Archive for July, 2009

In last night’s episode of “The Colbert Report,” Stephen examined this year’s summer jamz, and in the process took issue with the video for the Black Eyed Peas’ latest hit, “I Gotta Feeling.” He lamented: “Peas, please! You guys are the masters of the mass-market sell-out. You missed so many advertunities!”

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NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Walt Disney’s ABC intends to sell less advertising inventory in its upfront negotiations than it has in previous years, the chief financial officer of Disney said in remarks delivered during a conference call with investors.

“We are still in the midst of our upfront process. We are comfortable with the rates ABC has been achieving,” said Tom Staggs, senior exec VP-chief financial officer of Walt Disney Co. “We anticipate selling less of our inventory in this year’s upfront than in recent years,” he said. Mr. Staggs indicated that Disney believed it would fare well in the so-called scatter market, in which advertisers commit money for advertising much closer to the time it is slated to air. He also said that “major advertisers remain on the sidelines” in the current upfront marketplace.

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You may just get the opportunity to do that. Then what? Well, if you listen to a couple of the leading behavioral targeting optimizers, you’d better know who you’re actually trying to target. But in many cases, marketers and agencies simply do not know.

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Former Entertainment Weekly publisher Scott Donaton has landed on the agency side of things with his new post as president and CEO of IPG/Mediabrands’ branded entertainment unit, “Ensemble.” Donaton will leverage his experience in both the entertainment industries and the ad sales side to bring to Mediabrands’ clients opportunities for deeper integration with content.

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Analyzing data for May from its Stop-Watch ratings service, which tracks usage patterns of 250,000 subscribers, TiVo found that TV commercials lost as much as 84% of their potential audiences during that month. While the data varies widely depending on factors like the program and time of day, overall, it seems to confirm that people who can skip TV commercials frequently do.

The data is incorporated into TiVo’s “Pure Program” ratings, a new research service separating TiVo play data for programs and advertising content. Basically, this means TiVo can compare the number of subscribers who allowed commercials to play — partially or in their entirety — by the total number of TiVo subscribers who tuned in to a program, including live and time-shifted viewing.

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To help brand advertisers better measure and track their online ad campaigns, Microsoft on Thursday announced a collaboration with comScore to design a digital media-planning service. The Reach and Frequency Planner — or RF Planner, for short — was developed to help advertisers more easily determine and predict how consumers will respond to their digital ads.

The RF Planner uses a hybrid audience measurement method that combines Microsoft’s ad-serving data with demographic information from comScore’s panel. It will offer forecasted reach and frequency for online ad campaigns and comScore’s post-buy reporting to show how closely the campaign performance tracked to the prediction.

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After participating in a Digital Brand Think Tank in Munich a couple of weeks ago (a lively discussion with 20 marketing executives from Audi, BMW, Google, Continental, and other top-tier brands), I must admit that I’m a bit tired of having to evangelize (or even justify) the value of brands using social media. It is astonishing to me that companies still ask for evidence when the tweet is on the wall. The event showed that there is a new Digital Divide that cuts straight through the ranks of the marketing industry – some executives get the Social Web, some don’t. No one has figured it out yet. Most would admit that they need to catch up and keep learning.

Marc Mielau, head of digital media at the BMW Group, certainly belongs to the former cohort, and at the event in Munich he shared some interesting insights into his company’s much acclaimed online strategy. BMW has long been on the leading edge of marketing innovation and has embraced social media formats early on (remember the hugely successful branded entertainment “The Hire” film series, featuring renowned directors like Wong-Kar Wai?). To me, more than the actual programs, the most remarkable thing about BMW is how the company has managed to establish a culture of marketing innovation. It is much easier to pull off a sporadic viral hit than to build and sustain a proactive and trendsetting digital marketing engine.

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The Obama beer bash in the aftermath of the Henry Louis Gates incident has turned into an unplanned demonstration of the power of product placement, giving free air time to four lucky brews.

Barack Obama selected a Bud Light (which we still think of as a US brew but is actually owned by a Belgian company), Gates a Jamaican Red Stripe, and Cambridge officer Joseph Crowley a Blue Moon, an ale from Miller/Coors and the only made-in-the-USA selection. At least those were the reported selections prior to the meeting.

When it actually took place, Obama and Crowley had stuck with their original picks; Gates switched to a Sam Adams Light, from his own home market of Boston. And VP Joe Biden was there as a late invitee, drinking a non-alcoholic brand called Buckler.

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Nick Brien, President and CEO Mediabrands, the media management unit of IPG, announced the appointment of Scott Donaton, former Entertainment Weekly Publisher, to lead Mediabrands’ new branded entertainment unit “Ensemble.”  Through an alliance with Media Link, LLC, Ensemble will help Mediabrands clients leverage a range of strategic branded entertainment opportunities.  A proven executive with deep experience in entertainment, brand marketing and content creation, Scott will work with Mediabrands agencies and their clients to bridge the gap between marketers and the entertainment industry. 

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Scott Donaton has been named president and CEO of Ensemble, a new branded entertainment unit of IPG’s MediaBrands.

Ensemble has allied with Michael Kassan’s Media Link, LLC to “help Mediabrands clients leverage a range of strategic branded entertainment opportunities,” Mediabrands said in a prepared statement.

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