• by March 7, 2006

A 'CRASH' COURSE IN MOVIE MARKETING -- We always knew Rishad Tobaccowala was pretty good at forecasting new media trends, but we never realized what a knack the Publicis media guru apparently has for predicting Oscar-winning films. Never known to be rash, Tobaccowala picked "Crash" to win this year's Best Picture, even though it was a Hollywood underdog. What makes Tobaccowala's cinematic prescience so remarkable, isn't his appreciation of the film itself - he still hasn't seen it - but his instincts for motion picture industry marketing.

"I knew it would win when I read that they were sending DVDs of the film to every member of the television academy," Tobaccowala explained to us over lunch recently. While other studios spent freely on trade ads in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, the producers of "Crash" opted for a more direct approach, shipping copies of the film to every eligible Academy Award voter.

"The product became the advertising," marveled Tobaccowala, assuming what most of those academy members, and a good deal of the movie-going public also realized: That aside from being brilliantly targeted, "Crash" also happened to be a really good movie.

DENUO DENUDED -- A lot has been written about Denuo, the new new media unit launched last month by Publicis, but it wasn't until our lunch with the unit's CEO, Rishad Tobaccowala, that we could get at the naked truth behind its strategy. Frankly, he was pretty frank, baring all about its launch. So, you might say, it was a naked lunch. Unfortunately, we have to keep it under wraps, as much of the conversation was off-the-record. What we can tell you, is that Tobaccowala has assembled an A Team of 15 of the best and brightest new media thinkers and they're going to spend much of their time thinking about the future. The rest of their time they'll spend actually inventing the future. Denuo, you may recall, is the Latin word for "afresh," or "anew."

Along the way, they'll be reinventing the core business model of Denuo itself, which already is unlike any Madison Avenue unit we've heard of to date. To start with, Denuo has four primary areas of focus: It's part management consultant, part new media think tank, part new media laboratory, and part new media venture capital group. For another thing, it is completely unaligned with the other operating units of its parent company. Sure Denuo will try to favor sister Publicis companies and their clients when it can, but much of its expected growth will come from new-to-Publicis business, which means it will be working with non-Publicis shops a considerable amount of its time.

Meanwhile, Denuo is practicing something Tobaccowala preaches: That anytime you launch a new product, you should automatically seed the major search engines with ad buys so that anybody searching for the name will see your ad. While he would not disclose the size of Denuo's search budget, paid listings can still be found on Google, MSN and Yahoo for the Denuo Group.

SEQUINTIAL MARKETING -- Speaking of Publicis media heavyweights, we hear that Jack Klues, chairman of Publicis Groupe Media gave quite a presentation to Yahoo's global sales team in San Diego Sunday night. Actually, it was a sparkling presentation. - literally. That's because Klues was adorned in a blue sequin suit. Why? Well apparently the Midwesterner, known for his frank, but understated delivery, wanted to make an impression on the young digerati that comprise Yahoo's sales organization. But Klues probably didn't have to worry about his attire. The substance of his speech likely was enough to command their attention. Noting that the Web generates about 15 percent of the time consumers spend with media, but only about 4 percent of the budgets advertisers spend on media, Klues pledged to raise the amount spent online by Publicis to 8 percent or 9 percent if companies like Yahoo can help create the right kind of sponsorship opportunities for Publicis' clients. Interestingly, Publicis rival Aegis Group today disclosed that digital media now accounts for 15 percent of its media-related revenues, though it did not say what share of its clients ad budgets that currently represents.