Daily Headlines, 9/18/07

GENERAL NEWS

For Time Warner, a time to break up?
Jeff Bewkes, the media giant’s future CEO, faces restive shareholders, a flat stock price, and a key question: Should Time Warner be split up? At Time Warner headquarters in late July, dozens of Manhattan A-listers gathered to hear Senator Barack Obama participate in an off-the-record question-and-answer session led by Time Warner chairman and chief executive Dick Parsons.
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Internet Recession Watch: Tracking the Signs
Updated: We continue to believe that we may be in the first stages of a cyclical downturn for advertising and the Internet sector–one that will affect not only start-ups and second-tier players but majors like Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), AOL, et al. Such downturns do not begin suddenly, and they are not instantly obvious (except in hindsight).

ADVERTISING NEWS

Nokia Acquires Enpocket to Build Out Mobile Ad Platform
In the emerging mobile content and advertising market, Nokia hopes to expand its footprint beyond hardware. To achieve its goal the handset manufacturer agreed to acquire Enpocket to build its advertising platform.
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Mobile Ad Spending Boom on the Horizon, says Myers
Slow to catch on, mobile advertising is about to enter its heyday, according to the latest ad spending projection from The Jack Myers Media Business Report.
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New York Times Drops Web-Site Fees
New York Times Co. said it would drop its paid TimesSelect service, which charged a fee for online access to certain New York Times columnists, and make the vast majority of its Web site — and archives — available free.
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Are Internet Television Ratings Low?, TV sets and DVRs aren’t the whole picture
Only 9% of US adults have watched a full-length television program on the Internet, according to an August 2007 Ipsos Insight study conducted with Associated Press and AOL. The estimate is not quite as bleak as it may appear, since Ipsos surveyed all US adults, not just Internet users or online video viewers.
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In-house creative threatens agencies
With companies like Hearst and NBC increasingly creating ad programs for themselves and their clients, how will it affect agencies? A panel discusses the issues. A new advertising trend is emerging which, if it proves popular and cost-effective, could compel ad agencies to rethink their business model and methodology.
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Where to put your local ad dollars, A recent study conducted by TMP Directional Marketing and comScore sheds light on how consumers use local media
No more than 10 years ago consumers only had a few selections to choose from when looking for local business information (print yellow pages, directory assistance, et cetera.)
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Hearst Buys Realage.com, Bolsters Cross-Platform Ad Sales
HEARST HAS ADDED REALAGE.COM TO its growing stable of digital properties, it announced Monday. The site engages consumers with the promise of a quiz that determines their “real age,” based on various health and lifestyle factors.
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How internet rock stars drive traffic. We take a closer look at Mahalo, Pownce and Truemors
Three big events rocked the web 2.0 universe this summer. Internet rock stars Guy Kawasaki (Truemors), Jason Calacanis (Mahalo), and Kevin Rose/Leah Culver (Pownce) launched new companies. In the chart below, you see how all three have done extremely well thus far. Any startup would kill for these sort of results in their first two months. I know I would
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AOL (TWX) Randy Falco: Ad CPMs Dropping
AOL CEO Randy Falco confirmed yesterday that online ad CPMs are dropping, a trend that caused many of the leading publishers to post disappointing results in Q2. (Tacoda CEO Dave Morgan wrote about this here) As explained yesterday, the goal of AOL’s new network strategy is to reverse this trend–by aggregating enough volume that the network becomes a must-buy for advertisers.

ACCOUNT ACTIVITY

Arnold Pairs With No. 11 for Luxury Business, Signs RedEnvelope as First Client
Havas’ Arnold Worldwide is partnering with boutique creative agency No. 11 to offer creative services and integrated marketing communications to beauty, fashion and luxury marketers.
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Interactive Agency Vets Aim to Fill Consulting World Gap with Emerging Media Agency
Interactive agency vets John Durham and Cory Treffiletti hope to fill a gap in the consulting world with their new firm Catalyst. The founders believe their business strategy upstart will not only complement the work of existing agencies, but could help connect potential clients as partners.
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Treffiletti, Durham Partner On Catalyst
ONLINE ADVERTISING VETS CORY TREFFILETTI and John Durham have partnered to launch Catalyst, an emerging media strategy firm that works to help agencies, advertisers and startups maximize their on- and offline digital marketing investments.
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Ion Upfront: Net Has Signed Commitments From 40-Plus Advertisers
Ion Media Networks said it has signed commitments from more than 40 new advertisers during its first upfront selling season since the network rebranded itself from Pax TV network. The upfront included a new sales agreement between Ion and media agency conglomerate GroupM, one behalf of advertisers Campbell’s, GlaxoSmithKline, Macy’s, Colgate, Kimberly Clark and Mattel.

Daily Headlines, 9/17

GENERAL NEWS

Are EBay and Others the New New Media? Standard Definition Gets Foggy When E-Commerce Sites Start Selling Ad Space : http://adage.com/digital/article.php?article_id=120488  What makes media “media”? Increasingly, that question is getting harder to answer. The web, it turns out, is doing more than just transform media-business models — it’s blurring the definition of media in the first place. Papa John’s, who insists it is not a media company, runs ads for Gamefly, Six Flags and Sports Illustrated on its site. Does a media site create content with the goal of selling ads or subscriptions to pay for it? Or can we now define as a medium any site that aggregates an audience through other means — e-commerce or lead generation — then it turns around and sells to advertisers?

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Has smart money abandoned U.S. Web 2.0 companies? : http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/17/has-smart-money-abandoned-us-web-20-companies/ Venture capitalists invested about six percent more into Web 2.0 companies in the first half of 2007, but the increase was attributable to more deals in Europe and Israel. Notably, early investors in Web 2.0 slowed their pace. For example, Silicon Valley’s Benchmark Capital backed just three deals during the first half of the year, with only one in the Bay Area.******AOL Realigns Business, Unveils Global Integrated Advertising Platform : http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070917/20070917005611.htmlThe New Entity, Platform A, Will Offer Advertisers Access to the Largest Internet-wide Display Advertising Network and Most Sophisticated Tools; Builds on Success of Advertising.com and Integrates TACODA, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast and ADTECH. AOL Corporate Headquarters to Relocate to World’s Advertising Capital, New York City AOL Portal, Toolbar and Search to Be Distributed Globally via Millions of HP PCs Sold

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Chernin calls for more risk-taking, Innovate or die says News Corp. chief : http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117971983.html?categoryid=19&cs=1News Corp. topper Peter Chernin has urged British TV chiefs to adopt innovative, risk-taking strategies and embrace new media — or risk extinction. Speaking at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention, Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp., added that in such a complex market, creative, risk-taking strategies were more important than ever — and that it was high time the suits were regarded as creatives.

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Newspaper Crash: A Guide to Every Gory Detail : http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/newspaper-cra-1.htmlWe’ve argued for some time that newspaper publishers like the New York Times (NYT), Tribune (TRB), and Gannett (GCI) are screwed. Not because of the costs of paper, printing, and distribution–these are covered by subscription fees and fat print ads–but because the revenue that can be generated from an online reader is a small fraction (currently far less than 10%) of the amount generated by a print subscriber. ******ADVERTISING NEWS

Advertising Placements by Industry and Top Sponsored Links, August 2007 : http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627033The industry breakdown of ad placements and unit types and top 25 companies placing sponsored links. The data are provided by Nielsen//NetRatings.

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Coremetrics Adds Lifecycle Behavioral Tracking : http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627038

Coremetrics has upgraded its digital marketing suite with a new release, Coremetrics 2008, that adds improved tracking of consumer behaviors. Rather than provide historical insight in the form of an isolated purchase or other action, the software will now track an individual over time to provide a more complete picture of his or her intent. The company is calling the approach “contextual marketing.”

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The next big revenue generator : http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/16524.asp

You thought search was the biggest thing to hit online advertising? Just wait. Behavioral targeting will blow it out of the water. Online advertising continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Since 1997, online advertising has grown from a $301 million industry to a $30 billion industry. Graphical display ads were one of the first revenue engines on the web.

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Ad Spending Will Grow 3% in 2007 and 7% in 2008: New Myers Forecasts, Suggestions of Ad Recession Are Misguided : http://www.jackmyers.com/commentary/media-business-report/9805202.html Full details on Myers spending estimates and forecasts from 2006 to 2009 for 18 media categories and six marketing categories are available at www.jackmyers.com. Reports from TNS Media Intelligence and other forecasters suggesting the U.S. ad industry may be entering a recessionary period are grossly misleading because they focus exclusively on traditional media such as television, newspapers, radio and online and fail to pick up on the shift of marketers’ budgets to untracked categories such as cinema, mobile, videogame advertising, branded entertainment, satellite radio and custom publishing. ****** Risking the Internet Audience :

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=67440 

YOUTUBE AND FACEBOOK EACH TOOK steps recently to harvest the considerable advertising revenue opportunity on their sites. In YouTube’s case, it introduced video advertising overlays to video content, and in the case of Facebook, it announced plans to market user data.

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ACCOUNT ACTIVITY

Execs & Accounts Sept. 17, 2007 : http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627040

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Industry News, 9/14/07

GENERAL NEWS  ARF Research Council Sets Goals to Improve Web Research Studies : http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627023In keeping with its mission to improve the quality of Web panel-based research studies, the Advertising Research Foundation’s recently-launched Online Research Quality Council met this week to organize working committees and set out a timeframe for planned projects.

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Which Rich Media Type Works Best?, Online video is flashy, but not all sites support it : http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005376Online video gets all the attention these days, but consumers actually spend more time with online promotions and coupons — 30.8 seconds versus 16.26 — according to PointRoll’s “Entertainment Performance Analysis: The Big Picture of Online Advertising” report.

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The Future of News Is ‘Small’ : http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=67437What will newspapers look like in 2020? That’s the burning question a number of people have been tackling lately, including Buzzmachine’s Jeff Jarvis, fellow Spin columnist Dave Morgan and BusinessWeek’s Stephen Baker.

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Brightcove Narrows Focus, While the video portal will live on, Brightcove is shifting resources to further develop its technology platform and beef up its services : http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003640696 While it once had ambitions to compete with YouTube for viewers and ad networks for media dollars, Brightcove is now focusing squarely on its video technology.

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ADVERTISING NEWS B2B Online Advertising Up, Businesses spread the message : http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005377US business-to-business ad spending totaled $14.39 billion in 2006, up 1.4% from $14.19 billion in 2005, according to a BtoB Magazine analysis of ad spending data from TNS Media Intelligence. Online display ads made up nearly 10% of B2B ad spending, or $1.4 billion, according to TNS. That figure is 17% up from 2005 levels, BtoB said. The firm does not track paid search or online video.

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So you think you can make an ad, Putting the creative in the hands of consumers may pull attention from your brand. See how to keep your message from becoming a casualty of user-generated ads : http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/16542.aspOne of the summer’s most popular TV shows, Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” provides a provocative parallel to the influx of consumer-generated ads of late. Apparently there are hoards of people out there who think making a TV commercial is as easy as moving their bodies to music and calling it dancing. But the parallel is not just in the challenge issued by the show’s name.

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Omaha broadcaster launches classifieds site 

Check out ONow.com, a classifieds site out of Omaha, Nebraska. It’s the work of the Journal Broadcast Group’s KMTV (CBS affil) and its five radio stations. It is its own brand and does not have the names/logos of the TV or radio stations on it. For now, users can post everything, including pictures and videos, for free. Eventually the site will charge for the pix and video, but the text ads will remain free.

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Is Ad-Blocking Software Legal?

Ad-blocking software may be growing in popularity, but no word on its legal status. Even so, plug-ins like Firefox’s Adblock make it easy to configure your Web browser not to display ads. Understandably, advertisers and publishers are furious. ****** Yahoo Makes Tiny Acquisition: BuzzTrackerYahoo has acquired news site BuzzTracker, a tiny news aggregation site, for somewhere between $2 – $5 million. Alan Warms, CEO of parent company Participate Media, will join Yahoo as Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo News (a job with a bit of a revolving door, apparently). ****** LOCAL MARKET AUTOMOTIVE DOWN 10.2% IN 2ND QTR : http://www.spotsndots.com/listingsentryfeature.asp?ID=515127&PT=featurestory  In yesterday’s issue, we reported that local market TV revenue was down 5.4% for the first half, according to TNS Media Intelligence figures. The Television Bureau of Advertising has now analyzed the TNSMI data, and it shows that TV’s largest category — automotive — has had a disproportionate influence on all the bad news. ****** Analyst Trims Online Ad Estimate For Mortgage Crisis : http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/analyst-trims-o.html In a move that we expect will be the first of many, a Wall Street analyst has trimmed his estimate for the growth of online advertising in 2007 and 2008.  Sandeep Aggarwal, a diligent analyst at Oppenheimer, is now looking for US online growth of 25% this year, vs a prior estimate of 26%.  The magnitude of the cut is immaterial: Aggarwal is essentially arguing, as he did two weeks ago, that the mortgage collapse will have no impact on U.S. online ads. ******

 ACCOUNT ACTIVITY 

LG Electronics Puts $350 Million in Play, Five Agencies Will Vie for Brand and Strategic-Marketing Business : http://adage.com/accountaction/article.php?article_id=120471A plum global account is in play: LG Electronics’ $350 million brand and strategic-marketing communications business. LG Electronics’ four core businesses are mobile communications, digital display, digital media and digital appliances.

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Richards Group Picks Up Orkin’s $15 Million Creative Business, Pest-Control Company Split With Longtime Agency JWT Earlier This Year : http://adage.com/accountaction/article.php?article_id=120460Richards Group, Dallas, has grabbed pest-control company Orkin’s creative account, according to executives familiar with the matter. TNS data show Orkin spent $15.4 million on measured media in 2006.

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Execs & Accounts for September 14, 2007 : http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627026

Industry News, 9/13/07

GENERAL NEWS

How companies are marketing online: A McKinsey Global Survey : http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=2048&pagenum=1

A survey of marketers from around the world shows where online tools are most important, how they’re being used, and on which ones companies plan to spend more. Throughout the brief history of the Internet, expectations have run high for it to “change everything.”

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Yahoo’s Plan to Win the Local News Web War : http://www.602communications.com/Info/Articles/tabid/59/ctl/ArticleView/mid/378/articleId/470/Yahoos-Plan-to-Win-the-Local-News-Web-War.aspx 

What’s the number one news on the web?  New York Times?  The Washington Post?  CNN? It’s none of those.  The number one source for news is Yahoo.  Over the past few years, Yahoo has made a major push into local news.  Go to its site, put in your zip code and up pops all the best local content compiled from a variety of local news sources.  Yahoo doesn’t write the news.  It collects it, packages it in a convenient interface, then links directly to each news source’s web page.

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CNN wins innovation award for digital news-gathering : http://www.lostremote.com/2007/09/12/cnn-wins-innovation-award-for-digital-newsgathering/

CNN has already received plenty of buzz over its newsgathering technology, and now it has won two International Broadcasting Conference innovation awards for its customized field kits that combine cameras, editing and satellite and internet into a laptop-based system. “This suite of new technologies enable journalists to employ immediate live and video FTP submissions, real-time content monitoring, editing and voice communication from anywhere in the field,” explains the CNN press release, which continues below… 

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ADVERTISING NEWS 

 

Marketers Seek a Banner-Blindness Cure : http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB118229331091041179-lMyQjAxMDE3ODIyMDIyOTAzWj.html

Pity the poor banner ad. Cutting-edge just a few years ago, this pioneer of Web advertising is now scorned as hopelessly out-of-date, a neglected stepchild in an era of Web video, widgets, mash-ups and social networking. But Web sites don’t want to give up this key revenue source: Basic display ads still accounted for $3.4 billion in U.S. online ad spending in 2006, or 21% of the total U.S. online ad market, according to research firm eMarketer. So many marketers are furiously trying to jazz them up.

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TVB: Local TV Ad Revenues Down in Q2, Television Bureau of Advertising Worked with TNS Media Intelligence on Data : http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6477988.html?nid=3345

Without the Olympic Games and political campaigns to boost coffers, local broadcast ad revenue was down 6.6% for the second quarter, said the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB), compared with the second quarter of last year. Network TV was down 0.2% in the quarter and syndicated TV down 4.7%, according to the TVB, which worked with TNS Media Intelligence on the figures.

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U.S. Viewers Watched an Average of 3 Hours of Online Video in July, Google Sites Capture 27 Percent Online Video Market Share : http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1678

comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its comScore Video Metrix report for July 2007, revealing that nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of three hours of online video during the month. Google Sites topped the July rankings with both the most unique video viewers and most videos viewed.

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Will The Ad Slowdown Reach The Web? : http://gigaom.com/2007/09/12/will-the-ad-slowdown-reach-the-web/ 

The housing boom hasn’t turned into a bust quite yet, but it is losing steam fast. In the meantime, the impact of the credit crunch is being felt in other areas of the U.S. economy, including advertising. A new report released today by TNS Media Intelligence shows that overall spending on advertising declined for the second quarter in a row.

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Search Rules Advertising As Media Diversifies : http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/09/12/search-rules-advertising-as-media-diversifiesSearch and word-of-mouth are by far still the most effective means of advertising and driving website traffic, according to a new survey, but it may not be time to sing the dirge for print just yet. Deloitte’s 2007 State of the Media Democracy Survey revealed that 84 percent of all consumers visit a website after finding it through a search engine and 82 percent find websites via personal recommendation.

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ACCOUNT ACTIVITY 

 

Royal Caribbean Goes Into Play, Arnold Is Incumbent on Cruise Line’s $80 Million Account : http://adage.com/accountaction/article.php?article_id=120422

Royal Caribbean International is putting its estimated $80 million-plus advertising account into review, the company said today. Royal Caribbean spent about $82 million on measured media in 2006. Longtime incumbent agency Arnold Worldwide and Havas sibling media agency MPG have been invited to participate.

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Campbell Mithun Wins Bank’s Ad Account, National City Spent $43 Million Last Year : http://adage.com/accountaction/article.php?article_id=120421

National City Bank has awarded its creative advertising account to Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Campbell Mithun, Minneapolis, following a review, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokeswoman for Cleveland-based National City, which spent $42.8 million in measured media last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence, declined to comment.

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MindShare Wins Movie-Studio Biz, Summit Entertainment Plans 10-12 Film Releases Annually : http://adage.com/accountaction/article.php?article_id=120413

Newly formed movie-production studio Summit Entertainment awarded its estimated $75 million media account to WPP’s MindShare following a multi-agency pitch. Summit was formed this spring. MindShare will handle media assignments for the studio’s U.S. theatrical and home-entertainment divisions.