Mediabrands, the Interpublic Group media arm, has named two executives to the senior management team of its new global media agency Brand Programming Network, including a U.S. chief operating officer and the president for international operations.Don Morrison has been appointed US COO for BPN, while José Antonio Espinoza has been named president, International for the new shop, which Mediabrands is establishing as a third global media agency network. The other two are UM and Initiative.Morrison is responsible for all account management, planning, strategy and analytics for BPN’s U.S. accounts. He will also help shape the agency’s direction as it continues to evolve. Espinoza is responsible for leading the agency’s international operations and strategic development, including client management, digital positioning and new business development outside the United States. Word of the appointments comes as Mediabrands has been quietly rolling out the new agency network in more than a dozen markets worldwide this year. In addition to the U.S., BPN has set up offices in India, Europe and Latin America. The European offices include Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Romania, Poland, the Netherlands and Portugal. The Latin American offices include Chile, Uruguay, Peru and Columbia. The agency reports to Brian McMahon, CEO of Mediabrands’ Orion Trading.Prior to joining BPN, Morrison spent six years at UM, where he was most recently an executive vice president and managing director. During his tenure, Morrison oversaw strategy for accounts such as Verizon, U.S. Army, Wendy’s, Bacardi, Applebee’s and Six Flags.Earlier, Morrison was an executive vice president at both Della Femina Rothschild Jeary & Partners and Zenith Media. Before that, he was a senior vice president at both Saatchi & Saatchi and Dancer Fitzgerald & Sample.Prior to Joining BPN, Espinoza spent more than 17 years with toy marketer Mattel, most recently as director of marketing for the Fischer-Price brands in Latin America. Earlier, he was general manager of Mattel’s Colombian subsidiary and also launched Mattel Venezuela. Before joining Mattel, Espinoza held positions at SC Johnson, Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble.
In early 2011, now-ESPN president John Skipper tried to reassure investors concerned that even wealthy ESPN could struggle with an increasingly expensive sports rights market. "Let me be overt ... we will continue to make thoughtful decisions on what rights we can afford," he said. Since then, ESPN has inked deals with a slew of college conferences and extended its deal for “Monday Night Football." Today, the cabler said it had agreed to keep Major League Baseball through 2021. The deal marks a 100% increase in ESPN’s annual rights fee, according to MLB. Reports have the deal worth a total of $5.6 billion. Sports Business Journal first reported the new arrangement. The contract will keep games on ESPN on Mondays and Wednesdays and a nationally exclusive game on Sunday nights. ESPN will be able to air up to 90 live games a year, and gains rights to one of the two league Wild Card games. Expansion of other content, such as with “Baseball Tonight,” is also part of the deal, as is the addition of six one-hour specials created by MLB’s production arm. The deal also includes radio rights and TV and radio rights internationally. ESPN began televising baseball games in 1990.
The Singapore Economic Development Board has selected WPP’s MEC as its media agency for a new $10 million campaign designed to attract foreign businesses to the Asian island nation. The award came after a formal review that also assessed creative and digital duties. Independent shop The Secret Little Agency won the creative assignment, while Omnicom’s TBWA won digital chores. The appointments are effective Sept. 1, and the contract period is 19 months, with an option to extend up to 24 months, per the client. WPP’s JWT and XM were the creative and digital agency incumbents, respectively. MEC was the media agency incumbent. The scope of work involves developing and implementing integrated marketing campaigns to position Singapore as an attractive business location globally, with a focus on the U.S. as a key market. “Marketing Singapore as a home for business, innovation and talent is a challenging task, and we look forward to the next phase of partnership with all three agencies,” stated Myrna Poon, director of marketing and communications at the Singapore Economic Development Board. The review was launched in April and a total of 21 shops competed. The agencies were assessed through a two-round process. Agencies submitted their credentials, case studies and completed a test assignment in the first round. Shortlisted agencies participated in so-called “chemistry meetings” with the client and completed a second assignment during the second round. For MEC, it was the second win disclosed this week. Earlier, it was awarded global media planning and buying duties for UK-based retailer Mulberry. The search process was managed by R3.
Even before it launches Oct. 1, the new Time Warner Cable regional sports network in Los Angeles has had a great few months on the content front. Distribution may be another story. The network’s principal programming, Los Angeles Lakers games, has received a boost with the team’s acquisition of two superstars, which should up interest. But the network will have to ink deals with a variety of distributors, including satellite operators and cable companies moving west to Las Vegas and south to San Diego. Still, the NBA season leaves the summer and some of the fall to fill the programming slate and plenty of off-nights during the winter. Time Warner Cable SportsNet -- the name is one of the more prominent signs that the cable operator doesn’t plan on altering its brand anytime soon -- has inked deals to carry college football and basketball games with UNLV, San Diego State and Fresno State. The network will carry 12 football games and about 24 basketball ones. The football schedule begins five days after launch with Fresno State at Colorado State and continues until Dec. 1. The basketball schedule is to be announced later. The network will carry some Los Angeles Galaxy MLS games and WNBA games to fill some summertime slots. Time Warner Cable is also debuting a Spanish version of the network.
The controversial changes at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, where the publishing schedule was cut to three days a week, may prove to be a harbinger of similar reductions at other newspapers across the country. This week, Advance Publications announced that it is also slashing the frequency at newspapers in New York State and Pennsylvania. Advance said the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, PA will only be printed three days a week beginning in January 2012 -- including Sunday and probably two other weekdays -- as yet undecided. The Post-Standard of Syracuse, NY will be published on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, according to the newspaper. In a memo circulated to employees, Post-Standard Editor and Publisher Stephen A. Rogers was blunt about the challenges facing that newspaper and the industry in general: “If we simply maintain the status quo, if we continue to do just what we have been doing -- no matter how well we do it -- The Post-Standard would face extinction in a matter of years. The economic model that has supported The Post-Standard and newspapers around the country is no longer sustainable. We are living through a digital revolution … This is an irreversible trend. We either adjust, or we perish.” As in New Orleans and Alabama, Advance is also forming new companies to publish the newspapers and their associated Web sites, called the Syracuse Media Group and the PA Media Group. The latter will be formed by the merger of the Patriot-News and Pennlive.com. Judging by the fate of the Louisiana and Alabama newspapers, these moves will likely be followed by extensive layoffs at some point. In May, Advance announced that it would cut the publication schedules for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, as well as three Alabama newspapers, The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and The Mobile Press-Register. Not long after the Times-Picayune cut a third of its staff, and Advance also announced that it would lay off 400 employees from the Alabama newspapers by the end of September.
Imagine you’re a brand that is so successful in a global near-commodity sector that you’ve arguably moved beyond brand status to become (in some parts of the world at least) part of the language -- rather like Kleenex but different.In some parts of the world, the brand doesn’t get mentioned, but the product sells in vast quantities all the same. There are a raft of challenges associated with this sort of situation. While some of them undoubtedly relate to branding, for the brand manager, one of the most compelling issues will be how to drive incremental use and sales in a commodity space.Challenging indeed.One can only assume that was the sort of thing Société Bic, the French manufacturer of disposable razors and ballpoint pens, were dealing with when they --or someone they paid handsomely -- came up with the groundbreaking idea to create and market a new line of ballpoints called “Bic Crystal for Her."Yes, ladies, these are the very things you’ve been waiting your entire lives for -- handy disposable pens that are designed with you in mind. And which, one presumes, make writing so much easier for women!Apparently, they are designed specifically to “fit a woman’s hand” and they come in pink and purple. Of course they do.Predictably, there has been something of a reaction to this great innovation in the world of writing, but perhaps not quite in the form one might expect. After all, these days, when scarcely a week goes by without news of another company falling foul of consumer sentiment and being ravaged in social media and enduring the death of a million tweets.But for Bic -- so far at least -- things seem to have taken an altogether different turn. Despite looking extensively, I have yet to find a serious comment about sexism, gender stereotyping and the rest, which you would think would be the first port of call for those objecting to the notion of a simple pen designed for women.Instead, those seeking to make a point have resorted exclusively to humor and irony -- and they’ve done so in large numbers.Neither have they chosen Facebook or Twitter (yet) as a means of attack.Instead, it is the normally safe and cozy environs of Amazon (in the UK) where mostly British consumers are posting mock reviews of the product. They are having what is clearly a great time, making the product and it’s parent company a laughingstock. As I write, there are almost 190 often long and almost always very funny (and deeply sarcastic) “reviews."Apart from anything else, we may have found a new kind of crowdsourcing for Jay Leno’s material each night. Who needs highly paid writers when you can get material for free from Amazon? The humor of crowds, indeed.I urge you to take the time to read at least some of the reviews. Firstly, you’ll enjoy it, but also because it’s worth considering that even at the shelf of the online store, a brand is never safe from consumer sentiment, whether expressed as a direct and hostile verbal assault or as barbed satire. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time we’ve seen such an occurrence within Amazon, where brands and products rule the day, but it probably won’t be the last.As for damage to the business, in the long term it will probably be negligible. Bic may even bring out a companion product that oozes masculinity to ride whatever wave it's created. No doubt the Bic For Her will take it’s share within the billions of pens Bic sell globally.Here a few of my favorite excerpts from the “reviews posted so far:“I bought this pen (in error, evidently) to write my reports of each day's tree felling activities in my job as a lumberjack. It is no good. It slips from between my calloused, gnarly fingers like a gossamer thread gently descending to earth between two giant redwood trunks.”“Thank you, Bic. The touch of these pens has put me back in touch with my femininity and in doing so, I have fully embraced what it is to be a woman, in all its purple glory. I fully surrender to true womanhood and vow to no longer take part in feminist movements. I now realize we should not strive for equality, but focus on what we do best, being pretty, to the point that any tool we use must be decorative and gorgeous.”“I now have the perfect writing utensil whilst out in the field. As an archaeologist, all I need now is a pink shovel and pink trowel and my professional life will be complete!”