March 19, 2010
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Remember True/Slant? One of a host of startups re-inventing journalism -- or at least the delivery of news and opinion -- True/Slant launched a year ago to glowing acclaim from Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg and backing from Forbes Media and Velocity Interactive Group.
March 03, 2010
Ad Age was in San Francisco this week to cover the 4A's leadership and media conference, dubbed "Transformation 2010." And many of the execs who took the stage at the annual confab of the American Association of Advertising Agencies touched on all matter of transformation -- of media, of marketing and of the industry as a whole. Here are three video clips from the conference.
January 05, 2010
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- German luxury brand Audi is a refreshing change from what most of the news in the auto business has been about lately. The Volkswagen subsidiary has pumped up its U.S. advertising budget by 20%, increased its market share and been surprisingly successful in marketing "clean diesel" models against competitors' hybrids. In this eight-minute video, Audi America CMO Scott Keogh recaps the company's strategies at the same time he wags his finger at what he portrays as the hopelessly bland marketing of U.S. domestic automakers.
December 22, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Although they get all the press, phones aren't actually the only devices that make up our rapidly expanding world of mobile communications. Laptops and portable game consoles are also being widely used by on-the-go consumers. And companies like Yahoo and Google are paying close attention to that. Both sponsored expansive free Wifi services for the holidays. Yahoo's blanketed Times Square, while Google's took to the airports and skies beyond.
December 18, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Are marketing and media giants ignoring that their primary communications channels are based on environmentally "toxic" pixels? And are some of these companies engaging in "tree washing" or "gray washing" as well as "green washing?" These intriguing issues were at the center of this week's Sustainable Media Climate Symposium in Manhattan. Don Carli, director of the Institute for Sustainable Communication, enlightened many by quantifying how the carbon footprint of electric-powered digital media is nearly as large and environmentally onerous as that of the notorious paper-making industry.
December 16, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Adversity, a program that educates minority students about opportunities in the advertising business, had what seemed like a tight partnership with the One Club. And, the group and its director, Julius Dunn, were well-liked throughout Manhattan's advertising community. In October, JWT held a party for Adversity in the agency's New York headquarters office. But shortly after that, the One Club suddenly announced that it was ending its partnership with the group. In this nine-minute video interview, Mr. Dunn discusses that split.
December 11, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Although still widely thought of as just a food-marketing giant, Kraft Foods is ratcheting up its already substantial activities as a serious magazine and web content publisher. Its innovative moves in this area are one of the reasons that VP for Global Media Services Mark Stewart was honored as an Ad Age Media Maven this year. In his remarks at Wednesday's ceremony, he underscored Kraft's determination to do even more of what it formerly depended on traditional magazine publishers to do.
December 08, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- While no chief marketing officer has an easy job these days, few face as challenging a task as Jeffrey Hayzlett. He's CMO at Kodak, a company that has suffered one of the century's most stunning implosions. With its product lines decimated by the digital revolution, the film and camera equipment marketer that employed 145,000 people in 1988 now has less than 20,000. Hayzlett's job is to market the crippled giant back to technological relevance. And he's as much a cheerleader as he is a formidable stage presence in that effort. This video is an excerpt of one of his latest performances.
December 04, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Can you imagine a business card or a print magazine page that can actually send an e-mail or facilitate the transaction of an online sale? Those are concepts that Livescribe CEO Jim Marggraff is working on. The company's Pulse Smartpen -- which is a real pen containing a full-powered, internet-accessing computer -- is a tool that makes such actions conveniently possible. And the growing popularity of the under-$200 device among college students is creating a significant national audience for new sorts of print-based digital experiences.
December 02, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Even as his advertising offensive against arch-rival AT&T continues to be the talk of the industry, Verizon CMO John Stratton took to the podium to explain why the "Maps" campaign was necessary. In this seven-minute video, he recaps Verizon's entire nine-year marketing history. In its latest move, the company abruptly threw out its prepared holiday ad campaign to replace it with the results of a data survey it commissioned of its own and AT&T's national G3 footprints.
November 25, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In the 47-year timeline of Wal-Mart's history, few years can match 2006 for marketing chaos. In January of that year, Julie Roehm, an edgy Chrysler marketing executive, became Wal-Mart's SVP of marketing communications only to be dismissed twelve months later. Wal-Mart named Stephen Quinn the new CMO with a mandate to return the company to its traditional marketing vision. In this program, Mr. Quinn, now riding atop one of the recession's most successful retail operations, reflects on what was learned during those those troubled days of 2006.
November 23, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Putting a humanitarian spin on his remarks to an ANA audience, Wal-Mart CMO Stephen Quinn defended his company's massive expansion of is private-label brands. Earlier this year, the retail giant sparked a controversy in the food marketing industry when it unveiled a revamped "Great Value" brand line that includes more than 5,000 items in 100 grocery categories. Mr. Quinn said the effort was rooted in the company's desire to help customers who couldn't otherwise afford adequate food for their families.
November 19, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- A growing number of big marketers have circumvented the middleman and launched their own mainstream media and entertainment properties. The revolutionary development has moved them into direct competition for audiences with traditional media companies. But are these projects just novel anomalies, as some suggest, or a powerful trend that will ultimately reshape the media business? Ad Age editor Jonah Bloom addresses the issue in his talk at the ANA annual conference in Phoenix.
November 17, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Along with being the world's largest advertising holding company, WPP has built itself into the fourth-largest business research company, trailing only Thomson-Reuters, Bloomberg and Nielsen. One area of market data in which Chief Executive Martin Sorrell has taken a particular interest is that regarding cost cutting by large marketers around the globe. He warned the recent Ad-Tech conference in New York about the long-term results of today's draconian cuts in marketing-service budgets.
November 13, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- No other subject has become as much of a hot button in the ad industry as procurement. Marketers' ROI mania and growing use of procurement officers to purchase marketing services has pushed down agencies' operating margins. But has it gone too far? Speaking at the ANA Annual Conference in Phoenix, Ad Age editor Jonah Bloom questions whether the process has lost a sense of balance and is ignoring the crucial need of agencies to invest in the services, technology and talent required to promote brands in this fragmented age.
November 12, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- How is Eddie Murphy playing a role in a new push to diversify ad agencies? Former agency account exec Lincoln Stephens is both an example and an evangelist of the "Boomerang" effect. A year ago Stephens abruptly quit his Chicago agency job, moved back to his hometown of Dallas and, on a shoestring budget, launched a program to recruit, train and motivate talented young African Americans for advertising agency jobs. Execs at The Richards Group, Imaginuity, Tracy Locke and other Dallas organizations volunteered to mentor participants in his first boot camp sessions.
November 11, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When Rob Belgiovane set out from his Australian agency for the China Ad Festival in Nanning, he expected to fly into a small town near the Vietnamese border. Instead, he found himself in a city the size of New York that remains largely unknown to Westerners. And the sprawling metropolis was a dramatic example of the wide open market for retailers and agencies that China has become. Ad Age Asia Editor Normandy Madden was on hand to record Belgiovane's startled impressions of the world's new wild west of advertising.
November 09, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In 2004, when he frantically danced his way into the public consciousness, the oddly engaging Mr. Six became one of the country's best-known brand icons. But in late 2005, the amusement park company's new management dumped the campaign, calling its creative concept "misguided." This spring, as Six Flags slipped into a bankruptcy reorganization, the dancing octogenarian was back again with a vengeance. Senior VP-Marketing Angelina Vieira Barocas discusses the turnaround in thinking as well as Mr. Six's future.
November 06, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell not only thinks the contraction of the newspaper and magazine industry will continue, but that it needs to continue. In keynote remarks that opened this week's Ad-Tech in New York, Mr. Sorrell cited the over-capacity of supply and inventory as a major problem holding back the re-stabilization of the media business. He also predicted that ad agencies would be getting "very much more involved" in the development of content and that the lines between advertising and editorial are going to get "much more blurred" than they already are today.
November 04, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In past jobs, Jim Harris has been a proponent of "hyper-local" marketing strategies that takes place in the lobbies of office buildings. So it's no surprise he's made that an anchor of the new Wall Street Journal Office Network. As CEO of that 3-year-old company, he oversees a broadcast network of digital screens in more than 800 upscale office buildings in 15 cities. And this past year, his company has posted a 100% increase in revenue and become a case study in how to boost sales by pairing digital screen ads with in-building product demos.
