Archive for April, 2009

Product placement has become a common tactic for marketers seeking to integrate their products into the storyline of a TV show or movie.

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Looking to jump onto one fast-moving digital video train, Walt Disney will become an equity partner with NBC Universal’s/News Corp quickly growing Hulu video destination site. News of this deal had been expected for weeks. Disney, which initially resisted joining the big site, which started in March 2007, has agreed to add its big library of TV shows from ABC, as well as programming from ABC Family, Disney Channel and SOAPnet.

NBC and News Corp. each have a 45% equity stake in the company; media investor Providence Equity Partners controls the remaining 10%. Disney was looking for an equal share with NBC and News Corp., resulting in a 30% stake for each. Financial terms and the structure of the deal weren’t disclosed as part of the announcement.

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Mobile vendors and evangelists heard from Madison Avenue during a panel full of media buyers at the OMMA Mobile conference in New York Wednesday. The message: We like SMS text campaigns, and we want mobile to play a supporting role in broader media campaigns. That may not be the enthusiastic endorsement that mobile mavens wanted to hear, but it brought a welcome air of reality to the breathless hype that often attends discussions of mobile advertising. It also underscored that if text-message marketing is considered a first step in mobile advertising, it also remains the dominant format.

Much of the appeal of SMS campaigns stems from their relative simplicity and ability to add a direct-response element to traditional brand media, such as placing a short code on a billboard or in a print ad so consumers can text to get more information about a product or a discount.

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It’s one thing to tell consumers about the immediacy of a cellular network. It’s another thing to show it.Sprint today will begin rolling out the online component of its recently launched “Now Network” campaign with customized takeovers of several popular Internet sites that illustrate the things that are occurring on Sprint’s network in real time. Sprint will begin by taking over Yahoo’s home page today, and will expand the buy to include AOL, ESPN.com, WSJ.com, People.com, CNT and YouTube during the week.

“We’re trying to show the Now Network’s relevance,” Candice Wolken, Sprint’s advertising manager, tells Marketing Daily. “We worked with many of the sites to determine what would go on them.”

The online ads, created by Omnicom’s Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, will be tailored to each of the sites and will encourage consumers to interact with the information on those sites. On YouTube, for instance, the takeover will feature a clock in which users (who have filmed themselves holding up a pre-assigned number) will become a real-time clock.

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FreeWheel, whose Monetization Rights Management platform helps content owners and distributors to sell ad inventory, on Thursday is expected to announce the closing of its Series-C round of financing worth $12 million. Led by Foundation Capital and existing investor Battery Ventures, the investment will be used to support the company’s infrastructure and continued growth.

San Mateo, Calif.-based FreeWheel was founded early last year by three DoubleClick alums and digital media veterans. The company offers content owners, carriers, and distributors end-to-end video ad management technology, which attempts to simplify the task of managing video ad sales, ad serving, and ad sales rights across widely syndicated distribution channels.

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Universal Pictures plans to integrate Twitter into rich media ads that will promote two separate movies scheduled for release this summer. The tweets will appear in the banner similar to a ticker feed. People will have an option to read and monitor the buzz written by other fans directly from the Web page. Consumers will start seeing the ads in late June, according to Doug Neil, SVP of digital marketing at Universal Pictures. “We know video catches peoples’ eyes, but once you have their attention, you want to engage them around other content to sell the movie,” he said.

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Nielsen Wednesday began informing advertisers, agencies and television networks that rely on its national TV ratings that a significant number of people don’t use its so-called “people meter” system properly. In fact, new data being released by Nielsen shows that the more people that are present in those TV ratings households, the more likely it is that they are not reporting their viewing accurately, and that the overall affect has been understating the national TV ratings by about 8%. Nielsen did not release information showing what the effect was on specific TV outlets, programs or dayparts, and the average is the net result of people who both overstate and understate their viewing either by pushing people meter buttons when they are not actually watching TV, or by forgetting to push them when the are watching.

The findings are the first results to be released by Nielsen from a somewhat controversial research initiative it began last year, and which it will continue conducting quarterly on an ongoing basis in order to better understand how people comply with the people meter ratings system, and more importantly, how Nielsen can take steps to improve that compliance via better coaching methods, and by focusing on the most problematic households.

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Count Disney in. The Walt Disney Co. is joining NBC Universal, News Corp. and Providence Equity Partners as a joint venture partner and equity owner of the popular online video aggregator Hulu. The agreement is still subject to regulatory review, but once it closes Disney will have three seats on the Hulu board, held by Bob Iger, president and CEO or the Walt Disney Co.; Anne Sweeney, president Disney/ABC Television Group; and Kevin Mayer, Disney/ABC executive vice president, corporate strategy, business development and technology.

The deal will, of course, bring popular ABC and Disney programs to Hulu, stocking Hulu with episodes of primetime hits such as Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty.

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Labour MPs have called on the government to review its rules on product placement in television shows.
Ministers are reportedly unhappy with the current regime and 39, including 21 from the Labour Party, have signed a Commons Motion which puts pressure on culture secretary Andy Burnham to change the rules.

Tabled by Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle, the motion has garnered a certain amount of cross-party support.

Both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems have asked government to relax the rules on product placement - which are much more liberal in the rest of the European Union.

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The most “shameless” examples of product placement in film have been named by men’s lifestyle magazine Esquire.

An increasingly popular option for marketers, block busting titles can earn millions from manufacturers, while brands see their profile - and sales - lifted through association with a successful title.

Last year,  jeweller H Stern, Glaceau Vitaminwater, Skyy Vodka, Coca-Cola and Bag Borrow all signed up to appear to appear in the chick-flick ‘Sex and the City, The Movie’.

However, while film studios can rake in the bucks, it can all back fire if placements are considered too blatant and critics pan the movie a ‘sell-out’.

Hence the Carrie Bradshaw and Co. big screen project was named ‘Film Whore’ of the year
In last year’s annual Brandcameo Product Placement Awards from Brandchannel.

But back to Esquire’s top five favourite whores of their own.

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