Aegis Group, which itself has agreed to be sold to Japan’s Dentsu, has been on an acquisitions tear, and this morning announced two new additions -- including one that gets it back into the marketing effectiveness analytics business, which it divested itself from last year, partly so it could make itself more attractive to a pure-play media and advertising services suitor, like say, Dentsu. The two separate deals announced this morning included the acquisition of yet another digital shop -- I Spy Marketing Limited and its affiliate 4Search Limited -- as well as Data2Decisions Limited (D2D). Both are based in the U.K., but the acquisition of D2D is particularly telling, because marketing effectiveness research and analytics has always been an integral part of Aegis’ offering, and was a clear point of differentiation when it introduced its brand of unbundled media services and set up shop with Carat in the U.S. in the mid-1990s. While it started by acquiring a couple of independent media-buying services, a key part of its U.S. emigration included the acquisition of MMA, a pioneer in the field of marketing-mix modeling that has helped transform the way major brands -- particularly consumer packaged goods -- value and execute their media and marketing mixes. MMA became an integral part of Aegis’ overall offering, and along with other research and analytics acquisitions and startups became Synovate, which was Aegis Group’s separate marketing research and analytics division that got sold to Ipsos for $834 million. When that deal closed in October 2011, Aegis’ management said the proceeds would be earmarked for acquisitions, which the company has indeed implemented vigorously, albeit generally smaller roll-ups leading up to its own recent deal to be acquired by Dentsu. So the acquisition of D2D -- a firm that specializes in advising marketers on their marketing effectiveness, including the return on investment from their advertising and media buys -- is a bit ironic. At the time of its sale of Synovate, Aegis CEO Jerry Buhlmann implied the withdrawal from the marketing analytics business wasn’t just a tactical paring down of Aegis’ assets, but part of a strategic restructuring to move in a different direction. “The disposal of Synovate is a transformational moment for Aegis Group,” he stated, adding: “This is the largest structural change in our history and leaves the core business perfectly positioned to take advantage of today's converging media environment.” In previous comments to financial analysts, Buhlmann said the divestiture was also intended to trade a "low-growth, low-margin business" for media agencies that will perform better and be more synergistic with the company's core offering. In today’s announcement of the D2D acquisition, Nigel Morris, CEO, Aegis Media Americas & EMEA, stated: "Data is one of the key areas of competitive advantage in the convergent market. D2D has built an impressive, scaled business that complements and strengthens our existing data capabilities to drive even greater marketing insight and analysis. We look forward to fully integrating D2D into our operating model to leverage their capability across all parts of our business for our clients." Terms were not disclosed, but Aegis said D2D has gross assets of about $3.4 million, and that I Spy has assets of about $4.5 million.
Interpublic’s Universal McCann is going global with its custom content division. The unit -- which was started a little more than two years ago as a U.S.-focused practice -- now has 35 custom campaign “architects” spanning 16 countries, and is designed to create unique campaigns and content for clients using multiple and integrated media channels. Earlier this year, Michael Siegenthaler, executive vice president, UM content and experiences, and the executive who started the unit, was promoted to chief experience officer. His mandate is to expand the practice worldwide, setting up international offices in the UK, Colombia, Italy, the Netherlands, India and Malaysia, among others. “The goal is still the same,” Siegenthaler said at an event last week in New York, showcasing work from some of the division’s offices. That is, to create content that engages viewers by going beyond traditional ad channels. Succeeding Siegenthaler in the U.S. was Tara Poto, who was promoted to senior vice president, UM content and experiences, North America in March. Previously, Poto led the team of content creators at J3, a dedicated strategy group set up to service client Johnson & Johnson. The North American team is the largest part of the custom content unit. It’s expanded from an original four staffers to 25, across five UM offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and Toronto. In the past two-plus years, the operation has executed 450 activations working with 155 media vendors and outside content creators, Poto said. One example of showcased work: a campaign aimed at Fiat’s core target of younger urban dwellers and designed to punctuate the car’s return to the U.S. after a 26-year absence. “We identified a target audience we call ‘creative innovators’ " said UM experience architect Brian Elliott, who led the effort. It’s a group that enjoys stories and storytelling, he added, which led to a campaign with CBS Radio that featured a series of inspirational stories, called “Alternate Routes,” that connected with the brand. The series aired on CBS radio stations in five major markets, including New York and Los Angeles, as well as the CBS Digital Network, CBS local sites, YouTube, Facebook, Radio.com and FiatUSA.com. The custom content’s London office was also represented at the event to promote Microsoft’s Kinect Star Wars game. The goal was to create buzz on social media timed around the release of the game in April, said UM’s Scott Holmes, who led the effort. The insight driving it was that Facebook and Twitter users talk a lot about new layouts and features introduced by those social media networks. So the UM team designed a mobile app in which the social feeds of users would appear as the iconic opening credits crawl in the "Star Wars" theatrical films, including the original musical score by composer John Williams. The shop estimates that the app has generated 60 million total impressions.
Yahoo is making a bid to be a pacesetter in media companies’ burgeoning emphasis on developing second-screen experiences, where TV viewing content is synced in real-time with what’s available on a tablet or other device. The company is referring to its renewed effort as IntoNow 3.O, which will have a focus on social media and music.Driving Yahoo’s efforts and its competitors in the space is simple consumer behavior. The company says 80% of TV watchers do so with a mobile device or tablet in hand. The IntoNow free app works with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.“iOS devices are pervasive in our living rooms, and second-screen behavior is now commonplace,” stated Adam Cahan, who founded IntoNow, which Yahoo acquired.Yahoo said the 3.0 version will offer a TV-music sync, where the system can identify music played during a broadcast and direct viewers to make a swift purchase via iTunes or an opportunity to watch a music video on YouTube.In social media, a function tapped “CapIt” allows a viewer to tap a button on the app and send a photo of a scene -- sudden evidence of an unexpected relationship on “Grey’s Anatomy” or CNN breaking news, for example -- replete with a personally added caption to a friend via Facebook, Twitter or an IntoNow capability.Plus, IntoNow will offer a staple of second-screen opportunities with the chance to conduct conversations with friends privately or all-comers about content.IntoNow’s system is propelled by a patented SoundPrint technology that can identify TV content seen live or in archived TV. Some 160 networks are being catalogued.
Politicians who find the prevailing winds blowing against them can now turn to the Weather Channel to build support. The channel is joining many other media companies with an aggressive approach to landing political dollars between now and election day. In partnership with mobile advertising facilitator Jumptap, the Weather Channel has launched a program where candidates can geographically target users of its mobile platforms. The company says its mobile content reaches 30 million-plus users a month. Presidential and statewide races are increasingly employing targeting to reach key ZIP codes in battleground states -- or more specifically, communities. The mass of research that campaigns are collecting about how many female votes they may need in the collar counties around Philadelphia or male supporters in the I-4 corridor running across Florida could make the Weather Channel option enticing. Weather Channel mobile users have to input a ZIP code to get local weather information, propelling the geotargeting at the ZIP-code level. Local TV stations and cable operators have long benefited from political advertising -- but now some national entities, such as ESPN and the Weather Channel, are looking to gain a larger share.
Discovery Communications witnessed steady gains in advertising sales for its U.S. networks in the second quarter.Advertising sales climbed 6% to $387 million -- which was slightly lower than the 9% gains made in the second quarter of 2011. Marching to the same beat, U.S. distribution revenue grew 8% to $297 million from higher rates and subscriber growth.International distribution revenues were 8% higher to $243 million, with ad revenues 11% higher to $147 million.Overall, second-quarter revenues climbed 7% to $1.1 billion for the period, with net income inching up to $293 million from $254 million in the second quarter of 2011.The one negative appears to be Discovery's small education unit, which reported lower revenues and operating income. Revenues were down 5% to $37 million with operating income declining to $2 million from $5 million. Discovery said this came from less business at its Creative Sound Services company, as well as higher costs associated with digital textbook efforts.David Zaslav, president and chief executive officer of Discovery Communications, stated that the efforts to "broaden our international content offerings, along with the continued evolution of pay-TV globally, are driving international expansion." On the domestic front, he noted that the company was "generating significant returns from the sustained programming initiatives and audience growth across our younger networks."
Mark LaNeve, formerly the top marketing executive at General Motors, is joining WPP ad shop Team Detroit as chief operating officer, the agency has confirmed. Team Detroit is the holding company’s multi-agency entity that creates ads and plans and buys ad time for the Ford Motor Company on a global basis. The hire was deemed important enough that Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, added a quote to the press release confirming the news late Tuesday. "Mark's joining the WPP team adds a whole new dimension to our global capability," the WPP CEO stated. "The great partnership which we enjoy with Ford will be strengthened even further." LaNeve will lead the strategy and overall operations for the Ford and Lincoln businesses globally and report to Team Detroit CEO Satish Korde. "Much has been accomplished over the past year in restructuring and building our business; the time is right to bring in a new operational leader who will help take us to the next level," stated Korde. LaNeve’s hire comes seven months after WPP created a spinoff dedicated agency to service the Lincoln brand, based in New York and headed by Cameron McNaughton. On his LinkedIn page, McNaughton still identifies himself as “President at Yet to be Named Lincoln Agency in NYC.” Jim Farley, Ford group vice president, global marketing, sales and service, was also quoted singing LaNeve’s praises. "Mark brings a deep knowledge of our business and a very strong legacy of success in marketing and advertising, making him a great addition to our team," Farley stated. LaNeve, who spent most of his career at GM, most recently served as executive vice president and CMO of Allstate Insurance, where he led a realignment of the sales and marketing business and launched the award-winning "Mayhem" campaign. He resigned in February. Prior to joining Allstate in 2009, LaNeve served as vice president sales, service and marketing at General Motors, where he spent most of his career. He left for Allstate after GM filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009. LaNeve left GM for several years beginning in 1997 to serve as president and CEO at Volvo Cars of North America until 2001. He then returned to GM as general manager for Cadillac, a post he held until 2005. "Ford is an iconic brand with outstanding leadership, great products and an even better future," LaNeve stated. "With several options for returning to the industry I love, returning home to Detroit to be part of the Ford team through WPP was simply an opportunity I couldn't pass up."
The Interpublic Group of Companies is hosting an awards program in New York City today to honor agencies and people within its organization that have made standout efforts on the diversity front.The event comes after several months of reports detailing Adland’s continuing struggle to make progress in diversity. IPG is a defendant in a discrimination law suit filed this spring by longtime legal staff employee Joy Noel. In May, the company petitioned the U.S. District Court in Manhattan to dismiss the suit. The judge overseeing the case has not yet issued a decision.The IPG event is sponsored by an internal company unit known as MERGE (Multicultural Employee Resource Groups For Excellence), which has tapped actor/comedian Robert Townsend to be Master of Ceremonies. Company CFO Frank Mergenthaler is the designated host and “executive sponsor’ of the awards program. IPG CEO Michael Roth is not attending because he is traveling, a rep confirmed.But Roth stated: “Our employees and our agencies -– like those being recognized today -– are at the heart of our mission to be among the world’s most diverse and inclusive companies.”Among those being honored with what the company has dubbed the IPG Inclusion Awards is Keisha Vaughn, chief diversity officer Draftfcb, who is receiving the Chief Diversity Officer/Human Resources Leader of the Year Award. Another recipient is Dana Commandatore, executive vice president, director of print services, Deutsch Los Angeles, who is receiving the Individual Champion of Inclusion Award. Other agencies within IPG are also being honored for their efforts.
NBC has scored more Olympic records.The third night of competition at the London Summer Olympics scored an average 31.6 million average viewers on the NBC Television Network -- the best viewer results in 36 years.Only the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics did better -- at 37.7 million viewers. Monday's results were 1.4 million better than the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, and 4.5 million more than the 2004 Athens Olympics for the same night.This brings the first four-day average of the London Olympics to 34.8 million viewers in prime time -- the most of any Summer Olympics in history. (The Summer Games were first televised in 1960.)Looking at other dayparts, there were 9 million viewers watching NBC coverage in the afternoon; 6.4 million in late-night; and 7 million viewers watching Olympic morning coverage.NBC says its still-new NBC Sports Network -- which has been airing varied Olympic programming -- recorded the best two-day viewership ever. Sunday’s average viewership of 1.2 million (4 a.m. to 7:06 p.m. EST) was 10% above Saturday’s Olympic coverage, which came in at 1.1 million between the hours of 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST.MSNBC improved 44% in viewership during the first weekend to 1.5 million viewers over the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, which had over 1 million viewers. CNBC took in 698,000 viewers on the first weekend -- 3:30 to 6:45 p.m. EST. This was a 24% improvement from the Beijing Olympics weekend afternoon average, which came in at 561,000.
Hearst Digital Media has tapped social media management firm Sprinklr to help take its social strategy to the next level. A unit of Hearst Magazines, Hearst Digital Media will use Sprinklr’s tools to help its media properties -- including Elle, Cosmopolitan and House Beautiful -- post across social networks, as well as review analytics and measure engagement. According to Sprinklr CEO Ragy Thomas, Hearst’s spanning media empire requires serious managing. “Hearst demonstrates exactly why managing social interactions for a global enterprise is critical -- across channels, functions, geographies and business units,” said Thomas. That’s not to say that Hearst needed any help in the social department. Brian Madden, executive director of social media at Hearst Digital Media, said the unit has already experienced “incredible growth … in social over the last year." Still, Madden said Sprinklr’s services were attractive because they cut down on redundancies -- and would likely streamline Hearst’s social strategy. Sprinklr also delivers Facebook Apps across multiple brands, while allowing each to customize their offerings. Although it has fierce competition in the social media management space, Sprinklr's client list includes Dell, Virgin America, Cisco Systems, Samsung and Newell Rubbermaid. Despite continued reservations from brands, Forrester Research has predicted that social media will have the highest cumulative aggregate growth rate across all channels through 2014. Furthermore, Forrester recently predicted that spending on social media marketing will catch up to email marketing by the end of 2012.
Being a digital-only publication isn’t saving News Corp.’s tablet-inspired newspaper, The Daily, from some of the trends affecting the print newspaper business: the need for deep staff cuts. The 18-month-old digital pub will cut 50 employees from its current workforce of 170, the publication announced Tuesday, or 29% of its workforce. The axe will fall heavily on staffers for the editorial page, which is being cut as a stand-alone section, as well as sports, which will henceforth be produced by content partners like Fox Sports. Layoffs will also affect design and production staff. The staff cuts are part of a broader overhaul that aims to reduce costs and put the publication on a firmer financial footing. Among other changes, The Daily will now appear only in portrait format, eliminating the need to create a landscape format for every piece of content. However, the publication emphasized it remains committed to its core mission of original reporting and compelling photography and video. The news of staff cuts at The Daily comes on the heels of News Corp.’s announcement that it will spin off its newspapers to focus on its entertainment properties. While it has succeeded in attracting over 100,000 subscribers, the staff reductions could be seen as another rebuff for an embattled Rupert Murdoch, who championed the publication as a digital trailblazer. The company’s soon-to-be-independent newspaper division has been cutting costs elsewhere. Last month, Dow Jones shuttered the print version of SmartMoney.
"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.” -- Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy, speaking to the Baptist Press. "A growing number of the restaurant's supporters -- more than 325,000 so far -- are pledging to take part in Wednesday's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. August 1, 2012, launched by former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on his radio show. -- Baptist Press It was only four years ago to the day -- August 1, 2012 -- that the Great Culture Wars started. Fast-food companies inflamed the passions and imaginations of Americans the way no political party at the time could, bringing far-worse consequences for the country than anyone could have predicted. Indeed, the shopworn distinctions between Republicans and Democrats faded away as the country quickly split into new, extreme, geographic and fast-food-based factions, known as the Chick-Fil-Atarians vs. The Starbuckaroonians. The Filatarians, as they came to be known, amassed all over the Southeast, with the rallying cry of “Batter up!” floating the idea that the right kind of flour coating on fried chicken could “fry away the gay” and keep heteros with their original spouses. This so infuriated the Starbuckaroonians that they quickly spread their response, “Make foam, not hate speech,” through their respective Tumblr accounts, and the chaotic period known as the Great Three-Year Strife began. Mobilizing quickly, arriving in Acuras, Priuses and on novelty bicycles, the ‘Buckeroonians set up vast WiFi laden camps from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. With constant Josh Groban music piped into their sweeping outdoor spaces, followers set up a battery of tall, grande, or venti-sized tents. There they could escape to read their e-books, meditate, or listen to Maya Angelous tapes; at 4 p.m. each day, members collectively prepared nonfat no-whip Mochaccinos to go along with the miniature tarts and dried, peeled fruit snacks that quickly lost their appeal. Meanwhile, the Filatarians were on the move in caravans of Harleys and late-model Ford and Chevy pickups. Some even resorted to riding giant mechanized recliners equipped with flat-screen TVs. While on the move, members tended to collect tattoos, novelty T-shirts, and stoneware from the Paula Deen collection, which they liked to shoot up with their rifles. Each camp had a team dedicated to denouncing the other, with the Filatarians condemning their enemies as “ pretentious, bicoastal, overcaffeinated BlacBberry-carrying Quinoa eaters!” The Starbuckaroonian responded with “It’s KEEN-WAH, idiot! But what can you expect from Cro-Magnons who like to ‘Eat Mor Chikin’ and tell others who they can and can’t marry?&rdquo Meanwhile breakaway groups started threatening the power structures of the two dominant groups: Domino’s militia men arrived, and some of the refugees on both sides snuck in to huddle around their warming cases; the faction known as the Pinkberry people left for a new, light and healthy enclave in the East, while an association of Chipotle voters started its own collective in the Southwest, citing needs for organic choices and hot sauce. Quoting scripture about the “flames of hell,” the self-identified Outback Steakhousewives said they missed “dining out” and didn’t want to live in camps any more. At the same time, a human rights commission dubbed The Samsonites traveled between camps, checking on conditions. Eventually the various campgrounds were flooded, frozen, or declared uninhabitable. UN Troops were called in. By then, however, with the European economies going down in flames, and half the U.S. population living in tent cities, all of the U.N. members had fallen behind in their dues. The global organization had to be reconstituted in favor of the new corporate nation states who could pay the bills, like the federation of Amazon/GE and the Republic of Apple, which attempted to revoke the membership of the Microsoft NGOs. The Exxon/Mobil Facebook nation meanwhile had lost its place on the Security Council because of machinations by Goldman-Sachs/Coca-Cola. Eventually, the set of colonies known as the Berkshire-Hathaway Isles became the principal ruling body and built federal housing, hospitals, and schools, which slowly restored order to a country riven by opposing corporate ideologies and religion-based companies. Moral of the story: What a waste all of this is. But if it teaches Dan Cathy a new bottom line -- the company stated on its Facebook page that in the future, “our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena” -- that’s a tiny victory for tolerance.
With all the shenanigans over in London right now surrounding the Olympic games, it’s inevitable that the lives of Londoners and those in towns and cities impacted by the Games are turned upside down in a whirlwind of activity and more than a little sporting patriotism.For those of us farther afield, our media consumption is similarly disrupted. From changes in the broadcast schedule of an array of TV channels, through online streaming of live events, downloads of videos from YouTube, an uplift in social media activity (both around the opening ceremony and beyond), as well as a shift in the emphasis of the content we’re accessing, many of us are manifesting very different patterns of media consumption than in a non-Olympic summer.Whether using more media or watching different content, to varying degrees the Games represent one of the most disruptive media events in the worldwide media calendar.But while we can readily see evidence of increased sports media consumption, what is sacrificed or deferred? And what gets the honor of being consumed in real-time? What proportion of people use the DVR for their normal program choices and how many choose to record the Olympics? (After all, we aren’t devotees of every sport on display.)When it comes to time-shifting, what’s the option of choice? Is it the DVR or will it be online alternatives? For example, I wasn’t able to watch the opening ceremony live but my first stop for time-shifted viewing turned out to YouTube for the James Bond / Queen Elizabeth skitAnd then there’s social media. Quite apart from the fact that the volume of local Twitter traffic was apparently responsible for jamming the networks informing commentators of event timings, there’s an awful lot of news being broken informally on people’s news feeds via the Share button. Whether linking to news stories, videos or pictures uploaded by individuals in London right now, Facebook and Twitter have come alive with Olympic content.We’ve already heard that this year is the year of the Streaming Olympics, the Tablet Olympics and the Second Screen Olympics. Probably all of these will turn out to be true. (The one thing that wasn’t predicted widely was the parachuting monarch, but that’s another story.)The reality is that while disruption to our normal pattern of media consumption will be pretty much universal for anyone closely following the event, the precise nature of that disruption will be particular to each of us. It may involve more daytime viewing of video, more social viewing in public spaces, more streaming, more use of a wider range of video sources or more family-centric appointment viewing.What do you think will be the dominant media consumption trends when the last medal has been awarded, the cheers have faded and Mr. Bean has left the stadium?