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• packaged goods Summer's Eve Declares 'That's Vaginal!' by Tanya Irwin

  The video features Carlton, a scholarly talking cat, who is on a crusade to tell America how important the vagina is (or should be.) Likening the vagina to such natural wonders as Mount Kilimanjaro and the rings of Saturn, Carlton drives home, in an amusing way, the need for a shift in conversation, to move away from euphemisms and treating the vagina as a taboo topic. ...Read the whole story

• automotive Ye Gods, Scion Climbs Mt. Olympus To Trumpet TC by Karl Greenberg

  A source close to Attik points out that comedy is something of an advertising sub-specialty, and that agencies will typically subcontract to a species of director whose expertise is hijinks when they want SNL-type humor. Not so with Scion, for whom Attik creative director Simon Needham has helmed most all the automaker's ads, including these. ...Read the whole story

• Olbermann Is Back: Garners Decent Numbers On Current TV by Wayne Friedman

  Current TV's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" is back on cable. He had some good rating news on its Monday premiere, hitting 179,000 viewers among 25-54s, behind MSNBC's 'Lawrence O'Donnell' with 237,000. CNN and MSNBC are in 95 million homes; Current has 60 million TV subscribers. ...Read the whole story

• Rentrak To Sync Services With MediaBank by David Goetzl

  Rentrak, which offers measurement services based on set-top-box data, said it has a deal to make its system compatible with the MediaBank interface. Among other things, MediaBank offers analytics programs that look to assist media buyers. ...Read the whole story

• Hulu Owners Clash, Rumors Of Possible Sale by Gavin O'Malley

  Amid reports that Hulu -- owned by Disney, NBCU and News Corp. -- has been approached by one or more suitors, analysts seem torn over the merits of any such deal. Among the issues, some of Hulu's co-owners have started making their content available on other services, including rival Netflix. ...Read the whole story

• Time Out: Media General Institutes Furloughs by Erik Sass

  Media General, publisher of 21 daily newspapers, including The Tampa Tribune and Richmond-Times Dispatch, announced that it will require employees to take 15 days of unpaid leave in the second half of 2011. ...Read the whole story

• spirits Southern Comfort Lime Launches Social Hub by Karlene Lukovitz

  The concept: Helping SoCo fans to plan and interact throughout their nights out by consolidating a variety of digital activities in one convenient, cross-platform area -- while building awareness of the new Lime product through the hub's features and design. ...Read the whole story

• Young, Bicultural Latinos Are TV 'Language Neutral' by Erik Sass

  While older, foreign-born Latinos tend to prefer media in their mother tongue, younger Latinos -- both those born abroad and in the U.S. -- aren't nearly as focused on Spanish-language content. They want to see English-language ads on Spanish-language TV. ...Read the whole story

• automotive Chevy Dangles Bowl In Route 66 Film Contest by Karl Greenberg

  "This is really a global effort, and we are excited how this will be interpreted by filmmakers in places like China and Russia. The fact is, the more we look at this brand globally, we see a lot of the same foundations; our customers have a lot more in common than you might think." ...Read the whole story

Why I Skipped Cannes For Nielsen by Dave Morgan

I am writing this column on a flight home from a very important industry conference. No, this is not going to be another one of those effete dispatches from the south of France and the Cannes Lions, filling us in on yacht parties, celebrity sightings and media exec sound-bites. I skipped Cannes this year, choosing instead to spend the past three days in Orlando at Nielsen's Consumer360 conference. No, I didn't draw the short straw among my several colleagues who did go to Cannes. I had a choice, and here's why I chose Florida instead of France: ...More

• Swipe Me, Touch Me, Command Me: Microsoft Shows Kinect-Powered ITV Ads on Xbox by Steve Smith

  Well, now I am going to have to dig that long-unused Xbox Kinect full-body controller out of its box somewhere and reconnect the gadget that took last holiday shopping season by storm. Frankly, after jumping my way through a few test games, me and my family pretty much forgot about that black bar and mess of extra wires sitting beneath our HDTV. And when we moved our home a month ago and didn't' unpack the Kinect, no one seemed to notice. But this week in Cannes, Microsoft gave me a reason to reconnect my Kinect, at least for another test ...More

• Good Cable News: Keith Olbermann Gets Promotional Help From Other Cable News Competitors by Wayne Friedman

  Where are the best places to promote Current TV's new "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" show on television? Not necessarily on Current TV. ...More

• The Cross-Platform Report: TV's Doing All Right -- For Now by Gary Holmes

  Having seen what digital media did to the music and newspaper businesses, the television industry has understandably viewed the Internet with a certain amount of dread. The fear has long been that viewers will start watching television shows online and bypassing the traditional cable, satellite and over-the-air broadcast platforms. This, in turn, would undermine the industry's ad-supported business model. With the release of Nielsen's new Cross-Platform Report, television executives can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for another quarter. Despite a few warning signs, the report indicates that for now at least, traditional television remains king. ...More

• DG, MediaMind To Combine TV And Online Targeting by Laurie Sullivan

  DG, which delivers video ads through a digital network, wanted to expand into online advertising. So, last week it acquired online ad firm MediaMind, formally Eyeblaster, for $414 million in cash. Gal Trifon, former MediaMind CEO, will remain at DG as chief digital officer. Trifon told MediaPost the combined companies -- DG and MediaMind -- stand a better chance of successfully supporting targeted ads based on consumer behavior across traditional and online media, compared with two separate businesses. ...More

• Video Wayback Machine: When TV Told Us When to Laugh by Steve Smith

  Back in the days when the TV was a "box" not a "display," when "boob tube," "idiot box" and "vast wasteland" were synonyms for the most powerful medium of the 20th Century (we weren't being ironic, either) the very symbol of television shallowness was the laugh track. Few artifacts of communication history so well embody media condescension to its audience. Programmers not only gave us tepid situation comedies; they tried to convince us the shows were funny by piping in canned laughter. True videophiles, get your checkbook ready. At an auction gallery in California this weekend (June 25-26) two of ...More

• An Independent Hulu Would Still Be Holding Its Hands Out by Wayne Friedman

  Hulu needs to be an independent company so it can compete in real-time, real-world business. Trouble is, consumers still seek out TV network content. The cliche is real: Content is king (make that mostly TV network content).The problem is the kind of current Hulu video content: As long as Hulu remains, for the most part, a de-facto DVR on the Internet -- for many of those U.S. viewers who don't have actual at-home DVR hardware -- it will be limited. And a lot of Hulu's problems will remain. ...More

• Set-Top-Box Lexicon: Addressability by Jane Clarke

  Addressability is a fairly recent concept in our current understanding of Set-Top-Box data capabilities. But it has gained understanding and interest in media buying circles as a way to optimize the scheduling and targeting of marketing messages to the right audiences of interested consumers. ...More

• Teen Media Behavior; Texting, Talking, Socializing, TV Watching, Mobiling by Jack Loechner

  Nielsen takes look at today's American teen, raised in an age dominated by media choices like never before, from the Internet to cable channels to web connected devices galore. ...More

• The Killing: Did Twitter Change The History Of The Universe (You'll Have To Wait Until Fall)? by Karen Herman

  It's official. Here's my favorite headline of the 2010-2011 TV season: "The Killing: Worst Season Finale in the History of the Universe?" That gem was the header of Portland Mercury's editor in-chief Wm. Steven Humphrey's recent blog post. ...More