We've known for quite some time that Life Magazine was going to make yet another return. This time, as reported over a year ago, as a Friday newspaper supplement in papers such as Tribune Co.'s Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Long Island, NY-based Newsday and Knight Ridder's Miami Herald, San Jose Mercury News, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Daily News, The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, McClatchy Co.'s Sacramento Bee and Minneapolis' Star Tribune, and The Record in Bergen County, NJ. The magazine will launch on October 1 with 20 pages and 12 million circulation. The launch is being promoted with, oddly, a $12 million campaign including television, print, radio, billboard, bus shelter, online and guerilla. The tagline will be "Life: Coming to a Weekend Near You."
No matter your musical style, GM Canada has launched a website for its 2005 Pontiac Wave that lets you choose from pop, hip hop, punk, indie and house while you take a look at the car and enter win the car as well as receive four free musical downloads from Puretracks.com. As Adrants reader, SanJ, points out, far more effort went into the music than the car. There's only three views of the car provided and no spec info.
Van Gogh Vodka is offering a CD containing 8,406 martini recipes sure to keep martini lovers busy for years - preferably with Van Gogh Vodka The company is distributing the CDs in magazines such as 944 as well as on their website. Who knew there were 8,406 ways to get drunk? Thanks to Adrants reader Tian for the tip.
We know video store clerks are not the smartest in the bunch but even an idiot would be able to muster the tiniest bit of common sense needed to realize this merchandising placement is questionable at best. Yes, Christ is getting his passion on with S & M equipment and porn videos. That said, this would be a perfect backdrop for Kevin Smith's upcoming Clerks 2.
Claiming hate a good thing and a motivating factor in improving something, Honda UK has launched a website and accompanying video explaining how hate can lead to change - in this case, diesel engines. Using this logic, Honda illustrates how it has taken the lowly diesel engine and made it into a beautiful, desirable thing. This is the kind of video you want to watch while on drugs - not that we advocate that sort of thing.
It seems most parents are OK with their kids seeing nipples. In a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation called Parents, Media and Public Policy, only 17 percent of parents surveyed were "very concerned" about the baring of Janet Jackson's nipple at this year's Super Bowl. In fact, 53 percent were "not at all concerned." While nipples may be OK, 63 percent of parents were "very concerned" that their children see too much inappropriate content in entertainment and media. Until the media realize they don't have to shoot for the lowest common denominator just to get a rating point and that consumers might actually enjoy quality programming, there is sure to be a continuous supply of slutted up TV.
During this week's MediaPost Forecast 2005, Yankelovich Partners President J. Walker Smith and others on a panel at MediaPost's Forecast 2005 conference this week at the Marriott Marquis in New York said it may be time to pay consumers to watch commercials. While it's not a new idea, perhaps they read a previous Adrants article which proposed a radical new economic model for advertising. OK, radical for TV. Not so radical for online media.
Based on the inevitable shift from the measurement of programming to the measurement of the ads within those programs, all effort will be shifted from promoting programming to promoting ads within those programs. When all eyes are on the ad ratings versus program ratings, it will be incumbent upon networks to prove they have the highest "ad viewership" rating. Because of this driver, it will be the networks, not the advertisers, who will pay consumers to view. Oh, the advertisers will continue to pay much in the same way they do today but they'll be paying based on ad viewership ratings and not programming ratings. Conceivably, all the program promotion we now see from the networks will be replaced by promotions for upcoming commercials consumers "must see." Crazy? Sure. Likely? Very definitely. The money is in the consumer eyeball and marketers will be forced to do what is necessary to reach those eyeballs whether it's wild models such as this or more refined permission marketing-based models.
- The "What Happens Here, Stays Here" Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority ad campaign has been awarded Brandweek's 2004 Marketer of the Year in the travel and tourism category.
- Product placement efforts intensify and get dished about at MediaPost's Forecast 2005.
- Business Week turns 75 and throws itself a bash at the Metropolitan Museum of Art called "A Night of Two Parties" the same night as the first Presidential debate. An advertising party and a Presidential bitch fight. Could go either way.
- Online mapper, Mapquest, has handed its branding work to TBWA's Chiat Day.
- Following the current celebu-fragrance name game, Estee Lauder is launching Donald Trump, The Fragrance. Trump will serve as spokeman as well. The shark has been jumped.
- ESPN is launching I'd Do Anything a reality show in which contestants perform crazy sports stunts with pro athletes to win a sports fantasy for their friends or family.
A study released yesterday by Dynamic Logic which analyzes how the three media work together found magazines, when combined with TV and online, more than doubled magazine reader's purchase intent. Ad size and high involvement were cited as reasons for the medium's high scores.
In Defense of Animals, a California-based anti-fur group, has launched a new ad campaign created by Peter Max. Max has painted five presidents, the Beatles, Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones. We assume he knows what he's doing although, looking at the ad, one wonders if Max just stepped out of middle school art class.
The campaign features images of puppies and kittens alongside foxes and beavers with tear-jerk copy that reads, "Make respect for all life your fashion statement. Beavers and foxes have as much right to live as cats and dogs. Please don't wear fur." Ads have appeared in local West Coast print and plans are in place for the campaign to appear nationally.
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