Automaker Explains Its 'Change or Die' Mentality

By Jean Halliday Published

June 27, 2006 - AdAge

In an unusual move, Ford Motor Co.'s Ford division is chronicling its turnaround efforts in the U.S. with an online documentary series that addresses with brutal honesty the automaker's problems.

'Rip out the BS'The short-film series, titled "Bold Moves. The Future of Ford," will run weekly through year's end -- some 50 episodes in all -- and is intended to tell the automaker's side of the story about how it needs to "change or die." In one of the episodes unveiled today near Ford Motor headquarters in Dearborn, Mich., a female journalist says, "This is a company that could really go down." Mark Fields, Ford president of the Americas, says the automaker needs to "rip out the BS and political posturing and have a constructive conflict," and that "we can't rest one iota in this business.

" Other company executives, including Chairman William Ford, white and blue-collar employees, consumers, analysts and auto journalists, offer their opinions in the 3- to 5-minute films, which are produced by WPP Group's JWT, Detroit and New York, and directed by Radical Media, New York.

"We'll attract both sides of the fence. We'll have haters and we'll have lovers," said May Lou Quesnell, director of brand DNA at Ford. "We recognize our challenges.

" Visitors to www.fordboldmoves.com can register for updates and offer their written opinions on the site, although explicit comments will be filtered out, Ms. Quesnell said. She declined to reveal the cost of the campaign, but said it was not more expensive than Ford's upcoming TV reality show about designing a dream car.

Outdoor em Sao Paulo testa download de conteudo para celular

28/06 - BlueBus

Está disponivel em Sao Paulo um ponto de teste do 'Outdoor Interage', projeto da Central de Outdoor que vai adotar a tecnologia bluetooth para fazer chegar ao publico usuario de 'portateis' tambem equipados com a mesma tecnologia conteudos exibidos em suas placas alem de informaçoes adicionais, anterior aqui. Fica na Avenida Faria Lima com a Rua Fiandeiras. A peça é da propria Central de Outdoor, nao há anunciante envolvido. O teste convida o usuario a baixar um audio e um video que divulgam a novidade.

Companies Serious About 'Mocketing'

June 26, 2006 - BrandWeek

DETROIT -- The glove compartment in the latest Dodge Caliber is no longer designed to hold maps and gasoline receipts. Instead, engineers at the Chrysler auto division have transformed it into a cooler for drinks and snacks—and severed body parts? A recent branded-entertainment segment on Comedy Central's Stand-Up Nation showed the cooler being used to stow dismembered hands from a mill accident. "The chill zone holds up to four hands!" show host Greg Giraldo enthusiastically told the audience.

The bit is just one example of how a select but growing group of marketers is using self-deprecating humor in branded entertainment to appeal to their target consumers—often skewing young and male. Though exact numbers are not available, industry insiders say more marketers are using various forms of parody, specifically in regard to their products, to show consumers that they don't take themselves too seriously. "What I'm finding is that brand marketers are keeping an open mind to these opportunities," said George Leon, evp-worldwide consumer marketing at Columbia TriStar Consumer Marketing Group.

Nascar, which has surged in popularity nationwide over the last decade, is certainly game. The racecar organization collaborated with the Sony-owned studio for the upcoming summer racing circuit send-up Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, starring Will Ferrell.

Yet taking the comedic approach in branded entertainment can be risky, marketing executives say. "There is a lot of angst going into humor because marketers feel that someone's going to be offended by it, and they don't know what will happen to their product," said Rob Donnell, president at branded entertainment company Brand Arc, Santa Monica, Calif.

For Nascar, risk is integral to the sport and its marketing plan, said Sarah Nettinga, director of film, television and music entertainment at Nascar Digital Entertainment, Los Angeles. "Comedy may be risky, but stepping out of the box and away from the safety zone can pay dividends in expanding the brand's core fan/consumer base.

"For those willing to embrace irreverent humor, the payoff is less competition. "There's not a lot of clutter [because] a lot of people won't even look at that space," Donnell said.

Companies Serious About 'Mocketing'

June 26, 2006 - BrandWeek

DETROIT -- The glove compartment in the latest Dodge Caliber is no longer designed to hold maps and gasoline receipts. Instead, engineers at the Chrysler auto division have transformed it into a cooler for drinks and snacks—and severed body parts? A recent branded-entertainment segment on Comedy Central's Stand-Up Nation showed the cooler being used to stow dismembered hands from a mill accident. "The chill zone holds up to four hands!" show host Greg Giraldo enthusiastically told the audience.

The bit is just one example of how a select but growing group of marketers is using self-deprecating humor in branded entertainment to appeal to their target consumers—often skewing young and male. Though exact numbers are not available, industry insiders say more marketers are using various forms of parody, specifically in regard to their products, to show consumers that they don't take themselves too seriously. "What I'm finding is that brand marketers are keeping an open mind to these opportunities," said George Leon, evp-worldwide consumer marketing at Columbia TriStar Consumer Marketing Group.

Nascar, which has surged in popularity nationwide over the last decade, is certainly game. The racecar organization collaborated with the Sony-owned studio for the upcoming summer racing circuit send-up Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, starring Will Ferrell.

Yet taking the comedic approach in branded entertainment can be risky, marketing executives say. "There is a lot of angst going into humor because marketers feel that someone's going to be offended by it, and they don't know what will happen to their product," said Rob Donnell, president at branded entertainment company Brand Arc, Santa Monica, Calif.

For Nascar, risk is integral to the sport and its marketing plan, said Sarah Nettinga, director of film, television and music entertainment at Nascar Digital Entertainment, Los Angeles. "Comedy may be risky, but stepping out of the box and away from the safety zone can pay dividends in expanding the brand's core fan/consumer base.

"For those willing to embrace irreverent humor, the payoff is less competition. "There's not a lot of clutter [because] a lot of people won't even look at that space," Donnell said.

Alternative Media Growth Surges 16% in First Half 2006

June 27, 2006 - BusinessWire

Alternative Media Growth Surges 16% in First Half 2006, Outpacing Traditional Media and Economy, New PQ Media Report Finds; Alternative Sector Growth to Accelerate in Second Half 2006

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)----Spending on alternative media strategies surged 16.4% in the first half of 2006 to an estimated $53.37 billion compared with the same period of 2005, according to exclusive research released today by PQ Media, a custom media research firm. Growth was driven by double-digit gains in most of the 23 subsegments of alternative media covered in Alternative Advertising & Marketing Outlook 2006, the second of five installments in PQ Media's Alternative Media Research series. This groundbreaking series is the first source to define, size and forecast the burgeoning alternative media industry.

Branded entertainment, including product placement, event marketing, event sponsorships, webisodes and advergaming, is the largest segment of alternative media, and is expected to grow 15.5% to $51.62 billion in 2006. The value of product placements will reach $5.71 billion at year's end, up 27.6% from the 2005 level. PQ Media will release on August 1 the Global Branded Entertainment Forecast 2006, the much-anticipated followup to Product Placement Spending in Media 2005.

Play the advergame with your voice

June 19, 2006 - AdverBlog

Laurent sent me an interesting link to http://www.boooming.it/, an advergame Cisco System has just launched for the World Cup. Guess what, the purpose of the game is to score some goals .... Hmmm notquite original I would say. Yes, but it uses a never done before technology that makes you play neitherwith your mouse, nor with your keyboard, but with your voice. It is quite strange and funny to interact with your screen via your phone. Then, as your shoot depends on the tone, volume, lenght of your voice, you can either find it ridiculously funny or ridiculously stupid...

There is also a second advergame which particularly fits if you play at work, and your colleagues don't like football, or don't have a great sense of humour. Well, with a little bit of derision, the game is quite funny, as you just show completely mad shouting "booooom" in every way! Some may find the website a little bit cold, but hey we're talking high-tech here! And the site is clean and animations are nice.

Adult content pinball advergame

June 19, 2006 - AdverBlog

In Australia, Soap Creative has just launched a (rude) pinball advergame for a new film called Beer league. Watch out it's not safe to play at work if you have the loudspeakers turned on...

On his blog, Ashley shares some insights on the game development. Also, I like the fact he posted the sketches of the graphics. I love when agencies open the doors!

More Coca Cola games to hit the market

June 16, 2006 - Mobile Games Blog

Advertgaming is getting more and more attractive to game studios. Following the example of Blue Sphere Games and Mobile2Win, also Upstream S.A. delivers three mobile Coca Cola games to the public.

The target audience is the Greek market where consumers can download Coca-Cola 90, which is a newsreader aimed at the current World Cup. Also for sale is the Coca Cola Football Game. A reskin of the Football game released by Touchlink and last but not least is the Coca Cola Football Trivia which tests the consumers knowledge of Football.

All three Coca Cola games are original or reskins of existing games developed by the Touchlink company.

Advergames for brands winning over consumers

by Joanne Oatts

16 Jun 2006- Brand Republic

LONDON - Research conducted by Yahoo!, OMD Insight and interactive design agency Skive has revealed that online games developed specifically to promote products, or 'advergames', are becoming increasingly effective at delivering positive brand recognition.

The study, named 'Game On' questioned 6,500 UK adults online. Users were asked to evaluate one of nine online games, branded or unbranded, and complete a questionnaire covering topics including brand awareness and gaming behaviour.

Laura Bellamy, OMD planner, said: "Increasingly, consumers are looking for content to be drawn into rather than be targeted to directly and advergames will provide us with that opportunity."

Cranberry juice brand Ocean Spray and a fictitious brand Juice Boost were used in the study.
Of those who enjoyed playing an advergame featuring the bogus brand, 45% said that they would buy the brand in the future, compared with just 12% of non-players.

Advergames are clearly gaining popularity. The study also found that a third of adults online have played an advergame before, with 31% directly influenced to either register with the brand or make a purchase.
The research also found that young people think a brand gains credibility if it promotes itself through an advergame.

Ben Palmer, commercial director at Skive, said: "If you give people content through a game that's entertaining and enjoyable you've got their attention, they are fully engaged."

Online marketing, Poland and the World Cup

June 13, 2006 - AdverBlog

From Poland (via Jacek's blog) two online marketing initiatives around the World Cup:

An advergame with football penalties and beautiful women...

And the website of Tyskie beer, with a very basic (but sticky) advergame, and an excellent soundtrack.

Agency connects bloggers & press

June 07, 2006 - SpringWise

Scoopt, the world's first commercial citizen journalism photography agency (see our recent article for more), just launched ScooptWords to help bloggers find a commercial market for their writing.

Scoopt strongly believes that many bloggers produce content as good as or better than what appears in newspapers and magazines, and Scoopt aims to bring that content to larger audiences.

The process is simple: ScooptWords members place a "buy this content" button on their blog, indicating that an article is available for republication. Editors click on the button, and ScooptWords' system takes care of payment and licensing. As soon as payment has been confirmed, the publication can copy, paste and print the article. By default, content is licensed for one-time-only use in a single publication within a single territory, but flexible rights are available.

Scoopt takes a 50% cut for the first sale and 25% for subsequent sales, and bloggers are paid through PayPal. Publications don't necessarily credit the blogger, and are free to edit their articles without the blogger's explicit permission.

The benefit for mainstream publications is obvious: ScooptWords offers a simple way to license original, high quality content, without editors having to negotiate prices and licenses directly with bloggers.

In Scoopt's view, one that hardly seems unlikely, all journalists will be required to blog in the near future. Some bloggers will become journalists and some journalists will become full-time bloggers, and online and offline publications will be able to cherry pick the best content from both worlds.

General Mills to Let Agencies Call the Shots

By STUART ELLIOTT

June 13, 2006 - TheNewYorkTimes

One of the nation's largest marketers, General Mills, is seeking to transform the way it works with its agencies — and vice versa — in a shift that underlines the changes that are remaking the advertising industry.

The changes show how marketers are confronting challenges like increased competition, the fragmentation of the mass market and the rise of new media.

The shifts are intended to "completely overhaul the way we work with our agencies," said Mark Addicks, chief marketing officer at General Mills.

They are part of "a really strong push for growth" in revenue and profit at the company, he added, and a desire "to be the growth leader" in the packaged-foods categories in which General Mills competes.

One change is meant to help General Mills adapt to the new-media landscape as it tries to reach consumers using nontraditional approaches like the Internet, e-mail marketing and branded entertainment.

"The old media are alive and well, but the new media are in a very steep growth curve," said Jeffrey Merrihue, chief executive at Accenture Marketing Sciences in London, a unit of Accenture.

"You need to plan to take advantage of the opportunities and prepare for a future when the new media are more and more important," Mr. Merrihue said.

General Mills will let its two principal agencies, Campbell Mithun and Saatchi & Saatchi, determine the media in which ads run and which agencies will create them, in a bottom-up approach. Previously, the approach was top-down as brand managers at General Mills coordinated those efforts, working not only with the principal agencies but also with agencies that produced online, retail and minority campaigns.

The goal is "to make sure a campaign, from the get-go, is media neutral, going to the best place for that brand," Mr. Addicks said. Media neutral means that ads run where they belong most, rather than in outlets predetermined by tradition or the size of a commission.

Campbell Mithun, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, and Saatchi & Saatchi, part of the Publicis Groupe, will become what Mr. Addicks and Doug Moore, vice president for advertising and branding, are calling "brand navigators." That is, they gain the authority to decide how to produce all types of campaigns that are integrated across all forms of media outlets.

According to an annual survey by Nancy L. Salz Consulting in New York, only about a quarter of advertisers allow agencies to be the primary coordinators for accounts. Executives at General Mills said the agencies requested the shift.

Peter Hubbell, executive vice president and general manager for the General Mills account at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York, said he believed the rewards would outweigh the risks. "Trepidation comes into play only when we're given responsibility for an outcome but not authority," he said. "Call it what you want, holistic marketing, integrated communications; everyone is talking about the right way to do it," Mr. Hubbell said. "General Mills saying to us, 'You guys decide who you want at the table' — that's pretty powerful."
Mr. Hubbell's counterpart at Campbell Mithun in Minneapolis, Mike Nelson, said he liked to think of the new method as "upstream planning."

"This is a key difference from the past, when the client said, 'This is what we want to do; come back to us with something,' " said Mr. Nelson, who is executive vice president and worldwide account director at Campbell Mithun. "This involves us earlier and gives us the ability to steward teams and lead."

June 02, 2006 - AdverBlog

Football, Brazil and beautiful women in an advergame for Skol beer (by F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi).

Brahma cria conteudo jornalistico para radios direto da Copa

8/06/2006 - BlueBus

A Brahma estreou hoje uma agência de notícias que está produzindo conteúdo de áudio para disponibilizar para radios do país que não puderam enviar reporteres à Copa. O projeto, batizado 'Plantão Brahma Olé', tem 3 jornalistas - um deles está encarregado de gravar entrevistas com os jogadores e a comissão técnica da Seleção brasileira. O conteúdo é jornalístico e a marca Brahma é citada apenas na vinheta de abertura que refere o nome do projeto. Radios interessadas no material devem procurar a equipe AmBev na In Press Porter Novelli, no 11 3323 1520.

And now a channel from our sponsors
Branded content is the way forward for advertisers, says patrick collister

June 06, 2006 - TheFirstPost

Ten years ago, when I was creative director of a large agency, a bigwig at Unilever said to me: "This online, interactive thing, we don't know if it's going to be as important as you say it will be. But here's some (inadequate) money to go and do something for Dove to show us what the future will be like."

We set to work. Well, the very talented Alun Howell set to work. What he and Marcus Vinton devised was theoasis.com, a website that was nothing less than the first health and beauty portal for women.

There were mini-documentaries about women who'd got to the top - a judge, a racing driver, a surgeon - general interest pieces, workout sections and so on. The material was involving and interesting and relevant to Dove's brand values.

I thought I saw the future of advertising. Branded content. Unilever thought it was not their kind of future. Having been media buyers for a century, the prospect of becoming media owners was too much of a headbang.

Now, Audi have just launched a new TV commercial, not for a car but for their TV station, Audi TV. It's on Sky channel 884, if you're interested. Today's schedule includes an interview with rugby star Matt Dawson "In the front seat", "A Day with Roddy Williams", captain of the British Polo team, designer Wayne Hemingway testing the new A4 cabriolet in Seville and a chance to see the new Q7.

Nothing to set the world alight - yet. But it is the beginning of a completely new kind of relationship between the brand and its customers. If I sigh, it's for Dove's missed opportunity.

HBO Develops 'Entourage' Advergame

By Brian Morrissey

June 02, 2006 - AdWeek

NEW YORK HBO has begun promoting its hit series Entourage through an advergame that aims to give users a taste of being in the characters' shoes.

The "Paparazzi Chase" game, built to promote the show's new season that begins June 11, challenges players to avoid paparazzi photographers to get to a movie premiere in Los Angeles. HBO's promotional agency ePrize has tied the game into a contest, which requires users to submit personal information to enter, giving away a four-day trip to Los Angeles.

Josh Linkner, CEO of ePrize, said the sweepstakes aspect allows HBO to convert anonymous visitors into known audience members by collecting demographic information like age and gender. It also provides an entrée to begin a one-to-one dialogue by offering users the chance to sign up for Entourage newsletters.

"It's a way to connect with audience," Linkner said. "It's proven itself to be a highly effective technique.

"EPrize has built similar advergame campaigns for HBO series Rome and The Sopranos.

A Match Made in Product Placement Heaven

May 31, 2006 - NewYorkTimes

IN the first episode of "Lovespring International," a new comedy on the Lifetime channel about a dysfunctional dating service in Southern California, the owner of the agency storms into an office, furious at two employees.

"Do you know how many people have signed up for Perfectmatch.com in the last five minutes?" she barks. "1,623."

In real life, Perfectmatch.com is a subscription-based online dating service with more than three million members. On "Lovespring International," Perfectmatch.com will appear throughout the season as a faceless nemesis that is mentioned flatteringly as it steals clients from Lovespring.

Call it sponsorship, branded entertainment or product integration, but Perfectmatch's deal with Lifetime is increasingly common in advertising — weaving the name of a product into a television show or film, not as an obvious ad, but as a distinct part of the story. (In another episode, a disgruntled client screams, "I would have had better luck on Perfectmatch.com.")

It is a first for Lifetime, a cable network that has flirted with product integration but has never incorporated it so heavily in a show. Lifetime's deal with Perfectmatch extends not just for one episode, which is often the case, but for the entire 13-episode run of "Lovespring International."

Marketers have come a long way from the days when a simple product placement was considered unusual. Now, entire storylines — or in Lifetime's case, entire shows — are conceived with an advertiser in mind.
"It's much more than having a beer on the counter," said Duane Dahl, the chief executive and co-founder of Perfectmatch. "We really look for seamless integration opportunities."

Throughout the episodes filmed so far, Perfectmatch is generally presented as the impeccable rival of Lovespring, but it takes an insult or two — at one point, Perfectmatch is called "a hack" by a Lovespring employee.

Mr. Alvarez of Lifetime said that was one difficulty with integration. "We all have to be willing to make fun of this a little bit," he said.