A study done by Beta Research Corporation found media buyers rate basic cable higher than broadcast in terms of brand image, audience demos, creative marketing and cost efficiency. While NBC ranked second, 13 other cable nets scored higher than ABC, CBS of FOX on brand image. ESPN was number one. MTV topped the list in terms of creative marketing and 30 percent of buyers plan to increase their spending this year on ESPN, Discovery, TLC, HGTV, TBS, VH1, Food Network and E!
Three years ago Michael J. Fox gave a teary eyed goodbye to viewers leaving the series "Spin City" to combat Parkinson's Disease. Now, he's back to guest star as a surgeon suffering Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder for laughs on "Scrubs." Fox will appear in two episodes.
As an offshoot to MoveOn.org's "Bush in 30 Seconds" promotion in which people submit anti-Bush commercials, LiberalOasis's humor writer Mark Spittle has created his own version called Bush in 41.2 seconds. Thanks to BushOut.TV.
As part of MoveOn.org's contest to create an ad about Bush, two of the entries has caused the Republican party and Jewish groups to complain.
The first commercial shows pictures of Hitler making a speech, with written subtitles like "I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator".
The final sentence under the genocidal leader is "God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them", before Bush's picture replaces it above the words "and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did".
The second commercial wraps up images of Nazi forces with Hitler giving the Nazi salute while a crowd bellows "Sig Heil" - and then Bush's picture replaces Hitler's.
As much as MoveOn.org wants these ads to be negative of Bush, MoveOn President Wes Boyd agreed that ads went too far saying, "We agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process. In the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system."
There's no surprise this happened. Anytime the creative process is opened up without an actual client to keep the creator in check, the result will always slant to the extreme.
Eatmail, a UK viral community has announced the top ten viral clips of the year. The winner this year is the spoof Mastercard blowjob spot featured here earlier. Here are all the winners:
- Priceless (MasterCard)
- Terry Tate (Reebok)
- Lord of the Piercing (MTV Film Awards)
- Bollocks (VW)
- Earth (Greenpeace)
- Kylie Wet T-Shirt (unknown)
- Pigeon (Ford)
- No Nonsense (John Smiths)
- Sex Olympics (Trojan)
- Star Wars Kid (His brother)
The winning Mastercard clip is a spoof of the classic MasterCard Priceless campaign that took the end of a romantic date that little bit further. Over 1.6m people worldwide rated the clip as the best viral clip.
The spoof was conceived, directed and filmed by Scott Quigley, a final year film student studying on the east coast of America. When asked about the clip; what motivated him to make it; and being nominated as Eatmail's favorite clip of 2003, he replied. "This is all very flattering and a great compliment. I did the short in film school when I had to think of things that were economical and, wanting to get into commercials, it was the natural thing to do. Someone sent me an old email joke; I edited down the basic punch lines to a script and then filmed it in one night. I never imagined the incredible response it would get."
You can view all the spots/clips here.
SEXMoney.com has launched it's own version of a reality series called JoePornStar. The series will follow a regular guy as he becomes a real life porn star. The winner gets paid $250 per scene to have sex with 25 women, a pay scale obviously based on a guy's ability to "perform" on command over and over and over. Interested guys can register at JoePornStar.com. Entrants will be narrowed down to three who will then be voted upon by site visitors. The finished product will be produced and viewable by members of the site.
 Guaranteed Short Life Span Recovering tech publisher Ziff Davis Media will launch a new magazine called Synch in June. The gadget-focused title hopes to serve young men who are entrenched in the digital lifestyle. Everything from cell phones to HDTV to the networked home will be covered. Ziff will have a tough time competing with other male gadget/shopping focused magazines such as Primedia's "Connected Living," an upcoming gadget magazine from IDG, "Best," Conde Naste's "Cargo," Fairchild Publication's "Vitals," and other titles such as "Wired," "Esquire" and "Stuff," all of which also cover gadgetry.
What all these publishers have failed to notice in their attempt to cover the fast moving world of gadgets with a monthly frequency, is a not so little website called Gizmodo which pumps out 5-10 gadget reviews every day. That's every day, not every month. Gizmodo is a weblog written by Peter Rojas and published by Nick Denton. Denton and Rojas manage to provide readers with more gadget reviews with their "thin media" approach to publishing than an entire bloated team of old school publishers could ever hope to do. I give Sync eighteen months.
You know an industry is in trouble when members of said industry can't grasp the concept that change is a constant. Sanford Bernstein & Co. media analyst Tom Wolzien thinks DVRs (TiVo) should be regulated in a way that make it impossible for consumers to skip commercials because it threatens to kill the $60 billion television advertising industry.
There are two very important things Wolzien should realize and he spews this idiocy: people hate commercials and they hate to be forced to do anything. A far better approach to the inevitable growth of DVRs is to adapt to the change. Don't force old models down new throats. That will cause failure quicker than if the television did nothing to combat the growth of DVRs. There are far better ways to preserve the advertising model than to force consumer's hands. TiVo already has an interesting model with is Showcase product and interactive television will see the light of again if marketers gain consumer's trust so that a beneficial swap of demographic information for razor sharp advertising messaging can be achieved. New forms of advertising such as "headvertising" and other forms of viral marketing have been proven successful.
The possibilities for future advertising models are endless. To think the current television model will be around forever is ludicrous and makes me cringe whenever I hear blowhards like this spew this dinasauric blather-speak.
Variety gives us several predictions on what we can expect to see with television this year. Quickly, "Joey won't suck, CBS will take over Thursday night, FOX will launch another cable news net, the much maligned half hour sitcom will return thanks to Paris Hilton's "The Simple Life," advertisers will control and produce more programming content, FOX will deliver even more reality shows and possibly a reality cable channel, and people meters will change sweeps.
Rather than spend $1 million on advertising, USA Networks has decided to simply give it away. However, the cable network couldn't do it without a bit of marketing thrown in. USA Network will hand out one million one dollar bills in New York and Los Angeles nightclubs with a sticker on the face of the bill promoting its January 26 premiere of is "Traffic: The Miniseries." The promotion was cooked up and will be implemented by GoGORILLA Media, a guerilla marketing firm which is doing some of the coolest marketing you've ever seen.
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