Publicis Has Acquired Independent Duval Guillaume

Belgian agency Duval Guillaume, well know for its work with Schweppes, Bubblicious and World Aids Day has been acquired by French giant Publicis. While the announcement states the agency's current management structure, six operating companies and subsidiaries will maintain autonomy, we hope the originality and quality work Duval has created will continue untarnished,

AccuQuote Wants to Know How to make Better Ads

In reaction to a recent Burst media study that concluded the web to be the primary resource for information among the affluent, life insurance company AccuQuote, on their new weblog, wants to know what makes a good online life insurance ad. Not that AccuQuote uses them, but we'd recommend any life insurance advertiser to ditch pop ups and spasmodically flashing ad banners as a start. We'd also recommend creating banners that have price quote capability built in. So help a brand that honestly wants to know how to better its advertising.

Student Ad Campaign For Designer Features Leaky Breast

So there's a series of really weird ads up on Flickr for fashion label Raoul. The ads are spec work done by students in an advertising class in Singapore. As Flickr user skaplan explains, "some of my friends in Singapore asked some of the exchange kids to be white people in their concept ads they made for class." Hmm. While the ads are refreshingly un ad-like, this one in particular really makes one wonder what they were thinking when they created it. Then again, these are college students and they aren't all hung up on corporate culture that constrains creativity.

Study: Big Media Shops Don't Get Better Rates Than Smaller Shops

Even though we often rail against studies that simply restate the obvious, it's nice to see a study that confirms what we've known for years. Contrary to life as a porn star, in the world of media buying, size does not matter according to a recent study of negotiated media rates. A two year analysis of media spending by Billets media audit arm MMPA found prices paid for the same media vary widely and big agency bulk buying clout did not guarantee a lower rate. Our own personal confirmation of this came several years ago when an idiot sales rep mistakenly emailed us his entire inventory sheet for the past six month showing our little three person media department was kicking the shit out of the big guys rate-wise.

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Toyota Yaris Promoted in 'Prison Break: Proof of Innocence' Mobisode

Working with Saatchi & Saatchi, Toyota will sponsor a spin-off of the FOX series Prison Break called Prison Break: Proof of Innocence which will be broadcast to mobile phones and supported with ten seconf pre-roll ads. The mobile series itself will be promoted on the TV series with two minute spots airing in May as the first year of the show comes to a close. The effort is, of course, to reach the hard-to reach-younger demo and leverage the booming use of the cell phone as the central media device for consuming content.

The Wall Street Journal writes, "'Prison Break: Proof of Innocence' wasn't written by the same people who work on the regular series, and the mobisodes won't feature actors from the show, although the original producers have veto power over anything. The series introduces the character of Amber McCall and follows her path to exonerate her friend L.J., who has disappeared after being framed for murder. In the regular series, L.J. is the son of one of the lead characters. Amber will be played by actress Mandell Maughan; Fox says this is her first professional acting credit."

Petition Asks Dictionary to Add 'Concept' As Verb

Ray Del Savio has launched a weblog in an effort to drum up support for getting the word "concept" added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary as a verb. Of course, all of us in the business who've been using the word to describe the act of coming up with an overall ad or campaign idea have been using the word as a verb forever. Savio's blog cites the Dictionary currently only recognizes the word as a noun and adjective.

The blog links to a petition that asks everyone to get behind its proposed addition to the Merriam-Webster listing of the word "concept." The proposed addition is al follows:

to con cept (knspt) - co cepted (knspt-ed) - con cept-ing (knspt-ing)
v.
1. A process whereby ideas are generated for the purpose of creatively solving a problem: "The team set aside some time for concepting in order to flush out some plausible directions."

There are 56 signatures so far. We're all for it. What about you?

'Animal' Relaunches, Snark Immediately Follows

Animal Magazine, the yardstick by which all New York culture is measured, has re-launched its website blog-style. Already, Animal's got high-jacked Facebook pictures of Moby hanging with a bunch of college hotties, a nod to Chelsea's apparent fixation with the male appendage and one of New York's finest mouthing off as only the finest can.

Senator Kennedy Whakamoles Cape Wind Project

No doubt there are a multitude of political angles to Cape Wind's desire to place a bunch of giant windmills off the coast of Cape Cod the generate energy but this video from Greenpeace showing Senator Ted Kennedy paying whakamole with the windmills because they might alter the pristine view he has from his Hyannis mansion is, well, just funny. Apparently, Kennedy has buried an amendment into a Coast Guard bill that, if approved, would kill the Cape Wind project.

Fake Hands Placed In Bags To Warn Of PickPocketing

To call attention to pockpocketing, Brussels Airlines resorted to a sort of anti-pickpocketing campaign and placed fake, rubber hands inside un-attended bags. Aside from the fact most people would freak out and scream if they came back to their bag and found a hand inside, we're guessing airport security wouldn't be too happy with this marketing scheme. Not to mention the possibility of those inserting the hands accidentally finding themselves faced with a bag full of explosives or some other nasty find. Still, we have to admit this is very effective at getting attention. LG&F came up with the idea.

McJob Followed By McMegaBurger

Following its recent "Not bad for a McJob" campaign, McDonald's UK, to coincide with this Summer's World Cup, will introduce, for a limited time, the new Bigger Big Mac which will be 40 percent bigger than the current Big Mac. The current Big Mac already has 560 calories and more fat than you'd ever want to consume. But hey, as we've always said, no one's forcing the food down anyone's throat so if a big ass burger works from a marketing angle, go for it.

Beetle Turbo Says 'Hold On Tight'

Here's an interesting way to promote the notion the you'd better hang on tight when driving the Volkswagen Turbo Beetle. This subway hanger also gives nod the the hanger's that used to (and maybe still do) hang from the ceiling of the original Beetle. They sure did come in handy when those 40 horses kicked in as Dad gunned it up the street on the way home from the hardware store in those heady days before that thing called Home Depot existed.

iTunes to Carry Graphic Ads

Ad Age is reporting iTunes will ad small graphic ads to iTunes in the lower left hand corner of the screen. The ads will appear when a person listens to a podcast using iTunes. It's unclear yet whether the ads will appear when people are viewing paid content such as ABC's $1.99 downloads. What is clear is the lower left hand area of iTunes will soon become ignored territory.

Oh, and by the way, Ad Age, that auto page reload thing is cheating and a sad attempt at increasing pageviews.

Behavioral Targeting Whoops Contextual's Ass

A recent behavioral targeting vs. contextual targeting study on an Internet advertising campaign for Panasonic found behavioral targeting identified and reached 50.3 percent more imminent buyers of Panasonic plasma TV's than contextual targeting. The study, by Next Century Media using Insight Express across 1,146 respondents, also found the cost to reach each potential buyer was 50 percent less than contextual targeting.

When considering a plasma TV purchase, people on the receiving end of the behavioral targeted ads showed a 67.6 percent higher preference for the Panasonic brand than those reached by contextual targeting. The study also showed a 168.9 percent advantage for behavioral targeting over run of network in terms of increasing the likelihood of buying the Panasonic brand.

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