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TOP ONLINE STORY
Loopt Launches Local Advertising
by Mark Walsh
Competition is heating up in the social location space, with companies like Yelp, Gowalla and Foursquare recently raising fresh capital and adding new features and partners. And then there's Google, entering the fray with tools like Near Me Now and Latitude.
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TOP MEDIA STORY
Bring It On: Political Spending Expected To Hit $4.2 Billion
by Wayne Friedman
Good news for TV stations -- but not so much for TV viewers -- is that future political advertising could turn into an "endless campaign." Per Borrell, the 2010 season is estimated to hit a record $4.2 billion.
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TOP MARKETING STORY
Private-Label Growth Outpacing Brands
by Karlene Lukovitz
"Wine is a highly fragmented category, and we believe that in many cases, consumers are not even aware that they're buying private-label wines -- the wines come in attractive bottles and don't actually bear a retailer's name," says Nielsen's Danny Brager. Some retailers' private-label spirits brands also tend to fly under the consumer's radar; in other cases, consumers simply view store brands as a good value.
THIS JUST IN
Rentrak Wants Every Market To Resemble Columbus
by David Goetzl 9 hours ago |
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As Rentrak looks to expand its ratings service for local TV, CEO Bill Livek indicated that a strategy is inking a deal with a station group in a market, and then persuading competitors to follow.
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IN PRINT
INSIDE JANUARY
Fast Forward
January columns are always ones for waxing on about the year ahead. And, rest assured, I will, but first let me talk a little about the year behind - very little. It sucked. It sucked so much so, that I watched a lot of good people - really...
The Dying of the Light
There is no denying that daytime soap operas - once the cash cows of the broadcast networks - have seen better days, and it's safe to say that we'll never see a return to those heady times when 30 million viewers tuned in for Luke and Laura's wedding...
Webisoaps Keep the World Turning
Watching episodes of today's low-budget, limited-run Web soaps (with their average running times of approximately five minutes), it is difficult to imagine the genre developing into something that might rival or replace the daytime dramas of broadcast television. But remember, television soaps in their infancy ran for only...
Double Coverage
The office is sparsely decorated, but exemplifies the dichotomy between a career left and a new one beginning. A replica Super Bowl trophy is on one side. Directly across are two framed Playbills from Broadway productions he's involved in....
Will Bud Drop the Bowl?
Over the past 20-plus years, Anheuser-Busch ads have become sort of a sine qua non of the Super Bowl. The brewer has used the audience of more than 100 million to introduce expressions such as "Whassup" and stunts such as the Bud Bowl into the American lexicon. But...
Novel Excerpt: Ad Asylum
I'm watching my poor cell phone. I think it's become schizophrenic. I've programmed it with so many different ringtones for so many different things that it's lost its identity. One tone for my clients, one for my boss, one for my work friends, another for my creative director....
Agency of the Year 2009: Agency of the Year: MPG
All too often, MEDIA's Agency of the Year profiles begin by rationalizing why we made the picks we did. We do that mainly for readers who may not have had the privilege of being exposed to the winner's work, which in the case of media services, sometimes may...
Agency of the Year 2009: Boutique of the Year: Spark
Spark Communications often operates in the shadows of its bigger brethren Starcom and MediaVest, but the entrepreneurial spirit of the media boutique helped it stand out and differentiate itself in a way that the more established Publicis' media brands could not during 2009....
Agency of the Year 2009: Supplier of the Year: Hulu
Given News Corp.'s war on free content, and NBC Universal's future under cable king Comcast, Hulu's path is looking unclear at best. In 2009, however, the joint video venture - between News Corp., NBCU and, more recently, Disney - reigned supreme as the Web's premier platform for premium...
Agency of the Year 2009: Client of the Year: Malvertisers
Every so often, magazine editors like to use gimmicks to convey important ideas and trends that are changing the world of their readers. And more often than not, they use devices like annual awards or recognitions to do this. So in the spirit of Time magazine picking everyone...
On The Record: The Last Remote
The first TV remote control was created in 1950 and was a rather clunky device called the Lazy Bone. Limited to turning the set on and off and to changing channels, it was doomed to fail - largely because people tripped over the inconvenient cable that stretched from...
The Sell: The Real-Time Focus Group
My advertising mantra is "crawl, walk, run." While it is tempting to jump directly into the latest and greatest (think social or mobile), grounding a campaign in paid search (tried and true) is ultimately more efficient. Search is a reasonable basis for every campaign because it is a...
The [Ad]vantage: Dude, Where's My Flying Car?
Here's to the future we live in. It's 2010, a favorite time period among science-fiction writers, when fantastically advanced technology would be infused into everything that surrounds us. Computers would take on new forms and wait attentively for our next command, intergalactic travel becomes commonplace, and flying cars...
The Futurist: What Took So Long?
With the holidays over and the second decade of the 21st century winding down, it's time to recap the highlights from the gift-giving season. As always, technology fueled the new must-have gifts as augmented reality completed its transformation from aesthetic value to core functionality. It's no surprise that...
Media Marketplace: A Mob of Meerkats
Instead of behaving like a mob of meerkats, nervously scanning the post-recession landscape for the next scary thing to send us scurrying into our holes, it's time to bring the strategy and impact back to media. The best place to start isn't just spending more, but spending more...
[In]Sight: Social Media Literacy Rising
Of all the data on our evolving media landscape I've unearthed over the last year, one fact has struck me much more forcibly than any other. Over the last 12 months, across the world, social networking has overtaken face-to-face as the primary way that Internet users maintain their...
Productivity: A Darwinian Gale
What the great recession has wrought is not what is popularly supposed. One common view, perhaps the most widely proclaimed, is that the recessionary experience of frugality has ushered in an enduring era of penny-pinching and thrift that will wholly define the character and mindset of the recovery...
The Consumer: A Staggeringly Foolish Plan
Being a generally optimistic chap, I rarely fall victim to cynicism. But I've found myself wondering recently whether new media hasn't started to get, well ... a bit old.
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Anachronistic Front: The Future Perfect
"My global concept is called Rétrofuturs: Mix the past, the present, the future, and shake it," says designer and former semiotics professor Stéphane Massa-Bidal, who created this series envisioning social media platforms as classic Penguin paperbacks....
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INSIDE JANUARY
Ed:Blog: Interns of the Year?
The day we announced the honorees of OMMA magazine's 2009 Agency of the Year Awards, an intern at R/GA, which we selected as Agency of the Year, tweeted "Does this make us interns of the year?"
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Agency of the Year 2009: R/GA
The Outsiders: It seemed more than a little back-to-the-future, when, on a recent December morning, yours truly found herself once again at the quasi-compound that is R/GA New York. I was there, of course, to delve into what made it OMMA's Agency of the Year, but all I...
Agency of the Year 2009: Silver: Razorfish
Tougher than leather: Like the prehistoric relic its name conjures, Razorfish, one of the very first interactive agencies, has weathered cataclysmic shifts in the online environment, surviving two recessions and remaining intact through four acquisitions....
Agency of the Year 2009: Best Creative: AKQA
Flipping and mixing recession?
What recession? While the agency business was hit hard by the economic downturn last year, AKQA enjoyed one of its "most productive and fruitful years ever," says AKQA global creative director Rei Inamoto....
Agency of the Year 2009: Best Search: iCrossing
A vital connection is made: It didn't matter how ugly the online ad industry got in 2009, iCrossing managed to shrug it off. Research firm eMarketer estimates companies spent $22.4 billion, down 4.6 percent from the prior year, for online advertising in the United States....
Agency of the Year 2009: Best Mobile: Phonevalley
How local can global go? Publicis Groupe's mobile marketing agency Phonevalley may not be planning global mobile domination quite yet, but it certainly has a worldwide plan. Since its acquisition by Publicis in 2007, Phonevalley has brought mobile expertise into 30 of the company's agencies in 10 countries....
Agency of the Year 2009: Best Buying and Planning: MediaVest
Hulu hooping across platforms: When it made an upfront-style deal with Hulu, Mediavest moved millions of dollars out of broadcast and into the digital space for such old-line clients as Procter & Gamble, showing the confidence to make industry-leading moves, with the scale and means to pull them...
Agency of the Year: Best Web Design and Development: Firstborn
Born to run: Working both with agency partners such as Droga5, Wunderman and Ogilvy as well as, increasingly, as digital AOR (including recent wins Aflac and SoBe), Firstborn has raised the bar for advanced design and development that feels somehow simple and intuitive to users. After all, all...
Cross-Media Case Study: Signal Strength
In early 2009, Verizon Wireless knew it was headed for a showdown with AT&T. Months away was Verizon's pact with Google, the launch of the Droid smartphone and the company's effort to elbow AT&T out of the iPhone contract. It was dawning on the phone giant, known as...
Logging In: The False Darwinism Of Competition
How many ad networks on one media plan are too many? If you are running a performance-based campaign, the answer may be two. Does that sound crazy? After all, it's pretty common today to see online media plans that have six, seven, 10 or even more networks on...
Web U: To Bid Or Not To Bid
Hamlet asked, "To be or not to be?" Advertisers have to ponder "To bid or not to bid?" - on their own name. And it is the question brand managers have the most trouble answering. Sometimes bidding on your own name is a smart idea, other times it...
Industry Watch: Shopping May Be Dropping
It's no surprise that people spent less on gifts this holiday season, but a somewhat surprising Nielsen survey reveals that of those dollars being spent, even less went online. Bargain hunting is the norm during the holiday season, and this year it seems that shoppers used the Web...
Markets Focus: Marketing In The Ruff
Call it anthropomorphism, or more accurately, call it a lucrative market. Dog owners are a marketer's best friend - even when the task at hand isn't pushing pet products. Despite their high maintenance, dogs remain the most popular pet in the United States, with 45.6 million households owning...
Ad Nets Focus: The New Vertical Is Horizontal
Vertical ad networks once promised deeper service based on transparency, so-called "expert" knowledge of niche audiences, and a more effective way to reach users than the big horizontal networks. But have they delivered?...
Behind The Numbers: Whose Brand Is It, Anyway?
Your brand is not your own anymore. It belongs to consumers, to social media and, frankly, to whoever is talking about you. In fact, the growing importance of social media is giving rise to a new type of marketing that Shiv Singh, the vice president and social media...
Creative Roundtable: Trench Warfare
In a move that can be likened to man's first step on the moon, Burberry has ventured into social networking, launching TheArtoftheTrench.com. Seriously, this is a big deal - at least in the world of luxury brands, which have resisted mingling with common folk on the Internet. But...
RAM: Broken Shopping Cart National Forest
Every day, online retailers are forced to wonder why they couldn't close the deal with customers who leave items orphaned in their shopping carts. Was there a problem with the site? Confusion about the shipping costs? Did they just go to grab a sandwich and never come back?...
RAM: The Poetry of Digital Direct Marketing
Aaron Smith and Lisa Harmon are regulars at MediaPost's Email Insider Summit, where they appeared again this past December. But this time, they found themselves more in the limelight and receiving a few more huzzahs than usual.
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RAM: Oh Snap! Every Logo Can Be Interactive
With over 75 percent of consumers now having picture messaging capabilities on their phones, visual recognition advertising has been a hot topic of late, enabling companies to launch a virtual conversation with their target consumer via traditional media. Through mobile activation, companies have found a way to not...
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RECENT EVENT VIDEOS
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| TODAY'S ONLINE NEWS AND HEADLINES |
HughesNet Lawyers Claim Advertised Broadband Speeds Were 'Puffery,' Court Allows Lawsuit To Proceed
10 hours ago
A group of consumers in California can proceed with their false advertising lawsuit against broadband satellite provider HughesNet for allegedly delivering Web connections at lower-than-advertised speeds, a court has ruled. U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti in the northern district of California rejected HughesNet's argument that its advertised...
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Iain Tait Joins W+K As ECD
Wieden+Kennedy on Monday named Iain Tait as its new global interactive executive creative director. Tait joins Dan Wieden and John Jay, executive creative directors, and chief operating officer Dave Luhr, on the global management team that oversees all seven of the W+K network offices....
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Armchair CDs Speak Out On Super Bowl Spots
Twitter and social media have become the water coolers, spitting out data on ads during Super Bowl XLIV. While most football fans munched on chips and salsa Sunday night watching the Saints battle the Colts for the championship, marketers and ad agency executives monitored the Web for chatter....
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Constant Contact Looks To Radio For New Email Marketing Clients, Boosts Rev 50%
In a year when many marketing firms struggled, Constant Contact saw a nearly 50% revenue increase and increased its staff. And the company -- which advertises heavily on radio -- said the results surprised it....
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Social Media Platform Aims To Separate Signals From The Noise
Networked Insights plans to announce this week several features in its SocialSense platform that should give marketers more insight into chatter across social media channels. The benefits range from tighter integration with Twitter and Quantcast, to date-range analysis, and trending based on insights and keyword tag clouds....
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Facebook Dumps Microsoft Display, But Bing Is In
Following a renegotiation of an existing ad placement partnership, Facebook will no longer run Microsoft display ads on its popular social network. The two companies, have, however, expanded their search partnership, which is obviously good news for Microsoft's search engine Bing....
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DBG Boosts Analytics With Datran Media's Aperture
Video network Digital Broadcasting Group has integrated Datran Media's Aperture digital audience measurement technology across its platform, the companies announced Monday. DBG's agency and brand clients will now have access to Aperture's data-driven audience measurement platform, and reporting and analytics capabilities....
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Social Net Tagged Agrees To Destroy Allegedly Ill-Begotten Email Addresses
Social networking site Tagged.com has agreed to destroy email addresses it collected from users who allegedly were duped into sharing their contact lists. The company also promised to provide all U.S. users with a "clear and conspicuous" means to cancel their accounts.
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Mobclix Teams With Nielsen On Targeting Data
Through an alliance with The Nielsen Co., mobile ad exchange Mobclix will give mobile advertisers and publishers the ability to target specific audiences based on their lifestyles, buying habits, media preferences and openness to adopting new technologies.
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Google's Schmidt Says 'Hell Has Frozen Over,' Runs Super Bowl Ad In Third Quarter
Hell froze over Sunday night just as Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said it would in a tweet on Twitter. About half way through the third quarter of Super Bowl XLIV, the Mountain View, Calif., search engine ran an ad titled "Parisian Love."...
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| AROUND THE NET IN ONLINE |
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Study: Consumers Left Cold By iPad Retrevo
Despite working industry followers into a ravenous frenzy, Apple's iPad unveiling failed to capture the imaginations of potential consumers -- or at least according to a follow-up study by electronics site Retrevo. "Not only did Apple...
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AOL Close To Selling IM Service All Things D
Sources tell BoomTown that AOL is close to selling off its ICQ instant messaging service, having trimmed down a list of seven suitors to four. The price for the service is rumored to be just under...
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Claim: China Pulls Plug On Hackers The Guardian (UK)
Chinese state media is reporting that government authorities have closed a training popular Web site for hackers, and arrested three of its managers. The so-called Black Hawk Safety Net site taught thousands of people...
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Analysts: Google Display Ads Going Big BusinessWeek
Display ads are likely to contribute a little more than $1 billion, or about 4% of Google's total sales this year -- an increase of as much 40% over last year -- analysts, including...
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Google Takes On Real-Time Voice Translation Times (UK)
According to the Times (UK), Google is working on developing software for a mobile phone that could translate the words of two speakers -- speaking different languages -- having a conversation in real-time. The field of...
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Google Says Super Bowl Ad Just Sort Of Happened Google Blog et al.
Despite itself, and without any premeditation, Google ran a 52-second spot during the Super Bowl on Sunday night. Yes, this most expensive and highly-scrutinized of ad placements occurred quite serendipitously, according to CEO Eric Schmidt.
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| TODAY'S MEDIA NEWS AND HEADLINES |
Magazine Newsstand Sales Slip 10%
A survey of circulation data for 115 leading consumer magazines from the most recent Audit Bureau of Circulations report revealed that total newsstand sales for the group fell 10% between the second half of 2008 and the second half of 2009....
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Super Bowl Delivers Record-Breaking Performance
For the third year in a row, the Super Bowl has hit a record in average total viewership, now up 8% to 106.5 million viewers. The close game won by the New Orleans Saints over the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17, also hit a record in total households -- 51.7...
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Super Bowl Tops Ad, Promo Run
CBS ran slightly more ads than NBC did a year ago in the high-rated Super Bowl, setting an all-time record. The network aired nearly 39-and-a-half minutes of ads -- which was about 90 seconds more than what came in 2009....
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Forrester: Social Media, Web Spend Up, TV Down
A new Forrester Research/Association of National Advertisers survey says TV marketers plan to spend 41% of their media budgets on television in 2010 -- the same level as a year ago -- but down from 2008. Conversely, social media, Web advertising and search are stealing budgets from TV...
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Kagan: TV Ad Revs Less In 2013 Than 2006
Although the advertising share of revenues from digital and retransmission fees will grow in the coming years, overall ad dollars for TV stations will still be $3 billion less in three years than ad dollars in 2006....
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Worst Super Bowl Party? Letterman Joins Leno For Comedy Promo
The biggest Super Bowl TV commercial surprise didn't come from its paying advertisers, but from the network itself -- David Letterman appeared with Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey in a comedy promo for "Late Show with David Letterman."...
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CEO Wong Exits Lifetime
In move long anticipated, Andrea Wong will leave as president/CEO of Lifetime Networks. Wong took the post in April 2007. Her most notable achievement was negotiating a mega-deal to acquire "Project Runway."...
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Dish To Carry Tetris Interactive Games
Wildly successful video game Tetris is now playable with the remote control for subscribers of Dish Network. The 25-year-old puzzle challenge is available on the satellite provider through a deal with Oberon Media....
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Magazine Sub Prices Fall, But Subs Don't Rise
Hoping to boost their appeal to consumers forced to cut back during a severe economic downturn, big magazine publishers lowered their subscription prices substantially in 2009 -- but didn't see increased demand for subscriptions....
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Google Calculates Benefits For Direct-Response Ads
Under a new feature, the Google TV Ads platform can now automatically provide an advertiser with a cost-benefit analysis for a direct-response ad. The system provides a spreadsheet breaking down the cost-per-call an advertiser receives per spot....
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| AROUND THE NET IN MEDIA |
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Disney, Google Interested In Chinese Media Firm Reuters
A consortium led by Walt Disney Co. is in advanced talks to buy into China's largest in-bus digital media and advertising company, a deal that could offer the U.S. entertainment giant a new platform to promote Mickey Mouse in China...
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ABC Affils Angry ESPN Grabbing Key Sports Events Mediaweek
ABC's affiliates are angry that corporate sibling ESPN is being handed live sports events they were initially supposed to carry. The most recent move came in January when ESPN announced it planned to take eight Nascar races this fall from...
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'View' Goes From Girlie To Political Los Angeles Times
"The View" discusses fashion and celebrities, but it also has raised interest and D.C. notice by talking politics. In recent days, the five hosts -- Walters, Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd -- have jousted over gay marriage,...
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Bewkes Warns Time, Inc: Perform Or Leave MarketWatch
Jeff Bewkes, chief executive officer of Time Warner, expects the publishing division to show earnings growth and make significant progress in its digital transformation. Bewkes will hold on to Time Inc. -- or any other asset -- "if it fits...
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Fox, Conan Talk Show Time The Wrap
Fox and Conan O'Brien have begun doing their respective due diligence as they try to figure out how a deal might be hammered out to bring O'Brien to Fox. To make Conan on Fox a reality, however, everyone involved will...
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ABC's Sawyer Cool, Sleek Newscasts Appeal To Viewers Los Angeles Times
Quietly taking over as anchor from Charles Gibson at " ABC World News" at the end of last year, Diane Sawyer may be able to succeed where Katie Couric hasn't quite clicked. (Both still trail NBC News' Brian Williams in...
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