Citing the standard need to "pursue other challenges," Mel Karmazin resigned Friday as President of Viacom. Chairman and CEO, Sumner Redstone said in a conference call that Karmazin had mentioned frustration over the company's sagging radio division and that the company might dump the division. Karmazin will be succeeded by MTV's Tom Freston and CBS' Leslie Moonves.
More likely, Karmazin's exit was the result of a bunch of bitchy old men too stubborn to get a long.
UPDATE: Viacom Chief Details Succession Plans
RELATED: AOL Wants Mell Karmazin
Please, I've Seen It All
The average consumer can't go through a day without seeing 3,500 commercial messages. That's a hell of a lot of clutter for one individual to sift through but that's the reality of today's advertising marketplace. From guerilla marketing to all forms of "street furniture" advertising to human sandwich boards, advertising is inescapable unless one were to move to the Moon. Even there, one could probably see the screaming lights of Times Square with Jenna Jameson yelling, "Visit my website! Buy my videos!"
With media fragmentation comes advertiser use of that fragmentation in the increasingly difficult war waged to win the valuable consumer eyeball. This fragmentation has given way to more unique forms of advertising that fall into the guerilla marketing space but even these efforts are getting tired. Once novel, tactics such as forehead advertising, invertising, advergaming, dogvertising, adverblogging, blogvertising, bloodvertising and bravertising are now old hat. Other methods such as school bus, in-school and police car advertising are considered only out of financial desperation. Clearly, the model is hurting.
It is important for marketers to make sure their efforts do not become old hat. Trouble is, it's like a flushing toilet with marketers trying desperately to invent their next move in order not to be sucked down the vortex of extinction. It almost makes one pine for the pre-cable, three network, Clear Channel-less radio, Look Magazine days of old. OK, not really, but do I really want an advertiser offering to paint my house for free in exchange for allowing that paint job to include the advertiser's logo gracing the front of my house?
B-toB magazine publishers are the latest group to see threat from the Google giant. At the recent annual American Business Media conference, IDG CEO Pat Kenealy advised attendees that Google should be considered a real threat to their business model citing Google's popular and growing contextual advertising programs. One conference attendee put it bluntly, "If Google can slice and dice [information] and give highly qualified users to very targeted advertisers, then what do you need a trade publication for?"
UPDATE: Underscore Marketing's Tom Hespos says not to worry - you can't search until you know what you are looking for and B-to-B mags help in that area.
As reported back in August, soccer superstar David Beckham has inked a deal with Gillette for $10 million. The three year deal comes at a time when Gillette is watching competitor Schick gain market share with its new four blade razor product. Couple that with Beckham's well publicized recent affair with Rebecca Loos and the fact that he' not known well in the U.S. and Gillette ends up with a significant challenge.
Not to worry though. He's has been voted the "Sexiest Man on the Planet" in a worldwide consumer survey by condom maker Durex and we know sex sells. So Gillette will do just fine with this.
One day, there was a massive display of neathage (the exposed bottom part of a woman's breasts commonly seen when a woman wears a very, very short top) on a Clear Channel billboard for the Palms on I-15 in Las Vegas. Then one day, the wind came and ripped away the neathage portion of the billboard causing some to believe conservative groups had vandalized the sexed-up board or that the Palms had changed it's ad policy in reaction to the Hard Rock getting fined for its sexed-up efforts. Then on yet another day, the board went back up and this time, the women's breasts were no longer hanging out the bottom of their tops. See the image to the right.
At first, the Palms claimed it was the hotel that decided to erect a more conservative version of the former board. But, unsurprisingly, it was conservative giant Clear Channel who laid down the edict - no exposed boobs on our boards. So even in the city whose sole purpose it is to entertain, titillate and stimulate, conservatism reigns supreme.
Larger version of the "exposed under-boob" billboard here.
