Advertising Age - Latest News

20 Hit Products From Japan

normandym@netvigator.com(Normandy Madden) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:24:58 -0500

TOKYO (AdAge.com) -- Every year in late November, Dentsu's Center for Consumer Studies releases a study about hit products in Japan, detailing the most popular and most talked about products and services in the world's second largest economy. This year's report is based on an internet survey carried out among 1,000 men and women nationwide aged between 20 and 69.

What Does Black Friday Even Mean Anymore?

sdumenco@adage.com(Simon Dumenco) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:51:15 -0500

What does "Black Friday" circa 2009 mean anyway? It's always been a weird marketing construct -- as if consumers ever really cared that the day after Thanksgiving is the chance for retailers to clear the red ink from their ledgers and go into the black (though who knows how realistic that expectation is this year). And while the supposed joy of frenzied bargain-hunting still gets celebrated in the media (shots of bustling mall scenes will surely open local newscasts across the country Friday evening), the darker possibilities, like last year's gruesome Walmart stampede remain an unsettling subtext. ,

Must Weep TV: Bringing Ma, Pa and Biological Child Together

ldobrow@adage.com(Larry Dobrow) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:34:16 -0500

Come tomorrow afternoon, many of us will congregate with family members we haven't seen in a full 12 months. We'll banter about the weather, feign interest in meandering anecdotes and quietly critique every aspect of each other's being. Come nightfall, we'll embrace warmly and promise to re-adjourn 365 days hence, then set about covering the freshly picked emotional scabs with ointment. But for the next few hours at least, we're all about bringing families together. In that blithely unaware spirit, I heartily recommend ABC's new celebration of unity and forgiveness, "Find My Family".

Association of National Advertisers Join Protest of Nielsen's Metric Switch

bsteinberg@adage.com(Brian Steinberg) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:33:49 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The battle for local-media measurement has intensified in the last 24 hours, with the Association of National Advertisers now lobbing a protest against Nielsen's recent decision to incorporate DVR users into its official estimates of how many people watch programming on local TV stations. Just a week ago, the media committee of the American Association of Advertising Agencies sent a blistering letter to Nielsen protesting the switch.

Unabashed Price Slash Seems Just What WWE and Its Fans Needed

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:32:00 -0500

Value has been a key focus for Exec VP-Marketing Michelle Wilson and WWE, which managed to boost ticket sales 29% during the third quarter by cutting pricing, a result most leagues envy thanks to a tactic most have tried to avoid.

Heineken's Boozy Wedding Warns of Drinking Too Much

aklaassen@adage.com(Abbey Klaassen) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Proving there's no one recipe for viral success the most-watched chart bows six new spots this week, including at No. 1 a new PSA from Heineken called "Know the Signs."

As Snug as a Whole Host of Bugs in a Rug

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:14:41 -0500

It's quite hard to get excited about a vacuum cleaner. Unlike men with cars, the typical target consumer for vacuum cleaners -- the housewife -- is not wowed by technical specifications and suction power. They are, however, concerned about the cleanliness of their homes. For a more in-depth look at this Idea of the Week and other case studies, visit Ad Age and CMDglobal's Inspiration site.

Walmart CMO Reflects on the Chaos of 2006

hlevins@adage.com(Hoag Levins) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:12:25 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In the 47-year timeline of Wal-Mart's history, few years can match 2006 for marketing chaos. In January of that year, Julie Roehm, an edgy Chrysler marketing executive, became Wal-Mart's SVP of marketing communications only to be dismissed twelve months later. Wal-Mart named Stephen Quinn the new CMO with a mandate to return the company to its traditional marketing vision. In this program, Mr. Quinn, now riding atop one of the recession's most successful retail operations, reflects on what was learned during those those troubled days of 2006.

'Jon & Kate Plus 8' Airs Final Episode

jrash@cmithun.com(John Rash) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:37:11 -0500

Jon and Kate Gosselin, whose public lives have made them more hucksters than Huxtables for most viewers, had their last-ever episode of "Jon and Kate Plus 8" on TLC Monday night. The series finale delivered a 2.0/5 rating and share in the ad-centric adult 18-49 demographic, which tied it, fittingly, with WWE wrestling on USA as the second highest-rated show on cable (as usual, ESPN's "Monday Night Football" was first with a 4.8/13).

Can James Finkelstein and Lachlan Murdoch Save Nielsen's Trade Titles?

mlearmonth@adage.com(Michael Learmonth) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:29:06 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The Nielsen Company's beleaguered trade publishing unit, including Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and Adweek, are on the block again. Can a private equity group including the publisher of The Hill newspaper and News Corp. scion Lachlan Murdoch save it?

Is AOL Perfuming the Pig or Moving the Needle?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:20:04 -0500

A corporate rebrand, if created and communicated properly can: unite employees behind a common cause and engender pride, symbolize a shared vision, break with the past, signal a future (direction) and create a difference that drives the top-line and profit. Or it can become a very costly "paint job" -- a waste of a great deal of money. Incorporating some new logos runs anywhere from $3 million to $50 million for a full program, which is a hefty sum to pay just as you're charged with laying off 2,500 staffers.

How Electronic Hamsters Became the Hottest Toy This Holiday Season

bbulik@adage.com(Beth Snyder Bulik) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:07:45 -0500

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) -- The must-have toy this holiday season is the electronic hamster. Zhu Zhu Pets, a line of five furry interactive hamsters (pronounced Zoo Zoo) have been selling so briskly they have gone missing from retailers' shelves for weeks. The little hamsters are so popular, Toys 'R' Us is using them as a Black Friday marketing centerpiece. Every Toys 'R' Us will have 100 of the furry bots for sale at midnight when the stores open for Black Friday shopping, with a limit of one per customer.

Beiersdorf Gives Makeover to Chinese Hair Care Brand

nmadden@adage.com(Normandy Madden) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:37:07 -0500

Beiersdorf has launched a major campaign promoting Slek Night Repair as part of the German personal care giant's efforts to position Slek as a premium hair care brand, a segment that has been dominated by foreign brands such as Rejoice, Pantene and Lux.

A Pair of Advertising Pros Win Peparami's Crowdsourcing Contest

ehall@adage.com(Emma Hall) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:13:49 -0500

LONDON (AdAge.com)-- Unilever's meat snack brand Peperami has announced the results of its crowdsourcing experiment, awarding a $15,000 prize to two professional advertising creatives with 50 years' experience between them.

JetBlue and JWT Parting Ways

rparekh@adage.com(Rupal Parekh) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:08:30 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- JetBlue Airways and its creative agency, WPP-owned JWT, are splitting up, despite a four-year run marked by the airline doubling its footprint to some 60 markets and earning a dedicated terminal at New York's JFK airport.

What Best Buy Learned About Service as Marketing and Empowering Employees

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:16:39 -0500

As the high season of holiday shopping pain (or gain) arrives, I find myself fixated -- perhaps irrationally, and certainly emotionally -- on Best Buy's Twelpforce, the viral army of 2,200 employees who answer questions and solve customer problems via the customer-care channel we know as Twitter. Self described as "a collective force of Best Buy tech pros offering tech advice in Tweet form," the program has nearly 15,000 "followers" and it's growing. Think Apple Genius Bar but without the physical counter.

Hulu's Massive Traffic Bump? Thank ABC, New TV Season

mlearmonth@adage.com(Michael Learmonth) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:06:08 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Fueled by the fall TV season and the addition of ABC shows to its library, traffic to the video site backed by NBC, ABC and Fox spiked nearly 47% in October from the prior month, the biggest single-month percentage gain of the past year.

Reckitt Benckiser Consolidates Media Buying with Havas, Publicis Shops

mbush@adage.com(Michael Bush) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:24:52 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Reckitt Benckiser has consolidated its $1.3 billion global traditional and digital media account for its 17 Powerbrands, which include products such as Lysol, Woolite and Calgon, with Havas' and Publicis' media groups, the marketer said in a statement. Both had previously worked with the packaged goods giant. Shops from Omnicom and WPP also pitched the business.

Publicis Worldwide Names Olivier Altmann Chief Creative Officer

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:35:56 -0500

ABC's Problem Child: Adam Lambert

bsteinberg@adage.com(Brian Steinberg) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:08:23 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- ABC has received a number of complaints about the performance by recent "American Idol" Adam Lambert during its broadcast of the "American Music Awards" Sunday night.

Taylor Swift, Nascar Fuel ABC to Second Place in Key Demo

jrash@cmithun.com(John Rash) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:52:06 -0500

MINNEAPOLIS (AdAge.com) -- Two country crossovers, Nascar and Taylor Swift, were watched with varying levels of interest on ABC's Sunday night schedule.

Why Murdoch Can Afford to Leave Google for Bing

nives@adage.com(Nat Ives) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:36:16 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- News Corp.'s talk about listing its sites exclusively on Microsoft's Bing sounds unpromising in several ways, but all of Rupert Murdoch's recent agitation and exploration are at least pushing one fact back to the fore: Web traffic only gets publishers so far in their quest for digital ad dollars. After a certain point, actually, traffic may not even matter.

In His Nike Work, Dan Wieden Is the Prototypical CCO

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:19:01 -0500

The corporation is good at many things, but culture has never been one of them. The time has come to put this right. What better way than to open the C-suite to a senior manager who contents with culture full-time? The question: Where to find people who've served the corporation as unofficial, prototypical CCOs? It wasn't long before I stumbled upon Dan Wieden's magnificent work for Nike, highlighted in this edited book excerpt.

Who Can Explain the Billion-Dollar 'Twilight' Economy? This Guy

sdumenco@adage.com(Simon Dumenco) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:01:30 -0500

Hollywood wasn't exactly blindsided by the weekend box office take of Summit Entertainment's "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" -- everybody expected it to do big business -- but the numbers are still rather astonishing. For this latest edition of Dumenco's Media People, I've turned to a keen observer of the teen entertainment market to help make sense of the "Twilight" phenomenon and the demographic that powers it: Matthew Rettenmund, founder and editor in chief of Popstar!

10 Signs It's Time to Leave Your Job

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:55:17 -0500

It's the end of the year. The job market is tight because of the depressed economy; still, it's a good time to evaluate your current situation and set your goals for 2010. But how can you tell it's time to begin a job search? By watching for the 10 tell-tale signs.

Pizza Hut Review Down to Martin and Gotham

rparekh@adage.com(Rupal Parekh) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:54:06 -0500

The creative review for Pizza Hut's $200 million account is down to a shootout between two Interpublic Group shops, Richmond, Va.-based Martin Agency and Gotham, New York, according to executives familiar with the matter.

Wal-Mart CMO Defends Private-Label Brand Expansion

hlevins@adage.com(Hoag Levins) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:03:56 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Putting a humanitarian spin on his remarks to an ANA audience, Wal-Mart CMO Stephen Quinn defended his company's massive expansion of is private-label brands. Earlier this year, the retail giant sparked a controversy in the food marketing industry when it unveiled a revamped "Great Value" brand line that includes more than 5,000 items in 100 grocery categories. Mr. Quinn said the effort was rooted in the company's desire to help customers who couldn't otherwise afford adequate food for their families.

Calculating the Tim Armstrong Premium as AOL Goes Public

mlearmonth@adage.com(Michael Learmonth) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:14:46 -0500

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Tim Armstrong has a nice analogy for how the ad business works. Think of it, he says, as marketers driving around the neighborhood in trucks laden with cash, just looking for the right lawn to dump it on.

Coca-Cola Lays Out Its Vision for the Future at 2010 Meeting

nzmuda@adage.com(Natalie Zmuda) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:00:56 -0500

ATLANTA (AdAge.com) -- Amid some 200 analysts, investors and media last week, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent made a confession. "There was a period when our company did lose its way," he said. "We were too internally focused and not focused enough on the changes taking place with our consumers and customers. In essence, we were too busy looking at the dashboard and were not sufficiently paying attention to the world outside of our windshield."

Brands Have a Role to Play in Helping People Find the Good Stuff

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:00:28 -0500

The internet offers an endless buffet of choices. And that supply of content choices is far outstripping demand (our attention). As a result, each of us is going to have to make choices about what we consume and when. Brands can help.