Agency Spy

Nielsen is getting ready to acquire IAG Research for $225 million. According to Adweek, IAG is a privately held firm that measures consumer engagement with television programs, national commercials and product placements. Meanwhile, AdAge recently asked the question: Can “TV-ratings kingpin Nielsen maintain its dominance as the gold standard by which video advertising is priced?” Competitors abound and the first to provide marketers with real time data will win the rat race.

Tracey Scheppach, senior VP-video innovations director at Starcom USA, pointed out the obvious: “It’s hard for a monopoly to be the force of innovation.”

Big companies lumber along. They can be unwieldy and slow to make changes. Although, Nielsen is looking pretty nimble these days (the company has snapped up Telephia, Audience Analytics and Buzz Metrics, too) they can’t buy the whole lot of ‘em including Rentrak, TNS and the pugilistic Group M’s Irwin Gottlieb and his mafia.

Alan Wurtzel, NBC Universal’s president-research, said:

“The digital world has taught us that there can be a couple of guys in a garage somewhere that can topple mighty corporate entities, because some of it is just new ways of thinking and just figuring out a better mousetrap.”

Nielsen is going to fight to the death and our bet is that they hang in their better than anyone is predicting. The entire piece is worth a read, outlining various threats, dilemmas and offering an interview with Susan Whiting (pictured left), Nielsen exec VP who oversees development and sales. Grab your lunch and get to it.

On March 20th, CandyIndustry.com reported that Ferrero, the makers of the greatest thing ever to come in a jar (sorry, Vaseline), would have to change a TV spot they made.

The British Advertising Standards Authority didn’t have a problem with the creative, so much as the messaging. They believed the spot to break TV advertising standards code rules, calling it both misleading and inaccurate.

According to Ferrero, Nutella is a “part of a balanced breakfast.”

The British ASA says the smooth, creamy orgasm-in-a-plastic-canister is too full of fat and sugar to be even remotely healthy-ish.

The ASA was quoted:

“…We considered that the ad misleadingly implied the spread made a more significant nutritional contribution to a balanced breakfast than was the case…”

Back to the voiceover studio. Would it be so bad to just say, “part of this delicious breakfast” or “part of this breakfast that maybe you should only have on weekends”?

My advice to Ferrero: don’t try to make it sound healthier. If you suddenly tell people it’s balanced/healthy/etc, they might think you’ve changed the product… The only balance people are interested in is your ratio of chocolate to hazelnuts.

- Agent C

agencyspy.agentc at gmail dot com

Remember we mentioned that Dove was going to be doing something with MTV and Alicia Keyes in an effort to get a little younger, get the hip ladies using social media? Here’s the spot for their seemingly episodic show, “Fresh Takes,” that takes a jab at the Lipstick Jungle’s of the world.

Unilever owns Dove and Axe. The latter brand had a huge success with the Game Killers via BBH. Makes sense that strategy would filter across agencies and brands beneath the banner.

Another Anomaly, the spawn of Anomaly, has released its first piece of work. “The-little-shop-that-maybe-can” was charged with developing and implementing a non-traditional marketing plan to ensure New Yorkers hear about a fight taking place on January 17th for Jones v Trinidad.

So, a non-traditional marketing plan coming from a small and radical new shop? One would expect that it would be creative and at least somewhat compelling. Not so much. Here are some of the elements:

- Projection text media in partnership with Visual Goodness and the technology of Paul Notzold. We love this part. We love this tech every time we see it.

- The online viral campaign is a boxing postcard. Why the URL has “game” in it (http://www.msgboxinggame.com ) we’ll never know, as there is nothing “gamey” about it.

– They got Beanie Sigel to give a track from his new album. As Another Anomaly hypes him inconjuction with the fight, Siegel mentions them on radio. Standard PR fare.

There’s also some traditional stuff (print, broadcast, radio, etc.). They sent some ring girls around town and got one of the fighters to get snaps with the Knicks. Did some wall paintings, too. Yawn. Oh and they reached out to the Hispanic community. We’re no sure how, but it’s bound to be just as interesting as the rest of this stuff.

When Another Anomaly was announced, there was all this talk of providing services dealing in IP, marketing communications and “whatever the new partners feel passionate about.” To the partners, do you guys feel passionately about the fight or the work you’ve created to promote it? Where’s the IP anyway?

You know, the best marketing we ever saw for a fight dealt with the recent Hatton/Mayweather match on HBO. The cable station produced a traditional marketing reality show called 24/7, which followed the fighters for three weeks before the big night. No one in my brownstone (3 boys and 1 gal) watches boxing. We’re more soccer, football and video game enthusiasts. Quite accidentally, we all fell into watching the third episode, as it followed behind a re-run of The Wire. From that moment on, we were hooked on two people and an event that we had been oblivious of only moments before. People took sides. Hatton’s tagline of “A pint and a fight” became the mantra of the house. We called friends and made them watch the show. On fight night, we got some beer, food and 25 of our nearest and dearest over to watch the boys slug it out. It was awesome. We were yelling. We were invested, became advocates. Maybe, just maybe… simplicity can be more effective, better - a pint and fight and some emotion. That’s all you need. Just a thought.

Is it possible that advertising is popular? Are we no longer the wickedly smart assed, awkward kid at the prom with no date? According to AdAge there is yet another advertising sitcom in the works based on “E” the roman clef about McCann Erickson.

“NBC and Omnicom Group’s Full Circle Entertainment plan a comedic summer series based on “E,” the wickedly humorous Matt Beaumont novel that relies on a string of e-mail to tell the tale of a fictional London ad firm and its efforts to capture a vaunted Coca-Cola account.”

And catch this - Full Circle is searching for two advertisers whose product will be featured in the plot line. The fictional ad agency on the show, Miller Shanks, will be pitching to win business from one marketer and fighting for another account that has gone into review. To get your brand placed in one of these roles, it’ll cost you $400,000 and $500,00o. For an untested show? Really?

The show isn’t even fully green lit. It sounds as if the producers can fill this spots with brands and the accompanying story line. However, the brains behind the new sitcom are actually trying to be smart about gathering fans before the show launches by creating an online site, thus, further proving to NBC they have a winner on their hands. An online site? Why not go one step further? Maybe the producers should consider doing what these guys did with YouTube?

Whether or not the TV industry wants to bury its head in the sand, file sharing will continue to errode the paying audience, as well as Nielsen’s ability to track audience numbers. If you need some hard evidence, take a look at what happened when the first episode of the Showtime series Weeds got leaked onto bittorent sites. The future is looking rough and tumble for networks, cable providers and media buyers alike.

So, we thought we’d share a fantastic interview by Torrent Freak with a nine year old girl named Hannah. She downloads music using LimeWire and has her own computer. The whole piece is fascinating, but here’s the highlights: Read the rest of this entry »

A new advertising drama is headed your way called “Truth In Advertising.” The show will play on TNT  and will star Eric McCormack of Will & Grace and Tom Cavanagh of Ed. The show revolves around a fictional Chicago agency called Rothman, Greene & Moore. McCormack will play Mason Mcguire - a wuss (not far from his Will & Grace character) of an art director who gets a big raise to creative director forcing him to figure out how to get some respect. Cavanagh is the “highly emotional and creative Conner, Mason’s partner, friend and copywriter.” Oh… a buddy sitcom. Rah. The show begins shooting in October. Hold your breath.

MSNBC claims that the station is the strongest growing of any of the cable news networks. We thought it would be Fox especially in the 18-34 demographic.

— In primetime (M-F, 8-11p), MSNBC was up 45% in the 25-54 demo and up 46% in total viewers.

— MSNBC ranked #1 among the news nets in the 18-34 demo (M-S 8-11p). With 78,000 viewers, a small number by any measure, still out-delivering CNN by 5,000 and FNC by 18,000.

Get the full details over at TVNewser.

What do these guys have to be pissed about? The threesome flipped the bird to the press hovering outside of hot spot the Ivy in Los Angeles. Now that they’re free of the brand and onto ABC’s payroll maybe they’ve decided to let their true colors show. Ooooh…. they’re so bad. So very bad. Go check out their crib if you’re dying for more.

The global findings from the most recent IBM consumer survey show that personal Internet time now rivals TV time. There’s a lot more data coming out of this report. See it all here, below find out favorite stats. Read the rest of this entry »