Media All-Stars 2008November 10, 2008 These are undeniably challenging times for media. Budgets and staffs are being cut, uncertainty lingers in the background of many decisions and executives keep trying to identify the bottom of the downturn. Such fear often leads to sticking with the tried and true. And for some, that works. But this year’s crop of Media All-Stars don’t fit that mold. To a one, they don’t accept the notion that a smart, innovative media strategy can’t be executed just because there’s less money or a smaller staff. They boldly take their clients into new, and sometimes uncomfortable, areas -- sometimes refusing to take no for an answer -- f it means the client will gain an edge or grow market share. These are risk takers in risk-averse times. (Shown: Richard Beaven, media exec of the year.) Read Full Article 
Not Lost in TranslationOctober 20, 2008 NEW YORK During the 2008 tax season, H&R Block ran a series of TV ads that featured fictitious company reps Horacio and Roberto engaging in bold tactics to illustrate the brand's relevance to Latinos. In one spot, the two young guys enter a hair salon and ask a beautician to do their taxes. Instead, she cuts the tax form into a string of paper dolls. The narrator urges viewers to go to H&R Block, uttering "Estamos contigo" or "We're with you." Read Full Article 
Church and StateOctober 06, 2008 In ad and media circles, where "irreverent" is a common term of praise, it's easy to forget a simple fact: Many Americans are decidedly reverent. Amid all that's new in the Internet era, age-old religious belief still plays a significant role in people's lives, often influencing their relationship with the consumer culture they inhabit. For marketers who pay minute attention to other aspects of people's behavior, it would be a blunder, if not a sin, to overlook this large factor in American life. Read Full Article 
Magazine Brand Leaders 2008October 06, 2008 The landscape is littered with failed TV projects modeled on magazine brands. Yet this month, Time Inc.'s massively successful women's title Real Simple and cable net TLC will roll out the series Real Simple. Real Life, a lifestyle-makeover show that shares the magazine's mission of helping women simplify their lives with practical advice on family, homemaking, style, health and other topics. While Real Simple has fashioned a range of smart extensions -- among them, print spinoffs, a syndicated newspaper column and a line of products at Target -- its success on the tube is anything but a sure bet. (Photo: Real Simple. Real Life.) Read Full Article 
Media Outlook 2009September 29, 2008 It is unknowable, of course, exactly what effect the unrelenting march of bad news about the world economy and financial markets will have on brands and their marketing plans next year. ValueClick's John Ardis sums up the general feeling out there in our annual Media Outlook, telling Mediaweek's Mike Shields in the Digital report that while this is the season marketers typically are focused on the coming year, the frightening roller coaster we're all strapped into has most of us preoccupied with just getting through the moment. "A lot of people are not yet talking about 2009," says Ardis. "Instead, they're saying, 'We've got to bring this home in the fourth quarter.'" Read Full Article 
Advertising Week 2008September 25, 2008 Advertising Week, now in its fifth year, brings together industry decision makers for a week of seminars, discussions, presentations and panels here in New York, the heart of the advertising world. Adweek covers all the key happenings of the week, with reports on the important sessions, as well as news-maker interviews and photo galleries. Read Full Article 
Junk ScienceSeptember 22, 2008 Dannon's national debut of Activia in February 2006 was one of the most successful new-product launches in recent history, a feat made all the more remarkable given the fact that Americans have never been big yogurt eaters. In its first year, sales soared to over $130 million, more than three times Dannon's original forecasts. The launch not only created a new powerhouse franchise for Dannon in the States, it helped springboard one of the hottest new functional food categories: those containing probiotic ingredients. Read Full Article 
Chief Hispanic Marketing OfficerSeptember 22, 2008 Everyone knows by now that the Hispanic demo is a growing one, but how do marketers go about addressing it? Is there a dedicated team in place charged with reaching Hispanics or are all marketers in a company responsible for focusing some of their efforts on the segment? And does anyone have the equivalent of a chief Hispanic marketing officer? Read Full Article 
Digital Hot List: Dynamite Destinations & Devices of '08September 08, 2008 As we all know, it ain't just about Web sites anymore. These rankings, when we started them four years ago, were known as the AdweekMedia Web Site Hot List. Besides the clunky moniker, it increasingly didn't reflect the fact that ad-supported digital media had mushroomed far beyond Web pages to encompass search, networks, applications, games, virtual worlds, mobile and other forms. Thus, the Digital Hot List was born. This year's top 10 (compiled by Adweek's Brian Morrissey, Mediaweek's Mike Shields and myself) certainly reflects the diverse universe of platforms embraced by consumers as well as marketers. Read Full Article 
Big Pharma: Tough to SwallowSeptember 08, 2008 If complaining about the pharmaceutical industry were good for one's health, Americans would be remarkably robust. Sure, Big Pharma's products often cure what ails us, despite our unhealthy habits. But this hasn't saved the prescription-drug industry from becoming a target of consumer resentment, as opinion surveys consistently demonstrate. Indeed, the fact that we need these products -- sometimes as a matter of life and death -- seems to make us all the more irate that companies make profits by selling them to us. Read Full Article 
Campaign '08: Power PlayAugust 25, 2008 The election's heating up. The presidential candidates and their political parties are bombarding us with ads, most recently with millions of dollars worth of TV advertising during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. So in keeping with the spirit of the times, Adweek gave the assignment of selling the next president to the ad agency professionals. Read Full Article 
War of the AgesAugust 25, 2008 Earlier this month, a judge set a December trial date for a $30 million age-discrimination suit by a Universal McCann media exec, George Hayes, against the agency and its corporate parent, Interpublic Group. Hayes says he was fired by a younger boss who believed young people at the agency "got it" when it came to new media in a way that older staffers did not. In addition, Hayes claims, his former boss viewed "age and experience as a hindrance, rather than a benefit." Read Full Article 
The Man of the HouseAugust 11, 2008 While women still do the majority of work in the home, numerous studies indicate that men are more involved than in past decades. More men than ever are cooking, cleaning and caring for kids -- so why aren't household brands targeting them more? Read Full Article For Publishers, Three's a CrowdAugust 11, 2008 Traditional media companies looking to the growing array of third-party ad networks as a panacea for unloading their remnant digital inventory might want to first speak with Rodale's Mary Ann Bekkedahl. The publisher of leading health and enthusiast magazine titles like Men's Health, Prevention and Runner's World and their companion electronic products, Rodale has distinguished itself as a model for old media hands shaping their digital strategies. The company combined all its print and online sales efforts two years ago and grew its digital business to the point that it now accounts for better than 10 percent of the company's total ad revenue. (Digital ad revenue through June 2008 rose 11 percent versus last year, according to Rodale.) Read Full Article 
Crossing Over Into Latin AmericaAugust 11, 2008 Most any marketer will tell you that the creative work in his or her segment is getting more sophisticated all the time. But when it comes to work that U.S.-based Hispanic agencies are doing these days, the proof isn't just in the product, but where you'll find that product playing. Increasingly, Hispanic-targeted ads cooked up for domestic viewership are proving good enough to run in Latin American markets. Read Full Article 
The Road to a Grand PrixJuly 28, 2008 Last week saw the announcement of the 2008 Jay Chiat Planning Awards at the American Association of Advertising Agencies Planning Conference in Miami. These awards celebrate the best thinking in the industry by evaluating papers on the creativity and execution of agency plans from the last year. Obviously, there is a great deal of subjectivity on what constitutes brilliant thinking. Everyone agrees it has to include an imaginative leap that takes the creative development process down a new and previously untraveled path. But, beyond that, there is little consensus. Every year, the Jay Chiat Planning Awards judges evaluate well over 100 case studies, submitted by agencies big and small from every corner of the globe. Read Full Article 
Riders on the StormJuly 28, 2008 The bad news keeps coming. Houses are worth less, jobs are at risk, wages aren't keeping up with inflation and energy prices continue to soar, eating away at Americans' disposable income. While previous down cycles hurt a small portion of the population, this time around, things are getting personal. Read Full Article 
Double Vision: The Race Issue RevisitedJuly 14, 2008 Writing just over 100 years ago, W.E.B. Du Bois famously declared that "the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line." Now, with polls indicating the U.S. is as likely as not to make Barack Obama its president, it's clear the line has blurred. But does the problem remain? Read Full Article 
Affluent in SpanishJuly 14, 2008 Perhaps nothing symbolizes the rise of the affluent Latino consumer more than the ascent of high-end tequila. Overall, the category grew 10 percent in 2007 to 7.9 million cases, according to Impact, New York. And the growth is being driven in party by high-end entries like Jose Cuervo's silver Platino, which retails for around $58 for a 750 ml bottle. "There's a whole segment of [affluent] Hispanics who are getting back to their roots, and not just drinking cognac, whiskey or scotch, but tequila," said Rene Valdez, brand manager for Casa Herradura, an upscale tequila that's now being distributed in the U.S. via Brown-Foreman, Louisville. Read Full Article 
Upfront Special Report: Sitting PrettyJune 23, 2008 Despite a laundry list of potentially negative influences, the broadcast networks this upfront season have bested themselves yet again, raking in an eye-popping $9.23 billion, just north of last year's take -- thus, all the media attention that's been heaped on this year's negotiations. But what was largely overlooked in that coverage was the strength of the nets in dayparts outside prime time, which, with the exception of evening news, all turned in year-over-year growth in dollar volume. In fact, late night -- a stagnant daypart for many years-this year upped its upfront take versus last year. Read Full Article 
Are You Ready for Some Futbol?June 09, 2008 Soccer has proven to be a tough sell in the United States. The North American Soccer League began in 1968 with a national contract to broadcast games on CBS, but the ratings were dismal and, because the league tended to draft past-their-prime players from other parts of the world, it never got much respect globally. By 1984, the league had disbanded. Read Full Article 
Upfront: The Programmers -- This Year's ModelsMay 26, 2008 More than three months after the Writers Guild of America strike was finally settled, the walkout is still the networks' bete noire. What was most notable about the recent upfront presentations was the lack of new fall shows that typically fill the network schedules. Consequently, the nets are opting to return an overabundance of freshman series from this season. Some of them are passable, if not smash, performers (ABC's Samantha Who? and The CW's cult hit Gossip Girl), while others, in an ordinary season, likely would never get a second shot (NBC's Life). Read Full Article 
Divorce: A New Target for MarketersMay 26, 2008 At divorce360.com, the chat rooms are abuzz with those buckled into the matrimonial roller coaster. "In the state of Georgia can a spouse go to jail if adultery is proved against him or her?" Anne1 writes. (No, answers a family lawyer, spaznskitz, who posts frequently, but "it would be nice, wouldn't it?") Read Full Article 
Cable Report 2008May 19, 2008 Going into this year's upfront, the major cable networks are well-positioned to gain market share in ad dollars, a direct result of their gain in audience share. Our first-ever Cable Hot List, compiled by Mediaweek senior editor Anthony Crupi, highlights 10 networks with the strongest mojo -- from No. 1 USA's hit-making prowess to No. 10 E!'s ability to whip up pop-culture dreck into a tasty pate. Read Full Article 
Dude, Where's My Upfront?May 19, 2008 For some, talk of a digital upfront means a surging medium on the brink of maturity. For others, it feels more like a cutting-edge business being forced to use the fax machine when a perfectly good e-mail client sits on the desktop. Read Full Article
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A-B InBev Names Key Execs
November 20, 2008
NEW YORK Anheuser-Busch today announced a new executive lineup in its business unit following the completion of its merger with InBev. The new company, A-B InBev, has appointed Keith Levy vp, marketing to lead brand management. Read Full Article
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