Hotel Chatter points to little fight between the Nevada gaming regulators and the Hard Rock Cafe. Apparently, there was some rodeo in Las Vegas and the Hard Rock wanted as much business out of that as it could get so it bought a billboard which read, Get Ready to Buck All Night." The Nevada Gaming Commission received many complaints but the hard rock upped its ante and placed another board with the headline "Another Clean & Inoffensive Billboard" - with images of a beaver (c'mon people, the animal kind!), two rabbits "enjoying themselves" and a kittie who obviously thinks she has a hot bootie. This time, the good 'ol First Amendment won out.
On September 29, Starcom will launch a new print planning tool designed to provide detailed insight into reader engagement with editorial and ads.The tool is based on Mediamark Research Inc. data and will gauge how advertising melds with magazine content. The tool is the result of recent research Starcom conducted into magazine categorization by consumers, ads perceived as content versus ads and how editorial or ads that don't "gel" with the magazine's content affect perception.
In Ad Age's TV Spots of the Week, we find what we never though possible - an ad from a car dealer that speaks honesty. Yup. Atlanta based Walsh Chevrolet features Lisa Walsh being a bit too honest with a police officer. Other spots this week include a guy jumping on NASCAR vehicles to hear what drivers are saying for Nextel's Fan Scan service which allows Nextel users to hear conversations between pit crew and driver; two guitar store clerks who get oddly appreciative for a customer's guitar playing; a Hispanic beauty shot spot for American Airlines new campaign; a Land Rover spot that makes no sense - unless you visit the website; an artist who somehow makes car oil something to care about and the debut of Absolut's new artist campaign in which time lapse photography shows an artist rendering of the new Absolut Rasberry bottle.
If you're interested in tracking the increasingly prevalent display of brands within movies, there's now a site that will make your job much easier. Interbrand's brandchannel.com has launched brandcameo, a compendium of product placements (paid or by chance) in movies. While appearing to have a very complete listing of placements, the site does not do a very thorough job, other than a few featured films, of explaining the placements. It simply lists them with minor, if any commentary.
Maven Networks, Inc., developers of a platform for marketers to deliver high-impact, interactive video content to the desktops of broadband consumers, today launched the Broadband Marketing Consortium (BMC). The BMC is a collaboration of marketers to measure consumer response to receiving interactive video content over the web directly from a brand.
Maven will work with each participant to develop a branded channel that includes attitudinal and behavioral research components designed to evaluate consumer response to the channel.
"The BMC will bring together leading-edge marketers to further define and drive the emerging broadband video platform for advertising and marketing," said Susan Bratton, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Maven. "Using the Maven platform, marketers can now combine the emotional qualities of television with the targeting and measurement available via the Web. The BMC will benchmark the impact of this new style of digital marketing."
The primary focus of the BMC is the measurement of consumer attitude and behavior for each marketer's channel. Between 60 and 70 percent of all findings will be blinded and shared among BMC participants in order to allow each brand to benchmark their metrics against the normative data of the group. An executive summary of the results will be delivered to each BMC member.
To the dismay of men around the world, a new magazine is launching that promises not to treat women as pleasure producing objects for their men. Launching in February 2005 as a quarterly with a rate base of 100,000 and a cover price of $4.99, Tango will be written for an audience that does not depend on men to make them whole. No, it's not a magazine for lesbians you horndogs. It's a magazine designed for women who are marrying later, focusing more on their career than the length of their skirt and who realize relationships between men and women are very different today than they were in the golden years of...uh...the depressingly bleak years of male dominated society. Oddly, the website gives a completely different vibe.
Running the book will be former Vanity Fair Editor Elise O'Shaughnessy as editor in chief and former Seventeen and Teen Publisher Ellen Abramowitz as publisher.
MediaPost's ongoing survey of media demand indicates demand for all media is down 7 points in September over September 2003. However, in that sea of apparent discontent, online stands out as the shining star with demand increasing 12 points during the same time period. The biggest losers are network TV and newspapers.
Last Friday, the Magazine Publishers of America announced plans to inform the world of the medium's effectiveness as an advertising platform with a three year, $40 million ad campaign created by Fallon. The MPA effort will be under the auspices of a newly created group called Magazine Marketing Coalition and will be led by Hachette Filipacchi CEO Jack Kliger.
The effort hopes to take advantage of the many barbs television has taken over the last year or two and to create a single voice for the medium, something it's never had before. Recently, a Dynamic Logic study found magazines, when combined with TV and online, more than doubled magazine reader's purchase intent. The campaign will push the medium's ROI, reader involvement and reach capabilities.
