- Cynopsis reports, "After seven months of negotiations, the deal got done after all. News Corp. and NBC Universal announced a partnership for the digital age yesterday, planning a new jointly-run entertainment portal that will aggregate the biggest collection of TV content on the web and create "the largest advertising platform on earth." The agreement will encompass the vast libraries of television and film content from each of the companies' broadcast, cable and film brands. The deal also contains a distribution component that will make video content available across the leading portals of the net AOL, MSN, Yahoo and MySpace, who will share in the ad revenue and customize its delivery as they see fit."
- A Compete.com survey claims the supposedly "failed" CareerBuilder Super Bowl spots actually delivered some positive metrics.
Everyone's talking about the News Corp./NBC Universal video site that may give YouTube some stiff competition. Advertisers such as GM, Cadbury Schweppes, Intel, Cisco and E-surance are lining up for the advertiser-friendly site.
- The Catch Up Lady sums up the booting of the bespectacled Classmates.com girl who had always been placed next to the jock along with the tagline, "She married him?" Now a Farrah Fawcett-like girl takes her place.
- A tipster attending OMMA Hollywood tells us R/GA Chairman and CEO Bob Greenberg told his VP of Visual Design Nick Law not to sit on a panel he was scheduled to participate in because, apparently, he's stealing too much limelight.
- Commercial ratings, versus program ratings, are fast becoming the gold standard and many, including Starcom CEO John Muszynski, will be using them in this year's upfront.
- If you're in search of an email address, Tattoo Projects has created Abalooba, and email address search engine.
- MTV's The Andy Milonakis Show which will premiere on a wide variety of digital platforms - including iTunes Store (www.iTunes.com), Amazon Unbox, AOL Video, MTV Mobile, MTV On Demand, MTV2.com, Wal-Mart Video Downloads and Xbox LIVE Marketplace for Xbox 360 - all prior to the show's on-air MTV2 debut on April 27th.
- Entries for international viral awards show, Germ, must be submitted by March 31.
- The New Yorker, Wesley Autrey, who saved a man from being hit by a subway train in January, is featured in a new colon cancer PSA campaign.
- T wallow in the oddity of Japanese culture, check out a few kinky commercials for Axe in Japan.
- Copyranter disses the Siemens' ongoing wannabee hipster campaign complete with headlines like "Bling Bling" and "Chill."
- Blip.tv has made this possible through a platform called "cross-post advertising" which allows ads to travel with videos wherever they are viewed: on blip.tv, a show's Web site or blog, iTunes and elsewhere throughout the Internet.
- Through March 23, YouTube is accepting entries for its consumer-generated awards contest. Winners will be announced March 26.
- Following its Crash the Super Bowl Contest, Doritos is inviting people to select the name of its product.
- Nielsen has reported ad spend rose 4.6 percent in 2006 to $139.07 billion. Internet led with a 35 percent gain.
- Cagle thinks the recent LA Times redesign is "font salad" with 22 different typefaces on the front page alone.
- Google has added Checkout buttons to its AdWords ads.
- The MyPetFat guy is giving away free pet fat to the first 50 people who guess the "secret of the scale."
- Global product placement grew 37 percent in 2006 and is predicted to grow 30 percent in 2007 according to a PQ Media study.
- Fast Company magazine has just announced that its ad pages increased 9.1% in the first quarter of 2007 compared to the same period one year ago, according to The Publishers Information Bureau.
- San Francisco's BART has hopped on the subway tunnel advertising train.
- Madonna and H&M are together again on fashion networking site Trendmill.
- Travelocity's Traveling Gnome now has his own MySpace page. Tila will be sending a friend request any minute now.
- Riddle Productions has created a new game for MTV.com called Daily Rage will will incorporate brands into the actual game play.
More often than not the big media cat-chase for the elusive hot viral comes up short. This could be for a ton of reasons - the ideas are too contrived or simply out of touch with the demo.
LA-based Feed Company put together Social Video 101: a Primer, an example-ridden tutorial on why some Youtube "virals" work and others don't. Will your video start a conversation? Is it funny? Is it sexy? Is it something you'd share with your friends?
"Viral is video that you're prepared to share with your friends," says CEO Josh Felser of Grouper. "If you're not prepared to share it with your friends, it's not viral video."
We'd like to say this sounds like mostly common sense. The unfortunate truth is if it were, major media entities would be more successful than they have been, and to be fair they're getting better.
That's not to say we don't still have a lot to learn from the unlikely geniuses of Smosh, whose Pokemon theme song generated a bewildering wildfire fanbase. And when you've figured out why, you'll probably be holding the key to the secret of life.
- Starcom has reeled in the $100 million United Airlines global media business beating OMD and Mediaedge:cia
- Rosie O'Donnell's in a tiff over the American Idol Frenchie Davis/Antonella Barba picture thing. American Idol Exec producer responds, "Without wishing to add to the obvious self-promotion of Ms. O'Donnell, I feel as though I must refute her absurd and ridiculous claims that American Idol is racist and/or weightist. Ms. O'Donnell has, once again, spoken without thought or knowledge. Viewers need only look at the show tonight to realize that American Idol constantly confirms to America that talent has nothing to do with weight or color."
- According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, Internet ad spending grew 34 percent to $16.8 billion in 2006.
- If you're having trouble sleeping on those long business flights, British Airways has the solution: a soothing podcast.
- Here's a decidedly different look at outdoor advertising.
- The LAist will be rockin' during SXSW in Austin this Sunday hosting its own party at Room 710. If you're there, check it.
Yesterday, we asked you to take a look at a YouTube campaign for the marketing book Punk Marketing and tell us which of the two models, who strip while reading excerpts from the book, you though was hotter. Perhaps because Cleo did three videos to Anna's one, Cleo suffered the burden of burnout. I mean, how many time can you watch the same woman strip? Oh wait, that's a stupid question. In any event, newcomer Anna trumped Cleo with a resounding 75 percent of the vote. What was it? The blond hair? The girlie jean skirt? Do tell.
Because for some strange reason we'd all prefer incestuous think tanks to trolling malls and listening to people chat about which AirMaxes are hype, the same cat who brought us Swivel Media brings us the Experiential Marketing Forum, a global indy forum of marketers and students who'd like to dissect Experiential Marketing (XM).
Here we find a sedate wiki-style space where brilliant minds can discuss the "burgeoning experiential marketing industry," possibly the precursor to a policy-pumping spin-off a la WOMMA. Word of mouth, apparently just one tentacle on the XM octopus, is so yesterday compared to this zany interactive (cough-cough-consumer-generated) brand thing.
Can't wait to see what kind of pop philosophy and patchwork policy rolls out of this bad-boy.
To herald in the Chinese New Year Snap Dragon Consultants issued a press release entitled "Ten Things Every Brand Should Know About Asian-American Youth."
This was part of a report from performer/playwright Kate Rigg's nationwide talks with Asian-Americans ranging between ages 14-23.
Among other gems, Rigg reveals Asian-Americans:
* Dig Korea
* Dislike the stereotypes that rocketed out of the William Hung years
* Want more street cred
* Like to gamble
* Are secret fans of easy listening
Oh, no. How could they divulge that? The gangsta-lean reputation we spent years crafting around the weekly violin lessons is officially destroyed.
Actually our parents couldn't afford violin lessons for long, so they punched holes in the cardboard tubing from a dry cleaner hanger and told us to learn the flute instead. We had to colour it yellow ourselves. How's that for street cred, beeyatch?
Check out the press release here.
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Borrell Associates reports local online video advertising will hit $5 billion or 35 percent of all local online advertising by 2012. Just in time for Lonelygirl15's baby to take center stage as the first Pampers YouTube video series. Or ill it be LiveVideo by then?
- Travelers Insurance gets its red umbrella logo back from Citigroup after a ten year effort. Huh? Who knew it was missing?
- Miller has chosen Digitas to handle its interactive work after a review during which Digitas beat out Arc Worldwide for the account which was previously held by Agency.com.
- Remo, a new product from fledgling rations company erinMedia plans to rollout a sophisticated second by second television ratings service and has files many patents to insure it's well positioned to unseat ratings king Nielsen.
- Film makers are taking their movies to the really small screen. Well, at least promotions for those movies.
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