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It's been a bit of a quiet week for great ads, so I'll keep this short and sweet. Publicis Conseil produced the new spot for Orange TV, part of the mobile phone company's aggressive attempt to steal market share in the French pay-TV sector. It's a cute idea, nicely executed on location in Goa. The rising price of fuel is the springboard for a new ad for Smart small cars, produced by German shop Jung Von Matt. Also in the automotive sector, we like this Spanish ad for Audi from DDB Barcelona. And finally, M&C Saatchi's new UK spot for Kronenbourg 1664 lager.

In the news this week: Advertisers

As anticipated last week, brewery giant InBev yesterday made a formal offer to acquire US rival Anheuser-Busch for around $46.3bn. In attempt to appease strong opinions within the US that such a deal would compromise the distinctive American spirit of Anheuser brands such as Budweiser, InBev offered several sweeteners. It said it would change the name of a merged group to reflect Anheuser’s heritage and would invite "a number" of Anheuser’s directors onto its board (including no doubt executive chairman August Busch, who earlier vowed not to let such a deal take place "on his watch"). InBev also said Anheuser's home town of St Louis would become its North American headquarters, and that it would market Budweiser as its flagship beer. As of Thursday morning, Anheuser-Busch had not yet rejected the offer, saying it would take the time to consider the deal carefully. Nevertheless there are already reports that InBev is prepared to offer as much as $50bn to swing the deal with Anheuser's shareholders. Meanwhile, US regulators cleared the merger of the US brewery interests of MolsonCoors and SABMiller, which will now operate as MillerCoors. Molson Coors' Leo Kiely will be CEO of the new joint venture with Miller's Tom Long as president & COO. The transaction is expected to close at the end of June.

Chinese manufacturer Haier was said to be preparing a bid for the home appliances division of General Electric, which makes cookers and other kitchen appliances in the US under brands including Hotpoint, GE, Monogram and Profile. It is not Haier's first attempt to snap up a US company. In 2005, it was an under-bidder in the auction for Maytag. The Chinese company is expected to face several competitors for this deal as well, not least Korea's LG Electronics, considered by many as the favourite. Meanwhile Bertelsmann was said to have opened talks to sell its 50% share in music group Sony BMG to partner Sony. The German media group is looking for between $1.2bn and $1.5bn for its shares. 

Apple unveiled version 2.0 of the iPhone, and cut prices by as much as half to make the device more affordable. The new and improved phone uses 3G technology, which offers much faster web-browsing, and also comes with built-in GPS software. (See the new ad by TBWA Media Arts Lab here). Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a technology conference this week that the company had sold 6m iPhones since they first went on sale almost a year ago. That suggests volumes so far this year are only around 2m, putting the company some way behind its 2008 target of 10m devices. However a string of new deals with carriers including Vodafone, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and many more could lead to the product being sold in as many as 64 global territories by the end of 2008, compared to just six at present. Currently, according to researcher IDC, iPhone has around 19% share of the US "smart phone" market, well behind BlackBerry's 44%, but ahead of Palm, which has 13%. The launch of iPhone 2.0 could push the product into the lead.

Australian wine and beer producer Foster's Group announced the resignation of CEO Trevor O'Hoy and issued a profit warning. The company plans to write off more than US $660m against the value of its worldwide wine assets, which include the Penfolds, Lindemans and Wolf Blass labels. Chairman David Crawford said the group had paid too much three years ago to acquire Australian winemaker Southcorp, and that performance had also been dented by unflattering exchange rates. It will now launch a strategic review of the business which could even led to the sale of the entire wine business.

Disney has no rivals for the role of global champion in consumer merchandising. For its current fiscal year, which ends at the end of this month, the group expects the gross retail value of Disney-related merchandise to exceed a staggering $30bn, up from $27bn last year. (Warner Bros is #2 in the licensing business, but gross retails are less than half Disney's). Top-selling lines for the House of Mouse are the two girls' collections of Disney Princesses and Disney Fairies, with combined sales now in excess of $5bn. Coming up fast behind is merchandise tied to the "tween" franchises High School Musical and Hannah Montana. Sales have rocketed over the past 12 months from $400m in 2007 to around $2.7bn for the current year. Toys based on the Cars movie contributed a further $2.5bn. The Winnie The Pooh, Mickey Mouse and Muppets brands are also exceptionally strong performers.

As fuel prices soar, and sales of gas-hungry vehicles continue to plummet, auto giant General Motors announced plans to close four North American factories where it makes trucks, confirmed that it will go ahead with production of its all-electric Chevrolet Volt model for launch in 2010, and also said it was considering the future of its most gas-hungry consumer brand, the heavy-duty Hummer brand. At GM's annual meeting, CEO Rick Wagoner said, ""At this point, we are considering all options [for Hummer], from a complete revamp of the product line-up to partial or complete sale of the brand".

In the news this week: Agencies

Despite the announcement last week of firm plans for it to merge with rival market research group Gfk, TNS has this week also allowed rival bidder WPP to see its books. WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell has already made two offers to acquire TNS, but both were declined on the grounds that they substantially undervalued the business. TNS had until now refused to release financial information to WPP. The apparent change of heart was prompted by concern from EU competition regulators over the power that would be wielded by a combined TNS-Gfk in the TV  audience measurement sector. The boards of TNS and Gfk seem not to have anticipated any such problems, inspiring Sorrell to suggest that they had not "done their market research" before announcing plans to merge. 

Synarchy is dead! Long live Enfactico! WPP has finally issued confirmation of the name of its long-in-gestation global Dell agency, formerly known as Project Da Vinci. Early reports that the business would be called Synarchy were greeted with derision by the blogging community, because of that name's associations with Victorian and Nazi philosophy. Enfatico has no such baggage. Instead, according to WPP's official press release, it is an Italian musical notation which means "play each note 'with emphasis' or 'emphatically.'" The new shop's debut website is up and running at http://www.enfatico.com/.

Renetta McCann, global CEO of Starcom MediaVest, has resigned from that role for personal reasons and is to take a year-long sabbatical, although she will continue to maintain links to the group. In a statement, she said "I have been given the opportunity to build an incredible organisation during a decade of management responsibility, but I now recognise that some family matters and personal goals have unfortunately taken a back seat during this time. I would like to give them my full attention now." She is replaced as CEO by Laura Desmond, previously CEO, North America. McCann was widely rumoured to be joining Barack Obama's presidential campaign, but issued a firm denial of that story yesterday.

British marketing services group Media Square reported grim results for its latest financial year, and warned that performance continues to be weak as a result of the economic downturn. Executive chairman Roger Parry, parachuted in last year to rescue the business after over-ambitious expansion, reported a sharp rise in pre-tax losses to more than £20m, including £4m of restructuring charges and almost £17m of asset impairment. Always good for a soundbite, Parry commented six months ago that, prior to his arrival, the group had been "held together by bits of string and Blu Tack". Announcing the latest figures, he acknowledged that Media Square was "far, far more screwed up than I thought it was". The group's best-known subsidiaries include financial advertising specialist The Gate, design agency Holmes & Marchant and direct marketer Clark McKay & Walpole.

Mitsubishi Motors placed its US creative account, worth around $155m in billings, with start-up agency Traffic, based in Hollywood, California; University of Phoenix, one of the highest-spending US educational institutions, began looking for a creative agency for its estimated $200m account; hotel group Global Hyatt let Euro RSCG go from its creative account after less than a year and started a new review; travel agent Thomas Cook kicked off a pan-Euro creative review across all its various brands; and BBH London picked up soft drinks Tango and J20. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here.

In the news this week: Media

Despite early fears that upfront ad sales for the 2008/09 US TV season could fall far short of last year, the five national networks appear to have done much better than even they expected. TV execs and media buyers alike expressed surprise at the buoyancy of the market. When upfront sales presentations began, some analysts were predicting that this year's total could even be down by as much as 14% on the $9.1bn generated last year. However, despite weakening ratings, sales negotiations went well, with the result that the networks are thought to have generated combined commitments slightly above last year at between $9.2bn and $9.3bn. NBC, regarded as the weakest of the big four despite its role as host of next year's Super Bowl, wrapped sales at around $1.9bn, compared to $1.8bn last year. It also said it had sold around 30% of its Super Bowl inventory, including two spots at $3m apiece, a record upfront rate. ABC and CBS both acknowledged totals of around $2.5bn, and Fox is thought to have  closed its books at $2bn (compared to $1.8bn last year). The only real loser was fifth-ranked CW, whose upfront commitments slipped from around $650m last year to between $350m and $375m. A major contributing factor in the decline was the surprising decision by the CBS-Time Warner joint venture to hand over responsibility for its Sunday night schedule, including ad sales, to a third-party, independent studio Media Rights Capital.

In his first big policy speech on broadcasting, the UK government's new minister for culture, media & sport, Andy Burnham, said he would not allow product placement in British TV shows, claiming it would undermine the reputation of British television around the world by "contaminating" programmes. Commercial broadcasters such as ITV have been canvassing the UK government to green-light product placement in order to bolster falling ad revenues. The practise has already been allowed by the EU in the rest of Europe, but Burnham is standing firm.  Referring to recent scandals over rigged or exploitative paid-for phone-ins, he said, “There is a risk that, at the very moment when television needs to do all it can to show it can be trusted, that we elide the distinction between programs and adverts... As a viewer, I don’t want to feel the script has been written by the commercial marketing director. British programming has an integrity that is revered around the world, and I don’t think we should put that hard-won reputation up for sale. Here and now, I do want to signal that I think there are some lines that we should not cross - one of which is that you can buy the space between the programmes on commercial channels, but not the space within them."

UK business publishers Informa and United Business Media (UBM) are in talks to merge in an all-share deal which would create a group with sales of more than £3bn. UBM, which initiated the talks, is best-known for its PR Newswire press distribution service, the construction bible Building and conference organiser CMP; Informa has Lloyd's List and research divisions Datamonitor and Verdict. 

US media owner Gannett said it would write off as much as $3bn against the value of its large collection of newspapers and related businesses in the US and UK because of a decline in advertising associated with the housing market. Gannett owns more than 1,000 regional newspapers in America, as well as the country's biggest-selling daily USA Today, and a collection of local TV stations. In the UK it owns the second largest regional newspaper group, Newsquest, whose titles include Brighton's Argus, Scotland's Herald, the Oxford Mail, Exchange & Mart and online jobsite Fish4.

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

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