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Our favourite ads this week: 

Ah, how refreshing! To start the new year, our lead ad this week comes all the way from New Zealand, courtesy of the local Saatchi & Saatchi office. It's a superb spot for Toyota, which also ranks as one of the funniest ads we've seen in quite a while. The fact that it originated in New Zealand, not one of the world's biggest markets, might also explain how such an unconventional, even controversial, ad slipped past Toyota's otherwise straight-laced marketing department. It's hard to imagine this getting onto TV in the US, for example. A husband and wife try various ingenious Tom & Jerry-style ways to kill each other in the morning as they compete to be first out of the door to drive their new Toyota RAV4 to work. (Incidentally, the ad is available online at an excellent website to accompany a new US cable show from TBS, Very Funny Ads. I suspect you will be seeing more than a few other ads from there in future Weekly Updates...).

Modem.Media is responsible for an eye-catching viral campaign for HP to promote its new business notebooks, under the banner "mobility unbound". The ad is also a celebration of "parkour" or free-running, the gravity-defying urban acrobatics seen to great effect in the African sequences from the recent Casino Royale movie. An employee jumps, somersaults and slides through the office to deliver a cup of tea to his boss. 

In the news this fortnight: Advertisers

Dealmaking remained top of the agenda for many companies in the closing weeks of 2006, although not all talks ran smoothly. Negotiations between EMI and private equity fund Permira, for example, fizzled out over a disagreement on price, leaving the music company once again without a partner. Also, Nokia postponed completion of the merger of its network infrastructure business with that of Siemens as a result of the ongoing investigation into a corruption scandal involving several former executives from the German electronics and engineering giant. 

Other deals were more successful. Japan Tobacco announced the largest-ever foreign takeover by a Japanese company with an agreed £7.5bn bid for British group Gallaher. Casino operator Harrah's Entertainment was acquired by private equity groups Apollo and Texas Pacific for almost $28bn including debt. As expected, Rupert Murdoch surrendered his controlling stake in satellite broadcaster DirecTV to Liberty Media, in exchange for the latter's shareholding in News Corporation, plus $550m in cash and three regional cable sports networks. Retail group KarstadtQuelle took full control of travel operator Thomas Cook, buying out joint venture partner Lufthansa for E800m. Vodafone sparked off a bidding war for Indian mobile phone service Hutchison Essar, now a three-way battle with Reliance Communications and part-owner Essar Group. And looking to the future, Morgan Stanley announced its intention to spin off credit card division Discover to shareholders in 3Q of 2007. 

With US automobile giants still under intense pressure, Toyota is now expected to overtake General Motors as the world's biggest auto manufacturer during 2007. The Japanese group expects to produce 9.42m vehicles in 2007; GM is forecasting 9.18m.

Home Depot chairman-CEO Bob Nardelli resigned from his post after several months of pressure from shareholders over the company's slowing growth and flagging share price. He was replaced by strategy chief Frank Blake. However Nardelli also collected a whopping $210m payoff for his past services, fuelling renewed outrage among investors over excessive executive compensation.

As expected, the license application by start-up airline Virgin America was refused by the US Department of Transportation after a year-long review. Following intense lobbying by domestic airlines led by Continental, the DoT agreed that Virgin America would in effect be controlled by foreign shareholders, namely Sir Richard Branson. Virgin America has been given permission to resubmit its application if it makes further changes to its shareholder structure. 

In the news this fortnight: Agencies

The biggest story in the advertising industry over the holiday season was Publicis Groupe's $1.3bn agreed offer for US-based direct and digital agency Digitas, which also owns the Modem.Media brand. A significant acquisition had been expected from Publicis, and this deal greatly enhances the French group's interactive capabilities. Havas, too, has said it will look at "small, targeted" acquisitions during 2007, using the proceeds of a recent sale of bonds to French banks.

Interpublic is expected to announce the creation of a new agency brand spun out of its recently created DraftFCB network, which will take over management control of sales promotion unit Zipatoni as well as several conflict accounts including CVS and Qwest. No name has yet been announced, but it will be led by Yvonne Furth and Lor Gold, formerly of Draft Chicago.

The biggest account review of the new year was launched by Sprint Nextel, which this week put its $1bn creative business up for pitch. Currently, the work is split between TBWA\Chiat\Day and Publicis & Hal Riney. Sprint Nextel is thought to want to consolidate into a single shop. Audi placed its creative account for the US with indie Venables Bell of San Francisco. In the UK, Asda was said to have asked Fallon London to pitch for a new advertising brief for 2007, raising speculation that the supermarket group might transfer its marketing from long-time incumbent Publicis London. Starcom captured EMI's media business. Subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here.

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

Happy holidays!


Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands

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