- Taking a break from semi-nudity and sex, Maxim Publisher Felix Dennis has written a poetry book, "A Glass Half Full," and plans a nationwide promotional tour.
- Florida's tourism group, Visit Florida is spending $2 million on a campaign carrying the tagline, "We're Still Here. Naturally," to get tourists to come back to the state after it was ravaged by hurricanes.
- ABC has contracted with ad-tracking firm Teletrax to track airings of its television show promotions to get a better handle on when and where its promos are airing and to relate that back to programming ratings.
- Hachette Filipacchi has hired Home and Garden Television's Candice Olson as contributing editor on Woman's Day and Home magazine who MediaPost thinks could be the next Martha Stewart.
- UPN's Top Model begins its third season tonight at 8PM and Tyra Banks promises lots of bitchiness.
- About.com has launched the Advertising Trivia Challenge, a collection of surveys in which you can test your knowledge of advertising from which celebrities pitch which brands to famous songs used in ad campaigns to identifying an advertiser just by looking at their logo.
- Fagoogle, a search engine for gays has launched.
Well, it's time for the monthly banned beer ad story. You know how if goes by now - company creates ad, ad pushed limits, ad gets conservatives all riled up, ad gets banned. Old news? Yes. But there's something about beer and sex that keeps us covering these sorts of stories. Besides, do you really want to read another, "ACME Launches Revolutionary New Interactive Ad Campaign" story? We didn't think so. So, on with the story.
Australia's James Boag Beer hired the late Helmut Newton to shoot an ad in which a woman holds a beer bottle the way many men like to be held and the man is about to do what most men would love to do when near a woman such as the lovely lady in this ad. Of course we know it's just a fantasy but apparently the Royal Women's Hospital Centre Against Sexual Assault doesn't like to fantasize and has complained to the Advertising Standards Bureau asking the image not be used in the ad. The Centre's spokeswoman said, "The message they're giving is that somehow beer makes women sexually available." Well she's right. Beer makes everyone sexually available. If you've ever had a beer or two too much, you know this. Basically, the ad is getting banned because it's being honest.
Pointing to the likelihood this was a planned strategy from the start, the brewer issued a statement in which it said there are "no plans for media placement." Hmm. Create an ad. Get it vetted by the Standards body. Have "party pooper" groups complain. Get the ad banned. Get tons of media coverage. Call it a day. Of course there are no plans for media placement. It's all free. Right here in this little news item and in news items all over the media. Now that's a media strategy.
Ypulse's Anatasia Goodstein points to a Chicago Tribune article questioning the ethics of viral marketing targeted to teens. While marketers are grasping at straws to reach today's youth, Goodstein further questions the moral nature of some companies such as Girls Intelligence Agency, a teen influencer network that enables on teen to promote product to another, not disclosing its true marketing attention. She calls for full disclosure and honestly - a trait, unfortunately, rare in some marketing circles.
Well we knew it was difficult to work on a media plan with a hangover following a late night, crunk-filled drinking binge but we didn't know it was costing advertisers $50 billion.
Yup, that's the figure deemed by the Advertising Research Foundation' s recent review of dozens of cross media studies to have been mis-spent on advertising. There's a headline in there somewhere. "Get Wasted.
Waste Your Client's Ad Budget."
That $50 billion figure represent 18.8 percent of the total $266 billion U.S. ad spend as estimated by Universal McCann. The ARF says the two biggest causes of wasted media spend are ads carrying the "wrong" message and buys being made with "wrong" timing. ARF suggest after recovering from "morning after" syndrome, you walk right up to your creative director and account director and say, "Dammit, we need to test this creative before it runs!" Yes. Test. What a novel concept.
In fact, ARF says testing creative will knock $10 billion off that wasted ad dollars figure. Try it. It could work.
Yesterday, Reebok launched a national outdoor campaign featuring the Chivas Rayadas Del Guadalajara team and their new uniform.
The ads carry the tagline, "La Nueva Piel De Las Chivas" meaning "New Skin of Chivas." The ads feature players Adolfo "Bofo" Bautista, Salvador Carmona, Alberto Medina, Francisco Palencia and Oswaldo Sanchez. The outdoor campaign will appear in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Loas Angeles, New Jersey, New York, San Antonio and San Diego. There's also a supporting print effort in the November issue of national soccer magazine 90:00.
"By promoting Chivas in the US, Reebok aims to increase nationwide awareness of our alignment with one of the top sports teams in the world," blathered Reebok Director of Latin American Marketing Jorge Dionne. "Through advertising Chivas in key cities with high Latin American populations, Reebok's goal is to boost our brand visibility among a broader audience of soccer fans." Translation: Buy our shoes!
- The IAB, in conjunction with its Rich Media Task Force, announced the final guidelines for Over-the-Page Rich Media units, including, Expandable Ads, Floating Ads, Between-Page and In-Stream Units.
- Following in the foot steps of Bauer Publication's First For Women and Time Inc.'s All You, Hearst is launching it's own low cost women's magazine.
- Hearst's Marie Claire has a new publisher - Susan Plagemann, formerly of Lifetime will replace Katherine Rizzuto.
- TBS is launching a late night comedy programming block called Too Funny To Sleep including Family Guy, Futurama, Mr. Show and Baby Blues.
- Sarah Fay says clients finally get that online advertising works.
As an extension to its HaveItYourWay promotion, Burger King has teamed with AOL to invade the campus of Arizona State University distributing blank CDs in the school newspaper, The State Press.
The CDs, packaged with a cover that says, "What's Up With This Blank CD" and a pamphlet that says "Mix It Your Way," were distributed as an insert in the school's newspaper yesterday.
The copy read, "It's yours to burn any way you want with free music downloaded from America Online when you buy a hot Original WHOPPER sandwich from BURGER KING. There are over 700,000 songs to choose from, including in-studio performances from Sessions and AOL." It's very likely we'll see this campaign on more college campuses around the country. More images here, here and here. Thanks to ASU grad student Tian for the tip and pictures.
As if there weren't enough promotional activity already during this week's Advertising Week, Innovation Ads, a Manhattan-based interactive media strategist, is giving away $10,000 in media services to one company that either stops by Innovation Ads' booth, #129 on the 8th Floor at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in NYC, or enters online at www.innovationads.com/giveaway by 6 PM (ET) on September 21, 2004. The Grand Prize winner, who will be chosen at random from all the entrants, will be publicly announced at approximately 9 PM (ET) at Innovation Ads After-IAW-Party at Fashion Forty Lounge, located at 202 West 40th Street in NYC.
Don't fret if you don't win. Five second prizes, which consist of an evaluation of current strategic online planning with suggestions and a personalized plan for the future, will also be awarded. Now there's an agency that wants to build up its leads database.
Association of National Advertisers President Bob Liodice has politely ripped Ad Age a new one over an editorial the magazine wrote commenting on the Family Friendly Programming Forum's withdrawing its endorsement of NBC's Father of the Pride claiming the group handled it badly. Apparently the show, initially endorsed by Family Friendly, a group of national advertisers who champion family-friendly programming, had taken a turn towards the seedier side and Ad Age got their undergarments in a bunch over Family Friendly's policies. Read the ANA's take here.
Regal CineMedia in a deal with KidToons Films and Hasbro is showing the big screen premiere of Tonka Tough Truck Adventures on September 25th at Regal Entertainment Group movie theaters in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and New York.
Using Regal CineMedias Digital Content Network, the Saturday morning screening of Tonka Tough Truck Adventures - a new family movie created for kids ages 3-9 - is the first of a planned series of regular Regal events geared towards kids and families. In addition, attendees will also be able to play with dozens of Hasbros Tonka trucks in theatre lobbies, receive fun giveaways, and more. The event is being promoted via trailers, counter cards, banners and other collateral.
To date, Regals DCN has been used to bring both live and first-run events to audiences in theatres across the country, including educational events such as Holes: Reel Thinking, James Camerons Ghosts of the Abyss and In The Directors Chair with M Night Shyamalan as well as concerts featuring some of musics leading artists.
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