV spots featuring actor James Earl Jones. The quake early the next morning, of course, changed those plans. It wasn't the first time Mr. Nealey h...
February 14, 1994
Talk about a fortuitous chain of events. One day about 10 years ago a British ad agency phoned Bob Launey and asked if he wanted to do some work for them in this country. The adman, Martin Powell, had pulled Launey's name out of an agency book "and thought it would be a good match." They did some joint direct marketing projects over the years. In...
February 14, 1994
Reebok International is giving star endorser Shaquille O'Neal a new personality as part of an aggressive yearlong marketing effort. The $100 million 1994 campaign will seek to differentiate Reebok's footwear and apparel business while continuing to unite them under the "Planet Reebok" umbrella. "We've increased our media spending by 25%, and we'r...
February 14, 1994
Coke vs. Pepsi, Ford vs. Chevy and MCI vs. AT&T. Competitive comparison advertising has played a big role in many battles for market share, but the effectiveness of that tactic has been debated. Now, a study by Research Systems Corp., Evansville, Ind., claims competitive comparison TV spots with a brand differentiating message improve the odds of...
February 14, 1994
For more than a year, New West Advertising, Bozeman, Mont., has been getting oneresume a week from agency professionals at the likes of CME KHBB, Ogilvy & Mather and DDB Needham Worldwide. Spiker Communications of Missoula receives five a week plus about two phone inquiries. In Billings, Exclamation Point Advertising has gotten "hundreds of exe...
February 14, 1994
Procter & Gamble Co. is trying to put the bounce back into its 30-year-old Vidal Sassoon haircare brand with a $46 million marketing campaign highlighted by heavy network TV spending and the company's largest one-time sampling drive. The U.S. relaunch, part of a $100 million-plus worldwide effort due for completion by July 1995, comes as the once ...
February 14, 1994
TV may breeze by newspapers to become the top U.S. ad medium this year. And Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising could pass McCann-Erickson Worldwide in the process as the ad industry's primary source for such statistics. The Television Bureau of Advertising last week predicted TV ad spending will rise to $33.2 billion in 1994, a $400 million margin ove...
February 14, 1994
Contest #410: What's up with sneaker king Nike putting up a cool $25,000 for figure skating's femme fatale Tonya Harding's legal expenses? Betcha the teeny boppers in the Nancy Kerrigan Fan Club are burning their Air Jordans in protest. But this reminds T.N.T. of some unfinished business tied to deflated pop star Michael Jackson, who predates Tonya...
February 14, 1994
CBS might want to de-ice those figure skating promos. The controversy over U.S. figure skating star Tonya Harding makes good headlines, but an exclusive Advertising Age consumer poll found that, drama notwithstanding, it is not likely to significantly boost TV ratings of the Winter Olympics. CBS earlier dropped two figure skating promotional spo...
February 14, 1994
NBC is still king of the late-night TV marketplace, but CBS-with the help of DavidLetterman-has cut deeply into the peacock network's share. CBS' share of late-night ad spending jumped 12.6 percentage points as the network captured 26% of the $125.5 million network TV marketplace in the fourth quarter of 1993, according to Competitive Media Report...
February 14, 1994
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has signed its first comprehensive contract covering talent appearing in interactive media productions. The agreement between the union and the production arm of interactive software marketer Electronic Arts Productions is significant because it represents the first broad, long-term code cove...
February 14, 1994
A plan to radically restructure Wells Rich Greene BDDP is in the wings. This week, the once mighty agency is expected to unveil details of a reorganization of its New York office that will transform WRG into four separate teams based on clients' product categories. "The idea is to build expertise in four areas, and push new-business activity into ...
February 14, 1994
TROY, Mich.-The Yellow Pages industry has signed up four current national advertisers and hopes to have 98 on board byyearend as part of its most aggressive attempt yet to expand the use of the medium. The five-year, $44 million "Marketing the Medium" campaign is being outlined in briefings here and in nine other cities this month, sponsored by t...
