• Kraft Spin-off Mondelez To Hold Media Agency Review
    Mondelez International is preparing to launch a media agency review, the company has confirmed. Estimated ad spending on the account is $250 million annually, according to Nielsen. The unit is the snack foods operation of Kraft Foods that is spinning off to become a separate company this fall. Brands moving with the spin-off include Oreo and Ritz. The remaining part of Kraft Foods will become Kraft Foods Group, the company disclosed earlier this year. Brands in the Foods Group include the flagship Kraft moniker and Oscar Mayer, among others. Both businesses had been handled by Publicis Groupe's MediaVest for years. …
  • Facebook Stock Closes At New Low
    Even as it taps every ad revenue spigot it can find, Facebook continues to flounder on the stock market. The company's shares closed at a new low Friday after a pair of Wall Street analysts lowered their price targets on its stock, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Facebook shares fell about 5% today to just over $18—more than a 50% fall-off from its IPO price of $38. Bank of America analyst Justin Post dropped his target on Facebook shares 34% to $23, while Bank of Montreal analyst Daniel …
  • Facebook Confirms Email-Based Ad Targeting
    Facebook has confirmed it will introduce a new service that allows marketers to target ads to customers based on e-mail addresses, phone numbers and user IDs. The move would let businesses reach customers on Facebook they've already collected contact information on elsewhere but who may not have signed up as fans on the social network. The new targeting capability, first reported by Inside Facebook, is set to roll out next week following a beta testing period in which a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch one participating financial advertiser saw its …
  • Acer Names Michael Birkin CMO
    To energize and strengthen Acer's global marketing organization, the Taiwanese company plans to engage Red Peak Group, a global marketing services firm, and appoint Red Peak Chairman Michael Birkin as its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Red Peak will assign Birkin and other Red Peak members to perform related marketing functions and services for Acer. And as CMO, Birkin will lead the global brand marketing team, and report directly to Acer's chairman and CEO, beginning Oct. 1.
  • Google Signs Contract With Dave Duffield's Workday
    Remember David Duffield, the founder of PeopleSoft, which Oracle bought in 2004 for $10.3 billion in cash after a hostile takeover. Soon after, he founded a company called Workday, which offers human resources software. Google struck a deal with Workday to provides its online HR software. News of the deal follows Workday's initial public offering.
  • Email Volume, Open Rates Rise (Click Rates Continue Slide)
    Both email volume (+10%) and open rates (+1.5%) increased during the second quarter of 2012 vs. the same quarter a year ago, according to just-released estimates from the Experian CheetahMail email benchmark report.
  • Facebook Revenues Downgraded, Weak First Half Cited
    Citing its under-performance during the first half of 2012, eMarketer has shaved $1 billion off its previous projection for Facebook's revenues this year. In February, eMarketer predicted Facebook's revenues would top $6 billion this year, but not projects it will grow to only $5.042 bilion, a downward revision of 17%.
  • China To Top U.S. In Smartphones In 2012
    China will overtake the U.S. this year as the world's largest smartphone market, according to a new IDC forecast. The research firm projects China will account for 26.5% of all smartphone shipments in 2012, compared to 17.8% for the U.S. Lower-priced Android phones will be a key to wider smartphone adoption throughout China.   Smartphone growth won't grind to a halt in the U.S, but it will slow as smartphones become the majority of mobile phones. “There is still a …
  • Mediabrands Names Additional BPN Executives
    Mediabrands has named Liz Ross North American CEO of its new conflict shop BPN. Previously she was CEO Mediabrands Ventures North America. The shop also named Mauricio Sabogal global CEO of the new agency, which has been quietly rolling out this year in markets in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Previously, Sabogal was president world markets, Mediabrands UM and Initiative.
  • Zite Zaps Large Android Tablets
    After expanding to Windows Phone devices last month, Zite has launched an updated version of its newsreader app that promises improved performance and new features including a social sharing menu. Among other tweaks are an icon to indicate articles that require a Web connection and the ability to maintain font size changes across articles. Though Zite launched on the iPad, the company said it will no longer make the app available on similar sized Android tablets. (It will still run on smaller Android-based devices like the Nexus 7 and Kindle …
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