Advertisers--especially those in the business-to-business category-- have discovered the benefits of using rich media in their online advertising efforts. New research shows that the number of advertising video streams increased by 50.2 percent in 2005, hitting 17.95 billion. "More and more, people are expecting to be shown in addition to being told," said David Hallerman, senior analyst with research firm eMarketer. "We don't have hard-and-fast numbers on this, but it's happening even more in the b-to-b world than the b-to-c," he said. The reason, he said, is b-to-b products' longer sales cycles and higher prices. B-to-b advertisers are also beginning …

Australia is launching a new $20 million marketing campaign designed to lure American tourists to its shores that carries the potentially controversial slogan, "Where the bloody hell are you?" The new effort follows 86 focus groups and $6.2 million in brand tracking, segmentation studies, and in-depth interviews by the Australian Tourism Board, which found that only 6 percent of Americans surveyed said they plan to visit the country. The Aussie "attitude" expressed in the slogan might offend some, but the board is hoping it will resonate with potential tourists as genuine. "Authenticity is key to the campaign," said Tourism Board …

Prince fans, take note: You now have a chance to attend a private performance by your hero at his Los Angeles home. All you need to do is buy his new CD, "3121," when it comes out in March, and if you are one of the lucky ones to find a hidden ticket, you win! The promotion, mounted by Universal Records to support the album launch, involves placing 14 hidden tickets in copies of the CD, seven in the U.S. and seven internationally. Fans can also win seven digital tickets to the exclusive performance through Apple's iTunes online music store. …

Small, fully functioning personal computers that are about the size of a large paperback book will soon be marketed by three electronics companies. The PCs are based on new designs from Microsoft and Intel and will be primarily used for storing music and videos and wirelessly tapping into the Web. The new devices, based on Microsoft's Origami design, will be marketed by South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc. and China's second-largest PC-maker, Founder Group. The companies are formally calling the products Ultra-Mobile Personal Computers, or UMPCs. The Samsung and Asustek devices are expected to be in stores …

General Motors Corp. is shifting gears on its marketing plan. The giant automaker's vice president of sales said the company will increase ad spending for its SUVs and trucks and start marketing its eight brands individually. "When I came into the job, what I realized is although we were being very efficient in our spend, we weren't being as effective as we needed to be," Brent Dewar, vice president of sales for GM's North American operations told Reuters. GM is struggling to reverse market share losses and address criticism that its national advertising campaigns have failed to connect with fast-growing …

Cigarette sales in the U.S. are dropping, but tobacco companies still have huge budgets to market their products and are far outspending their anti-tobacco opponents. This week cigarette sales reached a 55-year low and have declined by more than 20 percent ever since the industry reached a landmark $246 billion settlement with several U.S. states in 1998. The agreement imposed severe restrictions on how tobacco products can be advertised and promoted, but tobacco companies have discovered other means to get their point across. Antismoking groups, on the other hand, are now struggling to find the money to maintain even a …

Luxury watch maker Patek Phillipe is encouraging women to have a love affair, but there’s nothing illicit suggested in the company’s new $3 million global ad campaign.  The effort’s tagline, "You don't just wear a Patek Philippe. You begin an enduring love affair," is designed to evoke the emotional bond women feel with a treasured belonging.  The company’s successful men’s campaign also stresses emotional attachments between fathers and sons who bequeath their watches. That campaign’s tagline is “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely take care of it for the next generation."  The women’s ads feature several …

Consumer products giant Unilever is increasing its Hispanic advertising and promotion budget by almost 50 percent this year in the company's largest-ever push for its Hispanic food brands. Plans include a program dubbed "Desafio del Sabor" (The Flavor Challenge,) in which participants submit recipes that must include Unilever products and will end in a televised cook-off on national TV. Ricardo Martinez, Unilever's director- multicultural marketing, said Latinos spend almost twice as much time preparing home-cooked meals as non-Latinos do. He added that the new effort taps into a belief among Hispanics that their food has "the best sazon [seasoning] or …

Once again, Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" has proven the ideal venue for a consumer product marketer to promote a brand as part of a branded entertainment deal with the popular show. Fast food companies have done it, and now it's Gillette's turn. This week the company's new Fusion Razor, with its five-blade shaving surface technology, was woven into the show, where a sweepstakes was also announced. In the show, two teams faced off in a marketing campaign that used text messaging to promote the razor. Teams selected keywords--"Closer" for team Gold Rush and "Five Blade" for team Syngery--to persuade cell …

A star of the hit ABC television series "Lost" has been signed as a celebrity endorser for Karastan carpets and rugs. The company announced that it has added Evangeline Lilly to its growing list of endorsers, which includes actress Andie MacDowell and entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore, the founder of Bliss Spas. Lilly will appear in print ads scheduled to run in a long list of lifestyle and shelter magazines. The campaign carries the tagline, "Make a statement. Your own." David Duncan, the company's vice president-marketing, said: "We've scratched beneath the surface of the public persona of Evangeline Lilly and found quite …