May 04, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- During her first year as the new CEO of the 4A's, Nancy Hill has worked hard to open new channels of communications with industry critics. But she clearly has a long way to go with bloggers -- and knows it. At last week's annual Leadership Conference in San Francisco, she took to the podium with some choice words for what she called America's "incessantly negative adverbloggers."
May 01, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- ABC sales chief Mike Shaw hasn't quite gotten over an earlier defeat in the "live-plus seven" commercial-ratings debate. In the haggling that resulted in the 2007 adoption of TV's new commercial-ratings system, "live-plus three" -- or C3 -- won out. At the annual TelevisionWeek/Ad Age Upfront Advertising Summit last week, Mr. Shaw continued to hammer away for a much longer time-shifted period.
April 29, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Begging to differ with the keynote speaker as well as panelists such as ABC's Mike Shaw, Crown Media CEO Henry Schleiff pumped a bit of adversarial energy into the recent TelevisionWeek and Ad Age Upfront Summit. Among other things, the chief of Hallmark's TV operations doesn't think enough people appreciate how rapidly the traditional TV audience is aging or what that means.
April 27, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- One of the ways that Omnicom's BBDO is adjusting to the digital age is by growing its Proximity network of ad agencies. Created about six years ago, the heavily digital Proximity has 2,000 employees and offices in 55 countries. It's now expanding into the U.S. with a presence in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis and Cincinnati. BBDO CEO Andrew Robertson details the recent success of its chocolate mail and treehouse campaigns.
April 24, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- BBDO CEO Andrew Robertson, whose job responsibilities include catapulting 287 business units around the world into the digital age, has become a proponent of reverse apprenticeship. In part one of a two-part series, he briefly discusses the giant agency's efforts to up the digital-savvy quotient of all its far-flung parts.
April 22, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Dave Morgan, who previously launched two companies that became online advertising powerhouses, has launched a third. This new one is called Simulmedia and it differs from his earlier Real Media or Tacoda ventures in that it is focused on traditional cable TV rather than the internet. Similar to an ad-serving network, it is being designed to deliver TV program promotions to targeted audience segments using existing cable TV technology.
April 20, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- One of the most memorable and talked-about commercials to ever appear in a Super Bowl was E-Trade's vomiting-baby spot aired during the 2008 game. Created by the Grey agency, it proved wildly successful at driving new customers to the online financial services portal. And, as E-Trade Chief Marketing Officer Nicholas Utton explains in this 10-minute video interview, it also quickly became an icon of the brand and spawned an ongoing series of new ads featuring the financially savvy toddler.
April 20, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The emerging forces of set-top box and Internet Protocol TV interactivity are soon expected to change the nature of television-based advertising. But are the country's big advertising agencies ready to lead the way into this totally new environment? Speaking at the Age Age Digital Conference, Verizon Communications CMO John Stratton pointedly said he doesn't think they are.
April 15, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Internet-protocol TV sites such as Hulu, iTunes, Amazon Video and TV.com are rapidly evolving into a game-changing force for the TV industry. Even before the recession forced growing numbers of consumers to cancel their cable TV subscriptions and explore online alternatives, this new trend was clear. At Ad Age's Digital Conference, Verizon Chief Marketing Officer John Stratton was asked if this exploding new world of IPTV wasn't a serious threat to traditional subscription TV.
April 13, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The commonly used maxim that comparing print and digital ad revenue is a matter of analog dollars and digital dimes is really a false one. That's according to Vivek Shah, president of digital publishing for Time Inc.'s Business and Finance Network. Speaking at Ad Age's Digital Conference, Mr. Shah pointed out that many in the industry ignore the "time spent" factor, which skews every other aspect of the comparison between print and online content consumption. And that critically affects the pricing of online advertising.
April 09, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- One way to spice up an Ad Age Digital Conference panel is to pair an ad-network mogul with a media company sales exec who has dumped his online ad networks. The the clash between Turner Sports & Entertainment Senior VP Walker Jacobs and 24/7 Real Media Chairman David Moore provided further insights into one of the more contentious aspects of the online advertising business. Ad Age's two-day conference took place in New York's Metropolitan Pavilion.
April 08, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Canoe, the technology consortium backed by the country's six largest cable media companies, will launch the TV industry's first national addressable advertising system next month. A long-talked about concept, national addressable advertising means a single advertiser with a single placement can simultaneously target different versions of a commercial at different demographics of cable subscribers across the entire country. The move is a major step toward a TV experience that is more internet-like.
April 06, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In an admittedly controversial undertaking, Martin Lindstrom's consumer brain-scanning project has probed the "branding" secrets of Christianity. The findings were a major part of his recent Buyology Symposium in New York. There, he presented data correlations between 12 cult-like brands, including Harley Davidson and Ferrari, and the emotional drivers of the world's largest religion.
April 02, 2009
YORK (AdAge.com) -- New-media guru David Verklin, who left the ad agency business after 30 years to become CEO of Canoe, is off and running on his quest to revolutionize the cable TV business. Canoe is an alliance of the country's six largest cable operators that is working to meld all their technology systems into a single national advertising platform. In his talk at Tuesday's Advertising Research Foundation conference, Mr. Verklin detailed how a new system called CAAS will dramatically change the industry.
April 01, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- What are skittish consumers looking for in a real-estate agency today? A brand with a long history that they can trust and believe in, says Coldwell Banker Chief Marketing Officer Michael Fischer. That's why he's continued to keep painted portraits of the 103-year-old company's founders as the icons of the real-estate giant's marketing campaigns. Unlikely media stars of the digital age, the paintings of Colbert Coldwell and Benjamin Banker have their own Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages as well as an iPhone application and a new crop of TV ads.
March 30, 2009
PATTAYA, Thailand (AdAge.com) -- Although AdFest -- Asia's version of Cannes -- is held in Thailand, the awards show constantly looks back over its shoulder at the regional marketing colossus, China. Ad Age Hong Kong bureau chief Normandy Madden was on hand and got to pull John Hegarty in front of her video camera. The creative chief of London's Bartle Bogle Hegarty and chair of several awards juries, Hegarty and his agency have been giving a great deal of thought to what the China market ultimately means for the advertising industry.
March 27, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- For the last three years, the NBA has been remaking its entire minor-league structure as a new brand extension and stream of sponsorship revenue. Now called the D-League, it has doubled from eight to 16 teams and offers marketers advertising buys across a network of 16 second-tier cities. Aggressive promotional programs have lifted its profile and lured a growing list of blue chip corporate sponsors, says President Dan Reed.
March 23, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Carnival Cruise Lines, whose recent marketing gimmicks have included a building-sized pinata and a blimp-sized beach ball, has scaled down its promotional visions a bit. Its new campaign brings sidewalk aquariums to six major cities. At each, cellphone-totting consumers can create their own digital fish on store-window interactive screens. They can also return to feed and otherwise commune with their new underwater pets. Carnival's chief marketing officer, Jim Berra, explains the project.
March 20, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- One of the most basic requirements of effective problem solving is a clear definition what that problem is. This truism came strongly to mind as we watched a panel at this week's McGraw-Hill Media Summit moderated by BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine. Panelists included top thinkers in their field, such as Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of the Associated Press; Dick Meyer, director of digital media at NPR; and Michael Wolff, columnist at Vanity Fair.
March 19, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- An angry Jeff Zucker kicked off yesterday's onstage interview at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit with a denouncement of Jon Stewart. NBC Universal's CEO was miffed at the host of Comedy Central's "Daily Show" for his tirade against the network's business-news operations last week. In a scathing satire, Stewart alleged that NBC contributed to the current economic crisis with consistently faulty assessments and inaccurate reports about market conditions.
