So who won the Super Bowl last Sunday? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the New York Giants, but who really won? Was it Coke, Pepsi, Budweiser, Victoria's Secret or even, heaven help us, GoDaddy.com? Well, opinions were divided. No question Bud Light/Budweiser won for sheer perseverance, in the form of a barrage of seven different spots. And SalesGenie.com had no competition for the worst ads of the evening, two racially insensitive animated spots featuring Chinese pandas and a comedy Indian. In an online survey by the WSJ (which excluded the SalesGenie ads, presumably because they were too awful to even think about), most respondents selected one of CareerBuilder's spots as the worst of the evening. In this ad, an unappreciated temp is sitting at her typewriter when her heart literally bursts out of her chest, grows arms and legs, and marches into the boss's office to brandish a placard that says I Quit. 

At the other end of the scale, the general post-game consensus seems to be that Budweiser's "Team" was the all-round favourite, in which a new member of the celebrated Budweiser Clydesdales drayhorse team is put through its paces by one of the company's Dalmatians, to the accompaniment of the Rocky theme music. Here at Adbrands, however, we found this spot cloying and sentimental (especially when the horse and hound do a high five at the end. I mean, really!) Also popular in the US media was Coke's "It's Mine" in which the Underdog and Stewie inflatables from the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade fight to get their inflatable hands on a Coke bottle balloon, only to lose it to heroic Charlie Brown. That didn't make our list either. 

So what did? Well not, Victoria's Secret either, surprise surprise, because it was distinctly unmemorable (but we promised you two weeks ago we'd show it to you, so here it is). We liked Toyota's savage badgers, FedEx's giant pigeons, Will Ferrell's ridiculous basketball star for Bud Light, and the unlovely but salty Planters girl, although none of these made our Top Four either. Tide's Talking Stain would have made the list but we featured it here a couple of weeks ago. Here's what did make our list: the Godfather pastiche for the new Audi R8 (by Venables Bell, and the car ain't half bad either); E-Trade's baby daytrader (by Grey New York); Bud Light's firebreather (DDB); and our number one by a whisker, Pepsi Stuff and Justin Timberlake (by BBDO New York). See all the ads here, even SalesGenie and CareerBuilder, courtesy of WSJ.com.

Actually, to be honest, the real winner on Sunday evening was the Fox network which broadcast the game. Rupert Murdoch, CEO of Fox parent News Corporation, called it  "the biggest day in our company’s history". Fox are thought to have made around $250m from ad sales for the event, and the viewing audience, estimated at 97.5m, was the biggest ever for the Super Bowl, and the second-largest in television history. (The long-time #1 is still the last ever episode of M*A*S*H which attracted 106m viewers back in 1983). 

In the news this past week: Media

Media first for a change this week, because of the size of the story:

The biggest news of the week by far (apart from the Super Bowl, that is) was the takeover bid launched by Microsoft for Yahoo last Friday. In case you somehow missed this story, Microsoft's unsolicited bid offers $31 per Yahoo share, a 62% premium to the quoted price at close of play last Thursday. Yahoo's stock price has fallen steadily over the last few months from a high of over $33 last October, and took a sudden dive at the beginning of last week after the company published its lacklustre 4Q and 2007 results. With a total value of around $44.6bn, this would be the priciest deal ever in the online sector, and one of the biggest in corporate history. The motivation for such a huge gamble is Microsoft's need to find a way to narrow the gap with Google in search as well as general online presence. Google's share of online searches has surged past Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN to establish a lead that continues to widen month by month. A combined Microsoft-Yahoo (Microhoo? Yacrosoft?) would close the gap - though only a little - with just over 31% share of US searches to Google's current 56%. 

Luckily, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer is in a unique position of sitting on a mammoth cash pile of around $20bn, far more than any of his rivals. Even then, the group would have to raise additional funding to round out its offer. Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang has pledged to fight the bid, and is keen to consider almost any alternative other than a deal with the Seattle software giant. This week he told staff the board was considering "a wide range" of other options without specifying what they might be. However, several press reports commented that general morale among Yahoo staff was "at rock bottom" even before the bid and is lower still now. Some are said to be frustrated by the "lack of leadership" shown by Yang since he took over the CEO role last year.

What alternatives can Yang have in mind? Yahoo has already sought to recruit support from Google itself to fight off Microsoft, but a Google-Yahoo tie-up (Goohoo? Yoogle?) would never get past antitrust regulators, since it would concentrate almost 75% of the US internet search sector in a single company. However Yang might try abandoning his own search service and sub-contract Google to supply results instead. That tie-up might work, but then there would be no $31 payout for shareholders. Private equity bids are also unlikely, given the size of the deal and that sector's current funding woes. More likely would be a rival bid from a media group, and Yahoo's bankers have already been in contact with Time Warner, News Corp and others to this end, as well as telecoms giants AT&T and Verizon. But there are few contenders in these sectors either who would wish to take the sort of mammoth gamble such a move would entail. In these circumstances, the chances are that Microsoft will ultimately clinch the deal, even if it has to raise its offer in order to appease Yahoo's board (if not Yang). 

That means the ultimate decision in this saga is likely to rest with the regulators, especially in Europe. US regulators might well be prepared to approve a merger, albeit with some conditions. But the EU's competition commissioner Nellie Kroes is no friend of Bill Gates, and she may not be prepared to sanction the deal on any terms. Both sides are already playing to this audience. Google has already started trying to turn the tables by highlighting the "overwhelming" share of web e-mail and instant messaging that a combined MSN-Yahoo would control. Microsoft, said Google, is seeking to extend its creeping dominance of the desktop into the internet as well. Meanwhile, Microsoft has countered with the argument that the merger would not diminish competition but actually increase it by creating a far stronger rival to what is already a near-monopolistic Google.

Meanwhile, a salutary reminder of the transitory nature of online glory came in Time Warner's year-end results. These were mostly pretty sound. The most interesting aspect was the illustration of the trouble AOL is experiencing in its bid to transform from a subscriber-funded business to one paid for by advertising. AOL's combined revenues plunged by a third from $7.8bn to under $5.2bn, because the hoped for uplift in advertising failed to match the dramatic fall in subscription revenues. Reflecting the sale of its ISP businesses in Europe and the erosion in paid-for US users, subscription revenues halved during the year to $3.0bn. However, advertising sales rose by only 18% to $2.2bn. Only 18%. Compare that to the 57% increase reported by Google, which generated around $16.4bn in advertising last year. Far from being the engine of Time Warner's global business, as was predicted when it bought the media titan back in 2000, AOL is likely to be the combined group's smallest operating division by the end of this year. New Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said he would also push forward with the separation of AOL's shrinking online access business in the US from its faster-growing content and portal operations, with a view to selling one or both units at some point in the future. 

In the news this past week: Advertisers

One more piece of online news: Amazon reported strong financials for 2007, but not strong enough to prevent Google from overtaking it as the overall #1 in online revenues. Amazon's revenues rose 39% to $14.8bn, and the group announced two further strategic moves. It is strengthening its position in the audiobook sector with the acquisition of online distributor and publisher Audible.com for around $280m. It also acquired a large minority shareholding in UK-based DVD rental service LoveFilm and transferred to that company its own DVD rental business in the UK and Germany. 

Back in the real (or at least offline) world, there was renewed talk of some form of global tie-up between US brewing giant Anheuser-Busch and its international counterpart InBev. The two companies would make a near perfect fit. Anheuser is strong in North America, weak elsewhere, while InBev has an extensive global profile but almost no presence in the US. Anheuser already distributes some of its products there. US airlines Delta and NorthWest were also reported to be close to a merger. An official announcement could come as soon as mid-February. United and Continental are also in preliminary talks.

UK internet bank Egg, now a unit of banking behemoth Citigroup, prompted a furious media backlash after informing 161,000 of its customers that it was cancelling their credit cards because of what it said was a deterioration in their credit profile. A number of those customers contacted the newspapers to complain about this peremptory treatment. Some of the customers singled out even said they already pay off their card expenditure every month. This led to suspicions that bank was cancelling some accounts simply because it doesn't make any money from them in the form of interest or late payment fees.

Japanese truck and SUV maker Isuzu Motors announced plans to quit the US by the end of 2009 because of falling sales. At its peak in the mid-1980s, Isuzu sold more than 125,000 vehicles per year in the US, including some of the first SUVs on the market. Since then, however, its position has been overtaken by local manufacturers as well as Japanese rivals. In 2007, Isuzu shifted only a little more than 7,000 vehicles in the US.

Sprint, the #3 US wireless operator, warned that it is likely to post a huge charge of as much as $31bn or more in its 4Q 2007 results for impairment of assets relating to the ill-fated merger with rival Nextel. The enlarged group has struggled to maintain subscriber numbers since the end of 2006, despite intense marketing and several acquisitions of regional services. Its main rivals, on the other hand, have continued to report steady growth. Sprint is already carrying a deficit for the first nine months of 2007, so the additional charge will result in a vast loss for the year.

Meanwhile Motorola, also struggling to make headway against more nimble competitors, and itself closely allied to the beleaguered Sprint's Nextel network, said it might attempt to restore the health of its share price by separating its loss-making handset division from its more resilient network systems and set-top box divisions. Like IBM's PC division before it, Motorola's handsets could end up as a target for an expanding Asian manufacturer. China's ZTE was highlighted as one potential bidder, along with Samsung and LG. Lenovo, the Chinese company which acquired IBM's PC business, said it isn't interested in Motorola and itself pulled out of the handset business this week by selling its small subsidiary in this sector to an affiliated private equity fund.

As expected, following news of its disastrous financial missteps reported last week, British pubs company Mitchells & Butlers was targeted by several potential buyers, including larger rival Punch Taverns. The latter has made an indicative all-share offer which would create a group with more than 10,000 British pubs, bars and restaurants, and a value in excess of £9bn.  Meanwhile French bank BNP Paribas said it was weighing up a bid for rival SocGen, still reeling from the aftermath of its E4.9bn trading fraud.

In other deals, drinks giant Diageo bolstered its Smirnoff vodka business by acquiring a 50% shareholding in Dutch super-premium vodka Ketel One for around $900m. The deal also gives Diageo first refusal on the remaining shares, if and when they are sold by the Nolet family, who have controlled the business since the 18th century. At the same time Diageo ruled itself out of the bidding for Swedish vodka Absolut, set to come up for sale this year. Unilever bolstered its position in the global ice cream market, where it is engaged in fierce rivalry with Nestle, by acquiring Russia's biggest manufacturer, Inmarko, for an undisclosed sum. Coca-Cola agreed to buy a 40% stake in Honest Beverages, a US maker of premium and organic bottled teas.

In the news this past week: Agencies

More deals in the advertising industry as well, including at least one big surprise. Widely admired UK-based media planning and strategy agency Naked Communications has been acquired, and the buyer is not one of the usual suspects (WPP, Omnicom, Publicis etc), but Photon Group, an Australian marketing roll-up little known outside its domestic market. According to press reports, Naked was in the process of negotiating with two private equity buyers when it was approached by Photon's executive chairman Tim Hughes. The price tag of £16.5m is said to be less than the sum being offered by two private equity bidders, but Naked's shareholders felt Photon would be a more comfortable fit. Photon has been on an acquisition spree in recent years. Founded in 1999 by Hughes, it has expanded steadily through acquisitions. The pace of expansion has picked up considerably in recent months. It bought more than 10 different companies in 2007 including Australian creative agency BMF, UK branding and communications agency Corporate Edge and US interactive agency Findology. Campaign reported today that Photon is also in advanced talks with UK direct marketing shop Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw.

Campaign also reports that investor Vincent Bolloré, already the controlling shareholder in Havas, is preparing to launch a full takeover offer for Aegis, the parent of the Carat and Vizeum media networks. Such a bid has been expected for some time. Bolloré already controls the largest shareholding in Aegis but has repeatedly been denied any representation on its board. A solo takeover is likely to prompt rival bids from other groups, especially WPP. However, Bolloré may already have structured a side-agreement with WPP's Martin Sorrell, who is known to be keen to add Aegis's Synovate market research division to his own portfolio.

Initiative chairman & CEO Alec Gerster announced that he will retire at the end of March 2008. He is passing on the baton to Richard Beaven, currently CEO of Initiative North America. Beaven appears to have finally pulled the agency off the industry's sick-list, having notching up a couple of important account wins since the end of last year. Tim Spengler was named as Beaven's replacement at Initiative NA.

Saatchi & Saatchi took a step in a new direction with the acquisition of Boston-based Act Now Productions, an environmental sustainability consultancy which advises companies on green issues. It will rebrand as Saatchi & Saatchi S, under the wing of the group's existing in-store marketing network Saatchi & Saatchi X.

Publicis-owned Kaplan Thaler notched up one of its biggest ever account wins with the capture of US creative for sleeping aid Lunesta. Owned by Sepracor, it is currently one of America's highest-spending pharmaceutical products with billings estimated at around $300m. The account was previously handled by McCann's Human Care unit. In other assignments, Timberland appointed Leagas Delaney to handle global creative. UK DIY store Homebase called a review of its advertising, currently handled by AMV BBDO. United Biscuits called a review of UK media, currently handled by Starcom. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here. 

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Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands