I had personal experience last week of the logistical disaster zone that is Heathrow T5, so the new viral by Fallon London for Cadbury's Dairy Milk rings uncomfortably true. It is of course a complete coincidence that this ad's launch should coincide with the appalling luggage problems at T5, but it certainly adds timeliness to the spot. Which is actually about all you can say for the film, which doesn't begin to live up to its predecessor, the celebrated drumming gorilla. As several back-seat creatives have already pointed out, this spot might have worked better if the small truck had been shown to be driven by the gorilla. Oh well, we look forward instead to the next Fallon masterpiece, widely expected to be Foam City, a new ad for Sony camcorders featuring a tidal wave of foam. Coming soon... (see a teaser clip here)

Nomis Sports is a new sports shoe manufacturer launched by former Adidas designer Simon Skirro. New York creative boutique Johannes Leonardo is responsible for this launch viral to publicise the brand. Nice effort. By way of comparison, you might also want to check out this ad by BBDO New York for New Balance trainers. (Is it me or is BBDO overusing this gloomy low-key urban vibe, also seen in several of its recent Monster.com films?).

Here's an ad concept which always works: grown-ups behaving like babies. DDB New Zealand has a new campaign for local home insulation company Pink Batts. Not quite sure what it says about the product but it's a funny ad. Also, JWT New York has a new spot for Huggies which also takes the old grown-up babies chestnut and runs with it. It's not going to win a Cannes Lion but it made us laugh. Can't think why, because this is what every day looks like here in the Adbrands office. 

The BBC is developing quite a reputation for great short idents, which are just as creative (possibly more so) than anything on either side of them. This clip of flying penguins to promote its iPlayer online service was a worthy successor to past BBC April Fool gags, such as the famous spaghetti harvest film from 1957. 

And finally, kudos to Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein of the renowned San Francisco creative agency Goodby Silverstein. The shop celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and is celebrating with a big party for all past and present employees. Jeff and Rich donned old-age makeup to issue a special invitation to the event. Great little film, and proof that the guys have a future in the movies if they ever tire of the ad business. See it here.

In the news this past two weeks: Advertisers

Airlines almost eclipsed banks in the headlines over the past two weeks. The launch of Terminal 5 of London's Heathrow Airport proved a disaster. Thankfully, there were no casualties except the reputations of the new building's sole occupant, British Airways, and operator British Airports Authority. Despite the promise of revolutionary new baggage handling technology, the new systems tripped over repeatedly, forcing many customers to fly without their bags. More than 600 flights were cancelled in the airport's first 10 days of operation, and around 20,000 items of luggage were lost or delayed. (Some have still not been located). Adding to the farce were numerous other factors including the lack of parking spaces for airport staff (or even incoming aircraft), a lack of familiarity with the new facilities and insufficient training. BA and airport operator BAA blamed each other for the problems. It was yet another public relations catastrophe for British Airways, a company which for some reason seems chronically unable to get through any given year without some form of industrial dispute or PR blunder of its own making. 

However, the T5 debacle pales beside even greater problems currently afflicting passengers of American Airlines and some other US carriers, although these at least were generated by regulators rather than the airlines themselves. American will have cancelled more than 2,000 flights by the end of this week while it checks its fleet of planes for airworthiness in accordance with a new Federal Aviation Administration directive. The crisis was sparked off by a spot-check inspection by FAA officials on Monday, when nine planes were found to be below standard. The move has stranded passengers all over US, with airports in Dallas, Chicago and New York hardest hit. 

Meanwhile, Alitalia's unions rejected the rescue deal offered by Air France-KLM. Alitalia's chairman Maurizio Prato quit in the light of this latest development, commenting "This company is cursed; only an exorcist can save it." Alitalia is making losses of more than E1m per day. Management is hoping to force the unions to see sense and reconsider Air France's proposals before the weekend. Otherwise, bankruptcy is the only other likely option. Unfazed, Air France-KLM continued to make other plans, agreeing the broad terms of a four-way joint venture with Delta and Northwest Airlines of the US which will jointly plan transatlantic sales, networks and capacity, and share revenues and profits. The new arrangement would combine existing partnerships between KLM and Northwest, first agreed in the 1990s, and between Air France and Delta, agreed last year. Delta and Northwest are themselves involved in talks to merge along similar lines to the Air France-KLM tie-up, in which corporate functions are combined but each airline continues to operate as a distinct brand. Previously Delta and Northwest had attempted to agree a full merger under a single brand, but those talks were derailed by a dispute between each company's pilots over seniority in the ensuing business.

Also this week, low-cost long-haul carrier Oasis Hong Kong Airlines filed for bankruptcy, Boeing announced further delays in delivery of its new Dreamliner 787 jet, and UK-based business-class-only service SilverJet said today it had entered talks to be acquired by another as yet unnamed suitor.

Enough about airlines. Pernod-Ricard was named as the successful bidder for Absolut vodka and the other brands controlled by Vin & Sprit of Sweden. Following completion, expected by summer 2008, the French group claims it will become the joint #1 in the global spirits industry alongside Diageo, with annual volumes of around 91m cases. It is already the clear #1 outside the US. Pernod-Ricard agreed a deal worth around E5.6bn including debt. It will surrender its contract as the distributor of Stolichnaya vodka following completion of the deal. Other brands included in the V&S package are Cruzan Rum, super-premium Level vodka, and a number of local brands in Scandinavia. The Absolut purchase could spark another round of consolidation within the spirits industry. Diageo is unlikely to take the loss of its exclusive position as the global #1 lying down, and may well attempt to strike a deal with another smaller distributor. (In a separate story, Absolut agreed to pull a press ad it was running in Mexico under the "In an Absolut world" banner. The ad depicted a revised map of North America, which shows that "in an Absolut world" California, Texas and various other South-Western states would belong to Mexico. The company has received a number of complaints from Americans living in those states. See the ad here.)

Sponsors of the 2008 Olympics are beginning to shift nervously in their seats in the wake of the often violent protests which have so far accompanied the Olympic torch relay in Athens, London, Paris and San Francisco. Protests are likely to reach a climax when the relay passes through Tibet itself in June. Free Tibet campaigners are now said to be discussing some form of direct action against corporate sponsors of the Olympics, each of whom has paid as much as $100m to be associated with the event. Inevitably this has made several of these groups, which include McDonalds's Visa, Johnson & Johnson, Panasonic and Volkswagen, extremely uncomfortable. Coca-Cola, Lenovo and Samsung have also paid an additional sum, on top of their wider Olympics sponsorship, to be associated specifically with the torch relay which, on the basis of yesterday's semi-cancellation in San Francisco, is rapidly turning into a non-event. Worse is likely to follow at the Games themselves.

Banks now. Swiss financial services giant UBS provoked widespread dismay in its home country and lost its chairman following a further write-down of $19bn against investments secured by US subprime mortgages. UBS had already made an $18.4bn adjustment in its results for 2007, making it the biggest victim to-date of the current credit crisis. The latest write-down resulted in a $12bn loss for 1Q 2008. Other financial services suppliers have taken advantage of the current downturn to realign some of their businesses. Citigroup agreed to sell its Diners Club credit card subsidiary to Discover for $165m. Founded in 1950, Diners Club was the world's first credit card, but although it still attracts an audience of high-income subscribers, it has been overtaken by more broadly based networks such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Its transaction volumes were around $30bn in 2007, less than 1% of the amount generated by the Visa network. Also this fortnight, GE Money sold its global corporate payment services unit, which manages travel and entertainment expenditure accounts for employees of large multinational clients, to American Express. It also transferred its consumer finance operations in Germany, Austria and Finland, as well as its UK credit card and auto finance operations in the UK, to Santander, in return for Interbanca, a corporate banking specialist previously owned by ABN Amro. 

Coca-Cola confirmed further details of a new global joint venture with Illy Coffee of Italy to develop and market a range of ready-to-drink coffees. The new unit, Ilko Coffee International is based in Milan near Illy, and is headed by former Coke executive Vinay Kapoor. During 2008, it will introduce three premium chilled products in ten European markets served by the Coca-Cola Hellenic bottling network. A wider rollout is expected in 2009. Separately, Red Bull confirmed plans to launch its own cola variant, Red Bull Simply Cola, in seven global markets including the UK, US, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. It is made entirely from natural ingredients and, says Red Bull, is the only cola which contains both the original kola nut and the coca leaf.

Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee was obviously preparing the ground two weeks ago when he played down the importance of the company's consumer electronics division to its future strategy and stressed that it would not pursue unprofitable markets in some regions. This week, Philips announced that it will stop manufacturing televisions for sale in the US from this September, highlighting the fierce competition in the flat-screen market. Instead the company will license the Philips brand there, as well as second string line Magnavox, to Funai Electric, a maker of non-branded electronics products whose biggest US client is Wal-Mart.

H&M announced that its guest designer for 2008 will be Rei Kawakubo of Comme Des Garcons, arguably the clothing group's most illustrious fashion industry partner since it launched its annual limited editions in 2004 with Karl Lagerfeld. The collection will launch in Japan in November 2008, before rolling out worldwide.

Nestlé agreed to sell its ophthalmology subsidiary Alcon to pharmaceutical giant Novartis in two instalments for a combined total of around $39bn. Novartis will buy an initial 25% stake now for around $11bn, and will acquire Nestle's remaining shares in 2010. A further stake of around 23% is publicly held. Many analysts expect Nestle ultimately to use the resulting funds to acquire the remaining shares in L'Oreal in which it currently has a stake of just under 30%.

In the news this past two weeks: Agencies

The media and communications arm of the French marketing group Havas, strengthened its operations in the UK with the purchase of local branded entertainment agency Cake for around £12m. It joins a growing roster of like-minded shops within the Havas network. There are plans to open a New York office of Cake later this year. Separately, Havas has also become embroiled in a row with Sir Terence Conran over Conran Design Group, the agency previously controlled by the British restaurant and design guru, but acquired by Havas in the 1990s. Havas wants to roll out the brand internationally; Conran is worried about the resulting clash with his own design activities, especially in the US. The Briton has made a personal appeal to Havas owner Vincent Bolloré to sit down with him and agree a compromise. Bolloré may be too busy to schedule a meeting - he has today announced plans to launch a fifth attempt to secure representation on the board of media buying and research group Aegis. His approaches have already been spurned by Aegis shareholders on four separate occasions.

McCann Erickson has merged its local advertising and digital operations in Australia to form a single integrated unit. The newly renamed McCann Sydney combines the main McCann Erickson advertising agency with the local office of MRM Worldwide. The merged business will be run by former MRM chief Victoria Curro. Meanwhile Argentinean creative boutique Santo, part-owned by WPP, announced plans to open its first office in the UK. The Buenos Aires hotshop has attracted international acclaim for its work on various Unilever brands such as Persil/Skip and Lux.

Awards monitor The Gunn Report named OMD as Media Network of the Year for the fourth year in a row by number and status of the industry awards it received in 2007 MindShare was a distant second. The top three advertisers by creative awards were Nike, McDonalds and Coca-Cola.

The biggest account change of the fortnight was US bank Wachovia's review of creative and media, worth around $145m in billings. Dr Pepper shifted creative for its main brand out of Y&R San Francisco to Deutsch LA, although Y&R keeps Diet Dr Pepper as well as other group brands such as Snapple. GSD&M Idea City successfully retained the US Air Force creative account after a lengthy battle with DraftFCB New York. Hertz called a review of European media. In the UK, Royal Mail reappointed AMV.BBDO and Proximity, and auto services group The AA placed its whole integrated account with Maher Bird Associates. Bailey's liqueur consolidated global creative with JWT, out of BBH. Emirates airline placed global media with Starcom MediaVest. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here.

In the news this past two weeks: Media

In the so-called Battle of the Billionaires between IAC chief executive Barry Diller and his biggest shareholder John Malone, a US judge has ruled in favour of the former, throwing out Malone's attempt to prevent the break-up of IAC into five separate businesses. Malone's objections were based on Diller's plans to introduce a single class of share in the four spun-off businesses, instead of replicating IAC's structure, which involves two classes of shares. Malone's shares in IAC effectively have twice the voting power and financial value of other stock. Eliminating that structure in the four spun-off businesses will almost halve the value of John Malone's overall investment.

After four months of negotiation, UK radio groups Global Radio and GCap agreed the terms of a merger which will create the country's biggest commercial radio broadcaster. Global is buying GCap for £375m. The takeover creates a business with almost 50% of the UK radio advertising market, combining Global's Heart, Galaxy and LBC networks with GCap's Classic FM, Capital Radio and Xfm. Separately, regional UK radio group Absolute is expected to secure ownership of Virgin Radio from Scottish Media Group for around £60m. SMG bought the business for £225m in 2000. However the deal is being held up as a result of negotiations with Richard Branson over use of the Virgin name. If these cannot be resolved, Absolute may go ahead with the deal and rebrand the network as Jack FM, after its existing station in Oxford.

Rupert Murdoch's eldest son Lachlan has abandoned attempts to acquire a joint controlling stake in Australian media group CMH, alongside old friend James Packer. The deal appears to have fallen down as a result of a disagreement over terms with Murdoch's private equity backers.

Meanwhile British publishing tycoon Felix Dennis - the man behind Maxim magazine and The Week among many other projects - attracted his fair share of headlines for a claim made during the course of a drunken interview with The Times newspaper. Dennis is no stranger to controversy as a result of his flamboyant character and personal lifestyle. However his claim to have "killed a man" 25 years ago by pushing him off a cliff was excessive even by Felix's own standards. He later retracted the claim, which he blamed on the influence of a combination of prescription drugs and alcohol.

Some new developments in the takeover battle between Microsoft and Yahoo. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer issued a letter to Yahoo's board giving them a three-week deadline expiring at the end of April to agree terms on a friendly basis. If not, Microsoft says it will cut the value of its bid and commence a hostile takeover by making a direct appeal to Yahoo's shareholders. The ticking clock appeared to galvanise the various parties hovering around the fringes of this takeover bid. According to press reports, Yahoo is now attempting to engineer a three-way advertising alliance with both Google and AOL which might either secure its independence or at least force Microsoft to up its price, a move the Seattle software behemoth has until now ruled out. There was also a report that News Corp has switched sides. It had in the past been talking directly to Yahoo about a tie-up with its MySpace subsidiary. Apparently it is now discussing the possibility of piggybacking Microsoft's bid to create a combination of MSN, Yahoo and MySpace. 

Phew! That's a lot of news. As always, if you haven't already done so, please confirm your subscription to the free Adbrands Weekly Update by clicking here or on the link at the foot of this email. Thank you for your assistance! 

Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands