DailyFinance.comhttp://www.dailyfinance.comDailyFinance.comhttp://o.aolcdn.com/os/df/2013/img/2-dailyfinance_logo_m.pngDailyFinance.comhttp://www.dailyfinance.comen-usCopyright 2013 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/Will a Lack of A-List Advertisers Kill the 'Glenn Beck' Show?http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/03/22/will-a-lack-of-a-list-advertisers-kill-the-glenn-beck-show/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/03/22/will-a-lack-of-a-list-advertisers-kill-the-glenn-beck-show/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/03/22/will-a-lack-of-a-list-advertisers-kill-the-glenn-beck-show/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Glenn Beck's show still has higher ratings than its 5 p.m. competitors, it's got fewer advertisers. Will Fox pull the plug in December? When "Glenn Beck" was riding high in the ratings, the program that liberals love to hate appeared to be nearly bulletproof. Witness 2009, when the show suffered an exodus of major advertisers after Beck described President Obama as "racist." Despite the loss of blue-chip sponsors, Fox News stood by its man. Why? Ratings for the program continued to soar, and big-name marketers plunked their money on other Fox News shows.

But almost two years later, the program seems to have become more vulnerable. Fox News is considering breaking up with Beck when his contract ends in December, according to a story in The New York Times. Even though the program still shows a hefty lead over its 5 p.m. competitors on CNN and MSNBC, "Glenn Beck" has shed almost 1 million viewers from a year earlier, according to data from Nielsen.

Glenn Beck "is not bringing in the blue-chip advertisers," notes Brad Adgate, the director of research for Horizon Media. "He's lost exactly one-third of his audience. That's a cause for concern at Fox News."

Big Advertisers Aren't Backing Beck

Back when Beck's show was skyrocketing in the ratings, his anemic list of advertisers didn't worry Fox News. But the "Glenn Beck" advertisers -- or lack of of them -- are becoming more of an issue as the show hemorrhages viewers. TiVo has provided data to DailyFinance that illustrates the big divide between Beck's advertisers and those backing CNN's "The Situation Room" and MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews."

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During the last week of February, Beck's show attracted 39 advertisers, ranging from his major sponsor, Goldline.com, which has come under fire for its marketing and sales practices, to decidedly B-list advertisers such as SeniorPeopleMeet.com, a dating site for seniors.

Advertisers for Beck's more liberal rivals on CNN and MSBNC are both more plentiful and better pedigreed, despite the programs' considerably smaller audiences. "The Situation Room" on CNN booked ads from more than 100 advertisers during the last week in February, while "Hardball" attracted 58 advertisers during the same period, according to Tivo. And the shows attract ads from some of the biggest U.S. consumer brands, including Procter & Gamble and Microsoft.

Targeting the Senior Set

All three shows tend to attract an older audience, with their average viewing age hovering in the mid-60s. But not all senior-targeted advertisers are created equal. Beck's program draws ads such as cosmetic surgery practice Lifestyle Lift, while CNN's "Situation Room" has attracted a list of advertisers including Mercerdes Benz 's E-class of luxury cars and Procter & Gamble's (PG) over-the-counter Prilosec heart-burn medication.

Given that Andrew Napolitano, Beck's vacation fill-in, maintained the show's ratings when Beck was out earlier this month, it doesn't take a programming genius to put the pieces together. Sure, if Beck leaves Fox News, he might take Goldline with him. But Fox News, eying the A-list advertisers at "The Situation Room," might be willing to take that chance.

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]]>advertisementsadvertiseradvertisersadvertisingadvertismentcablecable newscable ratingscable televisioncable TvcnnColumnsfoxfox newsfox news channelglenn beckGlennBeckhardballhardball with chris matthewsmsnbcNews CorpProcter & GambleratingratingsSituationRoomthe situation roomAimee PicchiTue, 22 Mar 2011 09:00:00 ESTDo Early Peeks at Super Bowl Ads Pay Off?http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/01/21/super-bowl-advertisers-pre-release-ads-will-viewers-watch-them/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/01/21/super-bowl-advertisers-pre-release-ads-will-viewers-watch-them/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/01/21/super-bowl-advertisers-pre-release-ads-will-viewers-watch-them/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Super Bowl XLVNot too long ago, companies buying ad time during the Super Bowl -- TV's most expensive commercial venue -- sought to keep their game-day commercials secret until air time. The theory was to wow TV audiences with the element of surprise: a funny punch line, a new spokesperson or a catchy song delivered fresh. The goal was to guarantee that the ads would be the subject of office break-room conversation the next day.

But an increasing number of Super Bowl advertisers are now using a strategy that was once anathema: posting their game-day commercials online, well in advance of the game. Their goal: to get consumers talking about their ads not only after the Super Bowl, but sometimes months before kick-off.

That strategy, however, also begs the question of whether consumers actually watch those ads during the game, or do the commercials become just another opportunity to get a fresh beer from the fridge.

High-Stakes Game, High-Stakes Ads

At risk is a tidy sum. Aside from any production costs for a top-quality ad, a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl is fetching a record $3 million this year, according to a recent report from Kantar Media. For many companies, a Super Bowl commercial will represent their biggest single advertising expense for the year. And according to Kantar, one-third of the advertisers in last year's Super Bowl devoted more than 10% of their full-year media budgets to the game.

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"Over time, the stakes have escalated," says Jon Swallen, Kantar's senior vice president of research. "One way advertisers try to monetize that is with these pre-game, pre-release ads, trying to raise buzz and awareness. It helps to try to cut through the clutter."

And Swallen says Super Bowl ad time is more cluttered than ever. Last year, for instance, the game contained a record 47 minutes and 50 seconds of network ads. In comparison, the 2001 Super Bowl contained just over 40 minutes of commercials.

To be sure, many of the commercials in this year's Super Bowl -- to air on Fox on Feb. 6 -- will be kept secret until they hit the airwaves. But increasingly, the name of the marketing game is to tease viewers ahead of game day -- with clips or even the entire commercial. While some potential Super Bowl ads are already online, such as those from Pepsi MAX and Doritos, other marketers are still deciding whether to post their commercials early.

Go Daddy, for one, says it's likely to pre-release one of its two Super Bowl ads before the game, while a second commercial -- announcing a new celebrity spokesperson -- will be kept under wraps. The domain-name registrar began pre-releasing its Super Bowl ads in 2006 and was one of the few companies at the time that did so without an embargo, notes Marianne Curran, Go Daddy executive vice president of media and communications. "Some people may ask, 'Does it wreck the surprise?' We think it does just the opposite," she says. "It whets viewers' appetites."

Attracting Eyeballs

The viewer data, however, isn't always so clear-cut. Go Daddy's "News" spot last year ranked 12th among Super Bowl viewers, attracting 112.1 million pairs of eyeballs. But according to data from Nielsen, the company's second ad, "Spa," came in at No. 62 with just over 100 million viewers.

And pre-releasing an ad may not necessarily drum up consumer enthusiasm. Last year, the top-rated ad by USA Today's Ad Meter, a focus group that ranks its members' favorite ads, was the Snickers spot featuring Betty White -- an ad that wasn't pre-released. (Snickers says it will again keep its Super Bowl ad secret until the game.) While that ad succeeded by one measure, it was one of the least-watched ads during the game -- drawing 92.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

Some marketers argue that game-day ratings for a specific commercial may be beside the point.

"The biggest thing for us, at least at Pepsico, is about engaging our fans for the prior eight months," says Rudy Wilson, vice president of marketing at Frito-Lay, a unit of Pepsico (PEP). Wilson pioneered the company's five-year-old "Crash the Super Bowl" program, which began soliciting consumer-created ads for the upcoming Super Bowl last fall. Of the 10 finalist videos posted on the site, six will air during this year's game.

Wilson acknowledges that pre-releasing ads may not give them any edge when it comes to their broadcast performance. But the benefit of engaging consumers months in advance makes the contest worth it. "It allows for our success not to be dictated by 30 seconds," he says.

Pre-Bowl Ad Buzz

The weeks leading up the game are "a unique period in time when audiences around the world are focused on your brand," says Audi chief marketing officer Scott Keogh, via email. "The lead-up to the Super Bowl can be just as important as game day."

Audi's 2010 Super Bowl spot, "Green Police," was teased with a number of pre-game ads, and according to Neilsen the commercial was ranked as the game's second most-watched, drawing 115.6 million viewers.. The top-watched ad last year was a Doritos spot called "Snack Attack Samurai," one of the entries in the "Crash the Super Bowl" contest, with 116.2 million viewers.

This year, Audi debuted what it calls a "prelude" to its Super Bowl spot: a minute-long ad based on the children's book Goodnight Moon. Both the Goodnight ad and the Super Bowl spot feature Audi's A8 sedan.

By pre-releasing Super Bowl ads, marketers are also able to bring in consumers via social-networking such as Facebook or Twitter. Audi's social-media campaign last year helped generate 3.1 million Facebook impressions and 3.1 million YouTube views, according to Keogh. And this year, Audi plans to host sponsored messages on Twitter leading up to the game -- and to "take over" YouTube's home page on Super Bowl Sunday, Keogh writes.

Risks and Advantages

More consumers are seeking out Super Bowl ads before the game, says Lucy Farey-Jones, partner and head of strategy at the San Francisco-based ad agency Venables Bell & Partners. Her firm's second annual Super Bowl survey found that 14% of consumers plan to look for Super Bowl commercials a week before the game. And younger viewers -- including 20% of young adults -- were more likely to watch the ads in advance.

"A lot of marketers are just doing a tease or allowing the audience to vote," she says. "It used to be that people kept it all wrapped up, and there's still some of that." Both approaches have their advantages, she notes, although there's the risk that by pre-releasing an Super Bowl spot, a company may "peak too early."

Referring to Apple's (AAPL) ground-breaking 1984 Super Bowl ad for the Macintosh, Farey-Jones asks, "I wonder if '1984' was leaked beforehand if it still would have had the same impact that it did?"


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]]>advertisingcommercialFootballfoxsocial networkingSocialNetworkingsportssuper bowlsuper bowl adssuper bowl commercialstelevisionAimee PicchiFri, 21 Jan 2011 11:00:00 ESTOprah's OWN Debuts Strong -- but Can it Keep Delivering for Advertisers?http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/01/06/oprah-own-debut-strong-advertising-rates-viewership-ratings/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/01/06/oprah-own-debut-strong-advertising-rates-viewership-ratings/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/01/06/oprah-own-debut-strong-advertising-rates-viewership-ratings/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Last weekend was a key test for Oprah Winfrey's latest media venture: Would the Oprah Winfrey Network -- OWN -- succeed as her earlier efforts have, or would her jump to cable flounder like Martha Stewart's move to the Hallmark Channel last year?

More was on the line than Winfrey's reputation. The network had promised its initial advertising partners, including giants such as Procter & Gamble (PG) and Kohl's department stores (KSS), that the network would deliver viewers. Many of OWN's initial advertisers had pledged between $10 million to $15 million in ad spending, with Procter & Gamble agreeing to buy more than $100 million in ad time over three years. The network has also demanded premium prices for its commercial time: OWN ranks as one of the country's most expensive cable networks, says Kathleen Kayse, executive vice president of advertising sales at OWN.

"Spot on With Ratings"

Luckily for OWN, the network delivered on its promise, attracting an average of 1.16 million viewers tuning in during prime-time hours during its debut on Jan. 1.

"We were spot on with ratings expectations," Kayse says. Since the network's debut, advertisers who had been waiting on the sidelines have been calling about marketing opportunities, she adds. "We have confidence we'll have a number of significant conversations leading up to the upfront" -- the spring period when networks book advance advertising sales for the following TV season.

But the debut was only the first test. Now, OWN will have to prove it can maintain its viewership levels throughout the year. If it doesn't, will OWN meet the audience guarantees it has made to advertisers, who are paying a premium to reach its female-leaning audience?

Expecting Bumps Along the Way

An audience decline may be somewhat inevitable for OWN, points out Brad Adgate, the director of research for Horizon Media. "The question will be how it does in a month or two from now when the curiosity factor is over," he says.

Every deal OWN makes with an advertiser is specific to that marketer and the show it buys, Kayse says. In making those deals, she adds, OWN approached the market "with cautious confidence," noting that the network has taken into account that viewership may drop after the initial flurry of interest and publicity. Advertisers "are expecting some bumps along the way," she says.

Overall, though, OWN is confident it will both meet its audience guarantees and attract new advertisers to its programs, according to Kayse. One hurdle OWN jumped last year was advertiser concern over the level of Winfrey's involvement, something that the network assuaged with Winfrey's participation in its 2010 upfront. Winfrey is currently winding down the 25th season of her syndicated show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and is committed to appear on OWN for 70 hours a year.

A First-Year Profit?

OWN's 2011 upfront will be "even stronger than we had last year," Kayse predicts. OWN, which is holding upfront meetings in Chicago and New York in March and April, respectively, will bring out its "star power" during the presentations with advertisers, and interest in the network's planned talk show starring Rosie O'Donnell is growing. "This next [upfront] will be about not only that Oprah is committed, but what do we evolve into, particularly when Oprah leaves syndication," she says.

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Partly because advertising demand for OWN has been so strong, the network's partner, Discovery Communications (DISCA), said on Tuesday that it expects the fledgling network to pull a profit in its first year. Discovery, which has agreed to loan OWN $189 million, had earlier said it wasn't expecting OWN to reach profitability until 2012 or 2013.

Although some viewers may fall away after the first few months, they'll likely return once the network "gets its sea legs," notes Horizon's Adgate, who expects the network will be averaging about 1 million viewers a year from now.

OWN will perform for advertisers by staying true to its mission -- providing inspirational television that shows viewers how "to live your best life," Kayse adds. "We know our voice. As long as we don't stray from that, I believe our advertisers will be with us for the long haul," she says.


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]]>advertisingcable advertisingdiscovery communicationskohlsmarketingNielsennielsen ratingsoprah winfreyOprah Winfrey NetworkOprah Winfrey ShowOwnNetworkProcter & Gambleprocter and gambleratingsrosie odonnelltalk showtv adstv advertisingtv commercialstv ratingsviewershipAimee PicchiThu, 06 Jan 2011 15:45:00 ESTPTC Asks Holiday Shoppers to Favor Family-Friendly Advertisershttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/11/24/ptc-holiday-shopping-family-friendly-tv-advertisers-best-worst/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/11/24/ptc-holiday-shopping-family-friendly-tv-advertisers-best-worst/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/11/24/ptc-holiday-shopping-family-friendly-tv-advertisers-best-worst/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

PTC Asks Holiday Shoppers to Favor Family-Friendly Advertisers When Americans formally start holiday shopping season on Black Friday, they'll typically be considering issues such as low prices, product quality and customer service when deciding which retailers to patronize and what items to buy. But one group is urging consumers to consider another angle: Companies' advertising practices.

The Parents Television Council, a conservative group which advocates for family-friendly television, is urging shoppers to review its list of what it calls the best and worst TV sponsors this year before they make buying decisions. But what, exactly, makes a "bad" TV sponsor? And should a company's choices about what programs to buy commercial time during be enough to prompt a consumer to pick, for example, Walmart (WMT) (a "best" TV sponsor) over Macy's (M) (one of the "worst")?

The group made a detailed examination of ad buys during the 2009-2010 television season, grading programs on a "traffic light" scale of red (shows may include "gratuitous sex, explicit dialogue, violent content or obscene language), yellow ("may be inappropriate for youngsters") or green (a "family-friendly show"). Its list of worst advertisers includes those companies most likely to advertise on red-coded shows, such Fox's (NWS) block of Sunday evening animated programs, which includes Family Guy and American Dad, notes Melissa Henson, the director of communications for the PTC.

"Most of these companies on worst list were pretty well distributed throughout the red lighted shows," she notes. The worst brands, according to the PTC, include Macy's and YUM! Brands (YUM), the owner of restaurants chains including KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

Not Much 'Green' in Prime Time

But looking at this week's ratings of prime-time shows from the group, it's hard at first glance to see how an advertiser could win, based on PTC's rating system. From Nov. 19 through Nov. 25, PTC's rating guide for network television doesn't include a single "green light" show: Any advertiser buying prime-time commercials in the lead-up to Black Friday, Nov. 26, would have trouble finding family-friendly programs to sponsor.

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Henson counters that some of the unrated programs -- such as A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which airs on ABC (DIS) on Thanksgiving night -- are perfectly acceptable, family-appropriate shows, but aren't given green ratings because the group doesn't rank specials. The "best" advertiser list also includes some companies which buy ads on yellow-light shows, such as Fox's The Simpsons, she notes.

The group says it has heard anecdotally that some consumers have been influenced by the list, which it has published in previous years, although Henson notes the PTC isn't calling for a boycott of the worst brands.

Amazon Adds Comparison Shopping App

With so many other factors on consumers' minds, it's unclear whether the PTC's list will have much influence. Other social issues, such as how a retailer treats its employees, have already gained a foothold in the American shopper's consciousness. Walmart, for instance, is rated as one of the PTC's best advertisers, but has drawn frequent criticism for its alleged poor treatment of its workers.

And some of the holiday season's top retailers don't advertise much on television. Take Amazon.com (AMZN), the world's largest e-commerce retailer. Although it rarely advertises on TV, the company is likely to benefit from a projected 11% rise in online holiday sales. Like many retailers in this year's challenging economy, Amazon is relying on low prices to help boost sales. To add to its edge, it introduced an iPhone app this week that lets shoppers compare prices between in-store items and the same items on Amazon, according to Bloomberg News.

That's probably a wise place for Amazon to focus its energy: The National Retail Federation says that its holiday survey found 42% of shoppers said sales or price discounts will be the biggest influence on their purchasing, more than any other factor.

But despite this, the PTC's Henson says the group is hopeful that if prices are equal, consumers will opt to spend their dollars with one of the companies on its "best" list. "There are companies out there like P&G and Walmart who put their money where their mouth is," she says.


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]]>a charlie brown thanksgivingABCadvertisingAmerican Dadappbest companiesboycottCBSComparisonShoppingFamily Guyfamily-friendlyFoxholiday shoppingiphonemoralityNBCNetwork TelevisionNetwork TVnetworksparents television councilretailtelevisionThe Simpsonstv commercialsWBworst companiesAimee PicchiWed, 24 Nov 2010 12:30:00 ESTWhy Advertisers Won't Flee From Charlie Sheen and 'Two and a Half Men' Anytime Soonhttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/28/why-advertisers-wont-flee-from-charlie-sheen-and-two-and-a-hal/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/28/why-advertisers-wont-flee-from-charlie-sheen-and-two-and-a-hal/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/28/why-advertisers-wont-flee-from-charlie-sheen-and-two-and-a-hal/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Charlie SheenThe playbook for celebrities behaving badly usually goes like this: star misbehaves, tabloids go wild covering every rumor, star gets dropped by producers and advertisers. But Charlie Sheen, the star of Two and a Half Men on CBS (CBS), is breaking the playbook with his latest behavior, which included trashing a room at the pricey Plaza Hotel in New York while his two young daughters slept across the hall.

Despite the tabloid coverage, advertisers aren't fleeing his show, nor will they anytime soon. As long as viewers keep flocking to Two and a Half Men, Sheen will continue to draw top prices from advertisers. It also doesn't hurt that his character on the show, Charlie Harper, embodies the bad-boy type, making it easier for viewers to shrug off his real-life behavior -- unlike Tiger Woods, whose squeaky-clean image was deeply damaged when his infidelities became public.

"Is Charlie Sheen really acting?" says Horizon Media research director Brad Adgate. "That's why he doesn't win any Emmys -- he's not acting."

Numbers in Sheen's Favor

The strength of Sheen's ability to overcome his off-screen transgressions lies in the show's numbers, Adgate points out. For the television season that began last month, Two and a Half Men is the top-rated comedy with viewers between the ages of 18 to 49 years old, the demographic which remains the holy grail for advertisers, according to data from Nielsen. Including all ages, the show draws about 15.2 million viewers each week, while the No. 2 comedy among all viewers, CBS's The Big Bang Theory, attracts 14.5 million people each week.

Those numbers have made Two and a Half Men CBS' priciest comedy this year, according to Advertising Age. The show commands a price of roughly $207,000 per 30-second commercial from advertisers, while The Big Bang Theory follows close behind with $195,000.

For CBS, the average age of viewers of Sheen's show makes the program indispensable, points out Adgate. The network has an average viewer age of 55 -- considered ancient by advertisers seeking viewers under the 49-year old cut-off. But Two and a Half Men has an average viewer age under 50, giving it that magic demographic appeal to sponsors.

Consumers Are Mum, but Critics Aren't Happy

And consumers, too, may be getting used to shrugging off Sheen's antics. After all, his latest misadventure, which included hosting a woman who is reportedly a porn star, is the second big tabloid blow-up for Sheen in the last 12 months. The actor's estranged wife, Brooke Mueller, accused Sheen of threatening her with a knife on Christmas Day.

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But the fact that advertisers aren't abandoning the program now may be masking a long-term change to the show's sponsor base, points out Melissa Henson, the director of communications for the Parents Television Council, which advocates for family-friendly TV shows. She says her group has been working for several years to contact sponsors with the goal of getting them to remove their support for the program. "It's not because of Charlie Sheen, but because of the content of the show," she says. "Many of the sponsors who would have been concerned have probably pulled their ads already, and whatever [the show] has left, beer companies or what have you, may be less sensitive to these concerns and behaviors."

As a rule, she adds, the PTC stays away from commenting on stars' private behavior, although the group did issue a statement earlier this month protesting the stars of Glee posing in risque photos in GQ magazine. "The Glee photo shoot was exceptional in that they had these kids posed in their high school personas," she says. But as for Two and a Half Men, the PTC prefers to focus on the show's content. "Unless a kid is reading celebrity gossip sites, it probably won't make an impact," Henson says.

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]]>advertisingCBScharlie sheencommercialcommercialsparents television councilTwo and a Half MenAimee PicchiThu, 28 Oct 2010 15:15:00 ESTWhich pink ribbon products make the biggest impact?http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/26/which-pink-ribbon-products-make-the-biggest-impact/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/26/which-pink-ribbon-products-make-the-biggest-impact/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/26/which-pink-ribbon-products-make-the-biggest-impact/#commentsFiled under: ,

Every October, as pink-ribbon products blossom throughout store aisles, consumers face a thorny issue: Will the money I pay for this product really help in the fight against breast cancer or am I just falling for a marketing gimmick? The dilemma has been made sharper by a backlash against "pink-washing," or the use of the pink ribbon by corporations to sell more products with little or none of the resulting funds going to a charity (I detailed this growing problem on DailyFinance last year).

At stake is the millions of dollars spent annually on pink-ribbon products that actually go toward a charity. While no one tracks overall contributions to breast-cancer research through such products, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, one of the largest U.S. breast-cancer foundations, expects to bring in $50 million from pink-branded products this year. That's a significant chunk of money for the group, which during its last fiscal year raised $171 million from its series of running races. The donations from pink-ribboned products enables Susan G. Komen to fund research grants, says Cristina Riccio Kenny, manager of corporate relations for the foundation.

Continue reading Which pink ribbon products make the biggest impact?


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]]>Ann TaylorBaccaratBank of AmericaBloomingdalesbreast cancer awarenessbreast cancer researchBreast Cancer Research Foundationbreast-cancerbreast-cancer-awarenesscharityfoundationHarveysKitchenAidmarketingoctoberOreckPaylessPayless Shoespink ribbon productspink-ribbonRumba Timesusan g. komenAimee PicchiTue, 26 Oct 2010 16:00:00 ESTAs Cablevision and Fox Battle, the Winner May Be Upstart Ivi TVhttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/26/as-cablevision-and-fox-battle-the-winner-may-be-upstart-ivi-tv/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/26/as-cablevision-and-fox-battle-the-winner-may-be-upstart-ivi-tv/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/26/as-cablevision-and-fox-battle-the-winner-may-be-upstart-ivi-tv/#commentsFiled under: ,

ivi TVIf there's an irony to the battle between Cablevision (CVC) and News Corp.'s (NWS) Fox, it's that the blackout of Fox stations affecting 3 million New York and Philadelphia-area viewers is benefiting an upstart service that the media giants would rather not have viewers discover: ivi TV.

Ivi (pronounced like 'ivy') streams live feeds of New York's major television stations, including Fox's WNYW-TV, which has been blocked to Cablevision's customers since Oct. 16. But with the World Series set to air tomorrow on Fox's stations, Cablevision subscribers are stampeding to ivi's service, according to the closely held company.

Since the blackout started, ivi TV's subscribers from the New York area have jumped by 320%, with 300% of those coming from homes with Cablevision connections, says ivi Chief Executive Todd Weaver. The company, based in Seattle, doesn't disclose subscriber numbers, although Weaver says his service's subscriber base is bigger than many small-sized cable operators. That's remarkably fast growth for a service that started in only September. "We're growing faster than any cable company has ever grown," Weaver says.

A Simple Approach

For consumers, ivi works in a remarkably simple way: after downloading an application that works on Macs, Windows and Linux computers and agreeing to pay $4.99 per month, viewers can watch broadcast TV from any computer with a broadband connection. Currently the service offers the New York-area broadcast stations, as well as those in Seattle. Next on line will be Los Angeles-area stations, followed by Chicago. Ivi is also in discussions with cable networks to add live streams beyond broadcast, Weaver says.

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But what may be a boon to consumers is a curse for media companies, which sued ivi in federal court just 15 days after the service debuted. The broadcasters, which include Fox, are suing ivi and Weaver for allegedly pirating television signals for rebroadcast online. But Weaver says his service is legal and operates the same way a cable-operator does: it pays broadcasters through the compulsory licensing fees set up by Congress, which is what cable and satellite re-transmitters pay when they re-transmit a television broadcast.

Regardless of the outcome for the lawsuit, Cablevision subscribers in New York and Philadelphia are assured of being able to watch the World Series tomorrow, even if the blackout continues, as long as they can access ivi. The use of blackouts as a marketing driver was part of ivi's plan, Weaver says, adding that Cablevision's fight with Fox just after its debut was "an immediate benefit."

"The industry has seen a lot of [blackouts] over time," Weaver says. "As we have been getting everything ready and looking at the markets we were going to capture, we remembered the Oscar blackout, we realized as blackouts become longer and longer, it'll be a benefit to us. We hope more occur."

Blackouts Increasing

That's likely to happen. According to Bloomberg News, TV blackouts in the U.S. have reached their highest level in a decade and may grow in frequency. Why? Because pay-TV operators such as Cablevision are resisting paying higher fees sought by broadcasters and other content providers. In this year alone, according to Bloomberg, there have been five blackouts, affecting about 19 million pay-TV customers.

One aspect of ivi's surge in new customers that's not known is how many of the Cablevision subscribers are opting to cut their cable subscriptions, Weaver notes. "Some people are telling us they've cut the cord and canceled their cable," he notes, but others say they won't cancel their cable or satellite service until ivi has a specific cable channel that they want. That suggests, not for the first time, that consumers want a la carte pricing for television content.

As for the cable companies, Weaver says the end lesson may be that the fight between Cablevision and Fox illustrates how big media companies are "the dinosaurs of distribution."

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]]>blackoutbroadcastcableCablevisionfoxivi tvNews Corpretransmissiontelevisionworld seriesAimee PicchiTue, 26 Oct 2010 15:45:00 ESTWhy 'American Idol' Still Commands TV's Biggest Buckshttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/19/american-idol-tv-commercials-most-expensive/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/19/american-idol-tv-commercials-most-expensive/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/19/american-idol-tv-commercials-most-expensive/#commentsFiled under: ,

'American Idol' Most Expensive TV CommercialsImagine a widget company that has suffered some setbacks: Production is down and its star designer has defected for a rival. Under such circumstances, you might suppose that the manufacturer might lower prices to maintain an edge and lure its customers back. But in the television world, where the widget makers create prime-time entertainment, pricing doesn't always follow the logic of other businesses.

Take, for instance, American Idol. The juggernaut from News Corp.'s (NWS) Fox has been looking a little creaky, with viewership in the 18- to 49-year-old demographics dipping 9% last season and the departure of acid-tongued judge Simon Cowell. Yet despite these setbacks, the show is hanging onto its crown as the most expensive show on television for advertisers, according to Advertising Age's annual survey of broadcast television pricing. A 30-second spot on the show's Tuesday broadcast costs almost $468,000, while on a Wednesday evening "results" shows, a spot commands just over $400,000, the story says.

That's because despite its woes, the show remains the most-watched program on television, points out Brad Adgate, director of research for Horizon Media. But perhaps more importantly than audience size, at least to advertisers, is that the median age of an Idol viewer is 44 years old, he points out. "If you look at Dancing with the Stars, which is probably the closest in terms of viewing, its median age is nearly 10 years older" than Idol, Adgate says. "When more than half of your viewers are under 44, advertisers pay for that."

A Harmonic Convergence for Glee

Advertising Age's survey, which compiled data from six media buying agencies and other sources, found that Fox is dominating this season's priciest shows, with five of the top 10 most expensive programs. The network has been helped by the sophomore program Glee, which is receiving an average of $272,694 for a 30-second ad in the fall. That price will jump to a whopping $373,014 when it appears in the spring after Idol on Wednesdays, according to the survey.

That's no coincidence, Adgate says. "At the end of [Idol], they'll say stay tuned for Glee," which could help draw additional viewers to the musical drama, which last week drew 11.2 million viewers to its Tuesday night broadcast. By contrast, American Idol ended its ninth season in May with an average viewership of 24.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen. "Until another show comes along that rivals Idol for audience size, it's still going to be the most expensive regularly scheduled show on television because it's the only one that can deliver close to 25 million viewers per show," Adgate notes.

While a show such as Glee that has proved itself in its first season gets rewarded by advertisers the following year, new shows are rarely awarded big bucks. That's because new shows have a high failure rate, and this year is no exception: Already, three of the season's freshman series have been canceled, while several more shows are on the verge of meeting an early end. According to TVbytheNumbers.com, few of this season's new programs are meeting their own networks' averages when it comes to young viewers.

Numbers Games for Hawaii Five-O, 60 Minutes

Hawaii Five-O, which is considered one of the few new hits of the season and is the most DVR'd show of all time, is drawing just $133,900 per 30-second advertisement this season. Such purchases may eventually prove to be bargains for advertisers, assuming a show can grow its audience and pick up steam. Commercial spots during Fox's critically lauded series Lonestar, for example, cost more than those during Hawaii Five-0 at $143,326 per 30-seconds, but the drama was the first victim of low viewership this season.

But in the end, advertising prices rely largely on age and a show's audience size in relation to what else is on TV. Fox, with young-skewing shows like Idol and relatively large audiences, manages to score on both counts. Adgate points to Sunday evening as an example of how this formula plays out: CBS' 60 Minutes last week drew an average of 15 million viewers, while Fox's The Simpsons attracted just 6.7 million viewers. But The Simpsons, according to Advertising Age, draws prices of about $253,000 per 30 seconds, while 60 Minutes earns just $98,000. Why?

"60 Minutes has a median age of 60 and The Simpsons is almost half that, in low 30s," Adgate points out. "They've both been on Sunday nights for years and years but because the audience profile is so different, The Simpsons can command a higher advertising rate."

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]]>60 Minutesadvertisingadvertising ageAdvertisingAgeAmerican Idolcancelled tv showscommercialcommercialsdvrGleehawaii five-0hawaii five-ohigh pricehighest ratingsHighPriceMost DVRed showNews Corpnielsen ratingsNielsen VideoScansimon cowellThe SimpsonstvAimee PicchiTue, 19 Oct 2010 06:30:00 ESTIs HBO's 'Boardwalk Empire' Breaking an Alcohol Advertising Prohibition?http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/13/boardwalk-empire-hbo-canadian-club-advertising-prohibition/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/13/boardwalk-empire-hbo-canadian-club-advertising-prohibition/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/13/boardwalk-empire-hbo-canadian-club-advertising-prohibition/#commentsFiled under: , ,

HBO's 'Boardwalk Empire' Breaks an Alcohol Advertising Prohibition During Prohibition, so the popular thinking goes, a drink was never far away from the thirsty despite the misguided 18th Amendment, which only served to fuel crime and fatten gangsters' wallets. Boardwalk Empire, the new drama from Time Warner's (TWX) HBO, is also seeking to get close to the thirsty with a marketing tie-in to Canadian Club whiskey that taps into the glamorous image of the Prohibition era.

Through a marketing partnership with Canadian Club, which HBO calls "a brand authentic to the period," the pay-TV network has been placing Boardwalk Empire displays and window signs in some real-world liquor stores and wine shops. The campaign also includes bar events, such as re-created speakeasies featuring a special cocktail menu. According to HBO Vice President of Brand Marketing Chris Spadaccini, the in-store displays feature crates of liquor with Canadian Club product and branding for the show. Some liquor store signs for the series have the appearance of being etched into the window glass.

"Window displays are essentially street-level billboards, so these types of advertisements are helpful in reaching a broad audience," Spadaccini said in an email about the ad campaign.

But that approach -- using liquor stores to target a wide range of consumers -- marks what's wrong with the campaign, according to David Jernigan, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. "These are sources that children pass on the way to school. They can't be turned off," Jernigan says of the window displays, adding this campaign marks the first time he's heard of a TV show advertising in liquor-store windows.

Young People See Far More Alcohol Ads

The problem, explains Jernigan, is that Prohibition, which was in effect for everyone from 1920 to 1933, still exists for anyone under the age of 21. And that's partially why he finds the campaign problematic. "Anything that glorifies violating prohibition isn't helpful" in enforcing the country's current drinking laws and keeping young adults away from alcohol, Jernigan says. He adds that he hasn't seen the show, but has read media coverage of the program.

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HBO, though, is hardly alone in running marketing campaigns for alcohol that could be inadvertently seen by people under 21. A study from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth found that youth exposure to alcohol ads on TV jumped 38% from 2001 to 2007, with most of the increase coming from distilled spirits companies increasing their ads on cable-TV networks.

One reason why kids are seeing more alcohol ads is that "brand preferences are formed by the time people reach young adulthood," Jernigan says. "Underage drinking starts to take off at age 12 and goes up steeply through the teen years," he notes. Research now shows that the peak onset of full-blown alcohol dependence for young people is age 18, he adds.

HBO counters that its network is an adult TV service and that the use of the Canadian Club brand is "factually grounded in the time of Prohibition," according a spokeswoman. The campaign certainly hasn't hurt ratings: The show attracted 4.8 million viewers during its debut last month, and HBO quickly renewed the program for a second season.

While a positive for Time Warner, it might just make life more difficult for alcohol researchers. After all, says Jernigan: "When we make the case that alcohol should be made more expensive, that it should be less available, we hear that we are prohibitionists and Prohibition didn't work."

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]]>advertisingalcoholalcohol adsatlantic cityBoardwalk EmpireBoardwalk Empire marketing Canadian ClubCanadian ClubDavid Jerniganhboliquor lawsliquor storeproduct placementproduct placement advertsingProhibitionTime Warnerunderage drinkingwhiskeyAimee PicchiWed, 13 Oct 2010 09:15:00 ESTGap's Logo Redesign Snafu Snowballs With Social-Media Blunderhttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/08/gaps-logo-redesign-snafu-snowballs-with-social-media-blunder/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/08/gaps-logo-redesign-snafu-snowballs-with-social-media-blunder/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/10/08/gaps-logo-redesign-snafu-snowballs-with-social-media-blunder/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

gap logo redesign Tinkering with a beloved logo can be dangerous, a lesson Gap (GPS) learned this week when it introduced a new look that's garnering nearly universal criticism. But the clothing retailer's response -- a social-media experiment to draw better ideas from the public and designers -- is only adding to the backlash against the company.

Gap's introduced its new logo on its Website earlier this week, replacing the old logo, a familiar dark-blue square with "Gap" spelled out in white letters that the company had used for more than 20 years. The new logo incorporates black letters with on a white background, with a small blue square jutting out from the "p" in Gap. Designed by Trey Laird of Laird and Partners, the new icon is meant to be "a more contemporary, modern expression," Gap spokesman Bill Chandler told Fast Company's Co.Design blog.

The response to the new logo has been remarkably disdainful, with a parody Twitter account for the new design. (Bio: "I have feelings, too. Jerks.") Consumers and designers posted criticisms of the new logo on Gap's Facebook page, calling it a "catastrophe" and looking "like a child made it." The backlash recalls some other infamous logo redesign blunders, such as Tropicana's 2009 redo of its orange juice cartons. The new look so turned off consumers that sales of its Pure Premium line plunged 20%, prompting the company to scrap the packaging.

Gap's new logo "looks like somebody took Microsoft's PowerPoint and kind of did it in five minutes flat," says David Wolf, the owner of Wolf Snap Designs, a Corona, Calif.-based company that designs Web sites and logos. He says when he first read about the new design, he thought it was a joke. "If I saw a first-year design student do this, I would send them back to the drawing board," he notes.

That's bad enough, but Gap's response to the criticism has only compounded the marketing faux pas. According to a post on The Huffington Post by Marka Hansen, president of Gap North America, Gap is asking "people to share their designs with us as well. We welcome the participation we've seen so far." The problem? It's unclear whether Gap is going to pay for the design work it's asking designers or consumers to send in. "We'll explain specifics on how everyone can share designs in a few days," Hansen wrote. Gap didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Crowd-Sourcing Con: Many Work, One Gets Paid

Crowd-sourcing, or asking the public to work at a task for no guarantee of compensation, is a trend that's gaining traction among companies, but it has been criticized for exploiting workers and lessening the value of certain occupations. The technique has been used by Australian wine maker Yellow Tail to name a new Chardonnay and by NetFlix (NFLX), which offered $1 million for ideas for improving its movie-recommendation software. While the people behind the winning ideas often receive compensation of some sort, the other participants in a crowd-sourcing effort usually get nothing.

Thus, the backlash to the Gap's backlash response. "Coming from a company like the Gap, which is a creative company, to think they should have free designs from which they can pick and choose is slightly laughable," says Wolf. He points out that many top design professionals scorn crowd-sourcing, and suggests that Gap may be sacrificing quality in favor of getting the work done for free. "It makes sense from Gap's perspective -- maybe -- but it doesn't make sense from a professional point of view," he notes.

Actually, it may not make much sense for Gap, either. After all, it was ranked among Interbrand's top 100 global brands for 2010, with the report pegging the value of Gap's image at nearly $4 billion. It's unclear why Gap would place its brand at risk by using social-media technique that's already controversial. But with the holiday shopping season approaching and second-quarter same-store sales down 4%, the retailer may want to get its image in order sooner rather than later.

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]]>brand managementclothingcrowdsourcingdesignfacebookgapGap Inc.gap logologologo redesignmarketingmistakenew Gap logoThe GapAimee PicchiFri, 08 Oct 2010 13:09:00 ESTAfter Segway Head's Death, Can the 'It' Vehicle Recover Its Balance?http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/28/segway-owner-death-it-vehicle-company-recover/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/28/segway-owner-death-it-vehicle-company-recover/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/28/segway-owner-death-it-vehicle-company-recover/#commentsFiled under: , ,

It could be a company's worst marketing nightmare: its owner dying while using its product. But for Segway, the death of owner Jimi Heselden, 62, may become a more dire issue. Heselden's death, apparently while riding an all-terrain version of a Segway, raises the question of how a company already struggling with safety concerns and poor consumer perception can overcome such a blow.

Heselden, a millionaire who bought the company this year, is thought to have lost control of an all-terrain Segway while riding an uneven bridle path near his home in England, according to The Telegraph. He is believed to have fallen about 80 feet over a cliff: His body and the Segway were recovered from a river below.

The Segway's image problems began even before the device hit the market. Invented by Dean Kamen, the vehicle spurred speculation in 2001 with hints about an amazing new creation code-named "Ginger." Theories abounded, such as that the invention was an anti-gravity device or a hovercraft. Even South Park got into the act with a spoof episode titled The Entity, in which a character builds his own transportation device.

With all the hype, it was almost inevitable that the Segway would disappoint, says Robert Passikoff, the founder and president of Brand Keys, a brand-marketing consultancy. "The company was struggling to begin, with because it was essentially a promise made in terms of product that ultimately wasn't kept and didn't meet the expectations that consumers had," he notes.

"God's Way of Saying You Had Too Much Money"

After the device hit the markets, many consumers balked at the sticker price, which can run $6,000 or more. A few years after Segways went on sale, President George W. Bush was photographed jumping from one after losing control. In 2006, Segway issued a recall to repair more than 23,000 of the vehicles after finding that they could unexpectedly apply reverse torque to their wheels, possibly causing a rider to fall. Meanwhile, some cities restricted the vehicles from sidewalks because of safety concerns. Fox's comedy Arrested Development used the Segway as a punchline for its character, Gob Bluth, a part-time magician with an abundance of overconfidence and a distinct lack of talent.

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The result? The Segway's now viewed as something that people don't want or desire, says Passikoff. "If you got one, it was God's way of saying you had too much money," he notes. "People weren't really all that interested in the concept."

In an emailed statement, Matthew Dailida, vice president of government affairs and business development for the Bedford, N.H.-based company, wrote: "Segway Inc. stands behind the safety of its Segway PT product when used in accordance with the User Materials. Mr. Heselden believed in the Segway PT product and we know that he would want us to get back to work at Segway Inc." The company website now features a note saying: "It is with great sadness that we have to confirm that Jimi Heselden OBE, has died in a tragic accident near his home in West Yorkshire."

One Segway dealer says he's not concerned about the negative publicity surrounding Heselden's death. Jimmy Reda, the manager of New York Motorcycle, which also sells Segways, tells DailyFinance that he hasn't had any questions from customers about the accident. The media "is more concerned about it than we are," Reda says.

Battling an Underlying Problem

While the accident may not have been caused by the Segway vehicle, one public relations expert tells Bloomberg News the company could use it as a "teachable moment for their customers."

But even if Segway is able to turn the tragedy into something positive, the company still will be battling its underlying problem, Brand Keys' Passikoff says. "I don't think people think about much [the Segway] at all, and that's the worst place for a new product to be condemned," he points out. "It's not top of mind, and this tragedy in terms of the owner is another joke."

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]]>accidentadvertisingArrested Developmentdean kamendean kamen segwayGOB BluthJimi Heseldenjimi heselden deathJimiHeseldenDeathmarketingPR disastersegwaysegway deathsegway ownersegway owner deathSegway salesAimee PicchiTue, 28 Sep 2010 15:35:00 ESTSuper Bowl Is a Savior for Fox as It Struggles to Revive American Idolhttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/18/super-bowl-is-a-savior-for-fox-as-it-struggles-to-revive-america/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/18/super-bowl-is-a-savior-for-fox-as-it-struggles-to-revive-america/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/18/super-bowl-is-a-savior-for-fox-as-it-struggles-to-revive-america/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Airing the Super Bowl may just turn out to be the Hail Mary pass that Fox Broadcasting needs this year as it contends with a bleak outlook for its former ratings-darling American Idol.

Fox, which is owned by News Corp. (NWS), has sold more than 90% of its Super Bowl advertising, almost five months before the championship game will be played in Texas. At this time last year, CBS (CBS) had sold just 70% of its inventory for the championship. (The Super Bowl migrates between networks each year). When airtime on a TV telecast is in demand, pricing gets high: Fox is charging an average of $3 million for a 30-second spot during the game. Estimates put CBS's price last year between $2.5 million and $3 million.

Those ad dollars could come in handy. American Idol is in the midst of a multi-year ratings slide and is dealing with the departure of three of its judges -- sharp-tongued Simon Cowell, Kara DioGuardi and comedienne Ellen DeGeneres -- hoping that new faces (Steven Tyler? Jennifer Lopez?) will recharge the program. Its average audience for this year's season finale was just over 24 million viewers, down from more than 36 million viewers in 2006.

The singing competition's woes "make the Super Bowl even more valuable, because as the audience continues to fractionalize, the Super Bowl is becoming the last mass media event on TV," says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research at Horizon Media. Fox Broadcasting didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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That dynamic may be what's behind the return of several top advertisers to the championship. Pepsi, after bowing out of advertising during the last Super Bowl, will return with three 30-second spots for Pepsi Max, its zero-calorie drink, according to Advertising Age. PepsiCo's (PEP) snack sibling, Doritos, has also committed to three spots in the game. General Motors Co., after taking a two-year break from the Super Bowl, will return in February after emerging from bankruptcy protection.

Meanwhile, who will replace the previous American Idol judges should help create some buzz, but whether it will be enough to revive the show's ratings remains to be seen. Singer Jennifer Lopez may be announced as a judge on Sept. 22, reports the Hollywood Reporter. For months, Lopez has been rumored as one of the show's new judges, with questions about whether her "diva" demands would price her out of the show (reportedly, she's signed up for a $12 million deal to help freshen up the franchise.) But the real question may be not whether she's joining but whether viewers will care enough to tune in.

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]]>30-second spotadvertisingadvertising ratesAmerican IdolcommercialsfoxFox BroadcastingGeneral MotorsJennifer LopezjudgesmarketingNews CorpPepsi commercialsratingsSimon CowellSteven Tylersuper bowlSuper Bowl adstelevision programmingAimee PicchiSat, 18 Sep 2010 10:00:00 ESTWhere Jamie Oliver Failed, Carrot Farmers Hope to Change the Way We Snackhttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/11/where-jamie-oliver-failed-carrot-farmers-hope-to-change-the-way/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/11/where-jamie-oliver-failed-carrot-farmers-hope-to-change-the-way/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/11/where-jamie-oliver-failed-carrot-farmers-hope-to-change-the-way/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Baby carrots seem like an unlikely catalyst for social change. But 49 carrot farmers are uniting and hoping a new marketing campaign can help them become just that by overturn kids' instincts for junk food and get them to pop open a bag of baby carrots, instead. They've got a lot of spade work ahead of them.

That's because the success of the campaign depends on overcoming decades of junk-food marketing and the human body's cravings for fat and sugar. It's a task that celebrity chef Jamie Oliver found nearly insurmountable when he sought to overhaul school cafeteria food with wholesome choices for ABC television's Food Revolution -- this prompted many kids to start packing their own lunches rather than eat his freshly prepared meals.

But the carrot producers, spearheaded by carrot giant Bolthouse Farms, are hopeful that their campaign has a chance of succeeding where Oliver's experiment didn't. Their tactic is to take on the junk-food giants by using their own weapons: flashy snack bags, video games, humor and YouTube videos.

"In the past, [healthy food marketing] has been pretty functional: 'These things are healthy and eat them three times a day'," Jeffrey Dunn, chief executive of Bolthouse, told DailyFinance. "It's boring. By using the tactics of junk food against the consumer, we think what we do has the best chance to get them to think differently about this."

Battling Encroaching Food Behemoths

The campaign comes about after the junk-food industry has muscled into the healthy snack industry's territory (think of PepsiCo's (PEP) Lay's potato-chip commercials touting local potato farmers), says Dunn, who spent more than two decades working for the Coca-Cola Company, including as president of Coca-Cola North America. Indeed, flat baby carrot sales over the past few year, says Dunn, is partly due to junk-foods brands encroaching on the healthy foods market. "It was clear we needed a refresh," Dunn adds.

The $25 million campaign, created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, will include a free iPhone game featuring a teenager in a carrot-powered shopping cart zooming through urban streets. Snack-bag packaging resembles the designs used by the likes of Doritos, and the carrot farmers will start selling the bags in vending machines in two schools, to test how kids receive them. Halloween-themed "scarrots," including glow-in-the-dark temporary tattoos, will be on sale this fall. The hope for the campaign? That sales of baby carrots, currently at about $1 billion, will double over the next three to five years, Dunn says.

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Not likely, counters Vincent Blasko, an associate professor of marketing at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business. "They have a difficult job ahead of them," Blasko says. "No matter how you package this particular product, a carrot is still a carrot." (Full disclosure: Blasko says he doesn't like carrots.) The risk with the campaign is that kids will open a bag of baby carrots with the flashier designs and expect a different type of product, he points out. "Once they realize they're still eating a carrot, I'd wonder if they'd try the product again."

Dunn acknowledges that some consumers may respond that way. "Some kids may go, "Oh, mom, I thought this was a candy baby carrot'," he says. But he believes that will be an exception.

As for getting Americans to reach for a bag of carrots instead of chips, Dunn points to the success of anti-smoking campaigns to illustrate how consumers can be persuaded to change their habits. "We think it's much more likely you'll get them to make these changes if it's fun and involving," he says. "My friends at Frito-Lay got people to eat cheeseburger-flavored Doritos, so if they can get people to eat those, we can get them to eat baby carrots."

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]]>advertisingBolthouse Farmscarrotschildrens dietfood marketinghealthyhealthy eatingjamie oliverjamie olivers food revolutionjunk foodmarketingsnack foodAimee PicchiSat, 11 Sep 2010 08:30:00 ESTCan 'Pretty Little Liars' and Other TV Shows Help Save the Music Industry?http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/07/09/will-primetime-tv-help-save-the-music-industry/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/07/09/will-primetime-tv-help-save-the-music-industry/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/07/09/will-primetime-tv-help-save-the-music-industry/#commentsFiled under: , ,

The music industry has taken its fair share of blows over the past decade or so. The rise of music downloads (and the inevitable free music-sharing sites like Pandora that followed), piracy of untold proportions and CD sales that have fallen off a cliff have all taken a toll on some of our favorite musicians and their record labels. But there is one bright spot coming from an unusual corner: prime-time television shows.

Increasingly, shows like Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, America's Next Top Model and the most recent hit Pretty Little Liars are incorporating recording artists' songs into their scenes and then featuring online playlists so viewers can find the song later. It may seem like a minor promotion, a mere blip on viewers' radar screens, but the results have been nothing short of astounding for some bands.

"It's the kind of thing where you'll always see some sort of bump in sales, by virtue of so many people seeing it, but the bump in sales can be dramatic depending on how long it's aired, where it appears and what kind of audience it has," says Steve Berman, the manager of VAST, an alternative rock band whose music has been incorporated into shows ranging from Wrestlemania to Smallville.

A 1,000% Sales Boost

Sales of a single can be boosted as much as tenfold after being featured on a TV episode, according to data provided to DailyFinance by Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks sales of music. While neither SoundScan nor the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the music industry, track the overall effect of television shows on music sales, data provided by SoundScan for specific singles used in recent TV shows point to a dramatic sales lift. For the recording industry, such a trend couldn't come at a better time: Sales of CDs slumped 22% last year to $4.27 billion, according to the RIAA.

VAST, for example, saw sales of its single "Don't Take Your Love From Me" jump by more than 1,000% after the song was used in a Nov. 20, 2008 episode of Smallville, SoundScan says. The moody song, effectively used as a backdrop to Chloe's kidnapping by the villain Doomsday (watch the clip here), had negligible sales for the week ending Nov. 16, according to SoundScan. But after the episode aired, weekly sales of the single jumped to 2,000, with total sales to date reaching 9,000 units, the media-tracking service says.

A more recent example is Christina Perri's song "Jar of Hearts," which was plucked from relative obscurity by Fox's hit show, So You Think You Can Dance in early July. Perri, a young singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, has no recording contract and few songs available to the public. Within hours of the song's use in a dance number on the show, it was rushed onto iTunes and Amazon, where it rocketed into the top 20. "Christina Perri" also become Google's top-ranked trending search term.

Perri learned about the song's use on the show after a long, hard day waiting tables at a cafe in Hollywood. Now, she plans to quit her job to focus on music. (You can see a performance of the song and hear the background story from Christina Perri at Cambio.)

Those results haven't gone unnoticed by the music industry. While rock and pop songs have been used in TV shows since Miami Vice in the 1980s, the practice became much more widespread a decade ago with teenage-drama Dawson's Creek, which released a CD in 1999 with songs by Sophie B. Hawkins and Jessica Simpson, as well as other artists.

Matching Music With Shows

Today, bands that are eager to tap into primetime television marketing machine sometimes pitch their songs directly to music supervisors, who search through hundreds of songs to find a soundtrack that will match a scene's mood. Intermediary services such as MusicGorilla.com have also sprouted up to help match up bands to music supervisors and TV producers. Because of the benefit a band may see from exposure through a TV show, more music groups are willing to license their songs for a nominal fee to help boost sales of singles and albums.

"Everything is $1,000 -- $1,000 is the new free," says I. Marlene King, an executive producer for Pretty Little Liars, which airs on Walt Disney's family-focused cable network ABC Family. Pretty Little Liars reaches the type of audience many bands are desperate to get in front of. Its third episode, which aired on June 22, was both the night's top-rated television program among women 12-to-34 years old and among female teenagers, according to Nielsen. Because hundreds of bands are looking to get in front of that audience, "it gets us an amazing song that only costs us $1,000 to use over the course of seven years," says King.

That's a far cry from what bands used to charge and represents a low-ball fee that more established groups may avoid, says VAST's Berman, who adds that his group signed a license agreement in 2002 for more than $10,000 for the song "Free" to be used by CBS's CSI. "We hold our line on pricing or walk away from the project," he says.

Music Is as Crucial as Wardrobe

Getting the right sound for a TV program is just as important as finding the perfect wardrobe for a character, King says. For a show without a huge budget, tapping into new bands is a way to enhance the program without spending a lot of money. "When people watch our show, they're dying to know on Twitter what was the band when Aria and Ezra get together," says King, referring to two of the show's characters. "It's not just music, but clothes and set design -- people are so fascinated -- it helps us break new artists and introduce new artists."

The song that accompanied the scene that King refers to, "Fresh Pair of Eyes" by Brooke Waggoner, saw a sales jump of 1,000% the week the Pretty Little Liars episode aired, SoundScan says.

But it's not only teens that are seeking out the music behind a favorite TV show. NBC's Parenthood, for example, appeals to a more mature audience than Pretty Little Liars. After its debut episode on March 2, sales of the Bob Dylan song "Forever Young," which was used twice in the episode, jumped more than threefold from the previous week, according to SoundScan.

Fan demand is why it's now seemingly obligatory for TV shows to provide their viewers with playlists. Both Parenthood and Pretty Little Liars provide fans with music guides to their episodes, including links for buying the music on iTunes.

"Our audience loves to discover new things," says King. "So it's win-win."

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]]>abc familyamericas next top modelgossip girlmusicnbconline playlistspretty little liarsrecord salesrecording industryriaasmallvillesoundscantelevisiontv showsVASTAimee PicchiFri, 09 Jul 2010 20:00:00 ESTSlow Money Alliance Seeks to Save the World One Organic Rutabaga at a Timehttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/06/15/slow-money-alliance-seeks-to-save-the-world-one-organic-rutabaga/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/06/15/slow-money-alliance-seeks-to-save-the-world-one-organic-rutabaga/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/06/15/slow-money-alliance-seeks-to-save-the-world-one-organic-rutabaga/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Is there a connection between organic rutabagas and the BP (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? The Slow Money Alliance says yes.

The Alliance believes it can right some of Wall Street's wrongs by convincing investors that there's another way to approach money. Taking a page from the slow food movement -- which argues that fast food will ruin your health, local culture, and the environment -- Slow Money suggests that "fast money" is doing the same thing. The cure? Give up looking for Wall Street's fast returns and put money into local, sustainable agriculture instead.

That's what several hundred investors, farmers, philanthropists, and activists gathered to hear at a conference last week held on a 1,400 acre working farm in Shelburne, Vermont. (One irony perhaps lost on the hosts: The event was held at Shelburne Farms, formerly home to a branch of the Vanderbilt family, whose colossal wealth came from railroads and shipping.)

In the conference's keynote address, environmentalist and Middlebury College scholar in residence Bill McKibben argued that "fast money" is supporting petroleum-based farming and polluters such as BP. "The Midwest has become a place where you use oil to hold up plants so you can pour oil over them," McKibben said, speaking in a tent pitched near both Lake Champlain and Shelburne Farms' Coach Barn, which used to house the estate's horse-drawn carriages. A banner hung overhead with the message, "You want to talk about returns? At 1,000:1 in four months, a tomato seed makes even the highest fliers seem paltry."

Fossil Fuel Costs Are Key

At the conference, McKibben offered his recipe for helping avert global warming and environmental destruction: higher taxes on fossil fuels and government subsidies for small farmers, rather than agribusiness. "There is nothing that would cause the end of fast money" quicker than a higher price for fossil fuels, McKibben said.

While McKibben's speech received a standing ovation, the realities facing the movement are daunting.

Robert Zevin, the president of Robert Brooke Zevin Associates and a father of socially responsible investing, was asked by one audience member whether she should take money from her 401(k) and invest it along the guidelines being touted at the conference. "Certainly not," Zevin replied. "The whole system is rigged to make slow money difficult."

The primary aim of the Slow Money Alliance is to convince one million investors to plunk one percent of their assets into small food systems within a decade. Yet even if an investor wanted to help Slow Money reach that goal, there's no way to pursue it. Without a mutual fund that targets small organic farms, for example, there's no way for most ordinary investors to put money into a raw dairy operation. And even for wealthy investors, foundations and charities, there are few pathways to funneling money toward Slow Money's intended beneficiaries. One session at the conference led to a debate about how to create such investments -- should the Slow Money Alliance create a fund-of-funds for wealthy investors, for example? -- without providing clear answers.

Other Obstacles for the Movement

It's also unclear whether the slow-food approach to money would appeal to investors other than high-net-worth individuals looking to support a pet project or family foundations viewing it as a type of philanthropy. After all, food is a commodity people enjoy for its aesthetic benefits, while money is seen as a cold, hard asset that's best put to use creating more money. Another issue the movement faces is the lack of a track record. There is no way to tell just how well slow money investments would perform.

"We don't have good statistics on how it works as an asset class," admitted Slow Money Chairman Woody Tasch. "But if you believe it's broken, it's time to invest."

Tasch, who is the former CEO of Investors' Circle, which says it has directed $133 million into environmental and socially aware companies and funds, admitted that the movement is in its very early stages. "We're trying to figure out how to do this," he told the crowd. (Tasch didn't respond to multiple requests for an interview with DailyFinance.)

As it stands, the Slow Money Alliance is attracting the same type of crowd that pays $5 for a gallon of organic milk: wealthy, white and left-leaning. As Joel Salatin, the owner of Virginia's Polyface farm told the crowd, many of the country's most successful social movements began with the rich. "The abolitionist cause was viewed as elitist -- 'You're wealthy enough not to need slaves,' and so on," Salatin said. "We've got to start this with the wealthy people, because they can afford it."

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]]>agribusinessagricultureBill McKibbenBPfarmingorganicSlow Money Alliancesustainable farmingAimee PicchiTue, 15 Jun 2010 09:00:00 ESTWith 'American Idol' splash, Kraft launches biggest mayo marketing push in yearshttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/05/27/with-american-idol-splash-kraft-launches-biggest-mayo-marketi/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/05/27/with-american-idol-splash-kraft-launches-biggest-mayo-marketi/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/05/27/with-american-idol-splash-kraft-launches-biggest-mayo-marketi/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Kraft Foods isn't holding back when it comes to its new line of mayonnaise. The food giant kicked off a multi-million dollar marketing campaign for its Sandwich Shop Mayo brand during one of the most expensive commercial spots on TV: last night's finale of American Idol.

While the new products, which include four flavors of mayonnaise ranging from reduced fat chipotle to garlic & herb, have been in some stores since April, Wednesday's finale of American Idol may have been the first time many consumers had heard of the new spreads. Kraft says the campaign will cost several million dollars and represents its biggest push for mayo products in several years.

Continue reading With 'American Idol' splash, Kraft launches biggest mayo marketing push in years


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]]>advertisingAmerican Idolfoodkraftkraft foodsmayonnaisemiracle whipMiracleWhipAimee PicchiThu, 27 May 2010 16:15:00 ESTGatorade's Rebranding: So Confusing It Requires an Ad to Explain Ithttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/05/06/gatorades-rebranding-so-confusing-it-requires-a-new-ad-to-expl/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/05/06/gatorades-rebranding-so-confusing-it-requires-a-new-ad-to-expl/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/05/06/gatorades-rebranding-so-confusing-it-requires-a-new-ad-to-expl/#commentsFiled under: , ,

If you've recently taken a trip down the beverage aisle in your supermarket, you may have noticed something funky going on with Gatorade. It's not only that there are plenty of bottles of the sports drink on the shelves, but under the auspices of parent company PepsiCo (PEP), the bottles themselves -- labeled merely with the letter "G" -- appear to have fallen victim to a questionable and confusing rebranding effort.

Unfortunately, PepsiCo is starting to make rebranding missteps a habit. Last year, it unveiled a rebranding of the Tropicana orange juice brand. The new concept was so hated by consumers that PepsiCo scrapped the redesign and went back to the old packaging. However, the Tropicana failure was a success in one aspect: it deflected attention away from the questionable redesign of Gatorade, which thus far, PepsiCo has refused to abandon.

Instead, the company is charging forward with the campaign, creating new ads and adding to an ever-expanding list of options on the shelves (Let's see, do I need a Perform 01 or a Recover 03?).

Trying to Revive an Aging Sports Drink

The sports-drink's woes began a few years ago. As younger, hipper competitors hit the market, Gatorade battled an increasingly stodgy image. Some consumers shifted to products like Glaceau's VitaminWater brand, while specialty "pro" sports drinks, such as Hammer Nutrition, stole the attentions of some hard-core athletes.

"Inevitably, some of those (Gatorade) consumers have migrated away to other beverages, partly driven by fickle tastes and partly because of the recession," says John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest, a publication tracking the non-alcoholic beverage industry.

After sales volume slipped 1% in 2008, Gatorade began its rebranding efforts. In 2009, it redesigned the drink with "G" as its new symbol. The result? Sales dropped even further. According to Sicher, sales by volume slumped 13% last year. Yet rather than abandoning the new design, as PepsiCo did with Tropicana, it decided to continue to push the new Gatorade look.

A User's Guide to Buying Gatorade?

As a result, a visit to the supermarket today presents the consumer with several choices for buying Gatorade. Not only must they choose a flavor, but they need to decide which variety they want: Prime 01, Perform 02, Recover 03, each of which is designed for drinking before, during or after an athletic event. The options will become even more expansive once Gatorade rolls out yet another G variety called the "G Series Pro," a line targeting college and pro athletes that will be available at specialty stores such as GNC and Dick's Sporting Goods.

In order to explain all of this to consumers, the company released a commercial called "Gatorade Has Evolved."



So aren't more choices better? Not always. More options can create paralysis, prompting people to avoid choosing at all, as The Paradox of Choice author Barry Schwartz wrote.

Gatorade says it's trying to explain the changes to consumers. "As with any new product launch, a key focus of our marketing efforts has been to educate athletes," a spokeswoman wrote in an email. "The new TV spot is one example, but we also have comprehensive digital, grassroots and PR activities under way as well." As for the commercial, Gatorade says that while it's too early to track its impact on sales, there are indications it's helping consumers understand the brand's new message.

According to Beverage Digest, Gatorade sales by volume slipped 4% in the first quarter of 2010, which Sicher says indicates a slower rate of decline. PepsiCo executives have been more bullish, with Chief Executive Indra Nooyi noting during the company's first-quarter conference call that Gatorade has seen a "tremendous volume improvement," although she didn't disclose details.

The true verdict likely won't be in for several more months. In the meantime, Gatorade needs to step up and make it clear to consumers what "G" is all about. "The challenge for PepsiCo is going to be execution," says Sicher. "They have to explain to consumers what these products are about and how to use them." And,possibly, why sports drinks need to be so complicated.

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]]>advertisingbeveragesgatorademarketingrebrandingsports drinkstropicanaAimee PicchiThu, 06 May 2010 18:00:00 ESTDo 'Real' Women Models Make Real Women Shoppers Feel Worse?http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/28/does-using-larger-models-take-a-heavy-toll-on-profits/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/28/does-using-larger-models-take-a-heavy-toll-on-profits/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/28/does-using-larger-models-take-a-heavy-toll-on-profits/#commentsFiled under: , ,

When Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" started incorporating women of all shapes and sizes in 2005, many applauded the appearance of full-bodied ladies posing in their skivvies. Following in Dove's footsteps, magazines such as Glamour and companies like British lingerie retailer Bravissimo, also started featuring women with a little extra meat on their bones.

The push to show "real" women seemed like a victory for womankind. Rail thin models have long been blamed by psychologists for lowering women's self-esteem and sparking eating disorders. But new research from Arizona State University suggests that all of those ads and magazines featuring everyday women can sometimes backfire. In fact, the study found that featuring heavier models actually makes some women feel worse about themselves.

Some consumers "look at a moderately heavy model and think, 'That could be me,' and it lowers their self-esteem," says Naomi Mandel, marketing associate professor at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business who worked on the study with two colleagues from Erasmus University and University of Cologne. The paper, which will be published in the April issue of Journal of Consumer Research, explored the psychological theory of social comparison. In this case, how women of different body mass indexes -- thin (BMI below 18.5), normal (BMI of 18.5 to 25) and overweight (BMI of 25 to 30) -- reacted to ads with models ranging from very thin to obese.

While normal-weight women fretted that they looked similar to the overweight models, heavier consumers felt worse no matter what the model's size. They saw themselves as similar to the larger models and vastly different from the skinny ones. Thin consumers, meanwhile, felt better looking at any model since they identified with the slender models while realizing they looked nothing like the fat ones.

Does Using Real Models Mean Losing Real Profits?

Given that two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese, are advertisers putting their profits at risk by using zaftig models? Maybe not in every case, Mandel says. "My intuition says lowering a woman's self-esteem is not naturally a bad thing if you're selling a beauty product or weight loss product," she says. "It can help if your product is supposed to help the problem."

Exploiting women's insecurities has long worked magic for companies selling skin creams and diet pills. In fact, weight-loss ads may be one of the few places where consumers encounter truly overweight models, says Jessica Weiner, the author of Life Doesn't Begin 5 Pounds From Now and a member of Dove's self-esteem fund advisory board, which helps run self-esteem workshops for women and young girls.

In the case of Dove, however, Mandel says she's skeptical that the Campaign for Real Beauty continued to boost sales after its initial positive reception. Dove, however, says the campaign has worked well. "While we cannot disclose our sales figures, we are confident that our approach has been successful," Stacie Bright, Unilever Senior Communications Marketing Manager for Dove U.S., wrote in an email.

A War of Perception

"This country is at war with its own image right now," says Weiner. "There's a war on obesity, but why can't there be acceptance and a focus on health? We talk about fat and thin, but there are millions of people who live in-between those definitions."

That war landed in Mandel's email box this week. "I've been getting some hate e-mails," she says. Some accused her of advocating the use of anorexic models, which isn't what her research suggests, she adds. In fact, she says her research supports the use of moderately thin models -- instead of the fashion industry's emaciated extreme -- because most consumers can identify with those models.

"We would recommend using moderately thin models, a size 6 or 8 or 10, which is realistic" and represent sizes many overweight women can visualize achieving, Mandel says. "The silly thing is that plus-sized models are only a size 10. That's not even close."

Weiner says it may take years before women fully accept more realistic images in advertising. "Decades of seeing only thin models may have conditioned consumers to accept that as the norm," she says. "You have to take into account what's familiar. If we had five, 10 or 20 years of more realistic imagery in advertising, it would be interesting to see the consumer loyalty around that."

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]]>marketingmodelsobesityUnileverweightAimee PicchiSun, 28 Mar 2010 08:00:00 ESTWhat's in a Name? The Business Behind Naming Products and Companieshttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/19/whats-in-a-name-the-science-behind-naming-products-and-compani/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/19/whats-in-a-name-the-science-behind-naming-products-and-compani/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/19/whats-in-a-name-the-science-behind-naming-products-and-compani/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

Vudu. JooJoo. Boorah. It almost seems as if companies are just randomly picking names for their latest product -- or (gasp) the company -- out of a hat. But consumers would be surprised at how much actual thought (and money) go into the process of dubbing a tobacco maker Altria or an instant coffee Via.

"It's probably the most difficult thing that branding firms do," says Hayes Roth, the chief marketing officer of Landor, which is responsible for renaming some of the country's biggest companies. Landor came up with Altria (MO) as the new name for Philip Morris in 2003 when the company sought to improve its crumbling image and get across to customers that it sold more than just tobacco after it acquired Kraft Foods. Agilent (A), the measurement company spun off from Hewlett Packard (HPQ) in 1999, was also a Landor naming creation. "There are many, many hurdles now" to picking a name that will be both "defining and relevant," says Roth.

Does a "Roze" Smell As Sweet?

With the explosion of new technology, products and web sites over the past decade, the challenge has only gotten bigger. "We've all gone brand and name crazy," he says. And finding a name that's not already taken or doesn't violate a trademark has become extremely difficult.

Globalization has presented another hurdle: companies now must avoid choosing names that will translate into something inappropriate in other languages. Take, for example, Buick's LaCrosse. While a perfectly respectable name in English, in French-Canadian slang it's a term for masturbation. The company swiftly renamed the model "Allure" in 2003 for Canadian buyers (although last year the company said it would switch back to using the LaCrosse name in Canada to leverage its U.S. marketing campaign across the border.)

That may help explain why consumers are encountering new brand names that tweak common words with misspellings, such as Flickr or the SyFy network, or dip into languages far afield from the more familiar Latin- and Greek-based names. When Fusion Garage decided to rename its Internet tablet (it was developed as the CrunchPad by TechCrunch, and the two companies are now in litigation), it turned to JooJoo, an African word meaning magical. Names that roll off the tongue have also surged in popularity, such as Via, the instant coffee introduced by Starbucks (SBUX) last year (and which taps into the Latin word for road.) Boorah, a restaurant guide, picked a name that sounds like Todd a cheer, while movie-downloading service Vudu uses a misspelling to evoke another word with magical connotations.

"There is a lot of movement to have names that are easy to say with lots of vowels," says Paola Norambuena, head of verbal identity for branding company Interbrand in New York. "They feel very international."

Creating the Ultimate Name

Finding that perfect name is a process that can last up to six months, Roth says. Clients typically have one of two objectives: either finding a name for a new product, or finding a new name for an existing company or good. In the latter case, a company may be seeking a new name to repair its image. Remember ValuJet? The company decided to rebrand itself as AirTran (AAI) after the crash of ValuJet flight 592 rattled consumer's confidence in the low-cost airline.

Branding extends beyond the corporate world, too. The U.S. government plans to rename Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Day come Sept. 1. The reason? "Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission," wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a memo last month.

After defining the client's mission, a branding company will generate a list of anywhere from 600 to 3,000 potential names, Norambuena says. Interbrand employs 20 people, ranging from trademark analysts, linguists and writers, who work on brainstorming to find the perfect name, she adds. About half of those names can be immediately dismissed because of trademark or usage problems. "We need to check we make sure we don't alienate any people or are setting it up for ridicule," she says. Eventually, Interbrand will recommend between eight to 12 names to a client.

"We say, 'Don't fall in love with any of them'," Roth says. From a shortlist of 10 names, eight of them might drop out of contention, possibly because another company has registered the name.

On a Wii and a Prayer

Of course, there's always a risk that name won't exactly click with customers. Take Wii, for example, which Interbrand helped craft for Nintendo. While Wii sounds like "we" or the word meaning "small," it also sounds like something usually not talked about in polite company. "It's not a negative name, but if the product had been remotely bad, the name would have endured endless ridicule," says Norambuena. "But the product came out, and everyone loved it and then people said what a great name it is."

Other names are more immediately descriptive, such as Bing, Microsoft's search engine. "It was the idea of a light bulb coming on or a microwave going off," says Norambuena, who worked on the name for Microsoft. Descriptive words can help differentiate the product and develop clarity in consumers' minds about what the product does, she says.

"Everyone has something in mind that will be some sort of magical name," like Apple Computer, a brand that stands for innovation and creativity with consumers, Landor's Roth says."But people forget that it means nothing. It means a fruit. Names are truly empty vessels until they become invested in."

That investment can also backfire. If a brand becomes so widely used that the product's name becomes a generic term, there's a risk that the name might lose its trademark. Consumers talk about TiVo-ing programs, even if they're using digital-video recorders from other companies, or putting on Band-Aids when they mean any type of adhesive bandage.

""Now you hear the "Band-Aid brand'," instead of just 'Band-Aid' from maker Johnson & Johnson, says Norambuena. "We were pleased that Bing could be used as a noun or verb, but we're very cautious and instructed our clients to be cautious."

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]]>advertisingaltriaAltria GroupboorahbrandingbrandscompaniesinterbrandmarketingnamesnamingNintendoproductsvuduAimee PicchiFri, 19 Mar 2010 06:00:00 ESTWhy Starstruck Companies Keep Spending Millions on Oscar 'Swag'http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/06/why-starstruck-companies-keep-spending-millions-on-oscar-swag/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/06/why-starstruck-companies-keep-spending-millions-on-oscar-swag/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/03/06/why-starstruck-companies-keep-spending-millions-on-oscar-swag/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Even though the Academy Awards banned official swag bags four years ago, the luxury-laden gift baskets will still make an appearance this awards season. In fact, the actors who lose out in this year's top Oscar acting and directing categories will receive gift bags valued at $91,000 (the 2007 "bag" pictured here included $75,000 worth of gifts), while all of the other A-list stars will clean up at gift suites around Hollywood.

Some may criticize the swag bags as the worst kind of conspicuous consumption. After all, the stars can surely afford to pay fair value for bags filled with electronics and spa vouchers.

The tradition started innocently enough, as a way for award organizers to thank stars who donated their time as presenters. But, in 2006, the IRS started cracking down on the bags, warning recipients that the items they were given are considered income and therefore are subject to taxes. The Academy Awards opted to discontinue its official gift bags starting in 2007.

Oscar-Worthy Swag

Despite all of the controversy surrounding the practice, businesses are still willing to give away millions of dollars worth of merchandise during awards season. After all, getting one of their products photographed with an A-list star like Angelina Jolie or Matt Damon in a weekly tabloid or fashion magazine can be a surefire way to boost sales.

"It's like stardust," says Lash Fary, the founder of Los Angeles-based Distinctive Assets, which is creating the $91,000 "consolation" gift bags for the actors and directors who lose out in the Academy Awards's major categories. This year's bag includes a $45,000 voucher for a South African safari for eight adults and eight children. "If George Clooney goes on the (safari) tour, that's amazing. After he's gone, you let the magazines know he was there, and then people want to go. It's got that celebrity seal of approval on it." (Still, Fary notes that he's using Clooney purely as an example, since the actor is known for donating his swag bags to charity.)

Fary's gift bag, which will be delivered to the 22 losers in the top categories on Monday, includes more than 30 gifts ranging from a year's supply of Altoids Smalls sugar-fee mints to a $4,000 Victorinox limited-edition leather travel bag. Picking which items will be included in the bags is "a year-long endeavor," Fary tells DailyFinance. His company screens products for quality and picks one gift per category, such as facial beauty products, he says.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing Among Hollywood's Elite

For Winvian, a high-end resort in Connecticut's Litchfield County, the swag bag proved an innovative way to spread its name among Hollywood's elite. The hotel, which is participating in its second Oscar swag bag through Fary's company, won't disclose which stars cashed in their vouchers for a three-day, $7,000 stay last year (although Distinctive Assets says last year's losing nominees Ron Howard and Frank Langella booked stays at the hotel.)

"You run the risk that everyone will call and say, "I'm coming,'," says Winvian general manager Heather Smith. "But usually you see a handful of people." That's in line with a historical redemption rate of about 10% for vouchers, Fary says.

Smith says the payoff of giving tens of thousands of dollars in vouchers away comes in the form of word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied guests who provide the hotel with some of its best leads. "It gives us more bang for the buck," she says. "If one person comes and enjoys themselves, that helps us." And the publicity surrounding being included in an Oscar gift bag is valuable in itself, she says.

Still, it's not a sure thing that even one star will embrace a swag bag product. "There really are no guarantees," says Julie Kenney, the founder of Jewels and Pinstripes, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based celebrity gift bag company which is putting together bags for the 24th annual American Cinematheque awards honoring Matt Damon on March 27. Yet if the ploy works, "it's an inexpensive way to get your product to the celebrity," she adds.

Social media has helped publicize gift bag products, too, she adds. Kenney's company uses Facebook and Twitter to send out updates about stars seen out-and-about with products from its gift bags (one recent tweet: "Celebrity sighting: Heidi (Klum) Samuel with Balanced Day Lunch Kit from Leni's Back to School Gift Bag!).

Still, the gift bag business has not remained completely unscathed by the recession. Five years ago, Kenney used to charge companies $5,000 to get their products into an event's celebrity gift bag. Now, the cost is often less than $1,000 per company. As for Fary, he says he's seen an increase in demand for gift bag placements during the past year (he charges $4,000 per company to be included in his Oscar swag bag.)

"The recession has led more and more companies to explore alternative forms of marketing," he says. "And celebrity placement is an obvious choice."



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]]>Academy Awardsactorsbagcelebritygift bagsHollywoodIRIRSmarketingmoviesoscarsswagswag bagswag bagstaxesAimee PicchiSat, 06 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST