At its upfront presentation yesterday, NBC Universal had advertisers and media buyers experience a high-wattage walk through, with a HD theatre, photo stations with NBC reality stars, Saturday Night Football announcers offering autographs, food from Bravo’s Top Chef, and the talking car from Knight Rider on display, all culminating in a huge cocktail party with Jeff Zucker offering a brief welcome and Conan O’Brien delivering a brief standup comedy routine.
“In general, the goal was to impress on media buyers just how many ways there are to advertise with NBC and NBCU, with television just being one way. For example, an actual gas pump with TV screen that NBC is using for both messaging and programming shorts at selected gas stations around the country was on display as well as sections hightlighting train car and arena advertising.” [MW]
So did it motivate clients, who feed NBC’s bottom line, to spend “with NBC and its wide ranging media platforms?” CONTINUED »
Gay folk continue to capture the collective marketing eye. And so they should!
A survey of 2,259 adults found that 68% of self-described gays are more likely to buy from a company they find gay-friendly. And there are definitely companies - and methods - coming out on top:
Even Grand Theft Auto IV isn’t going to touch this campaign from TBWA for Playstation. Thumbplay, anyone? CONTINUED »
Guess what? Marketers are being more careful with their ad budgets! Guess what else? Big companies like Disney’s ABC can’t afford to let cash-conscious advertisers spend less on TV buys, because it affects the bottom line, and that scares shareholders!
So that’s why ABC is today, during its upfront presentation, rolling out the new “Advertising Value Index,” which will supposedly help prove the value of TV advertising by letting clients choose specific criteria, rather than just Nielsen ratings numbers, in choosing where they put their 30-second spots. [WSJ] Things like “income level, education, employment status, how long viewers tune in to commercials or how engaged they are with the program” will all be just a checkbox away.
Except, well, media buyers already have this information. CONTINUED »
“Most big magazine publishers saw total ad pages decline in the first four months of 2008 compared to the same period last year […] While some losses can be attributed to the closing of various titles since last year, the broad nature of the declines, cutting across a number of categories, looks ominous for the magazine industry.” CONTINUED »
This adorable little ad campaign from Reporters Without Borders showcases what it’s like to supporting a free press in countries where “committing journalism” is a criminal offense. You’ll see all of your favorites: Putin, Jintao, Castro, and Ahmadinejad, though it appears Mugabe and Myanmar military junta leaders like Gen. Than Shwe have been left off the list.
Collect them all! CONTINUED »
“In the weeks leading up to this prelude to the upfront advertising marketplace, the Media Rating Council quietly met, reviewed a crucial audit of Nielsen’s so-called C3 ratings system, and opted to withhold accreditation for what will be the currency for billions of dollars in TV advertising buys.”
Confused? Allow us to explain. You know those upfront presentations all the networks are hosting to solicit ad buys for the upcoming television season? Those billion dollar deals are based on Nielsen data that hasn’t passed muster for the second year in a row.
And then it gets worse. CONTINUED »
It’s a poorly kept secret that networks like CNBC make much of their cash from trafficking in infomercials, selling weekend and early morning timeslots to debt reduction services and work-from-home come-ons. Now The CW, which is struggling for ratings, even for Gossip Girl, plans to do something similar on Sunday nights for a 3-hour block beginning at 7pm. But rather than slap a few 30-minute ad spots on the air, instead the network is selling the programming block to a media buyer, who will be the one responsible for developing programming and selling ad time. [Variety] (UPN actually just did this with WWE Smackdown, selling the time to World Wrestling Entertainment as an ad buy, not a programming license. And the morning hours on broadcast networks are usually sold off in chunks.) That this is taking place during primetime is a relatively new phenomenon, and since they haven’t yet named the buyer, may we suggest someone who will stuff it with all those cutesy viral videos?
Megacorp Unileaver is fighting back against claims that its ads for Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign were retouched, despite what professional photo retoucher Pascal Dangin told The New Yorker. They’re in full-court defense mode, which means, of course, they’re issuing a statement with their side of things. It reads in part: “There was an understanding between Dove and Ms Leibovitz that the photos would not be retouched - the only actions taken were the removal of dust from the film and minor color correction.” Not cellulite, freckles, fat rolls, hair stubble, vericose veins, or oily skin. CONTINUED »
So what if that ridiculous video of those guys effortlessly jumping into a pair of jeans was merely a viral ad concocted by an ad agency that’s been doing this time and time again? [Gawker] We’re in the middle of an era where even two-year-olds are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages every day. Shouldn’t we at least enjoy the ones being shoved down our throats? The ad in question is one for Levi’s jeans, replicated from a Ray-Ban ad from last year. It’s racking up millions of views on YouTube and elsewhere. And you know what? God damn good for them! CONTINUED »
Want to know how MTV secures massive ad buys in this unfriendly recession-laden climate? We’ll give you a hint: CONTINUED »
These two ads are new spots from Absolut Vodka, which are paired with a TV spot labeled “Dissection,” which they hope pushes the message that the brand’s infused flavors, Pear and Mango, are as naturally a part of the flavor as the distilled vodka itself. The ads are part of Absolut’s “In An Absolut World” worldwide campaign, which replaced the “Absolut _____.”
But if you’re a consumer of gay media, the message Absolut is trying to send is a little different. CONTINUED »
As MTV enters the upfronts fray, pitching advertisers on its awesome new slate of reality sludge involving MySpace celebrities and stereotypes of black men, it’s also trying to bait ‘em with a new ad scheme: “podbusting,” a buzz word that translates as “ads that mimic actual TV programming to confuse the viewer into not TiVo-ing through your pitch.”
“We’re looking to redefine the commercial experience,” says John Shea, MTV and VH1’s integrated marketing head. Adds Dario Spina, Shea’s counterpart at Comedy Central and Spike: “We want to blur the lines between the commercial breaks and the entertainment content.”
Brill! How else to keep the kids’ waning attention span but by fooling them into thinking an ad for McDonald’s is actually a Justin Timberlake music video. Oh, wait.
Okay, so this isn’t entirely new, but MTV’s brands do plan on upping the ante by about a million. CONTINUED »
Forget for a moment that Dove’s entire “Real Beauty” initiative was a campaign that played off ladies’ insecurities under the guise of celebrating women of all shapes and sizes.
Now there’s new evidence the skincare company was taking customers for a ride: The photos of the “real” women in the advertisements were actually airbrushed to hell. CONTINUED »
From the Dept. of Ridiculous to Us But Makes Sense to Everyone Else, NBC will be charging advertisers $3 million per 30-second spot. That’s a hike of 10%, or more than double the usual year-to-year increase; last year, Fox charged $2.7m. More shocking than the sticker price? Advertisers will, naturally, pay up. Last year’s game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots drew record ratings, with some 97.4 million people tuning in. Then again, you could buy in bulk! Clients Anheuser-Busch, which buys spots every year, often 10 per game, and years in advance, gets the discount rate of just $2 million per spot, or $66,666 per second.
This is your brain on advertising. [Mediapost]
Was it when Fox News claims to be a cable news “pioneer,” or when they claimed to be “fair and balanced,” that wronged you?
A “NEWS CORP. IS AWESOME” ad appearing in the British press, featuring a timeline that included the line “1996… Fox News Channel, pioneer of fair and balanced news coverage, is born. Today, it dominates cable news in the US,” offended at least two people enough that they complained to the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Agency.
FNC was not a “pioneer,” they claimed, because news channels had been around before Rupert Murdoch’s network. And the idea that they’re “fair and balanced”? Well, you’re familiar with that argument. CONTINUED »
Already the Miley Cyrus-Vanity Fair “scandal” has been defused by certain rational arguments, such as, “We see kids younger than Cyrus appear on film wearing fewer clothes and in more sexually compromising situations, and nobody is crying foul there.” But nothing helps combat the idea that Cyrus’s photo shoot is a non-issue like another still photograph — this one also of a Disney brand.
A Disney underwear brand. In China. That can be described as nothing more than a pedophile pinup.
How did something much more scandalous than a photograph of Cyrus’ back get plastered on a billboard? For starters, the age of consent in California might be 18, but in China, where this billboard appeared, it’s a mere 14. CONTINUED »
Relays the Times about an exciting new print ad gimmick: “Rolling Stone and Men’s Health are both testing programs in which readers can take cameraphone pictures of icons on ads, then send them to a certain number. In exchange, they’ll receive more information or an offer from the advertiser.
“In Rolling Stone’s current issue, five advertisers are running these offers. They include a motorcycle ring tone for Allstate’s motorcycle-insurance program and a video preview of The Discovery Channel’s new season of Man vs. Wild. Men’s Health is going even further, saying each full-page advertisement in its July-August issue will have the added feature.”
Wait a second. Haven’t we seen something like this before? CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
