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February 1st, 2006

Dept. of Justice Files Complaint Against The Broadcast Team

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a complaint against The Broadcast Team at the FTC’s request, alleging the telemarketer violated the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, DM News reports. The company is accused of using automated dialers to call and hang up on 64 million people on behalf of debt management services clients, and of calling 1 million people on the national do-not-call list, among other allegations. The complaint seeks civil penalties and a permanent injunction for TSR violations.

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Banned Super Bowl Ads Find Home on Heavy.com

Heavy.com has huddled together 16 commercials from this year’s Super Bowl, including one by animal rights group PETA and a “director’s cut” of the GoDaddy.com ad, reports MediaPost (via MarketingVox). “I think the ads that get rejected are always the more interesting ones,” said David Carson, Heavy.com’s cofounder and co-CEO. He said the site did not work out arrangements with the brands but merely compiled the ads, which can be found on various websites. Users clicking on the commercials are first shown a separate full-screen banner ad.

Related topics: Integrated/Cross-Media/Convergence, TV Network, Viral Marketing, Entertainment, Creative Issues, Agencies, Branding, Campaigns of Note, Interactive...    email this    permanent link

Yum Brands Is First-Ever Kentucky Derby Sponsor

Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky has signed its first-ever corporate sponsor for the Kentucky Derby, Yum Brands, Brandweek reports. Yum is parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver’s, and A&W Restaurants. On race day, the Yum Brands logo will be seen beneath the Twin Spires on a Kentucky Derby sign, the sign above the starting gate, the jackets of the pony riders who escort the horses and jockeys during post parade, on TV billboards, and in other places throughout the facility.

Related topics: Integrated/Cross-Media/Convergence, Planning, TV Cable, TV Network, Entertainment, Demographics, Outdoor, Branding, Buying, Campaigns of Note, Television...    email this    permanent link

CBS Sells New Survivor Episodes on CBS.com

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New episodes of Survivor will be available for download shortly after midnight, following the airing of new episodes on TV, via CBS’s website, Reuters reports. Currently, CBS offers shows such as CSI on Google’s video service for $1.99 and on Comcast’s on-demand system for 99 cents. According to the company, this is the first time that a television network has offered prime-time programming for a fee on its own wholly-owned website.

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Advertising and the Egg

EggFusion is a company that hopes to etch marketing messages on the smooth orbs of eggs, according to Steve Hall of Adrants. “It won’t be long before PETA does a roadblock buy and every egg in the country is emblazoned with ‘Murderer! Don’t Eat This Egg!’” he writes.

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Time Spent Surfing Equals Time Spent Watching TV

A new JupiterResearch report, based on a survey of just under 3,000 internet users, found that average online users are now spending about 14 hours - the same amount of time that they spend watching TV - surfing the internet, Media Life reports.

Related topics: Newspapers, Measurement/Analytics, Planning, Research, Signs of What's to Come, Magazines, Entertainment, Print, Interactive, Buying, Demographics, Television...    email this    permanent link

Frey’s Fray Boosts SmokingGun to Record Pageviews

After revealing on Jan. 8 that James Frey’s “memoir” A Million Little Pieces was full of lies and embellishments, TheSmokingGun.com has seen its traffic increase 50 percent in January, compared with January 2005, reports MediaWeek (via MarketingVox). January’s 70 million pageviews were apparently the most in the site’s nine-year history. Its previous record was set when it published details of the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in October 2004.

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Disney Launches ‘Wondertime,’ Competes with New ‘Cookie’

Disney Publishing Worldwide’s new magazine, Wondertime, will be on newsstands Feb. 14, carrying nearly 70 pages of advertising, including a double gatefold from Hasbro. Geared towards helping moms understand how children are learning and growing, Wondertime, the first new U.S. magazine from Disney Publishing Worldwide in more than a decade, looks to “create a new niche” in the parenting category.

Related topics: Planning, Magazines, Women, Youth, Feature, List Marketing, Entertainment, Branding, Direct, Buying, Creative Issues, Demographics, Print...    email this    permanent link

Google Ads Work Best, Advertisers Claim

Most marketers - 71 percent - think Google search ads are effective, compared with 62 percent saying so about Yahoo and 49 percent about MSN, reports MediaPost (via MarketingVox), citing a survey by Outsell. Advertisers who thought Google performed best were the ones with the smallest marketing budgets: Those who said Google ads were “extremely” effective had total budgets averaging $3.7 million, whereas the budgets of those saying Yahoo and MSN were extremely effective averaged $4.6 million. Outsell also predicted that spending on online marketing would grow 19 percent this year, with search increasing 26 percent.

Related topics: Search Engine Marketing, Signs of What's to Come, Text Ads, Feature, Planning, Online Networks, Branding, Buying, E-Commerce, Measurement/Analytics, Interactive...    email this    permanent link

Trade Show Revenues, Attendance Increased in Q3 2005

Trade shows saw a 2.5 percent increase in revenues in Q3 2005 over the same period in the preceding year, while revenue for the first nine months of the year was up 3.2 percent compared with the same period in 2004, according to the Business Information Network for Trade Show activity from American Business Media, B to B reports.

Related topics: Planning, Research, Signs of What's to Come, Industry Events, Buying, Agencies, Business-to-Business, Outdoor...    email this    permanent link
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February 1st, 2006

Inc.com Gets Site Revamp, FastCompany to Follow

Inc. magazine’s Inc.com rolled out its website redesign today in beta, Mansueto Ventures announced. In coming months, FastCompany.com will also be redesigned. The company calls the redesigns the culmination of months of effort, and proof that Mansueto Ventures is putting substantial resources behind its two business titles.

Related topics: Magazines, Planning, Demographics, Buying, Interactive, Branding, Direct...    email this    permanent link

Boston Acoustics: HD Radio Retail Price Drastically Reduced

Effective today, the retail price of Boston Acoustics’s Recepter Radio HD with digital HD Radio technology is $299, the company announced. When the radio became available just before Christmas, it retailed for about $500. According to Phil Cohn, Boston Acoustics vp sales, the company is excited to “make this technology accessible to a broader audience of radio listeners” via a more affordable price.

Related topics: Planning, Signs of What's to Come, New Tech, Entertainment, Buying, Radio...    email this    permanent link

Google Accused of Stealing Newspaper Content

The World Association of Newspapers is coordinating a campaign to demand compensation from Google and other search engines for unfairly exploiting newspaper, magazine, and book publishers’s content, according to the Financial Times. The group of publishers involved includes the International Publishers Association, the European Federation of Magazine Publishers, and Agence France Presse. They hope to meet with Charlie McCreevy, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, and Viviane Reding, commissioner responsible for media, to look at new standards and policies that could be drafted or even to seek possible legal action to enforce copyright laws.

Related topics: Newspapers, Online Networks, Search Engine Marketing, Magazines, Europe, Direct, Interactive, Print...    email this    permanent link

ABC News to ‘Tread Carefully’ Around Woodruff Topic

Bob Woodruff, the new co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight who was seriously injured - along with cameraman Doug Vogt - in a roadside bomb blast in Iraq, is facing at the least months of convalescence, leaving ABC wondering what exactly will happen with the nightly news program. It will be the end of the week or later before ABC News publicly addresses the question, sources say, according to Reuters (via the Hollywood Reporter).

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Time Cuts Staff, Pushes Online Efforts

Time Inc. said it would be executing another round of job cuts, lopping off another 100 or so employees, a disproportionate number from its Time and Money titles, reports MarketingVox. Last year it started cutting with an eye toward beating back a notably layered management structure. A spokesman told the New York Times that business was actually running pretty well, and that the changes were necessary for more forward-looking strategic reasons.

Related topics: Planning, Wireless, Magazines, Buying, Interactive, Print...    email this    permanent link
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