Archive for June 11th, 2008

The Entertainment and Licensing division of Hasbro, Inc. is launching one of its largest programs to support the Nerf brand with a new look and feel.

Building off the new tagline, “It’s Nerf or Nothin,’” Hasbro has updated the nearly 40-year-old brand with an edgy attitude to help position it as a global lifestyle sports property.

Fortune Fashions is launching T-shirts for tween boys this summer with plans to expand into hoodies and track pants. Licensee Elan-Polo is out with Nerf-branded sports sandals bundled with a Nerf ball.

In the gaming space, Electronic Arts (EA) is developing the first interactive “Nerf N-Strike” video game for the Nintendo Wii, due out for the holidays. Based on the toy line of the same name, players can take on action-packed battles in single or multiplayer modes. Plans also call for a Nerf Switch Shot Ex-3 add-on accessory, which will allow players to convert a real Dart Blaster into a Wii Blaster controller.

Promotional Partners Worldwide will develop Nerf-branded footballs and basketballs emblazoned with logos of people’s favorite college teams. University bookstores and specialty retailers will carry the products.

The program is Hasbro’s biggest licensing effort for the Nerf brand, Bryony Bouyer, senior vice president of licensing at Hasbro, said.

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LOS ANGELES Mitsubishi Motors North America said it has awarded creative duties on its $185 million account to independent shop Traffic here.

The other finalists, per sources, were Omnicom’s DDB/LA, Venice, Calif., and independents Ignited in El Segundo, Calif., and WongDoody, which pitched from its Seattle and Culver City, Calif., offices.

Dan Kuhnert, Mitsubishi evp, sales and marketing, said in a statement that all agency finalists “demonstrated insight into the Mitsubishi brand, and had great ideas. However Traffic presents a keen understanding of how to leverage the strengths of our brand and the ‘importance of now’ which is extremely relevant in today’s auto industry.”

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Newly sold and heading for yet another sale, TV Guide has sought to reinvent itself for a consumer faced with plenty of options for television listings and entertainment news.

The latest effort comes under ex-Life & Style editor Debra Birnbaum, who was installed as editor last month after Macrovision Corp. completed its $2.8 billion purchase of TV Guide parent Gemstar-TV Guide and ousted her predecessor Ian Birch.

The next issue, on newsstands June 12, speaks to Birnbaum’s efforts to make the magazine more topical, expand the definition of its coverage and act as a filter for its readers.

With so many viewing choices, she said, “I think there’s more of a need for this magazine than ever.”

To that end, she will reintroduce Watercooler, a department devoted to buzz about not just primetime but commercials, online video and daytime/late-night TV. The Goods, a shopping page that used to appear occasionally, will now appear weekly. “There’s a longstanding relationship between TV [and] product sales,” she explained.

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LONDON, June 11 (Reuters) - Britain has indicated it will reject proposals from the European Union that would allow broadcasters to raise money from product placements in television.

In a speech on Wednesday, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said he could understand why the industry wanted to move towards having branded products on the screen — which is increasingly common in the United States — but he could also see the risk.

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By iTVX Staff

Product placement pioneer Frank Zazza, CEO of iTVX, has responded to news from London today that Culture secretary Andy Burnham is against legalizing product placement on television, noting placement would damage programming.

“This is insane saying product placement will ‘contaminate programs’ kind of harsh,” Zazza said. “Actually the more Andy Burnham uses this type of terminology the less credence he will have. I believe that these types of statements are made with unwarranted knowledge with no idea of ramifications to the public and private sectors forcing job security in a plummeting economy.”

Zazza continued, “However the good news is that viewers minds will not be contaminate by a Coke can in a TV program. “Regulators” should help ‘regulate’ and work with the advertisers, broadcasters, and markertes to get product placement right. To simply dismiss the the opportunity without first trying to ‘regulate” the pros vs. cons is a political self-serving ’safe’ position to take on this matter.”

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DALLAS — 7-Eleven Inc. and PRConsultants Group Inc. received a Silver Anvil Award recently from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for their joint promotion of last year’s box office hit, “The Simpsons.”

“The Silver Anvil Award is considered to be the Oscar of the public relations industry, and it is a tremendous honor to be recognized in this way,” 7-Eleven spokeswoman Margaret Chabris told CSNews Online. “The campaign was the biggest one-month product promotion in our company’s history. It was a success because of the creativity of and attention to detail by our marketing and advertising agency FreshWorks, the PRConsultants Group and the hard work of our franchisees, store managers and employees.”

Julie Dennehy, a spokesperson for the PRConsultants Group (PRCG), explained the award underscores the company’s approach to its valued clients like 7-Eleven.

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NEW YORK Online auction house eBay has shuttered its Internet-based system for buying and selling TV and radio ads, the company has confirmed on its Web site. The system had been up and running for just over a year.

The system was controversial from the start and received little support from the cable network industry, which eBay had hoped would contribute significant amounts of inventory. But the networks by and large stayed away fearing the process would cheapen the value of their ads.

The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, a trade group representing the sales groups of most of the big cable networks, did not endorse the system and few of its members participated. Among the few networks that tested it were Oxygen and Ion.

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As a child of the early 1980s, I had to reconcile two quite different images of the Disney brand. On the one hand, there was the much beloved taped-from-TV copy of Robin Hood featuring Sir Hiss and some Roger Miller songs; on the other hand, there was Disney’s practice of stuffing its films back into “the vault” if you didn’t buy them when Disney said you should. The “vault” seemed like a low sort of thing to do, but then “Papa” Michael Eisner would walk into my TV set on Saturday nights to introduce a new episode of Wonderful World of Disney (from which the Robin Hood tape had been made), and all was forgiven.

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Culture secretary Andy Burnham has today come out against product placement, leaving the embattled UK TV and advertising sectors wondering how to convince the government they can self-regulate responsibly…

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The U.S. advertising economy managed to eke out a tepid 0.6% growth during the first quarter of 2008, according to data on measured media spending released this morning by TNS Media Intelligence, but concerns about the economy are continuing to drag on ad spending in most of the major media.

“Enduring concerns about economic conditions and consumer spending behavior continued to cast a pall over the advertising market during the first quarter,” stated Jon Swallen, senior vice president-research at TNS media intelligence. “After a hopeful start to the year, the pace of ad spending slowed perceptibly during March and early figures from the second quarter indicate little immediate or sustained improvement in the core ad economy.”

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