Kanoodle Provides Sponsored Links for Turner Sports

Time Warner’s Turner Sports Interactive has chosen Kanoodle to provide the sponsored ad links on both the content pages and search results pages for two of its sites, Nascar.com and PGA.com, MediaPost reports.

In general, marketers pay higher fees to work with smaller contextual firms–when compared with Google and Yahoo. Kanoodle says that’s because marketers bid more for placement in Kanoodle’s network. Lance Podell, Kanoodle’s CEO, estimated that Kanoodle’s average keyword bid is 70 cents, while the average minimum bid is 20 cents.

Fox Blames LPMs for Five Percent Drop

News Corp. is blaming Nielsen’s local people meters for the reason why its Fox TV station group saw a five percent drop in advertising revenue in the fourth quarter, MediaPost writes. Fox has been vocal in its opposition to local people meters for under-representing minorities. But Fox’s five percent drop is similar to the drop in advertising at other station groups, including Young Broadcasting, Meredith Broadcasting, and others who haven’t claimed problems with the local people meters, the article claims.

Simon Cowell Sued for Stealing ‘Big Idea’

A lawsuit against ABC and American Idol judge Simon Cowell alleges they conspired to steal the brand and concept of Million Dollar Idea, a series airing in syndication, USA Today reports. In July, ABC announced a new show of the same name that the network said was created by Cowell.

Big Tobacco: Outdoor, Mag Ad Spending Up

Cigarette manufacturers spent $15.15 billion on advertising and promotion during 2003, according to the FTC Cigarettes Report 2003 (via Brandweek). Newspaper and magazine advertising each represented about one percent of that - but newspaper ad spending dropped from $25.5 million in 2002 to $8.3 million in 2003, while magazine ad spending increased 46.4 percent to $156.4 million.

P&G Readies Big Launch

Next week, Procter & Gamble will roll out its biggest launch in the dishwashing category in years for Dawn Direct Foam, Brandweek reports. The launch comes as Dawn just became a $1 billion brand for P&G. Dawn’s North America sales are about $450 million, which is around 35 percent of the $1.2-$1.3 billion category.

The company is launching a TV, print and retail effort that explains Direct Foam’s grease-fighting ability. A new TV ad from Kaplan Thaler, New York, where the product is seen as a grease-sucking animated vacuum, will break Aug. 15. P&G will spend around 50 percent of the brand’s outlay this year. P&G spent $54 million on measured media for Dawn in 2004.

Pfizer Follows PhRMA, Announces New Ad Policy

Pfizer has announced changes to its DTC advertising that include more risk information in ads and a reinforcement of the doctor-patient relationship, AdAge reports. The move follows PhRMA’s DTC voluntary advertising guidelines issued last week.

More Info, Less Complexity, Advertisers Plead

Advertisers want more demographic data and less complexity from search engines, they told Google and Yahoo during this week’s Search Engine Strategies 2005 conference, according to DM News. Both Google and Yahoo claimed that, while they understood, those concerns needed to be balanced against user privacy. As for the complexity issues, answers from search engine representatives were complex themselves: “A lot of these features require a little more work, but a lot are more simple, and the effort is usually worth it,” said David Fisher, director of AdWords at Google.

RelationServe Media Acquires SendTec

Online marketing services provider RelationServe Media will pay $50 million in cash and stock for SendTec, a direct marketing agency owned by theglobe.com, DM News reports. SendTec will lose its name in the deal.

DHL Wins Homeland Security Contract

DHL has won an exclusive five-year contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to handle same-day, next-day, 2nd-day and ground delivery of parcels for all DHS components including the Secret Service, Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Transportation Security Administration and Border and Transportation Security, DM News reports. Previously, multiple carriers handled the department’s shipping needs.

Outdoor Movie Ads Outrage ‘Movie Mom’

Billboards advertising several different R-rated movies this summer say the films are not yet rated, and Nell Minow, the “Movie Mom” who writes parent-oriented film reviews for Yahoo, has said she believed the studios were “intentionally and maliciously exploiting a loophole” in the ratings system,” according to the New York Times.