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LONDON — Blighty’s biggest private terrestrial web, ITV, has tapped a Sony Pictures topper to help raise its game in the global marketplace.Peter Iacono is to become prexy and managing director of ITV Worldwide, which includes the combo’s international exploitation and ventures divisions.
He joins from Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, where he served as acting prexy, international features.
ITV Worldwide is part of the company’s Global Content Division, led by managing director Dawn Airey, who came on board in the fall from satellite giant BSkyB.
Airey said: “ITV has a great track record in selling formats and programming into other territories, whether it’s ‘Dancing on Ice’ in Russia, ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’ in China or the hundreds of millions of people who have seen ‘Prime Suspect’ worldwide.
The National Basketball Association and Kia Motors America have formed a marketing partnership in which Kia will sponsor four NBA player awards, participate in assorted promotions and fan events on site and run commercials in telecasts of local and national NBA game broadcasts.
The NBA television partners include ABC, ESPN and TNT.
It is the first time that Kia has entered into a multi-year marketing partnership with any professional sports league. Kia is also partnering with 16 individual NBA teams locally. Original Link
NEW YORK One in three mobile phone users in the U.S.—or 78 million people—have seen or heard advertising on their phones within the last three months, according to the Mobile Advertising Report, a joint survey conducted by Limbo and GFK/NOP Research.
Client discontent reached an all-time high last year, as $27.5 billion went into review last year. The figure represents a 57 percent increase over 2006 and a $5 billion increase over the previous record of $22 billion in 2005. The number of clients that switched ad agencies was also up 20 percent to 153, compared to 128 in 2006. The data was compiled through an analysis of accounts totaling over $20 million.
The biggest shift last year was Dell Computer’s $4.5 billion global review, won by WPP Group, which created a new agency specifically for the account. Other big switches included J&J’s $3 billion global media, AT&T’s $2.3 billion media, and SprintNextel’s $1.2 billion creative accounts.
According to the analysis, the five most active categories were computer/software, telecommunications, packaged goods, auto and retail. Full Story
LAS VEGAS — NBC UNIVERSAL, the official U.S. media company of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, has made Microsoft its exclusive technology partner for the games, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates announced at the Consumer Electronics Show here on Sunday night. “It will let us illustrate why TV will be different,” says Gates.
The alliance, called “NBCOlympics.com on MSN,” will deliver 3600 hours of sports coverage in both live and on-demand formats.
Some 2,200 hours of live-event video coverage will be available, and more than 20 simultaneous live video streams at peak times. There will be some 3,000 hours of on-demand video content, including full-event replays, highlights, features, interviews and encore packages.
LOS ANGELES In 1992, when Nike, in the midst of its international expansion, asked Wieden + Kennedy to open an office in Amsterdam, Dan Wieden had a jocular comment from a European colleague ringing in his head. Made a year or two before, when Wieden was basking in the glory of its Nike cross-training campaign with football and baseball star Bo Jackson, the remark opened Wieden’s eyes to the fact not all creative transcended borders.
What a campaign this is turning out to be. All the presidential candidates are unelectable.
Iowa’s result promises nothing good. I’ll admit to a touch of Schadenfreude at seeing Hillary eating Obama’s dust, but Obama still seems to me essentially an “image” candidate. He will win or lose depending on how many people like or dislike him. My problem is that I can’t find anything there that compels me to do either. He is the ultimate candidate as product — which, to one degree or other, describes almost the lot of them.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Motorola Inc, which has recently lost cell phone market share, is introducing a mobile device for playing live television to expand its reach in portable consumer electronics.
Motorola said on Thursday that its DH01 device, to be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week, will also play on-demand video clips and programs saved on digital video recorders.
ROTTERDAM — Asian pics make a strong showing in the lineup for the Tiger Awards at the Int’l Film Festival Rotterdam, unveiled on Tuesday.
Six of the 14 candidates are from the East, checking in from Malaysia, China, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and Kazakhstan. Europe, which has dominated the selection in recent years, claims five places, with films from the U.K., Sweden, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands and Ukraine. A 15th film was unconfirmed at press time.
Seven films make their world bow at the fest, which unspools Jan. 23- Feb. 3. These include “Wellness” by the U.S. helmer Jake Mahaffy; “Go With Peace Jamil” from Danish helmer Omar Shargawi; “Las Meninas” by Ukrainian visual artist Igor Podolchak and U.S. music video director Dean Karr; “Shanghai Trance” by Dutch helmer David Verbeek; and “Tale 52″ by Alexiou Alexis of Greece.
