Ford’s turning to flash mobs and concerts to promote its new Fusion car which is slated for release this fall, Brandweek reports.
Ford will use emails and text messaging to tell “Insiders” about last-minute venues and showtimes for a series of multi-city concerts featuring artists like Jermaine Dupri, Yellowcard and Fat Joe.
The automotive industry will increase ad expenditures by nearly eight percent in 2006, Adweek reports. The auto industry, according to Schonfeld & Associates’ annual study “Advertising Ratios and Budgets,” will continue its lead in ad spending with expenditures reaching $34 billion.
Research released today from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds almost half of all Internet users in the US don’t visit certain Web sites because they fear spyware and adware, MediaPost reports.
Advanstar Communications has confirmed that it is exploring a possible sale of the company, BtoB reports. Advanstar operates 57 expositions and conferences, publishes 55 magazines and directories, and has 75 electronic publications and Web sites.
Email list pricing could drop as much as 25 percent in the next 3-6 months because of decreasing deliverability rates caused by changes in the way service providers plan to handle HTML emails, Worldata predicted yesterday, DM News reports (via MarketingVox).
email this
permanent link
The UK will soon introduce an Olympics bill to outlaw unauthorised marketing from companies that aren’t official sponsors of the games, Media Guardian reports. The bill would make any unauthorised association with the games illegal.
Besides allowing only official sponsors to advertise in and around Olympic venues, use of the word Olympic and the Olympic rings in advertisements will need approval from the International Olympic Committee.
OLN earned an average of .48 per household rating last weekend, its highest numbers ever, with its coverage of the Tour de France.
According to Mediaweek, it is the commentators covering the Tour (plus Lance Armstrong and his yellow jersey, of course) that helped OLN draw 418,735 viewers over the weekend - an 80 percent increase over last year.
email this
permanent link
Crawford Broadcasting has announced plans to speed up HD radio conversions to within three years, according to Radio World.
CBC stations currently transmitting in digital HD Radio are WPWX, WSRB and WYRB in the Chicago cluster, WMUZ in Detroit and WPTR in Albany. By year’s end, all CBC FM stations and three AM stations will be transmitting digital signals.
Martin/Williams, which won a Gold Effie in 2004 for its work on L.L. Bean, will no longer work on the account, Adweek reports.
L.L. Bean, which spent $20 million on advertising last year, has spent only $400,000 through the first quarter of 2005, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
email this
permanent link
Anti-smoking TV ads sponsored by state health agencies have had a hand in reducing youth smoking, Adweek reports. The research, funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, follows many states cutting support for the ads due to a lack of funding.
Cable ad growth is predicted to grow by 13.3 percent this year, to $13.25 billion, despite whispers of doom prompted by the rise of direct broadcast satellite services like DirecTV and the lethargic pace of this summer’s upfront market, according to a new report by research company Kagan and reported by Media Life.
email this
permanent link
Digital marketing by US-based advertisers has leapt ahead in recent months, making late night phone calls part of the deal for their agencies as they scurry to build regional hubs and manage cross-border communication.
Overall marketing strategy shouldn’t change in different markets, but execution can vary dramatically. “The global hubs are here to make sure the overall strategy is consistent,” mOne’s Global brand team head in North America, Suhaila Suhimi-Waldner, told ClickZ.
email this
permanent link
Keyword prices are up approximately 25 percent since last September and rose an average of 3 percent last month, Mediapost reports. New numbers from Fathom’s Online Keyword Price Index show prices in June averaging $1.72, up from $1.67 in May.
At the top, keywords related to wireless services jumped 19 percent and retail 9 percent. Other categories saw slight increases: investing up 5 percent; consumer services up 3 percent; mortgages up 3 percent; cars up 2 percent; and travel up 1 percent.
A would-be competitor to Nielsen that is suing the ratings firm for unfair trade practices is employing Nielsen’s own disclosures about its old versus new measurement methods to show that its current system is terribly off. ErinMedia called Nielsen’s existing ratings system “systematically flawed,” and drew attention to data that Nielsen put out two weeks ago to try to convince skeptics that its new people meter system is indeed an improvement. Those figures show the current method to be about 40 percent off from the newer meters in some cases, according to MediaPost.
email this
permanent link
Online consumer purchasing picks up speed in India, totaling roughly $130 million in 2004-2005, according to the Internet & Online Association of India.
As Bangalore increasingly becomes a leading technology center and outsourcing continues to pour billions of dollars into the country, the total is expected to continue to grow, topping $550 million by 2007, eMarketer reports.
email this
permanent link
Real Networks and CBS will continue to partner, giving fans of the “Big Brother” reality TV show the chance to watch live, 24/7 coverage of the show’s “house guests,” reports Internet News.
While other reality shows give only carefully chosen snippets of the lives of their contestants, this feature allows subscribers of Real Networks to see what the television show doesn’t air: four cameras keep an eye on the guests and broadcast their doings live, all day, every day.
The partnership will be entering its fifth year; the show is in its sixth.
email this
permanent link
PaidContent reports that Microsoft is pooh-poohing rumors that its IPTV project has hit technical snags, telling financial analysts that it plans to roll out internet-borne TV near the end of the year. The Redmond Behemoth said that the software is “in stabilization and ship mode. So basically it’s bug fixing, it’s getting the type of feedback from our customers and making sure that all of those are baked into the final release.”
email this
permanent link
Cygnus Business Media announced it bought EMS Expo, along with its magazines EMS, Advanced Rescue Technology and Frontline First Responder from Summer Communications and Expo Productions. As is typical in deals between closely-held firms, terms weren’t disclosed.
email this
permanent link
Lee Iacocca, former chairman of Chrysler Corp., joins former “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander in a series of TV commercials that make up part of Chrysler’s $75 million ad campaign, reports the Detroit News.
Alexander will revive Iacocca’s famous line from his commercials of the 80s: “If you can find a better car, buy it.” The new campaign touts an employee-pricing program on most Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep vehicles to compete against GM’s similar campaign.
email this
permanent link
Sixty percent of marketers believe measuring ROI is important, but only 20 percent feel they do it well, according to a new study by the Association of National Advertsiers, Forrester Research, and Marketing Management Analytics.
The study also reveals that 73 percent of respondents, out of 135 senior-level marketers surveyed, lack confidence in their ability to understand the sales impact of a marketing campaign, reports B to B.
