Adbrands Weekly Update 9th November 2006

Weekly Update 9th November 2006

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Our favourite ads this week:

British and American ads tend to hog the limelight at creative awards ceremonies, so it's not often enough that work from Asia gets the recognition it deserves. However these three ads for Bangkok Insurance by Thai shop Creative Juice/G1 (a TBWA affiliate) successfully broke through this year, becoming the fourth most awarded campaign of 2006, according to the latest Gunn Report ranking (see story below for other winners). All three cleverly use fake CCTV or home video footage to demonstrate the skill with which Bangkok Insurance is able to calculate the probability of bizarre accidents. The last of the three, featuring a tornado which destroys and then reassembles a house down to the last roof tile, is a real classic.

Ogilvy & Mather's global Campaign for Real Beauty for Dove skincare products has garnered a huge amount of free press and TV publicity in the US in recent weeks as a result of a superb viral movie, entitled Evolution. Produced by the agency's Toronto outpost, the film demonstrates a speeded-up version of the creation of a typical beauty ad in which the girl above left is transformed with lighting, make-up, Photoshop and hours of work into the one above centre. "No wonder our perception of beauty is so distorted," says the tagline.

Finally, we also love this Spanish ad for Bunker shoes. But viewers of a sensitive disposition, children and, um, bears should probably skip it... There are three other ads in the series, all available for download at Bunker's website, which is pretty hot in its own right..

In the news this week: Advertisers

Nielsen Media Research has postponed "indefinitely" its plans to issue ratings tracking for individual TV ad breaks in the US. The research giant has faced considerable opposition from broadcast and cable networks since it announced the project earlier this year. It is already widely believed that viewing levels drop significantly during the course of ad breaks, but as yet there is no data on the size of that drop. (Currently, ratings measure only the average audience for the programme, including breaks). Proof of a significant fall would put considerable pressure on spot pricing. A key sticking point has been the networks' desire to exclude from monitoring those viewers who record programmes (and their ad breaks) for later viewing. This sort of viewer customarily skips ad breaks altogether, and inclusion of these figures would, argued the networks, unfairly bias the perceived effectiveness of TV advertising. One network, thought to be ABC, apparently threatened to pull out of the project altogether, persuading Nielsen to suspend plans pending further discussions.

Meanwhile Google continued its inexorable push into offline media broking with the test launch of a web-based self-service system which will allow advertisers to purchase print advertising in more than 50 leading US daily newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer. Google has similar plans for radio.

Nestle and Coca-Cola announced plans to reduce the scope of their Beverage Partners Worldwide joint venture. In addition to iced tea Nestea and recent launch Enviga, that entity has also been responsible for a variety of milk and coffee-based ready-to-drink products around the globe, including Nescafe Xpress iced coffee and Choglit flavoured milk. Under the new arrangement, which is likely to be finalised in early 2007, Beverage Partners will limit its attentions only to tea-based drinks. Control of non-tea products will revert to Nestle and Coca-Cola respectively. In particular, the new structure will allow Coke to develop its own coffee-based drinks to compete more effectively in the US against PepsiCo/Starbucks' Frappucino.

The elderly Viacom patriarch Sumner Redstone may come to regret his eccentric decision to drop superstar actor Tom Cruise from the Paramount stable. Cruise may be expensive, but he is one of the few stars able to deliver a guaranteed hit at the box office. The actor and his producing partner Paula Wagner this week agreed a new arrangement with rival studio MGM to relaunch that company's United Artists subsidiary. Cruise and Wagner will take a minority stake in the business, estimated at 30%, and will produce around four movies a year to be distributed through MGM, itself now part-owned by Sony and Comcast.

British cable giant NTL confirmed plans to change its name as a result of its acquisitions of principal cable competitor Telewest, and most recently Virgin Mobile. The group hopes to trade on the popular following for the latter brand, and has secured an agreement with minority shareholder Richard Branson to adopt the corporate name Virgin Media. It realises a long-cherished ambition for the bearded tycoon, who has sought a significant presence in the broadcast industry for almost two decades.

The surge in private equity investment continues. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the firm which has for years set the pace in the sector, was reported to have last month tabled a preliminary bid worth $50bn for French conglomerate Vivendi. Talks are said to have stalled but may still continue. If concluded they would set a new record in the private equity sector. Another firm, Clayton Dubilier & Rice, is in talks to buy the US foodservice arm of Dutch food retailer Ahold, while a consortium of different investors including Bill Gates and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal are to back a $3.4bn management buyout of Four Seasons Hotels. Separately Telefonica was in talks to extend its presence into Asia by joining the consortium which is bidding for a controlling stake in Hong Kong's leading telecoms group PCCW.

In a surprise announcement, Volkswagen CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder has resigned, just six months after he signed a new five-year contract. Pischetsrieder has been involved in a long-running battle with VW group chairman Ferdinand Piech over the group's strategy and ownership structure. As well as being chairman of VW, Piech is also a member of the Porsche family, and was instrumental in arranging for Porsche Group to become the effective controlling shareholder in Volkswagen earlier this year. Most recently the pair were said to have fallen out over the role to be played by VW in the possible merger of truck manufacturers MAN and Scania. Pischetrieder is to be replaced as group CEO by Martin Winterkorn, currently head of VW's Audi division. Over at PSA Peugeot Citroen, former Airbus executive Christian Streiff is to succeed Jean-Martin Folz as CEO from January 2007.

In the news this week: Agencies

Omnicom once again dominated the Gunn Report rankings of the world's most creative agencies in 2006. BBDO, DDB and TBWA occupied the top three places in the table of most awarded networks, while DDB London, TBWA\Paris and AMV BBDO were the first, second and third most awarded agencies. The latter's noitulovE ad for Guinness was the single most awarded commercial, followed by Sony Bravia's Balls, from Fallon London, and Carlton Draught's Big Ad, from George Patterson Y&R Australia. See the Adbrands agency index page for the full Top 10 of networks and agencies.

Australian marketing services group STW, which controls the JWT and O&M brands in Australia, added to its portfolio with the acquisition of several companies including admired media agency Ikon Communications. Meanwhile JCDecaux of France, the world's #2 outdoor advertising firm, has announced that it wants to buy its larger US rival Clear Channel Outdoor. Despite its size JCDecaux has only a limited presence in the US, where it generates less than 7% of revenues. A merged company would become the biggest in the field by some margin, well ahead of current #3 CBS Outdoor.

Two significant management changes at Omnicom: Allen Rosenshine, long-serving chairman and former CEO of BBDO Worldwide, is to retire at the end of the year; and David Pattison is to leave the PHD network which he co-founded in 1990 early next year.

Sony Electronics was reported to be on the verge of awarding its US creative account to BBDO and 180 Amsterdam; while British furniture retailer MFI was said to be finalising a transfer of its advertising business to M&C Saatchi and Walker Media. The newly expanded PHD network captured Unilever's media business in 10 countries in Eastern Europe. AOL UK is to review its creative account out of Grey London in the new year; and AKQA was appointed by McDonald's as its lead global interactive agency. Subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here.

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Regards

Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands