Procter & Gamble, already the nation's largest advertiser, will keep spending heavily on marketing for the year starting July 1. "For fiscal-year 2008, the priority for the company is to sustain strong sales growth," says Chief Financial Officer Clayton Daley. "As such, we plan to invest in our leading brand equities. We plan to launch a strong initiative program." But while P&G may to spend more aggressively in its next fiscal year, it seems to be pulling back on measured media these days, shifting toward the Internet and other outlets. "If you step back and look at our …

Ford's new ads are apt to catch attention with a spot that shows an F-150 truck being crash-tested. The approach is designed to call attention to the pickup's five-star safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, beating out the ratings earned by competing Toyota and Nissan models. Ford engineers are also being used in the new effort as another ad focuses on leaf-spring bolts and features interplay between the crash-test supervisor and a truck suspension engineer Paul Angove, along with the Discovery Channel's Mike Rowe. Smashing up a vehicle in an ad, if unusual, is not unprecedented. …

Preemptions and interruptions to cover the Virginia Tech shootings, coupled with viewer erosion, meant no syndicated shows gained at all during the last final week before May sweeps. "Entertainment Tonight" was able to keep its losses even with almost two dozen news preemptions over two nights in big major CBS markets, losing 11% to 5.0 from a prior week mark of 5.6 -- still better than a year-ago mark of 4.7. "Oprah" sounded to a season low of 5.2, down 15% from the prior week and 17% from last year. That meant the gulf between the top …

The American Legacy Foundation is changing the approach in its anti-smoking campaign, dumping its "Bob Quits, Mary Quits" campaign. "We've gained a lot of intelligence on what smokers need to hear," says Eric Asche, Legacy's senior vice president for marketing. "Smokers feel marginalized, and we want the communication to use a smoker-to-smoker language." One new spot has a woman feeling around her car as if it's completely foreign, unable to figure out how to insert the keys or open the door before working her way to the wheel. "When you're used to always doing something with a cigarette, …

The Maytag Repairman returns this week in the first of three TV spots that star the latest actor to play the always lonely service guy. Clay Jackson, a real estate agent from Richmond, Va., was chosen from more than 1,500 applicants to star in a new ad campaign. He is only the fourth actor in the slot since the first commercials aired in 1967. This time out, the legendary repairman will go out and try to find other things to fix, rather than sit in his shop waiting for Maytag repair calls that never come. Whirlpool Corp. owns …

A new marketing effort for Absolut vodka focuses on an imaginary world where men get pregnant, smokestacks blow bubbles and protesters fight with pillows. With four TV spots, print, Web and outdoor ads, the $45 million global campaign rolls this week. While previous ads compared Absolut to icons like the Statue of Liberty and Steve McQueen, these use humor, like when a confrontation between cops and demonstrators turns into a pillow fight. "It's not necessarily about perfection, but about making the world better by seeing it with fresh eyes," says Rob Smiley, creative director at Omnicom Group's TBWACD, …

Offbeat ads touting Yahoo oneSearch and Yahoo Answers will be all over the Web, along with prime-time TV, radio and print. The brand that trails Google in search market share and ad revenue, hopes their new message, "Be a better -- (whatever you want to be)" clicks with the browsing public. "We'll let our customers fill in the blank," says Allen Olivo, vice president, global brand marketing. "Whatever they want to be, Yahoo's tools and services allows them to be better." One TV spot shows a hiker eaten alive by a red flower not identified in …

Honda's flirtation with "Environmentology" is coming to a slow stop as the green-themed campaign will gradually disappear over the next few months. However, the Japanese car maker says "the environmental message will continue to be part of Honda." One insider says the approach featured the made-up term: "never went as deep as had been planned. It was directionally challenged, and I think Honda was struggling as a group with it. As soon as it started rolling out, mind-sets changed." Spots rolled out last fall along with a big newspaper and magazine buy. Campaign spending was not …

The Federal Communications Commission wants to fine five TV stations a total of $41,000 for violating ad restrictions in kids TV shows and omitting information from their public filings. The quintet are just the latest to get nailed by fines and warnings from the Feds. The biggest single proposed fine is the $15,000 levied on Acme Television's WBUI in Decatur, Ill., for "willful and repeated" violations on the number of commercial minutes in kids shows, currently 10.5 minutes per hour on the weekends, 12 minutes on weekdays. The station was cited for four overages of 90 …

The adventures of a modern media buyer are not usually the standard children's book fare. An effort to bring in more sponsorship dollars for its kids shows has Boston PBS affiliate WGBH creating a story book about a media buyer convincing a client to put ads in shows like "Arthur" and "Clifford the Big Red Dog." WGBH sent copies of "The Happy Client" to more than 1,000 industry contacts and says it is a creative way to keep PBS Kids shows top of mind. "A lot of media dollars are being spent right now, and our goal was …