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Our favourite ads this week: 

Facing an erosion of its market from high end brands such as Grey Goose on one side and a revitalised Smirnoff on the other, Absolut has overhauled its marketing concept for virtually the first time in more than 25 years. For that entire period, the company's customised bottle ads were among the industry's most creative regular offerings. Now however, the company has decided to adopt a new approach, with a series of broadcast ads depicting what life would be like "In An Absolut World". It's an intriguing, though much less satisfying approach. The first broadcast spot is this extravagant epic, "Protest". Also have a look at the rather more subtle "Swimmer". Both ads are by TBWA New York. (Is it me or is this not strikingly similar not only to Smirnoff's old through-the-bottle print ads but also the "If Carlsberg was a bank etc..." series in the UK?). 

TBWA's West Coast office is responsible for the launch campaign for the new Apple iPhone. As a long-time confirmed PC user, I hate it when Apple comes along with yet another great product, but I confess that this simple demo of the features offered by the iPhone caused my jaw to drop onto the desk with a resounding thump. Frankly, how could anyone not want a phone like this...? For more of the device's features, have a look at the Calamari spot as well. Here's an interesting compare-and-contrast exercise: AMV BBDO has this week unveiled a new ad for Motorola's would-be rival to the iPhone, the Rizr. Here's the ad. Who gets your vote - Apple or Motorola?

Yes, I know we've featured several ads for Australia's Toohey's beer in this space in recent months, but I can't resist this latest creation, HarvesTED, brought to you by independent BMF. The word bizarre doesn't begin to sum up this, or indeed several of the previous films for Toohey's. Inspired by the fact that Toohey's Extra Dry is known down under by its acronym of TED, BMF have come up with an extraordinary concept of a rockabilly Ted farmer, harvesting beer-clutching pod people. I don't understand it, but I do like it...

Finally, another fine spot for Burger King by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, in which the girls of Phi Alpha Zeta sorority get in touch with their inner cowboy. Silly and lovable...

In the news this fortnight: Advertisers & Media

The marketing campaign for the 2012 London Olympics got off to an abysmal start as a result of widespread criticism of the event's logo (above), unveiled this week. The symbol was created by Omnicom's Wolff Olins agency, and took about a year to create at a estimated cost of around £400,000. Despite getting the support of the event's organisers and principal sponsors, the design has faced a virtually unprecedented barrage of criticism from the media and the public. One major concern has been unconfirmed claims, gleefully repeated by the media, that the animated version of the logo featured on the 2012 website had triggered "numerous" epileptic fits. The snowball effect of the media coverage led to the creation of an online petition to scrap the logo, which claimed to have amassed almost 50,000 signatures from members of the public before its sponsor closed it down for fear of damaging the reputation of the Games themselves.

The IAB released its final estimates for web advertising revenue in 2006. According to those figures, total spend online last year in the US rose by 35% to $16.9bn. Search-based advertising contributed just over 40% of that sum (or $6.8bn), and display advertising a further 32% (or $5.4bn). The increase puts the web not far behind radio, which generated around $20.8bn in ad revenue. The current year is expected to show just an impressive an increase. For the first quarter of 2007, revenues surpassed even the record $4.8bn established in 4Q 2006, reaching $4.9bn, equivalent to a 26% increase on the 1Q 2006 total.

Struggling PC manufacturer Dell is to abandon the direct sales channel on which it has relied for more than two decades and will begin making its computers available through resellers. From next week, the company will start selling two of its low-end Dimension desktop models through around 3,000 North American outlets of Wal-Mart. At the same time, Dell is laying off around 10% of its existing workforce, or around 8,800 people, and said it was eyeing acquisitions in the IT support services sector to build a more rounded offering to rival HP's. Meanwhile US mobile phone start-up Amp'd Mobile filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The business owes well over $100m to creditors. Among the biggest are Amp'd's entertainment partner Vivendi, media agency Horizon and creative agency Taxi. 

Coca-Cola expanded its portfolio of non-carbonated beverages, a sector where it currently trails arch-rival PepsiCo, with the acquisition of Energy Brands, the company behind Glaceau Vitaminwater, a vitamin-enhanced "energy water". Coca-Cola agreed to pay a generous $4.1bn for the business, equivalent to around 11 times Glaceau's revenues, and by far the biggest acquisition in Coke's history. The US group was also said to be talks to acquire UK bottled water Highland Spring. It already owns the local Malvern Water brand. Meanwhile Associated British Foods, whose brands include Twinings Tea and Kingsmill bakeries, agreed to acquire Indian sauce and spices brand Patak's for £105m.

Budweiser is to rethink the concept behind Bud.TV, its online branded entertainment channel. Launched with a fanfare in time for Super Bowl 2007, with a target of 3m viewers by year's end, monthly visitor figures have steadily declined since January, and are thought to have fallen below 150,000 last month. Among other changes, the site will introduce shorter video clips, rather than full-length programming, as well as a greater number of social networking features, including the ability for users to post clips from selected content on other services such as YouTube. Elsewhere online, the interactive land-grab continued, with CBS snapping up music-oriented social networking site Last.fm for $280m. Fox bought image-sharing network Photobucket.com as well as photo editing service Flektor. Both will be integrated into its existing MySpace service.

EBay Media Marketplace, the ad brokerage system developed by the auction giant in consultation with a group of leading advertisers, won a new lease of life as a result of a deal with women's cable network Oxygen to run a live trial of the system. The exchange looked for a while as if it might never get off the ground. It has faced strong opposition from US broadcast and media buying networks, most of whom declined to participate in the system, citing concerns over the "commoditisation" of ad inventory. EBay has opened up the system to radio advertisers as well, forming a partnership with start-up Bid4Spots, which will use the system to sell space on behalf of around 2,300 regional stations.

Former Wal-Mart marketing executive Julie Roehm, sacked by the retail giant for allegedly breaching its corporate ethics policy, refuses to go quietly. (Regular readers will be aware of this ongoing saga. New subscribers can catch up here). She issued a lawsuit earlier this year for wrongful dismissal, to which Wal-Mart responded with a detailed breakdown of its case against her, which includes allegations of an inappropriate romantic relationship with a subordinate and the acceptance of corporate gifts in violation of Wal-Mart's code. Roehm has now fired back with a formal denial of wrongdoing as well as detailed allegations of her own aimed directly at senior Wal-Mart executives, whom she accuses of accepting free perks such as travel and concert tickets. She singles out CEO Lee Scott in particular for his personal friendship with billionaire Irwin Jacobs, the owner of a company which buys up unsold Wal-Mart stock. According to Roehm, Jacobs not only employs Scott's son, but also sold the Wal-Mart boss "a number of yachts" and "a large pink diamond" for his wife at preferential prices. The gist of Roehm's argument is that Wal-Mart applies its corporate policy selectively at best, and that she was to some extent victimised because she is a woman. Wal-Mart and Irwin Jacobs both dismissed all Roehm's claims as untrue. The full text of her 42-page submission is available online on the Wall Street Journal website. The fallout from this submission and the resulting publicity is that Jacobs has now launched his own lawsuit against Roehm for defamation. 

Stonyfield Farm, the organic US yogurt brand controlled by Danone, has launched for the first time in the UK, under the name Stony. Wachovia Bank of the US agreed to acquire financial brokerage AG Edwards for $6.8bn, becoming the country's second largest brokerage after Merrill Lynch. Telecoms equipment manufacturer Avaya was acquired for around $8.2bn by private equity funds Silver Lake and TPG. Whitbread agreed to sell fitness club chain David Lloyd Leisure to property company London & Regional for £925m.

In the news this fortnight: Agencies

Dutch creative agency Kesselskramer is to launch a London office later this year, under the name KK Outlet. Although the agency will offer creative and viral marketing, it will also house an art gallery and a shop. Meanwhile UK-based planning agency Naked added another international outpost with the launch of a Tokyo office.

Digitas, the interactive specialist recently acquired by Publicis, announced the appointment of Alan Rutherford, previously VP, global media at Unilever, as its global CEO, reporting to chairman David Kenny. Rutherford will be based out of the new Digitas office in London, and among his first tasks will be the foundation of outposts in Asia and Latin America.

McCann Erickson London is to lose the Heinz foods account this summer as a result of an increasing conflict with Nestle, which the network handles in some continental European markets. In addition, McCann's media arm Universal McCann is currently defending its position in a review of the account for Premier Foods, another Heinz rival. Among other assignments, Wieden & Kennedy won the CareerBuilder account in the US and The Observer newspaper in London; M&C Saatchi GAD in Paris picked up the business for French Yellow Pages publisher Pages Jaunes; BBH was dropped by SCA Hygiene's Bodyform and Libresse fem sanpro brands in Europe; and eBay appointed independent agency Albion in the UK. Subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here. 

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Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands