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LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)– National Lampoon, Inc. (AMEX: NLN), the most widely recognized brand in comedy, and maniaTV.com, a leading provider of long and short form internet television, today announced Dice.com as the official sponsor for the new sketch comedy show, ‘National Lampoon’s The Lemmings‘. As part of the cutting-edge branded entertainment sponsorship package, show producers have created a character that embodies Dice.com‘s virtues, as the leading career website for technology and engineering professionals and the companies seeking to employ them.
MADRID — Spain’s top arthouse distributor Alta Classics has taken all Spanish rights to Cannes competition entry “Un conte de Noel” (A Christmas Tale) from Paris-based seller Wild Bunch.Helmed by Arnaud Desplechin, pic toplines French thesps Mathieu Amalric, soon to be seen in “Quantum of Solace,” and Catherine Deneuve, winner of a Cannes Special Prize this year, given in part to reflect the quality of the thesping in “Tale.”
Pic depicts the strained relationships in a family following the death of a young son.
Once it was a BMW sedan or Inifiniti coupe used as props in a television drama that enticed viewers to buy them. Nowadays, the so-called “product placement” advertisements not only include fancy vehicles but, more and more, are focusing on smaller, less conspicuous daily necessities.
In the recently-ended SBS’ hit drama, “On Air,” the star scriptwriter character was frequently seen brewing fresh espresso at home whenever she needed an energy boost, and none of these scenes went by quick enough to miss that she was using a DeLonghi coffee maker.
The high-end Italian appliance maker said its coffee machine sales jumped about 20 percent, most likely backed by these brief exposures. This demonstrates why more and more marketers are turning to in-show product placement (PPL) advertisements.
The Amazing Spider-Man may look amazingly different the next time audiences see him on the big screen.
Latino Review is reporting that 25-year-old Patrick Fugit, best known for playing William Miller in “Almost Famous,” is the frontrunner to take over the dual role of Peter Parker/Spidey in upcoming sequels — should Tobey Maguire opt not to sign on, of course.
Steve Birnhak’s idea to bring billboards down to eye level came to him six years ago when he was walking by a storefront display for GI Joe in the Hasbro building in New York. “There was a lot of vacant space around,” the CEO of Inwindow Outdoor remembers. Today, Birnhak’s brainstorm to turn empty buildings into customized street-level billboards has grown into a bona fide out-of-home format that is catching on with advertisers.
At any one time, Inwindow Outdoor, which urges advertisers to “think outside the box, be inside the window” has 100 or more storescapes across New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington. In third quarter, Inwindow plans to expand to Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and Seattle, and then Europe. “There are certain clients that love the concept so much, they buy a year in advance,” Birnhak says. The CW buys three times a year, bulking up in September for its new fall TV season. Other advertisers that have found the new, in-your-face format attractive: entertainment clients (ABC, Discovery, HBO, New Line, Paramount), automakers (Ford, Scion, Jeep, BMW), airlines (JetBlue, Delta), telecoms (AT&T, Motorola) and beverages (Evian, Gatorade).
Mumbai:Starcom MediaVest Group has announced with immediate effect that its entertainment and embedded marketing unit Starcom Entertainment, which has been operating in different parts of Asia since 2003, will now be known as The Bridge. The specialist unit will have a three-hub operational structure, based in Mumbai for South Asia, Singapore for South East Asia and Shanghai for Greater China and North Asia.
Commented Ravi Kiran, CEO-South East and South Asia for Starcom MediaVest Group, “It is our conviction as consumer attention becomes increasingly scarce that we will need to use content and entertainment assets as a powerful and effective vehicle to connect our brands and their customers. Our experience with entertainment marketing offering across India, Philippines, China and other markets over the last five years has given us the confidence that we can create a full service Asia-wide offering that would immensely benefit our clients”
Hearst Magazines Digital Media will extend a service that links print ads to mobile marketing across titles including CosmoGIRL, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Redbook and O The Oprah Magazine.
For the last two years, Hearst has partnered with mobile tech provider ShopText to place mobile codes in CosmoGIRL ads that allow readers to order product samples or enter sweepstakes via their cell phones. After an initial purchase, users need only text a keyword and PIN to buy products advertised in the magazine.
Early this month, Microsoft announced the availability of TV shows in the Zune Marketplace. The initial launch included more the 800 episodes from networks such as MTV and NBC. Now, the Zune catalog is set to increase by 50 percent, with Microsoft adding more than 400 episodes from 19 shows over the next week and a half. In addition to the programs listed below, new shows from Bravo will be added in the near future.
CARLSBAD, Calif.–The idea that just because a TV show is popular that lots of people are watching the accompanying ads is a myth, says Tom Rogers.
And Rogers would know. As TiVo’s CEO, Rogers has access to data that shows just how many people watch how many seconds of which commercial. Now, obviously that correlation is greater among non-TiVo customers, who don’t have the luxury of skipping over the ads. Rogers was interviewed by Kara Swisher at the D6 conference here Thursday.
Still, Rogers said that television needs to fundamentally transition its ad model to one in which advertising is both more appealing to consumers as well as more measurable. More like the Internet, in other words.
Swisher pressed Rogers on how the company has done a better job of popularizing a product category than it has creating a large, profitable business. “No, the business has not gone as well as the (phenomenon),” Rogers said.
As for becoming synonymous with the DVR, Rogers said “That’s a blessing and also a curse,” noting that people who have other “contraptions” think they have a TiVo.
