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Our favourite ad this week: 

In the post-post-modern world of advertising, ads which parody other ads have become a gold standard of sorts. This week, the king in this new land is Clemmow Hornby Inge's parody of Sony's lavish Bravia TV ad for soft drink Tango. Instead of bouncing balls it's bouncing fruit, and the scenic vistas of San Francisco have been supplanted by the rather less picturesque streets of North Swansea in Wales. The ad is accompanied online by a spoof website which purports to be run by the North Swansea Residents Association, complaining about the mounds of fruit pulp left behind after the ad production team went home. The poor old Welsh! It's the second time this month they've been satirised by admen. Mother's first ad for Pot Noodle gives Welsh miners a similar drubbing.

In the news this fortnight: Advertisers

Google continues to strike fear into the hearts of other technology companies, offline as well as online. Despite attempts by Yahoo and MSN to dent Google's dominance of the web search environment, the latter continues to widen its lead. Latest figures from Nielsen Net Ratings showed that Google's share of online searches in April 2006 rose three percentage points over the year to a staggering 50%. Yahoo's handled 22% of searches; MSN just 11%. At the same time, Google has been churning out a steady stream of additional services, almost all of which threaten to undermine more established businesses. The search company this week announced plans to launch an online spreadsheet service which would compete directly with Microsoft's Excel software, and also recently acquired online word processing service Writely. It is also developing a classified person-to-person sales service, which could go head-to-head in the US with eBay, and has reached a deal with Dell to pre-install its search software on the latter's computers. In response, other online companies are joining forces in a bid to limit any damage caused by Google's expansion. In the latest such pact, Yahoo and eBay agreed a multi-year strategic alliance designed to strengthen both businesses against further competition from the search giant. Yahoo will take on responsibility for selling third-party banner advertising across eBay's US network, and will also supply eBay with paid-for search results. 

Polo Ralph Lauren has secured a precedent-setting deal to supply Wimbledon All England Club with discreetly branded clothing for all court officials at its hugely prestigious annual tennis championships. Under the five-year deal, said to have cost Polo "less than $10m", the clothing company will supply outfits for 570 umpires, ball girls and ball boys, and will in return have rights to market a line of official Wimbledon attire in its stores. The deal is one of the first such commercial sponsorship arrangements ever allowed by Wimbledon's organisers, who are notoriously conservative when it comes to on-court apparel. However the All England Club says it has no plans to introduce court-side advertising of the sort which is now standard at all other tennis tournaments.

Ralph Lauren's tennis triumph will be dwarfed this summer by the battle for supremacy between Nike and Adidas, reported to be spending as much as E400m between them on marketing connected with the World Cup, which starts tomorrow. Adidas is the official Fifa sponsor, with sole branding within all the tournament's stadiums, as well as sponsorship of six teams, including the home side. Nike is sponsoring a further eight teams. However the busiest sponsor of all is Puma, now the #3 in sports footwear and apparel following Reebok's acquisition. It is sponsoring no less than 12 teams, including all five from Africa. The latter could well prove a smart move, part of Puma's strategy to build a strong position for the future. The next World Cup will take place in South Africa in 2010. A similar battle of the giants is taking place between financial payment networks Mastercard and Visa. Mastercard has been Fifa's global financial services sponsor since 1990, but was abruptly dumped earlier this year in favour of a contract with Visa, due to commence in 2007 and run until 2014. Mastercard has filed a lawsuit in the US designed to force Fifa to cancel the Visa deal.

Disney's consumer products division entered a brand new area this week, licensing British supermarket giant Tesco to begin branding loose fresh fruit under the Disney banner. Disney satsuma oranges are the first line, and will be followed by apples and bananas. Each piece of fruit carries a peelable collectible sticker featuring a Disney character, starting with Winnie the Pooh. Disney has agreed similar licensing arrangements with Carrefour in France and Metro in Germany to brand fresh food products.

Vodafone this week set a new record for the biggest annual loss ever reported by a European company. Net after-tax loss for the year to March 2006 was a staggering £17.2bn. The figure was generated by a massive £19bn impairment charge against the group's German operations and a £4.9bn loss on the sale of Vodafone Japan. Despite the alarming reported figures, operating performance remains positive, but slow. The group attempted to cheer investors with a substantial dividend payout, and said it planned to move aggressively into fixed line markets, incentivising users to replace their existing home connections with their mobile. Vodafone's main European competitors all offer a combined fixed and mobile service.

In the news this week: Agencies

Interpublic confirmed that it would go ahead with the merger of its FCB and Draft networks. The group had already indicated that it was considering this plan. The question was, who would lead the new entity, former Grey chief Steve Blamer or Draft's own Howard Draft? Draft it is. The two network s will be combined with a single management team and P&L under Howard Draft's control. Blamer will leave Interpublic after a brief transitional period. Precise details of the integration of the two networks will be decided over the next three months. However it is anticipated that separately-branded units currently grouped with either FCB or Draft, including FCBi, Marketing Drive, R/GA and Zipatoni, will continue to operate independently. The upper hand gained by Draft in the merger has been seen by many as continuing evidence of a change in the fundamentals of the marketing industry, whereby traditional above-the-line advertising, long regarded as the most prestigious marketing discipline has been overtaken by the broader range of below-the-line services.

Accounts Changing Hands: US supermarket group Safeway is moving its $250m account out of Dailey & Associates; Kimberly-Clark consolidated all its brands at JWT, shifting some $200m of billings out of O&M worldwide. Whirlpool consolidated its own US portfolio, which includes recently acquired Maytag, at Publicis. Among smaller assignments, Gap appointed Naked to handle European media strategy; Waitrose appointed Manning Gottlieb OMD to its UK media; and Hennessy cognac transferred to Berlin Cameron in the US.

Agencies Poll: we asked you to select your most admired media network. MindShare held its early lead, ending up with 22% of the vote. Some way behind were Starcom MediaVest with 12%; OMD and Carat both with 10%. 

Regards


Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands

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Recommended Reading

This is a second edition of George Felton's original large-format textbook for students of advertising. Originally published in 1994, the new edition has been fully revised, with new chapters as well as some new ads. Felton teaches copywriting at Columbus College of Art & Design in Ohio, and this book is aimed firmly at a student audience, although its size, wealth of illustration and easy style make it an attractive read for more casual buyers. 

Although he tackles the entire conceptual process from strategy to execution, writing style is Felton's main theme. The book provides a comprehensive nuts-and-bolts analysis of the various skills required by the successful copywriter, with detailed discussion of grammatical tricks and styles. He also supplies an informative commentary on the different approaches required by the main mass-market media, including TV, radio, direct mail. Added to this edition are sections on newer disciplines such as guerrilla marketing or international advertising. A thorough and informative study, but one that is most likely to appeal to entry-level readers hoping to make a career in advertising copy.

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