• by John Gaffney , March 10, 2003

You’ve Got A Challenge: I promise that you just read the last pun in MediaPost on the AOL assignment won last week by BBDO. Some of them are just too much fun to resist. But all fun aside, here’s what I think will happen now that part of the AOL account review has been settled. First of all, I think BBDO, which won the AOL Broadband assignment, will bring every bit of its “A” game to this project. It will include celebrities, a decidedly more humorous tone than the talking heads currently delivering the commercial messages and the creation of some kind of emotion that will make AOL Broadband resonate with consumers. BBDO’s work will take big risks to make sure the consumer understands the emotional connection to the Internet, especially when it’s untethered by thew weight of dialup. If BBDO succeeds, and AOL attracts more broadband customers, everyone in this business succeeds. Second of all, I think you will see some of kind of Weiden and Kennedy role in the corporate branding assignment that is still to be settled. AOL president Jon Miller is a former NBA guy. He was an NBA guy when W&K was creating arguably one of the best brands ever at Nike. Miller will want Weiden to give AOL the magic it never had in image and advertising.

Sunday Papers: Looks to me like someone forget to tell free standing insert advertisers that newspaper readership is slipping. MLife launched its “American Idol” tie-in through an FSI this week. Kmart continues to extend its multicultural effort through FSIs, and the newspapers I buy on Sundays are still packed with inserts. In a world where clients want to break free from clutter FSIs are a solid strategy. My concern would be cannibalization of run-of-press pages.

Parting Shot: A little mea culpa here. I take plenty of time to criticize media companies and potential advertisers who sit around waiting for war to break out. And over the last two weeks we’ve run a few news stories that do the same thing. We’re on to other things, I can assure you. But sometimes the tide tends to run very high, and you get caught up in it.