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Our favourite ads this week: 

In the wake of the Bravia Play-Doh film, the partnership between Sony and Fallon London scores another goal this week with the new ad for Sony's new Walkman Project. This attempts to draw on the huge popularity of social networking to create the first multi-player orchestral piece. Users are invited to upload their own musical contribution and the resulting notes will be melded into a single piece which contains the work of hundreds if not thousands of players. See the Walkman Project website here. Nice ad too.

Despite the razzamatazz of the NFL game which took place here in London last weekend between the Miami Dolphins and NY Giants, us Brits still don't "get" American Football for some reason. Well, this ad for Nike, "Leave Nothing", gives us a good idea of what we're missing. Wieden & Kennedy recruited filmmaker Michael Mann, of Heat and Miami Vice fame, to direct the piece, which contains as much excitement and adrenaline-pumping action as any of his movies. (In fact, it's quite strongly reminiscent in some ways of the bank raid shoot-out from Heat). It's the sound effects which do it, I think; the ooofs and crunches, as well as the oddly effective use of an Irish jig as the backing track. If only Premier League soccer could be as thrilling.

Personally, I've never been much of a fan of Bob Dylan, but that probably makes me the exception. His appearance in the new ads for Cadillac's Escalade SUV has stirred up a hubbub on both sides of the Atlantic, and not just because the guy looks so weird these days. (So weird in fact, like a cross between a confederate general and Vincent Price in House of Wax, that agency Modernista appear to have been too nervous to show him full face, possibly for fear of frightening the children). I imagine the success of this ad depends very much on which side of the fence you sit. Is this a sell out on Dylan's part, combining money-grubbing commercial endorsement with a shameless plug for his XM radio show? Or is it a valid use of all available media to maintain the freshness of a still powerful musical force? (Or, again, just a strange old dude driving a cool car through picturesque scenery?)

Finally, and maintaining the automotive theme, a lovely ad from BBH for the equally lovely Audi R8 luxury sports car. In case you were wondering, the ad, named Construction, is designed to reflect the fact that the R8 is actually assembled largely by hand by the workers whose ghostly presence is apparent throughout the film.

In the news this past two weeks: Advertisers & Media

The US banking sector continues to struggle with the fallout from the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market. All the major banks have been forced to make substantial write-offs against their asset portfolios, even those not directly involved in sub-prime mortgage lending. Wachovia, for example, the US #5, is not itself involved in the sub-prime sector but announced a 3Q write-down of almost $350m against third-party investment bonds and other assets which were themselves collateralised with sub-prime mortgages held by other lenders. (Other write-offs contributed to a combined charge of $1.3bn). Elsewhere, Bank of America announced the departure of its head of investment banking along with 3,000 other employees, following a 32% fall in operating income as a result of write-downs. Mortgage lender Countrywide reported a quarterly loss of $1.2bn, its first in 25 years. Japan's major banks, including MUFC Group and Mizuho are also expected to report significant write-downs relating to the sub-prime meltdown. 

The most serious casualty to-date, however, is Merrill Lynch which reported what is thought to be the biggest single loss in US banking history as a result of an $8.4bn write-down, almost entirely against sub-prime backed assets. Performance in other areas was not enough to offset that loss, with the result that ML reported a quarterly deficit of $2.3bn. The immediate result of the announcement was a redoubling of pressure on Merrill's CEO Stan O'Neal, already facing opposition from former staff and some shareholders over what has been called lacklustre performance. His position worsened when it transpired that he had made a phone call to his opposite number at Wachovia to float the possibility of a merger of the two banks. That move might have softened the blow from the news of the write-down. However, crucially, O'Neal neglected to clear the idea beforehand with the Merrill board. He was persuaded to resign last weekend, although an estimated payoff of around $160m is likely to ease his sorrows. 

An unexpected slump in US sales for Toyota in 3Q has allowed General Motors to regain the top spot as the world's leading US auto manufacturer for the first nine months of 2007. The Japanese carmaker sold more vehicles in the first half of the year, but total sales for the nine months to September were lower than expected at 7.05m units, compared to 7.06m for GM. Toyota is still expected to clinch the global #1 position for the full year, for the first time in its history. Meanwhile Ford was reported to be considering preliminary offers for its for Jaguar and Land Rover businesses from Indian manufacturer Tata Motors, as well as from several private equity groups.

Nike extended its hold on the global football market by agreeing a $580m takeover of British sportswear company Umbro, best-known as the official kit manufacturer for the England football team. Earlier this year, Nike mounted an unsuccessful attempt to depose arch-rival Adidas as the official team sponsor for the German national squad. The US group is determined to overtake Adidas as the leading manufacturer of football apparel and footwear in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. According to several estimates, the Umbro takeover would allow Nike to achieve that goal right now, but as a result the deal is likely to come under intense scrutiny from regulators before it can be approved. Nike also faces opposition from the UK's two leading sportswear retailers, Sports Direct and JJB Sports. Sports Direct has built up a stake of just under 30% in Umbro over the last two weeks, and JJB owns a further 10%. Both companies are keen to ensure that Nike maintains the business as a separate brand.

Google continues to defy all expectations. Its financials for 3Q showed an astonishing 67% jump in profits, and the company's share price has soared, climbing from around $500 in August to over $700 for the first time yesterday. The latest surge was fed by new initiatives in the mobile phone and social networking sectors. Google finally confirmed details of its long rumoured mobile phone project. In fact, it's not an iPhone-style handset as had been anticipated, but a mobile operating system, which is designed to broaden the reach of its own search engine service, as well as Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail email. The company is already in talks with a number of mobile phone operators and manufacturers around the globe. In social networking, Google released details of a new initiative to hinder the spectacular growth of Facebook. It has assembled a loose alliance of 12 rival publishers, including LinkedIn, Friendster and Salesforce.com, to operate what it calls OpenSocial technology, a software protocol that will allow developers to write web-based applications in the style of Facebook's widgets, but which can run across several different sites. It should also boost Google's own social network service Orkut.

Elsewhere in the mobile phone sector, US phone giant AT&T is said to be weighing up a bid for one or other of the two US satellite broadcast services, DirecTV and EchoStar, in order to fend off competition from cable companies such as Comcast. The group already has a marketing partnership with EchoStar to offer the latter's Dish network to customers. Meanwhile, Hutchison's 3 mobile service announced a global partnership with eBay's Skype network to launch a mobile VoIP service in nine countries, including the UK, Italy and Australia. 

Yahoo's chief marketing officer Cammie Dunaway is the latest senior executive to jump ship as the web giant undergoes a painful reinvention. Instead she was named as the new EVP, sales & marketing for Nintendo of America. Despite the spectacular success of Wii, Nintendo recently parted company with its top three marketing executives as a result of a decision to relocate from its old base near Seattle to San Francisco's Bay area.

The Clorox Company, best-known for its bleach and other household products, has made an unexpected and extravagant jump into the personal care sector, agreeing the acquisition of Burt's Bees, a maker of "earth friendly" natural skincare products. The deal price of $925m represents a multiple of five times Burt's Bees' expected sales for 2007.

Diageo has agreed a deal with US rapper-turned-renaissance man Sean Combs (better known as P Diddy) to become not just the face of its Ciroc vodka but also its de facto brand director, with responsibility for all advertising and marketing decisions. That move has been greeted with a certain amount of scepticism in some quarters. Certainly Diddy has achieved quite astonishing success outside the music industry. The would-be Urban Renaissance Man made his debut as a serious actor last year in a Broadway production of classic American drama A Raisin In The Sun; he designs a best-selling clothing line marketed under the Sean John label; and his recently launched launched fragrance range Unforgivable is currently outselling rival celebrity scents from Jennifer Lopez and Sarah Jessica Parker. However the marketing campaign for the perfume launch raised eyebrows in the industry, featuring an explicit and almost unbearably narcissistic film of Diddy getting it on with a beautiful model. It leads us to wonder what he's planning to do with that Ciroc bottle. Yet his first proclamations on behalf of Ciroc are wholly uncontroversial, and also a little unexciting. They include launching a campaign to make Ciroc the "official" vodka of New Year's Eve.

In the news this past two weeks: Agencies

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell delivered a mixed prognosis for the global marketing economy over the next two years. He said he expected further weakness in the US economy in 2008 to be offset by increased ad spend connected with the Beijing Olympics and the US presidential elections. However, he warned of a likely slowdown in 2009, predicting that the new US administration will make an early attempt to correct American budget and trade deficits as well as the weak dollar. For its 3Q 2007 financial results, WPP reported like-for-like revenue growth of almost 5% to just under £1.5bn (approximately $3.0bn). Reported US revenues were unchanged, with a strong underlying increase masked by the further decline of the value of the dollar against the pound. WPP's revenues for the period Jan-Sept 07 were £4.4bn (approx $8.8bn). 

The other marketing groups also announced 3Q performance. Omnicom reported quarterly revenues of $3.1bn (up almost 12% compared to 2006) and a total of almost $9.1bn for the first nine months of 2007. Interpublic announced a quarterly improvement of 7.5% to $1.56bn, and a nine month figure of $4.57bn. In France, there was a reversal of recent performance: Publicis disappointed investors with results that were below expectations, while those from Havas were much better than anticipated. Publicis reported 3Q revenues of E1.1bn ($1.6bn), up almost 11%, largely as a result of exchange rates, while nine months revenues were almost E3.4bn ($4.9bn), up 7.5%. Havas reported 3Q revenues up over 7% at E368m ($531m) and a nine months figure of E1.1bn ($1.6bn).

Havas has also begun moves to consolidate its interactive offering under a new umbrella name of Havas Digital, operating as a division of its media planning and buying business, Havas Media. The group's existing Media Contacts network will provide the core of the new group, which will gradually take over management of Havas's interactive media and some interactive creative duties. France-based creative agency Lattitud will also become part of the initial Havas Digital offering, along with specialist units to offer mobile marketing, e-commerce and web site consultancy.

Japanese advertising giant Dentsu acquired Attik Advertising, the digital and design agency in San Francisco best known for its work on Toyota's niche brand Scion. It joins other US-based Dentsu subsidiaries including Dentsu Next (formerly Colby & Partners) and Dentsu America in New York. Attik is expected to retain standalone status under its existing name.

There were two big media assignments. Barilla consolidated global media for its pasta and other products with OMD. That was a loss for Mediaedge:CIA, but the WPP network made up for it with the capture of the giant AT&T account in the US. The biggest creative assignment was the appointment of Grey to handle worldwide advertising for Belgian-based banking group Fortis, with estimated billings of around $200m. In other news, P&G rewarded Wieden & Kennedy with two additional accounts, Escada fragrances and Graham Webb haircare; Hotels.com handed US media to TargetCast; Dyson moved its advertising in continental Europe to Leagas Delaney; and British supermarket chain Waitrose called a review of its creative business. MCBD is defending. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here. 

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Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands