Archive for August 8th, 2007

WHILE DIRECT MARKETING SPENDING REMAINED the lion’s share of marketing services spending last year, outsourced custom publishing and branded entertainment showed the highest increases–21.1% and 15.7%, respectively.

Spending on public relations, which rose 13.9%, also contributed to a 7.7% growth in spend on marketing services in 2006, Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s (VSS) Communications Industry Forecast finds. The compounded annual growth rate of 6.6% from 2001 to 2006 outpaced GDP growth of 5.5%. The future looks rosy for marketing service providers: VSS forecasts a 7.5% growth rate through 2011.

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Ford’s been working with studios to get its product featured in films for years, one of the first being the original Batmobile. But the automaker has now teamed with Our Stories Films to target minorities with the production company’s family-themed movies.

Under the agreement, Ford will be able to examine scripts for product placement opportunities, and will even get to make script-change suggestions. Ford will also integrate promotion of the films into its Web sites, fordurban.com and lincolnlounge.com.

Our Stories Films was created by BET founder Robert Johnson and producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein. According to IMDB, the company’s first film is the current box office blockbuster (watch the sarcarsm, it’s dripping) “Who’s Your Caddy?” and features Ford’s Range Rover co-starring with Big Boi and Andy Milonakis.

“We are all grappling with our numbers in this audience,” said Marc Perry, multicultural marketing manager at Ford/Lincoln, in a Brandweek article. “We know that we can do better than what we are doing and this opportunity allows us to go after a targeted audience. It’s African-Americans in urban centers. This arrangement helps by allowing us to cast both characters and vehicles, and with our imaging onscreen.”

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