Archive for December, 2009

TVGuide.com has selected PubMatic to optimize its ad revenue, the companies are expected to announce on Monday.

“PubMatic has significantly decreased the operational burden of managing multiple ad networks and simultaneously helped us eliminate inefficiencies in our remnant advertising pricing,” said Ian Wallin, vice president of online ad sales at TVGuide.com.

TVGuide.com, which presently reaches 21 million unique users per month, has sought to differentiate itself from the competition by offering online video, news, community and TV listings in a single location.

The content hub also recently partnered with YoungHollywood.com, which is presently creating weekly video segments for TVGuide.com, providing an inside look at the lives of stars. In addition, all celebrity profiles featured on YoungHollywood.com now highlight program listings powered by TVGuide.com. TVGuide.com, meanwhile, is syndicating its original editorial content to YoungHollywood.com.

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NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Weighed down by lackluster programming and declining ratings, NBC has been a problem for many different people: programming honchos Kevin Reilly and Ben Silverman; NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker; GE chief Jeff Immelt; and even one-time top-rated late-night comic Jay Leno. Now the hot potato is soon to be passed to Comcast — which, oddly enough, doesn’t see the broadcast network as a burden at all.

“The network, the broadcast station, and then TV production — when you look at those three as kind of an ecosystem, it’s a good business,” said Steven Burke, Comcast’s chief operating officer and the executive who will oversee NBC Universal once Comcast acquires it. “It clearly is not a business that is without its challenges, but it’s a good business,” he said in remarks made at an investor conference held in New York last week.

Yet NBC’s flagship broadcast network enjoys a tarnished reputation. The Peacock has failed to keep its pipeline stocked with new hits after enjoying great success with such fare as “The Cosby Show” and “Seinfeld” back in the day. Want proof? A recent episode of “Saturday Night Live,” NBC’s own late-night comedy program, poked fun at the transaction, suggesting that “The final sticking point to the deal was GE convincing Comcast that it’s still 1996.”

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BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) — Increasing signs point to a surge in digital spending by package-goods players that’s gathered momentum over the course of 2009 and heading into 2010 — though that might not be apparent from looking at the measured-spending numbers.

At a time when a lot of agencies are laying off, two digital agencies serving industry heavyweight Procter & Gamble Co. and other package-goods players have massively ramped up hiring this year following last year. Between them, they have added more than 140 employees just in the U.S., representing headcount growth of around 30% in a year. P&G rival Unilever is about to name its first digital roster and Reckitt Benckiser, which boosted the medium a lot this year, is also talking big about the next one.

New-business wins by WPP’s Bridge Worldwide, Cincinnati, and independent Resource Interactive, Columbus, account for some of their growth, but organic growth of spending on digital creative among package goods clients has also been a major driver. “The back half of this year in particular we’ve seen just a hockey stick of growth in CPG,” said John Kadlic, director-marketing and business development at Resource. “Not only have we had wins, but a change in the past few years has been the duration of the commitments,” he said. “The contracts for two of the three [CPG] new-business wins are three-year commitments, which is somewhat unusual … and across multiple lines of business.”

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LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” prominently features the film’s star, George Clooney, in its marketing materials, while Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick have been getting a lot of awards buzz for their roles in the new Paramount drama. But two other unique co-stars are getting just as much screen time and attention. American Airlines and Hilton Hotels are prominently featured throughout the film — Mr. Clooney flashes his character’s American Airlines Concierge Key while characters stay at actual Hilton hotels in St. Louis and Miami — as integrated-marketing partners. There’s even a long-running plotline about Mr. Clooney’s character’s lifelong goal of logging 10 million American miles so he can earn the (fictional) honor of having his name emblazoned on a plane and a ride alongside American’s chief pilot (played by Sam Elliott).

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Sara Lee’s recent “Mama Saga” campaign is a good example of how viral video made by a brand can take off, sometimes unexpectedly, said Jack Rotherham, senior VP of strategic sales and partnerships at Metacafe.

The iconic food brand launched its first big social media campaign this fall for its deli meats line and created three mom-centric viral videos for the marketing push that included a buy on the video portal Metacafe, which counts 14 million unique visitors per month in the United States watching 60 million videos, according to comScore numbers provided by Metacafe.

Agencies are keen on Metacafe these days.

Metacafe has been out-performing other shared video sites when it comes to search shelf space, which made us sit up and take notice,” said Robert Davis, leader of the online video practice at Ogilvy, in an email interview with Beet.TV. “It had always been in our arsenal, and is now one of favored partners because the attention they pay to making the most of organic search. We feel somewhat like kin with the Metacafe team, as they truly are looking at the big picture of distributed video content.”

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It’s hard to know where sympathy should lie. It may have been hard to warm to Tiger Woods’ squeaky-clean image. But it is even harder to look forward to a world in which all sportsmen must either be saints or brilliant hypocrites.

Woods’ personal brand has gone from Midas touch to Achilles’ heel in a matter of two weeks. The big corporates who built brand Tiger now can’t wait to offload him. Gatorade, the soft drink brand, has stopped its range of Tiger Focus energy drinks, and advertisements starring Woods are quietly disappearing from US screens. There is no evidence that Woods has lost the ability to hit a golf ball or outwit his opponents. But image, we are learning, affects sport’s economics all too clearly. The best golfer in the world is worth a lot more when he parades himself as a good family man.

All this, lest anyone should be fooled, will not make the next generation of sports stars more inclined to be better people. It will just make them more determined not to get caught.

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Marketing personality. Jack Morton has been a stalwart in the marketing industry for over 70 years. The agency made its name as an events company, specialising in B2B. Now, though, it is using its experience to help redefine the B2C experiential market.
brand-e caught up with Matt Jones, director of strategy at Jack Morton, to get his take on the agency’s change of focus, experiential marketing and – his favourite topic – social media.
“Jack Morton is trying to move away from being a company that creates an event, instead replacing the notion of an event with an experience,” says Jones.
“We don’t do branding. I make that very clear to people. What we do is put a brand’s personality across. And we want to become a world leader at doing that.”
Brands currently doing well with their personalities, in Jones’ opinion, include the likes of Innocent, Virgin Airways, Zappos and, his personal favourite, Apple.
He uses the consumer good market as an example of the need for brands to shift their focus from a product- to experience-led mindset.

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Look out! Cougar on the prowl!Remember Carrie’s low-key wedding to Big at the end of Sex and the City? Well, we don’t either but that’s what we heard happened.

The poster is also noteworthy for being the first one we’ve ever seen with such obvious product placement. If anyone knows what Chanel paid to get their bag in there, drop us a line.

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In the last week on “Jersey Shore” intro that tops the show, we learn the main themes are obviously drinking and hot tubs. The fashion trends revolve mostly around “skin,” dudes go primarily shirtless, and the girls like this bear-mangled loose-fitting light-colored shirt. It’s both reason and proof that most Jersey Shore kids do or should sleep high in the trees at night.

As the show kicks off, we start with Jwoww, fan of too many W’s, doing some fact-gathering from the night before. Not sure who she hooked up with, she pressures Paully D for answers, who eventually admits that yea, they hooked up. But that’s soooo not good for Jwoww because she has a boyfriend! And, she’s only been in the house for a few days so naturally this doesn’t look good for that whole “trust” thing that relationships tend to revolve around. More on that later.

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VOLVO is hoping its tie-up with the hit Twilight vampire movies will lead to increased sales.

Aided by product placement in the movie, Volvo Australia chief Alan Desselss is hoping some of the celebrity will rub off on improved sales for the refreshed C30, S40 and V50, particularly among female fans.

For 2010, Volvo Cars Australia has axed the expensive five-cylinder turbo-diesel in the trio and replaced it with a 2.0-litre turbo-diesel shared with some Ford models.

Rejigging the engines has also helped trim prices. For 2010, the 2-litre diesel in the C30 will set you back $37,950, a saving of $7000.

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