News Hotline

• Fox Sues Dish Network Over AutoHop
  by Wayne Friedman 7 hours ago

  Fox network has filed what analysts believe will be the first of many TV network lawsuits against Dish Network for its new commercial-skipping feature called AutoHop. In return, Dish has countersued Fox, as well as NBC, CBS, and ABC. ...

• PayPal Adds POS, Retail Partners For In-Store Payments
  by Mark Walsh 8 hours ago

  PayPal has announced partnerships with two of the biggest point-of-sale (POS) terminal providers and the expansion of its in-store payment system to an additional 15 retailers. Together, the moves strengthen PayPal's bid to become a key player in the emerging digital wallet arena. ...

• Kohl Urges Scrutiny Of Verizon-Cable Alliance
  by Wendy Davis 10 hours ago

  Verizon's proposed plan to co-market services with four cable companies presents "serious competition concerns," the head of the Senate antitrust subcommittee said on Thursday. ...

• Nissan's Schaffer Talks Races, Ride-and-Drives
  by Karl Greenberg 10 hours ago

  Jay Schaffer, Nissan North America's promotions manager, talks to Marketing Daily about the race, the company's hiring of local-market event and marketing consultants (dubbed Nissan Next Launch Managers), and a road show called Nissan Next. ...

• Facebook Still Commands User Loyalty
  by Mark Walsh 10 hours ago

  Investors may have grown disenchanted with Facebook, but a new survey suggests that users are still highly engaged with the social network. In addition to its huge audience of more than 900 million, the amount of time spent on Facebook has long been one of the key selling ...

• Target Takes Shopkick App Nationwide
  by Sarah Mahoney 10 hours ago

  Target says it is taking its relationship with Shopkick national, and will now accept the app at all its stores. Shopkick allows users to earn points as they shop, redeeming them for rewards and discounts at participating stores nationwide. ...

• TV Everywhere Apps Score Better On iPads Vs. Multichannel Distributors
  by Wayne Friedman 11 hours ago

  Over-the-top mobile video services -- and TV Everywhere services from content owners -- are generally better performers when it comes to iPad downloads than TV Everywhere apps from multichannel video retailers. ...

• 'New Orleans Picayune' Drops Daily Print Schedule
  by Erik Sass 11 hours ago

  The "New Orleans Times-Picayune" is ceasing daily publication and moving to a new print schedule of three days a week, according to Advance Publications. This marks the first time that a major American newspaper has opted to reduce its publishing schedule quite so drastically. ...

• How To Use SEO Citations To Attract Local Business
  by Laurie Sullivan 11 hours ago

  Citation building can become tedious, but Eric Covino identifies a way to integrate this tactic into a part of a local search engine optimization campaign without being too boring. He explains what he believes is a better way to set up the project, find quality citations, compare the ...

• Kirby Winfield's Tech BS List For Online Advertising
  by Laurie Sullivan 11 hours ago

  Kirby Winfield gives us a "total BS" list of the top seven things people in technology have been saying for the past five years. It begins with "brand dollars will come online if we just do ____ " and ends with "ad networks are dead." He explains why ...

• Optimizing Sites To Follow Customer Life Cycles

  Optimizing Web sites for software as a service (SaaS) vendors can become a long and drawn-out process. The sales cycle takes more time and consideration. It's not an impulse buy. And some potential clients can keep a company's brand in sight without actually making content. Naomi Niles gives ...

• Which Gets Better Buzz: Google Or Facebook?

  Facebook and Google are two of the most talked-about companies in the media. Does the search engine or the social network get more buzz? HighBeam Research measured the online attention of both to calculate the amount of media attention received during the past five years. ...

• Out-Of-Home, Cinema Ad Revs Spike

  Buoyed by increases in a number of categories, out-of-home advertising revenue increased 4.5% to $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2012, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. This marks the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth for the medium. ...

• OTT Apps Cut Into Mobile Video Revs

  What do you get when you give consumers the ability to access the full HTML Internet, over-the-top (OTT) video services, apps and TV Everywhere from mobile devices? A significantly reduced incentive for them to pay for dedicated carrier-based mobile video services, according to new research from SNL Ka ...

• Mag Bag: Food Mags Unveil New Cookbooks

  Two leading food magazines -- "Every Day with Rachael Ray" and "Eating Well" -- are helping consumers get ready for summer and eat healthy with free digital cookbooks. ...

• CNN Prime-Time Audience Dwindling

  The figures for last week were truly bad, deeply bad - the worst for the news network in 20 years. CNN averaged just 395,000 viewers in prime time for the week of May 14, a figure lower than any week of prime-time programming on the network since September ...

• New Membership Model Works For National Journal Group

  Nine months ago, Atlantic Media's National Journal Group took the bold step of converting the politics and policy publisher's individual subscription model to one based on membership in hopes of growing revenue and loyalty. The offering was unusual in a few ways: annual fees would go as high ...

• BuzzFeed Preps D.C. Bureau

  The buzz around BuzzFeed opening a Washington bureau is true. Political Editor Ben Smithconfirms to FishbowlDC that the LOL-laden site is shooting to bring on new blood by summer to get the cat pic operation up and running. Will he poach from his former stomping ground of Politicowhere ...

• Wieden + Kennedy Win Grand Efie For 'Detroit'

  Wieden + Kennedy won the Grand Effie for its “Imported from Detroit” campaign for Chrysler. It was one of 10 finalist; last year Wieden also won for the Old Spice "The man your man can smell like" work. The other contenders, included Leo Burnett/Starcom’s “Mayhem” for Allstate; BBDO’s ...

• Mindshare Retains Billion-Dollar Unilever Business

  Mindshare has successfully retained Unilever’s whopping $1.4 billion U.S. media buying account. The CPG giant decided not to go forward with a review of its U.S. media buying work and is nearing a selection for an agency to handle its global media planning chores. ...

• Wake Up! Select Comfort Puts Mattress Account In Review

  Select Comfort Corp., marketer of Sleep Number brand mattresses and related bedding products, is conducting a media agency review, according to sources. The company spent $90 million on ads in 2011, up about 30% from the previous year. ...

• App Platform Kony Cops $15M

  Mobile app development platform Kony Solutions has closed a $15 million series C round of financing, led by Insight Venture Partners. With cash in hand, “The startup is looking [to] fund the deployment of new sales and marketing programs, regional expansion, and to ramp up hiring,” TechCrunch reports.  ...

• Mobile Threatens Browser Diversity

  As it stands, consumers can freely choose between four or five browsers to surf the Web. Yet, some suggest that the rise of mobile devices threatens such freedom. “On personal computers running Windows, Macs, and Linux, you can pick from a variety of browsers, finding the best combination ...

• Skinnygirl In 'Drink Like a Lady' Campaign

  Women "know what they want...and the art of socializing should be on their own terms," says Skinnygirls Cocktails founder Bethenny Frankel. Both the brand and the new campaign are about "reinventing the art of cocktailing," she adds. ...

• Facebook Gives Developers More Data

  Despite a few distractions, Facebook this week said developers would now be able to track all of the activity going on within the social net with far more granularity. Apps that publish Open Graph stories, for example, will now be able to track the unique numbers of publishes, ...

• ABC TV Stations Set Alarm App To Promote Shows

  If eight ABC stations have their way, viewers will go to sleep after watching "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and wake up listening to their branded alarm clocks. Call it a different version of "Good Morning America." ...

• Net-Connected TV Grows Ad Impressions

  Net-connected TV video ad impressions are five times that of 2011. There are also five times more advertisers and 15 times more campaigns when comparing May 2012 versus May 2011, per Videology. Some of these devices include Smart TV, Apple TV, Google TV and Xbox 360. ...

• Scripps Exec Notes Scatter Uptick, YouTube Programming Options

  Scripps Networks Interactive CFO Joe NeCastro says market trends look positive, with scatter pricing up in the single-digit range over levels in the spring of 2011. His company is also keeping an eye on YouTube, which is launching new online channels. ...

• What's Scarier Than Facebook IPO?

  Dan Bigman explores the social network's share structure, a dual-class arrangement founder Mark Zuckerberg set up wherein the Class-B shares he controls carry 10 times the voting power of the A shares. "That means he owns about 18% of the company, but controls more than 50% of the ...

• New McDonald's CEO Steps In

  Don Thompson steps in as McDonald's CEO next month. He will become one of the nation's most powerful African-American executives, but the pressure will mount for him to change McDonald's at an even faster clip than his predecessor, Jim Skinner, who steps down June 30. Under his tenure, ...

• P&G Restructures Marcomms

  In an effort to boost marketing efficiencies by $1 billion, P&G is fusing its global communications function with marketing under the stewardship of global marketing chief Marc Pritchard to build more integrated brand activity. The shift towards a global "communications" division will see greater emphasis placed on communications' ...

• The Most Valuable Soccer Teams

  Manchester United is most valuable franchise in soccer, and in all of professional sports, at $1.86 billion. Real Madrid with a value of $1.4 billion is second, followed by Arsenal, at $1.19 billion. Overall, the average value of the 20 clubs on Forbes' list increased to $640 million, ...

• Fiat Inks Roadster Deal With Mazda

  Fiat SpA and Mazda Motor Corp. are collaborating on a roadster based on the Mazda MX-5 Miata. The move is the beginning of a deeper tie-up between Japan's fifth-largest automaker and Chrysler Group LLC's parent company. The cooperation could also lead to a jointly produced next-generation Miata, an ...

• Hardee's, Carl's Jr. Tout Spiderman

  Carl's Jr. and Hardee's have teamed up with Sony Pictures for "The Amazing Spider-Man." The chains, owned by CKE Restaurants did likewise with the "Spider-Man" film in 2002. This summer, customers entering the restaurants across the country will find an array of advertising, fan events, Spider-Man-themed promotional and ...

• Mobile Malware Exploding In Android App Markets

  Malware has arrived on smartphones in a big way, and Google's Android appears to be the soft underbelly the bad guys are targeting. Fake anti-virus apps and premium SMS scams make the dark art profitable for hackers. ...

• Calif. Launches Mental Illness Social Media Campaign

  The campaign aims to dispel the misconceptions many Californians have about people living with mental illness, since misunderstandings and misconceptions can prevent people from getting help. ...

• Top Story: Rentrak, MasterCard To Merge TV Audience, Consumer Transactional Data

  Nielsen rival Rentrak this morning announced a deal with credit card giant MasterCard that it says will integrate Rentrak's TV audience data with MasterCard's "consumer trends and insights" derived from billions of payment transactions. Rentrak said the deal is intended to provide advertisers and agencies with "deeper insights ...

• Tablets Expand On Millennial Network

  The iPad may be the dominant tablet brand, but Android-based rivals are registering on radar as mobile ad vehicles in their own right. New findings from Millennial Media show a trio of tablets made its ranking of top 20 mobile devices by mobile ad impressions for the first ...

• ABC Local Apps Stick To Basics: News, Weather, Traffic, Waking Up

  Using a decidedly simple feature set for at-a-glance functionality, ABC's group of owned local TV stations has started rolling out "alarm clock" apps. The iOS apps are meant to cover the local news mainstays: news, time, weather, and traffic. ...

• Pfizer Launches Lipitor Mobile App

  Pfizer Inc. is launching an app tied to its Lipitor prescription medication, marking the first time Pfizer has released a consumer mobile app for a prescription product in the U.S. The app is tied in to Meredith Corp.'s "EatingWell" magazine. ...

• Yahoo Builds Browsers For Mobile, Desktop, Connects Ad Targeting Cross-Platform

  Yahoo on Thursday unveils a browser with search functions dubbed Axis for tablet, smartphone and desktop devices. The browsers will eventually support a combination of paid-search and display ads, along with cross-platform ad targeting and search functions. ...

• Facebook Appeals Pro-User Ruling To Recoup Legal Fees

  Facebook is pressing its claim to recover $700,000 in legal fees from consumers who unsuccessfully sued the company for allegedly misappropriating their names and images in ads. ...

• Local Cable Grows Political Ad Dollars

  It may come as no surprise that spot TV is still the media-buying tool of choice for presidential candidates' advertising campaigns -- but local cable appears to be gaining. The medium now averages 19% in terms of overall ad unit share of political candidates' media buys. ...

• Humorous AAMCO Campaign Makes Engine Noises

  Says Jack Bachinsky, VP marketing: "We decided to extend ["We Hear You,"] and this is the perfect next-generation ad." He says the "Trust" campaign reflects the importance of the issue based on consumer research. ...

• McClatchy Newspapers Plan Paywalls

  McClatchy Co., one of the nation's largest newspaper publishers, is planning to introduce online paywalls at its newspaper Web sites. The first batch of five newspapers will introduce their online paywalls about two months from now, using the online payment system tested at 'The Modesto Bee.' ...

• Ford And Yahoo Home In On Electric Focus

  Ford is launching its first electric car solely online, and solely on Yahoo Screen's custom content online program, "Plugged-In." The program, launching May 29, features people like David Arquette and Adrian Grenier, and the cities in which they live. ...

• Facebook App Stars Brands In Timeline Movies

  Definition 6, a marketing agency specializing in viral video campaigns, released the Timeline Movie Maker for Facebook Pages, a brand-oriented version of the Timeline Movie Maker app that it launched for individual users early this year. ...

• Mobile Video Message Use On Rise

  While mobile video messages reminding viewers to watch a television show have surfaced as one of the more popular communications between media companies and consumers, the marketing tool has become especially popular on iOS and Android devices across AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless. That's according to a Mogreet ...

• WAS Steers Jaguar Social Media Account

  Social media agency We Are Social has been appointed by iconic car brand Jaguar to manage its global social media account after a formal review. WAS has been awarded a two-year contract; it will continue the day-to-day oversight of the client's community engagement programs on Facebook, Twitter, and ...

• Paywalls Proliferate, Most DIgital Pros Won't Pay For Them

  While the figures may not be indicative of broader consumer behaviors, over half of digital media professionals who encounter online paywalls say they immediately leave the Web site. The news comes as more U.S. newspapers establish, or consider establishing, online paywalls for their content. ...

• Initiative Splits Innovations, Digital Units, Rosner To Run Innovations

  Nearly a year after combining the operations, media shop Initiative is now de-coupling its Innovations and Digital units. The move comes after MillerCoors consolidated its nearly $400 million (per Kantar) media assignment with Initiative earlier this month. Dave Rosner will return to running the Innovations operation as executive ...

• TBS Touts Facebook ads as Part of Upfront Package

  Falling stock prices? Who cares? Facebook has partnered with TBS in a partnership where the network will bundle Facebook ads with its own TV and online ads. This marks the first time the social media company has partnered with a network to sell its own content. ...

• Coke Intros Celebrity Tumblr Themes

  Each celebrity worked directly with Coca-Cola North America and digital agency 360i to provide input on their themes, including design elements and content. 360i handles digital design, strategy and community management for Coca-Cola. ...

• M Magazine To Be Relaunched By Conde Nast

  The high-end fashion book that died in the early '90s recession is due for a comback. Peter Kaplan, editorial director of Conde's Fairchild Fashion Media group, will oversee the quarterly's relaunch. The first issue is due out in September. "It will be a big, beautiful magazine with a ...

• Future Of Newspapers: 'Rich Guy Play Toy'?

  Media General is a chain of small-ish newspapers across America. Not a particularly prestigious or savvy chain of newspapers, and the company's value has been nosediving off a cliff for the past five years along with most of the rest of the newspaper industry. But! Media General has ...