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Out with the old, in with the new—well, perhaps not for the first week of brandcameo in 2008. National Treasure: Book of Secrets returns as the Number One film at the US box office and captures audiences’ attentions for another week. Reprising their roles from 2004’s National Treasure, Rolex keeps time for treasure hunter Ben Gates and Converse is still the shoe-of-choice for his sidekick Riley Poole in the sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets. HP, Motorola, and Cisco expand their roles with numerous appearances in this sequel, as does multi-talented Aquafina as a thirst-quenching treasure hunting tool once again.
Prepare for the thinking man’s superhero and the brands that love him.
In a summer of big-budget event movies and the mega-marketing around them, Paramount Pictures will fire the first shot across the bow with the early May release of Iron Man, accompanied by a coterie of heavyweight partners that aim to drive an all-ages, but largely male, audience to the star-studded action release.
Cell phone marketer LG Mobile has picked the flick as its first movie tie-in, joining veterans Burger King, 7-Eleven and others. Audi will use the film as a global platform to launch its high-end R8 sports car.
This isn’t exactly product placement but products are certainly namedropped in this story:
Photo by: Hot Shots Worldwide / Splash Britney Spears’s wild ride left the troubled pop star car-less Monday night, after cops impounded her abandoned vehicle.
“Ms. Spears’s car was impounded,” Lt. David Grimes of the Los Angeles Police Department, West L.A. station, said – after a flat tire had caused the troubled pop star to leave her white Mercedes in the middle of the road in Brentwood, Calif.
“Officers on the scene told me it was blocking the roadway,” said Grimes, “and that it was unsafe enough to leave at the location.”
After she had left the car, Spears – who had ventured away from her Studio City home to go to a drugstore – was given a lift by a paparazzo who had been trailing her.
As for her Mercedes, “It was towed by a private company that’s contracted with the city,” said Grimes. “Her car is being held at the official police garage tow yard.”
The standard pricing at the Quicksilver Towing facility is a $104 towing fee, plus $32 for each day it remains in the tow yard. If the car isn’t picked up within 30 days, it gets put up for auction, an employee told PEOPLE.
With Sunday’s glamorous Golden Globes telecast canceled, NBC is trying to retain some of the $20 million in ad revenues the award show was due to generate.
Some clients will get the money they would have spent on commercials—at an average of about $450,000 for 30 seconds—returned to them. Others may sign on for the hourlong “news conference” coverage of the awards that NBC is planning.
“We’re working with each client on a case-by-case basis to come up with the best solution for everyone involved,” an NBC spokeswoman said.
With the awards canceled, contracts for advertising on the show were essentially voided.
Advertisers who opt not to participate in the newscast covering the award winners will retain their incumbencies for the 2009 broadcast.
The replacement programming is likely to generate only about half the ratings of the full, star-studded awards ceremony, which means lower ad revenues for NBC. But at the same time, its costs likely will be less as well.
PARIS — Promising a “real cultural revolution in public service television,” French president Nicolas Sarkozy delivered a bombshell in calling for a complete advertising halt on public television channels for national broadcasters at press conference on Tuesday.In a wide-ranging statement covering several aspects of public financing and labor reform before around 500 foreign and local journalists, Sarkozy said he wanted “the requirements of public television to be modified in depth, and to look into the possibility of completely scrapping advertising on public channels, which could instead be financed by a tax on the advertising revenues of private channels.”
He also suggested a minor tax on “new communication means, such as Internet access or mobile phones,” could be used to finance public broadcasting.
Referring to the president’s proposals, prominent government audiovisual advisor Georges-Marc Benamou felt they heralded the beginning “of a new era, which breaks with 20 years of hypocrisy and irresponsibility” in the state’s dealings with public broadcasting.
Sarkozy’s comments sent shares in France’s two largest private broadcasters soaring. At 2.25 p.m. CET, market leader TF1’s shares were trading at Euros 19.15 ($28.15), an increase of 14.67% from Tuesday’s opening and their highest level since June 1999. TF1 shares closed at Euros 18.48 ($27.17), up 10.66% on the day.
AMSTERDAM, January 8 /PRNewswire/ — The Tommy Hilfiger Group today announced it has entered into an agreement that, through a series of steps, will result in the Group acquiring majority control of Tommy Hilfiger Japan Corporation (”THJC”), currently owned by Itochu Corporation. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Established in 1996, THJC is the exclusive licensee of Tommy Hilfiger-branded products in Japan, which THJC brings to market through its network of 105 freestanding retail stores and 60 department store concessions, as of November 2007. In calendar 2006, THJC had net sales of Yen15.1 billion (EUR103 million; US$129 million). For the three years ended 2006, THJC’s revenues increased at a compound annual growth rate of over 20%.
“We believe that there is potential for substantial continued growth in Japan for Tommy Hilfiger. Under Itochu’s leadership, THJC has done an outstanding job in positioning the brand and building a very meaningful business. The integration of THJC will help to build upon the success that has already been achieved. This acquisition is in line with our strategy to pursue opportunistic buybacks and acquisitions of licensees, consolidating brand management and enhancing our international presence by approaching various markets in an increasingly globally coordinated manner while leaving ample room for local interpretation and adaptation. We welcome the THJC team into the Tommy Hilfiger Group and we are especially pleased that the existing management team will continue to lead the business into the future.” said Fred Gehring, Chief Executive Officer of Tommy Hilfiger Group.
Well, well … seems the scales may finally be tipping in the WGA’s favor here. First the fall of the Golden Globes, and then the news that Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner’s United Artists were making a side deal with the WGA similar to the deal struck earlier with David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants. Now the Weinsteins, according to this story in the New York Post, are also close to making a “me too” deal, and Deadline Hollywood Daily is also tossing out rumors of Lionsgate and Lucasfilm coming around.
NO MOBILE AFICIONADO SHOULD MISS the otherwise calm and collected auteur de tutti auteur David Lynch losing a wing nut over mobile video. In this inspired mash-up of the iPhone TV commercial theme and a DVD extra from his recent “Inland Empire” release (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0), Lynch comes to a quick boil about the idea of watching films on your “f**king phone.” Lynch may have less to worry about than he supposes. Consumers are going to have enough of a time getting used to short-form video on cell phones before we have to worry over long form. Even a dedicated “Daily Show” or “CSI” fan would have to think twice about draining their phone battery to watch a full episode. I think a more likely scenario for phones in the near future is the way they enhance the first screen experience and even offload some of the interactive duties we might expect from next-gen TV.
MADRID — Rolling off a reputation for cutting edge Yank series and “The Simpsons,” Fox was Spain’s most popular niche channel last year.The pay TV feed upped daily viewers 23% to an average 1.25 million, for a 4.4% share of theme channel auds, according to research company Corporacion Multimedia.
Spain’s second-rating theme channel by aud share was Sony’s AXN (4%), third was Sogecable’s premium sports/movie service Canal Plus (3.3%), currently only carried by Digital Plus.
Fox’s upped audience rolls off a slowly building market for pay TV in Spain. In December 2007, pay TV took 16.2% share of the total audience, up from 14.5% 12 months earlier.
Of pay TV’s 16.2%, Sogecable satcaster Digital Plus contributed 5.9%, ONO, Spain’s main cabler, 7%; other pay TV systems, including Telefonica’s broadband TV, Imagenio, made up the remaining 3.9%.
