AdWeak Returns With The Real Story on Advertising Week

AdWeak, well known for it's snarky insider ad biz humor recently returned from the dead and along with reporting on how a media planner's boob job caused a 30 percent drop in agency productivity, spent the week in New York City cutting through the bullshit and reporting insightful "truisms" about our self important industry we call advertising.

Conan O'Brien to Take Tonight Show Seat in 2009

Conan O'Brien can rest easy. He doesn't have to worry about jumping networks to get a better gig. He's done his time. Today, Jay Leno announced his retirement from NBC's Tonight Show effective in 2009 and named Conan O'Brien as his replacement.

"In 2009, I'll be 59 years old and will have had this dream job for 17 years," Leno said in a statement. "When I signed my new contract, I felt that the timing was right to plan for my successor and there is no one more qualified than Conan. Plus, I promised [my wife] Mavis I would take her out for dinner before I turned 60."

The question remains, though, will O'Brien be forced into the Tonight Show mold or will he be permitted to carry over is loser, fresher style? Tune in in 2010 to find out.

Barbie Gets Her Fetch Back With Hilary Duff

Ypulse points to a deal between Mattel and Hilary Duff in which Duff, reigning tween queen and ad babe, will lend her likeness to a new ad campaign promoting a new line of Barbie dolls called Fashion Fever along with new Barbie apparel and Barbie fragrance.

Duff gushed (or rather a press release writer gushed for her), "When I was younger, I was so inspired by Barbie. She has been a role model for my friends and me -- I love her style and her spirit!" Ooo that just makes us want to go grab our GI Joe and hang with these fetch new Barbie chics. Duff will appear in two commercials, one of which will also feature her older sister, Haylie. Print and outdoor will be components of the campaign as well.

Future TV Ad Models Will Make Internet Ad Models Old

Writing in MediaPost's TVWatch, Wayne Friedman says "old fashioned Internet advertising" is holding place for the yet to be "released" TV medium which will include interactive qualities of the Internet but builds on the existing positive qualities of television. Friedman says we'll see dramatic increase in set top box opening screen sponsorship, video on demand messaging, sponsorship of digital recorder menu pages and electronic programming guides. The Internet in a box, so to speak.

Rock The Vote Pissed At AM New York For Mis-Use of Logo

Rock the Vote, the national organization which educates young adult on the importance of voting, is furious with AM New York- the free daily newspaper. Apparently AM New York used Rock the Vote's logo without permission for some ads in last week's paper. More to follow.

Billboards Irk Nevada Gaming Regulators

Hotel Chatter points to little fight between the Nevada gaming regulators and the Hard Rock Cafe. Apparently, there was some rodeo in Las Vegas and the Hard Rock wanted as much business out of that as it could get so it bought a billboard which read, Get Ready to Buck All Night." The Nevada Gaming Commission received many complaints but the hard rock upped its ante and placed another board with the headline "Another Clean & Inoffensive Billboard" - with images of a beaver (c'mon people, the animal kind!), two rabbits "enjoying themselves" and a kittie who obviously thinks she has a hot bootie. This time, the good 'ol First Amendment won out.

Starcom Announces New Propriatary Print Planning Tool

On September 29, Starcom will launch a new print planning tool designed to provide detailed insight into reader engagement with editorial and ads.The tool is based on Mediamark Research Inc. data and will gauge how advertising melds with magazine content. The tool is the result of recent research Starcom conducted into magazine categorization by consumers, ads perceived as content versus ads and how editorial or ads that don't "gel" with the magazine's content affect perception.

Shocker: An Honest Car dealer Ad

In Ad Age's TV Spots of the Week, we find what we never though possible - an ad from a car dealer that speaks honesty. Yup. Atlanta based Walsh Chevrolet features Lisa Walsh being a bit too honest with a police officer. Other spots this week include a guy jumping on NASCAR vehicles to hear what drivers are saying for Nextel's Fan Scan service which allows Nextel users to hear conversations between pit crew and driver; two guitar store clerks who get oddly appreciative for a customer's guitar playing; a Hispanic beauty shot spot for American Airlines new campaign; a Land Rover spot that makes no sense - unless you visit the website; an artist who somehow makes car oil something to care about and the debut of Absolut's new artist campaign in which time lapse photography shows an artist rendering of the new Absolut Rasberry bottle.

Movie Product Placement Site 'brandcameo' Launched

If you're interested in tracking the increasingly prevalent display of brands within movies, there's now a site that will make your job much easier. Interbrand's brandchannel.com has launched brandcameo, a compendium of product placements (paid or by chance) in movies. While appearing to have a very complete listing of placements, the site does not do a very thorough job, other than a few featured films, of explaining the placements. It simply lists them with minor, if any commentary.

Adrants Billboards: ASME Says Keep Ads Out of Edit

• The New York Times sums up Advertising Week.
• Product review site CNET gets a facelift and adds more video.
• TiVo now has 2 million subscribers.
• Ad Age reports FOX's American Idol carries the highest ad cost of the season at $658,333 per :30.
• If you're looking to see who's famous in the world of media planning, Ad Age has published its Top Ad Industry Media Stars report.
• Proliferating print product placement and blurring of ad/edit wall has the American Society of Magazine Editors up in arms.
• Rocker Sammy Hagar grows his tequila business with merchandising and in-concert sponsorships.

Maven Launches BMC to Measure Video-Based Advertising

Maven Networks, Inc., developers of a platform for marketers to deliver high-impact, interactive video content to the desktops of broadband consumers, today launched the Broadband Marketing Consortium (BMC). The BMC is a collaboration of marketers to measure consumer response to receiving interactive video content over the web directly from a brand.

Maven will work with each participant to develop a branded channel that includes attitudinal and behavioral research components designed to evaluate consumer response to the channel.

"The BMC will bring together leading-edge marketers to further define and drive the emerging broadband video platform for advertising and marketing," said Susan Bratton, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Maven. "Using the Maven platform, marketers can now combine the emotional qualities of television with the targeting and measurement available via the Web. The BMC will benchmark the impact of this new style of digital marketing."

The primary focus of the BMC is the measurement of consumer attitude and behavior for each marketer's channel. Between 60 and 70 percent of all findings will be blinded and shared among BMC participants in order to allow each brand to benchmark their metrics against the normative data of the group. An executive summary of the results will be delivered to each BMC member.

'Tango' Won't Tell Women How to Please Their Man

To the dismay of men around the world, a new magazine is launching that promises not to treat women as pleasure producing objects for their men. Launching in February 2005 as a quarterly with a rate base of 100,000 and a cover price of $4.99, Tango will be written for an audience that does not depend on men to make them whole. No, it's not a magazine for lesbians you horndogs. It's a magazine designed for women who are marrying later, focusing more on their career than the length of their skirt and who realize relationships between men and women are very different today than they were in the golden years of...uh...the depressingly bleak years of male dominated society. Oddly, the website gives a completely different vibe.

Running the book will be former Vanity Fair Editor Elise O'Shaughnessy as editor in chief and former Seventeen and Teen Publisher Ellen Abramowitz as publisher.

Demand For Media Dips Except For Online

MediaPost's ongoing survey of media demand indicates demand for all media is down 7 points in September over September 2003. However, in that sea of apparent discontent, online stands out as the shining star with demand increasing 12 points during the same time period. The biggest losers are network TV and newspapers.

Magazine Publishers of America Launch $40 Million Campaign

Last Friday, the Magazine Publishers of America announced plans to inform the world of the medium's effectiveness as an advertising platform with a three year, $40 million ad campaign created by Fallon. The MPA effort will be under the auspices of a newly created group called Magazine Marketing Coalition and will be led by Hachette Filipacchi CEO Jack Kliger.

The effort hopes to take advantage of the many barbs television has taken over the last year or two and to create a single voice for the medium, something it's never had before. Recently, a Dynamic Logic study found magazines, when combined with TV and online, more than doubled magazine reader's purchase intent. The campaign will push the medium's ROI, reader involvement and reach capabilities.