The tax services company H&R Block as well as the upcoming TV network CW have signed contracts - with a combined total estimated at $150 million - with Omnicom Group’s OMD, writes Ad Age.
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By embodying a non-traditional approach to capturing the mature, $2.4 billion consumer-products category in only four years, Axe deodorant for young men has taken leadership of that category by avoiding sports tie-ins and programming; integrating content online; and including PlayStation and Nike in its competitive set, writes Ad Age.
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Transport for London has announced that incumbent Viacom Outdoor - the U.K. division of U.S.-based advertising firm CBS Outdoor - is the preferred bidder for the lucrative London Underground ad contract, beating out French rival JCDecaux, writes Reuters U.K.
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Reed Business Information’s list management division DM2-DecisionMaker has announced its strategic alliance with Harris Interactive Service Bureau to jointly create online research panels of decision-makers, writes BtoB. The Expert DecisionMaker Panels will soon be available and will allow DM2 to provide companies targeting hard-to-reach business-to-business decision-makers with access to its lists of subscribers.
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Miller Brewing Co. announced that Starcom USA would continue its 10-year-long management of the brewer’s $240 million media account, having beaten out Aegis Group’s Carat and WPP Group’s MindShare, who were also considered in the review that began in January, writes Ad Age.
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Google execs reiterated the company’s commitment to online and offline search advertising, including magazines and television, as well as announced the arrival of Google Co-op beta - an online community in which users can give input on improving search - during Wednesday’s Google Press Day, writes DM News.
In a benchmark agreement within the entertainment industry, by this summer, Warner Brothers is expected allow file-sharing technology to distribute television shows and movies online through BitTorrent Inc., writes the Los Angeles Times.
This week, General Electric Co. debuted its revolutionary “One Second Theater” ad campaign designed to create a more interactive TV-watching experience for users of digital video recorders, BtoB writes.
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PSM: Independent PlayStation Magazine announced that it would unveil a redesign at this week’s E3 Expo, where it will distribute the June select edition issue featuring Sony’s “God of War II” PlayStation game.
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ESPN.com has partnered with Ziff Davis Game Group to launch this fall a new sports video-game section, called ESPN Video Games Channel, writes MediaWeek.
TV Guide created a multi-platform marketing campaign for Post Cereals. The “It’s Crunch Time in the Boardroom” campaign featured customized print and online dual-promotion of Post’s new Grape-Nuts Trail Mix Crunch Cereal and the product was featured in the March 20 episode of t NBC’s The Apprentice.
Bypassing advertising agencies and heading straight to the customer, ViTrue Inc. - together with its recently purchased online video sharing community, Sharkle.com - will ask consumers to create advertising for both online and traditional media outlets, writes MediaPost.
The high level of budget allocation uncertainty, coupled with the increasing importance of digital media, has media buyers and planners as well as television networks anxiously preparing for the 2006-2007 upfront presentations, writes Ad Age. However, most upfront players seem to agree that digital media will not interfere with prime-time broadcast negotiations this year.
The new national advertising network, DotConnect Media, which launched last week, provides direct access to over 1,550 newspaper websites, writes BtoB. DotConnect Media’s subsidiary, TownNews, combines its network of 1,110 daily and weekly newspapers with the 450 newspapers it acquired from ZWire in March to make up the new network.
Hoping to bounce back from a 4.5 percent dip in sales in the first quarter of 2006, Blair Corp. will drop what it sees as the cause for the decrease - envelope mailings - and introduce another apparel catalog for women during the third quarter this year, writes Multichannel Merchant.
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In an effort to keep up with big internet companies like Google and Yahoo, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp.’s chief executive, said the software company would invest heavily in its online business - planning to spend $1.1 billion on its MSN online business in 2007, compared to the $500 million spent in 2005 - writes Smart Money.
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The agencies that have handled Wal-Mart’s $578 million U.S. creative and media activities - including longtime incumbents Omnicom Group’s GSD&M and independent Bernstein-Rein - have recently been informed that the account is now in the early stages of review, according to a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, writes Ad Age.
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Following January’s 5.4 percent rate increase, prompted by rising fuel and health care costs, the U.S. Postal Service filed yesterday a request to increase postage rates by an average of 8.5 percent - including a three-cent hike in the price of first-class stamps - writes BtoB. Provided the absence of a set timetable for rate increase requests, the USPS also proposed to create an annual rate adjustments cycle.
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CBS hopes to claim the multiplatform spotlight early this year by debuting - as soon as today - its anticipated broadband video player on an ad-supported free broadband channel before the upfronts begin in two weeks, according to sources close to the matter, writes Broadcasting & Cable.
In recent years, database modeling has evolved to better boost response rates due to the rising number of cooperative databases, the increasing types of models and the more vast and sophisticated variables available, writes Multichannel Merchant.
