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TOP ONLINE STORY
Zynga Nets $150MM Investment, Is Turning Japanese
by Gavin O'Malley
Drawing further attention to the white-hot social gaming sector, Zynga on Thursday said it raised $150 million from Japanese wireless carrier Softbank. The partners also announced plans to develop and distribute social games in Japan via a new Zynga Japan joint venture.
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TOP MEDIA STORY
Broadcasters Balk: Big Nets Want Nielsen To Wait On Weights
by Joe Mandese
9 hours ago
Based on conversations with its biggest customers - the major broadcast networks - it does not appear that Nielsen will make its self-appointed deadline of Monday to begin implementing a plan to change how it "weights" its national TV ratings, including mathematical adjustments that would reduce the representation of homes with computers connected to the Internet, and would boost the representation of younger households.
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TOP MARKETING STORY
Tom's of Maine Intros Toothpaste Via Social Media
by Tanya Irwin
9 hours ago
The promotion -- which includes a contest, sweepstakes and instant-win game -- runs through Oct. 8. People can enter the sweepstakes through the "That's Wicked Fresh!" application on Facebook or on the Tom's of Maine Facebook page. Visitors to the pages automatically receive one sweepstakes entry and one instant win game play per day.
THIS JUST IN
Meredith Registers Magazine, TV Rise
by Erik Sass 14 minutes ago |
Meredith reported that its magazine and interactive group enjoyed positive revenue growth, as did its local media group, the new designation for the company's broadcast TV properties. CEO Stephen Lacy says the company "increased advertising market share in both magazine and television."
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| BLOGS/COMMENTARY |
On Media:
Mermigas 2 hours ago
Broadcast TV: Good News, Bad News Forecast
While acknowledging the robust advertising recovery, Wall Street is looking for -- but not finding -- many signs of sustainable... |
Behavioral Insider:
Smith 3 hours ago
Deeper Motives: Getting Beyond Targeting
Behavioral targeting generally hunts for affinities. You read this -- so you must be interested in that. You did this... |
SearchBlog:
Sullivan 4 hours ago
How Paid Search Bid Data Tells The Story
Paid search bid optimization still confuses some marketers, but there is seemingly no end to experts out there offering help.... |
Commentary:
Seaman 4 hours ago
'Idol' Is Idle No More: But Fox - Why Rush to Judgment?
Well, you can hardly accuse them of being "American Idle" this off-season. Now Ellen DeGeneres becomes the third "Idol" judge... |
MoBlog:
Capone 4 hours ago
There Oughta Be An App For That
One of the things people seem to love about smartphone apps is how they can use them to replace other... |
Search Insider:
(Landis) Laravie 5 hours ago
More On Ad Enhancements
In my last Search Insider, I wrote about the numerous ad enhancements available to Google paid search advertisers that are... |
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IN PRINT
INSIDE MAY
Letter from the Guest Editor
Media continues to migrate to whatever screens are placed in front of us. By now, all manner of pundits will have weighed in with opinions on the much-hyped Apple iPad after its April launch. And as we look forward to seeing what these new tablet media experiences will...
This Is Your Brain on Screens
I am writing a story about how our brains perceive and process content across various media screens, and I can't help thinking about what my brain is doing at this very moment, even as the words I write appear on the screen of my computer. Or, for that...
The Human Factor
Ever feel like a character in a science-fiction story in which some rogue technology goes awry, and begins to alter who you are? Lately, I've started to think that's actually happening to me - to all of us. That some recent advances in media technology are accelerating the...
Wild Gestures
The next game controller you pick up in your living room ... may be you. After decades of fumbling with increasingly complex 12-button, dual-stick, thumb-spraining console controllers, Microsoft is promising to remove the layers of digital abstraction that have been with us since the first desktop mouse arrived....
Why Size Matters
Forget Lee Clow. Creative directors looking for inspiration these days might instead turn to Godfrey Lundberg, an early 20th-century engraver who famously carved The Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin....
Nation Building in Digital Worlds
When Britannia opened for business in July 1997, 100,000 people swarmed the city. Within days, the homesteaders transformed the barren landscape into a town and that became a community. And it would be a lovely story except for one fact: Britannia was a jumbled mass of human chaos....
Paradise by the Dashboard Light
Get ready to have a conversation with your car.
The generic Web is grinding through its commodity end-game, with prices for both advertising inventory and content falling. And the mobile Internet is reaching early middle age, with worldwide cell subscribers flattening, and the app market tightening into narrow...
Now Playing at a Theater Near You
Early 2010 felt like the 1950s all over again. No, cruising and poodle skirts did not come back, but the theater world became once again obsessed with 3-D technology. While it has failed to maintain a foothold over the years, this time around it seems that worldwide domination...
The Making of a 'Legacy'
Produced in 1982 by a quartet of mainframe computer developers, the Disney film Tron was a visual feast in its day, sprung on a virgin audience unfamiliar with terms like "CGI" and "digital 3-D."...
Something in the Air
Aside from air and other people, screens are probably among the most prevalent things with which we surround ourselves....
Enormous Changes At The Last Minute
Our media consumption patterns may be known in microscopic detail, yet the motivations behind those patterns are largely assumed. The result of these quite dangerous assumptions: Small, often untraceable shifts can happen in our aggregate media consumption patterns each year that, over time, can subsequently cascade into a...
Dominion Over Reality
Many actions of magic, and even religious ritual, are fairly described as gestures.
Back when the explanation for why anything beyond the power of man happened was invariably supernatural, man tried to exercise dominion over reality by appealing to the same supernatural, invoking it to do his bidding through...
Exit Interview with Guest Editor Dale Herigstad
"Gesture Man." That's what Wired recently called Dale Herigstad. Okay, so it was the Brit edition of Wired, but that's where he's been gesturing lately - in the London offices of WPP's Schematic, where he is chief creative officer, and gesturer-in-residence....
Go Flexible or Go Home
Get ready for the Gumby factor in point-of-sale: Big bright clear, commercial displays - that also happen to bend - will be coming to a mall, TV show or supermarket near you sometime in mid-2010....
The Fox & Hound in the Living Room
By the middle of the 20th century television had comfortably made its way into the American living room. And 52.6 million families watched nearly seven hours of TV a day. In the middle of this boom a chief engineer and manager of equipment design for the military electronics...
A Blinking, Flickering Landscape
You see them everywhere now -- video screens flashing like beacons in public spaces, asking for your attention. What started as an absolute niche product a decade ago is fast becoming part of the landscape....
Certified Organic
Get ready for the next wave in displays: the organic user interface. Organics will not be mere screens at all. They will carry their own intelligence, be able to find and connect to other nearby organic displays; they will quantify their place relative to users, bend to any...
DOA Q&A | Philo Farnsworth, Inventor of Television
For a medium that is so universally derided as television, a surprising number of people have claimed credit for it. Over the years, encyclopedias and history books have been revised and revised again, but the most current thinking is that it was a teenage inventor named Philo Farnsworth...
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INSIDE JULY
Ed:Blog: Going From <3 to H8
The T-shirt emblazoned with the hashtag #ny<3lebron given to us by The Fader crew (who, like any good New Yorkers, were just doing their bit to spread the word for the campaign to get LeBron James to sign with the Knicks) still smolders in the incinerator where we...
Do You Know Where Your CPM Is?
If you're in the online advertising business, you've finally seen the headline you've been waiting for: "Online Advertising Surges." And the news looks good everywhere you turn. According to TechCrunch, industry bellwethers AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo were up by a total of 10.2 percent in the fourth...
Bringing It All Back Home
You've seen the studies and heard the hype: Network TV is in trouble, its audience and advertisers increasingly migrating to social media, video games, mobile phones and a thousand other digital distractions. The sky is falling in TV Land: in its place, a mess of wires, keyboards and...
Cross-Media Case Study: The Cracker Doesn't Crumble
Everyone, it seemed, was suddenly talking about eating locally grown produce, cutting down on salt, eschewing processed food. Trans fat was last year's battle. The latest cause (backed by Michelle Obama, no less) was all about eating fresh and local. Women who wanted healthy, colorful, fresh food for...
Logging In: Quid Pro Grow
The Latin phrase quid pro quo means "something for something." Literally speaking, this is an equal exchange of gifts between two parties. Both sides have to contribute something for the other to receive fair value; it cannot be one-sided. Too often social media takes a more cynical approach...
Web U: The Big Budget Buster
We all love a big budget, don't we? Clients with big budgets get wined and dined. Agencies with clients with big budgets make money ... and get to go to sporting events and cool parties. And the clients that spend big online, are a special kind of celebrity....
Industry Watch: Ready for Take Off
Not long ago, leisure travel looked anything but relaxing. Oil rose to more than $140 a barrel, airline prices were sharply escalating, and customers were wondering if they'd ever go on vacation again. Well, they don't wonder as much anymore. Oil sits at $72 at press time, some...
Metrics Focus: Verify Your Paranoia
Few professionals are as willing to trust their business partners as media practitioners. This quality is especially obvious during industry love fests - also known as upfronts - where billions in media spend are distributed in advance, primarily based on mutual trust between the buyers and the publishers....
Market Focus: From Boppers to Shoppers
Tweens and teens live in the present - but not the same present as adults do. Recession, schmecession. Teen spending has bounced back, up 6 to 8 percent over last year, according to NPD Group. On what? The usual: fashion, lifestyle, music and fun....
Behind the Numbers: A Bigger Boat
Despite the very public failing of the first addressable ad efforts from the cable industry's Canoe consortium last year, advanced advertising is poised to become a $4 billion business by 2014. Fueled by tech advancements from video providers such as Verizon, Comcast and Cablevision, coupled with the increased...
Creative Roundtable: Bizarre Ride to the Dark Side
Carmakers marketing hybrid vehicles tend to craft cheerful, earnest and inspiring messages about how good the cars are for the environment. But Lexus opted to go dark - and sexy even - in allowing Skinny to create Lexus Dark Ride, an interactive film that takes participants on a...
Air New Zealand Knows Where You've Been
Air New Zealand began working with TagMan in June to implement and manage campaign tracking tags across its European Web sites. The single-page tag container embedded in Web site pages houses all tags used to track the airline's online campaign, including display, paid and natural search, affiliates and...
Cats' Tolerance Tested at Devo Listening Party
There's no denying that when it comes to the Internet, cats are power players. You've got Sockington, the Twitter cat with 1.5 million followers; all those photogenic felines over at icanhascheezburger.com; and Keyboard Cat - technically, Keyboard Cat has been dead for years, but he lives on via...
Cable News May Soon Get Some Depth
Forget slick 3-D cameras from the likes of Cameron/Pace - for better or worse, the gear needed to bring the third dimension is coming soon to a 24/7 cable channel near you....
Sears, Suckers
Road trip! Are there any more tantalizing words in the English language to cubicle monkeys watching summer unfold outside their office windows? How about if the trip is on some famous stretch of American highway and someone hands you $1,500 to pay for gas, food, motels, beer and...
Fishing Where the Fish Are
Figurative allusions to fish and fishing figure big in the business world -- getting a nibble from a client, casting a wide net, fishing where the fish are, big fish in a small pond, and so on. But online ad agency Pereira & O'Dell is taking the whole...
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UPCOMING MEDIAPOST EVENTS
RECENT MEDIAPOST EVENT VIDEOS
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| TODAY'S ONLINE NEWS AND HEADLINES |
Adobe Patent Talks To Search Engines
11 hours ago
Adobe Systems has filed a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for technology that could make rich media applications (RMA) easier for search engines to find, index and rank....
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Report: Mobile Users Accessing Business Directories Jump, Represent Most Attractive Customers
As one might assume, local business directories are benefiting greatly from the mobile boom. In March, the number of mobile subscribers accessing business directories via mobile phone increased 14% year-over-year to 17.3 million users, according to new research conducted by comScore and released on Thursday by the Yellow...
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Forbes Shutters True/Slant
Social-driven news site True/Slant, which Forbes acquired in late May, is heading for the trash heap. In a blog post on Thursday, True/Slant writer and reporter Neal Ungerleider said "the site, unfortunately, is winding down operations at the end July." Effective June 1, True/Slant founder and CEO Lewis...
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Facebook Users Who Sued Over Privacy Setting Changes Drop Case
A group of four Facebook users who sued the site earlier this year for allegedly violating their privacy have withdrawn their case. The consumers had filed suit against Facebook in February, alleging that new settings were "confusing and materially deceptive" and lessened their privacy....
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Mobile Coupon Ties Apps Into PC Searches
Deal seekers searching for money-saving offers through mobile coupon platform Shooger will soon have Blackberry as an option to clip and save. This week the company made it easier to search for deals on iPhone, handsets running Android, and the company's Web site, but the company has plans...
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Gawker Settles Case Over Eric Dane Sex Tape, Removes Clips
Gawker Media has settled a copyright infringement lawsuit by Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart stemming from Gawker's posting of a sex tape made by the couple, according to court papers filed this week....
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| AROUND THE NET IN ONLINE |
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Wi-Fi Coming To A Subway Near You Bloomberg
Stalled in the station for nearly three years, New York City Transit says plans for citywide subway Wi-Fi are back on. The $200 million project was revived after the group that won the contract secured new financing from an Australian...
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Microsoft: Yahoo Japan/Google Deal "Harmful" Business Insider
A Microsoft rep is telling Business Insider that the software king will attempt to block a proposed Yahoo Japan/Google partnership. "We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more...
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What's Google's Next Act? Fortune
With the soaring IPOs and market-share gains disappearing in the rearview mirror, Fortune takes a serious look at Google, and how the search giant plans to achieve "Google-like" growth going forward. "Its core business is slowing, its stock is...
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Is Apple Taking Over Location Data? TechCrunch
With location-based digital services booming, Apple is moving to take complete control of its own location database, TechCrunch reports. "For devices running iPhone OS versions 1.1.3 to 3.1, Apple relied on (and still relies on) databases maintained by Google...
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Ballmer Issues Mea Culpa, But Will Tablet Be Too Little Too Late? The Register (UK) et al.
Speaking at Microsoft's financial analyst meeting on Thursday, CEO Steve Ballmer touched on various ideas, from growing consumer-product and search market shares to Apple's gadget edge and the need for Windows-based tablet computers.
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Report: Facebook IPO Off 'Til 2012 Bloomberg
Facebook's aversion to going public is well known, and, if sources are correct, the social net will indeed put off an IPO until at least 2012, Bloomberg reports. Three people familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg that chief exec...
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| TODAY'S MEDIA NEWS AND HEADLINES |
Cumulus Radio Reports Ad Uptick
32 minutes ago
There is more evidence for a tentative recovery in the radio business, with positive second-quarter results reported by Cumulus Media, which controls 345 radio stations in 67 markets around the U.S....
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Guinness World Records, Omnicom Partner For Marketing Events
36 minutes ago
A unit of the Guinness records company is setting up shop in the U.S. and looking to offer experiential marketing opportunities. GWR Live! has operated internationally for some time and will work in partnership with Omnicom agency GO!/C2 out of New York....
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Young Latinos Lag In Mobile Use, But Boast Big Buying Power
44 minutes ago
Young Latino adults don't use mobile devices to socialize and communicate with friends quite as much as other groups, yet a recent marketing study suggests they are the "sweet spot" of mobile carriers. They are more likely to use mobile to research and buy products and services. The...
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It's Official: Paul Lee To ABC Entertainment President
2 hours ago
ABC Family president Paul Lee will become the new president of the ABC Entertainment Group, immediately replacing Stephen McPherson, who abruptly resigned earlier this week....
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NBC's Gaspin Struts: Advertisers Upbeat About Network
2 hours ago
NBC continues to look to kick up its businesses -- advertising revenues and program development. Jeff Gaspin, chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment, says the upfront "is as good as I've seen it." He says advertisers are "thrilled we are back in business in a big way."...
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Belo Sees 13% Rise In Local Revs
4 hours ago
Strong television advertising business almost doubled Belo Corp'.s second-quarter net profit. Belo grabbed a profit of $19.5 million up from $10.3 million. Revenue climbed 13% to $163 million....
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Nielsen Battles Rentrak, Clarifies Set-Top Data, 'Hybrid' Measurements
5 hours ago
Despite Rentrak attracting clients for its new local-market measurement service that uses set-top-box data, Nielsen downplayed a potential challenge Friday. In the wake of an aggressive PR campaign from Rentrak touting its progress, Nielsen CFO Brian West indicated his company may be moving slower, but has valuable set-top...
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Nielsen Watch: Research Giant Redefines Businesses, Reports Healthy Gains
10 hours ago
Like the industries it measures - media and marketing - Nielsen Co. is evolving and morphing into something else, according to ways in which it describes itself to investors and federal regulators. In financial filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission, Nielsen now describes its business segments as...
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The CW: Getting Digital Dollars, Not Digital Pennies
The CW's radical move this past upfront in June -- selling a one-for-one package of an Internet commercial and a TV spot to advertisers -- has been a big success. The move pushed CW to add additional commercials to its Internet airings....
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Mobile Coupons Give Advertisers Added Triggers
Deal seekers searching for money-saving offers through mobile coupon platform Shooger will soon have BlackBerry as an option to clip and save. Retail deals can be searched on iPhones and PCs. The search results, based on location by category, merchant or keyword, sort offers. Consumers can share deals...
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| AROUND THE NET IN MEDIA |
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'Lone Star' Builds Audience Before Broadcast The New York Times
When Fox introduces the soapy new drama "Lone Star" on television this fall, some Vanity Fair readers, cruise line passengers, hotel guests and iPad owners will have already seen it. The network says it wants the show to be sampled...
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BSkyB Buys HBO Catalog The Guardian
Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB has bought the exclusive rights to the entire HBO TV catalogue, which includes a huge range of American shows, such as "The Wire," "True Blood," "Sopranos and Martin Scorsese's eagerly-awaited crime drama "Boardwalk Empire," which airs in...
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FTC Leans Toward 'Do Not Track' Registry Ad Age
The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission told a Senate committee today that the FTC is considering recommending a "do not track" registry akin to the "do not call" registry that could give consumers the choice of opting out of...
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Exploring the Value of Buying on Engagement vs. CPM B2C Marketing Insider
Traditional media buying and planning is based on CPM (cost per thousand impressions). This model was developed for old media that wasn't -- and still isn't -- trackable, says Mitchell Reichgut, CEO of Jun Group. The Internet, of course, is...
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Boucher, Stearns Introduce Voluntary Spectrum Bill B&C
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), chairman of the House Communications Subcommittee, has teamed with ranking member Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) to introduce a bill that would make sure that if the government reclaims broadcasters' spectrum for auction and re-use for wireless broadband,...
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| TODAY'S MARKETING NEWS AND HEADLINES |
Guinness World Records: Marketing Gold?
31 minutes ago
"Half [of Guinness World Records Live] will be around practicing and preparing for the record, and the other half is about the show," Claire Burgess, representative for Guinness World Records, tells Marketing Daily. "This is the start of it, the opportunities are almost endless."...
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Events, Social Media Link Odwalla To Young Actives
2 hours ago
While Odwalla's marketing mix includes some traditional media advertising, as well as PR and in-store POS, a primary thrust in recent times has been making a splash at festivals that draw large numbers of young actives, and using social media to engage them before, during and after those...
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Subaru Teases WRX With 'Get More G's'
2 hours ago
"We wanted to get people engaged emotionally with the car before we launch it," says Kevin Mayer, adding that some 60 blogs are pushing the content. "We are excited because this targeted more digital-centric consumers who are sharing information online. It's a social-first, traditional-second campaign."
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Suzuki Program Rewards Social Media Visits
4 hours ago
"We are trying to tie everything together," says Glenn McClanan, account director at Matrix Consultants, the Big Bear, Calif.-based agency that developed the program for Suzuki. McClanan says that, besides generating social-media buzz about Suzuki, the program is designed to give people a reason to keep returning to...
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Buick Aggregates Feedback On Its Regal
The Moment of Truth site sits atop a platform that scours the web for anything Regal, filters out the dross and naughty verbiage and displays the resulting content on a visually arresting 3D billboard that displays video, tweets, comments, and blogs. Content ranges from consumer opinions and testimonials,...
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RadioShack Rolling Kiosks Into Target Stores
"It's a genius cross-branding move," Cathy Hotka, a retail branding consultant based in Washington D.C., tells Marketing Daily. "Target is known both for its high traffic and desirable demographic, and kiosks selling high-demand items do really well -- this seems like smart partnering."
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Ford Rallies For Fiesta At X-Games
The company is using a 24/7 strategy for Fiesta with a marketing program tied to the X Games 16. Ford will field souped-up Fiestas piloted by four drivers including Ken Block, who has been doing online stunt videos for Ford in his Fiesta....
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Cosmetic Companies Post Prettier Profits
At Avon Products, which hiked its ad spending 19%, second-quarter revenue rose 8% to $2.7 billion, with beauty sales climbing 9% and increasing in all categories. And Revlon's sales gains were propelled by color cosmetics and Revlon ColorSilk, but partially offset by lower sales of Almay cosmetics and...
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J.D. Power: Carriers Improve Customer Service
"It's not just about making a customer happy, it's actually exceeding that," says Kirk Parsons. "It's an opportunity for the carriers to use the care experience as a way to build loyalty. In today's wireless market, a lot less new customers are coming in, and it's really about...
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Recall, Weak Cereal, Eggo Sales Hurt Kellogg
CEO David Mackay noted that cereal as a whole tends to be among the highest-spending ad categories, and said that Kellogg sees important opportunities in marketing outreach to the Hispanic market, support of product launches and other areas. The company expects to grow ad spend by a percentage...
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RSS FEEDS • PRIVACY/TERMS & CONDITIONS
