Y&R France has come up with a superb selection of animated spots for local radio network Nova, which explore different musical themes with humour and style. They're all great. We've selected this catch-all compilation spot for our lead, but you should definitely have a look at the others, starting with this one which - be warned - contains some adult images, so may not be suitable if you happen to be a small child... Ah, the French. Who else would think of putting this stuff in an ad for a radio station?

Staying in France, we've only just caught up with this ad by Publicis Conseil for Orange which ran in the UK and France in December last year. Nice idea. Fancy one of those spaceships myself actually.

Regular readers of the Adbrands Weekly Update will have realised by now that we are suckers for any ad with an animal in it. These three spots for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team by Publicis Toronto offer the double advantage of being great ads, while also containing a cute raccoon. (It's a pest in most of North America, but has a special ahhh factor for Europeans unfamiliar with its annoying habits). But seriously, this campaign's particular merit is that, unlike most other ads featuring sports stars - the current Gillette Phenom campaign, that Mr Oboe Super Bowl ad or the new Gatorade ad with Tiger Woods (again!) - the celebrity of these three players is completely irrelevant to the success of the ads. The spots work because of the wit of each vignette, not because of the star factor. Nice one, Publicis.

And finally, "Running Man", an excellent new film for Visa Europe by Saatchi & Saatchi London. Nice story, great photography, tight butt. Nuff said. Bet he was knackered by the time he got married.

In the news this past week: Advertisers

Watch out for the new global dynamo from India. As had been widely anticipated, that country's Tata Motors was confirmed this week as the new owner of the Jaguar and Land Rover automobile manufacturing businesses. Tata is buying the brands from Ford for around $2.3bn. In return, Ford will contribute around $600m to the two units' pension plans, and will also continue to supply engines, transmissions and other components. The deal, which is expected to close by the end of 2008, marks a major step-up for Tata, best-known so far for low-cost "nuts and bolts" models. Few changes are expected at Land Rover and Jaguar under the new owners. Chairman Ratan Tata told the Financial Times earlier this month that there were no plans to “Indianise” Jaguar or Land Rover, and indeed the buyout won support from Jaguar and Land Rover's unions by pledging to maintain the brands' existing five-year business plan. Instead Tata executives are likely to lean on Jaguar and Land Rover's management teams to help them develop a strategy for expanding Tata-branded cars into other markets, while also tapping into the lower cost engineering talent available in India. 

Fiat might also join this Anglo-Indian party. The Italian group was reported to have expressed interest in developing some form of partnership with Tata over the newly acquired brands, which might include access to their sales networks in the US as well as technical cooperation. Fiat is already said to be in discussions with America's big three auto giants about reintroducing its sporty Alfa Romeo passenger car brand in the US from 2009, as well as Iveco trucks and possibly even the Fiat 500 sub-compact. Alfa Romeo was withdrawn from the US in 1995 as a result of poor sales. However, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have all ended up with spare manufacturing capacity at their US plants as a result of cutbacks and are keen to take on potentially lucrative new projects. Alfa's sporty styling might be just right for the US market right now, while the Fiat 500 is seen as a potential competitor to BMW's Mini.

Despite these Spring shoots, the global auto market remains challenging to say the least, even for the car in front, Toyota. That group is expected to overtake General Motors this year as the worldwide #1 in automobiles. However, a senior executive told reporters this week that Toyota may have to revise its forecasts for the year: "Frankly speaking, sales in the US, Europe and Japan are showing signs of slowdown. It will be difficult to meet the group’s sales target of 9.85m, although emerging markets such as China and Russia are active." 

Mobile phone giants AT&T and Verizon dominated the bidding in the US government's auction of regional radio frequencies in the 700Mhz spectrum last week, which raised just under $20bn. The latest batch of frequencies being offered for sale are being freed up as a result of a move by television broadcasters towards digital rather than analogue services. They are especially valuable because they allow for high quality long distance transmission of data, and could be used as the platform for the introduction of next-generation 4G services. Most of the buyers are companies involved in wireless broadband or on-demand video services. AT&T and Verizon between them accounted for around of 80% of the successful bidding. Verizon Wireless acquired 109 regional licenses for almost $9.4bn, while AT&T bought 227 smaller licenses for over $6.6bn. Among the other buyers, the highest spender was a unit of satellite broadcaster Echostar, which spent around $710m, possibly to build the platform for a mobile television service Notable for its absence from the winning bidders was Google, which had indicated its interest in purchasing radio spectrum. Its bid wasn't high enough to purchase any licenses, but it did secure rights to access frequencies purchased by other buyers.

In an interview in the Financial Times, Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee played down the importance of consumer electronics to his group's future strategy. “Consumer electronics is a very, very small – you could say leftover – part in our lifestyle portfolio,” he told the FT. “As far as it does what we want – which is to enhance the lives of people under this heading of health and well-being – that’s fine.” But although Philips is unlikely just yet to sell the business, as it has done with other underperforming segments such as semiconductors and display components, it is certainly taking lower priority. “In a number of markets where we don’t see profitability or sufficient profitability, for example for a TV or a DVD recorder, we will not desperately try to be on the shelf,” Philips' core business now is healthcare, which it has bolstered with a string of acquisitions, along with its heritage operation as the world leader in lighting.

In response to a barrage of protest from furious stockholders and employees, JP Morgan Chase agreed to raise its rescue bid for investment bank Bear Stearns from the initial offer of $2 per share to $10. That is still a massive discount to the $64 at which the collapsed bank's stock traded just over a two weeks ago. The higher offer also had the additional benefit of immediately securing for JPM a near-40% stake in the smaller company, through a share split approved over the weekend by Bear Stearns' board.

Procter & Gamble expanded its range of luxury beauty products by acquiring the haircare business of celebrity stylist Frederic Fekkai. The purchase includes a range of high-end shampoos, conditioners and styling products, priced at as much as $35 per bottle, as well as Fekkai's six US salons. The price tag was not disclosed, but reports put it in the region of $400m. 

Sportswear company Adidas has launched its first line of jeans in an unusual tie-up with premium denim manufacturer Diesel, billed as the "love child of creativity and fashion". See more about Adidas originals Denim by Diesel at the dedicated website here.

Motorola confirmed plans to split in two. It will spin off its struggling handsets division to shareholders as an independent company, probably in early 2009. The remaining business will focus on what it calls broadband and mobility solutions, such as two-way radio networks, set-top boxes and handheld barcode scanners.

According to figures released by media monitor TNS Media Intelligence, actual US advertising expenditure in 2007 was just under $149bn, edging up by just 0.2% over the previous year. Online remained the highest growth segment, with spend up almost 16% to $11.3bn. Some of that slack came from TV, where spend fell 1.7% to $64.4bn. Also registering a decline were newspapers (down 5.6% to $26.4bn) and radio (down 3.5% to $10.7bn). On the other hand there was satisfactory growth overall in magazine advertising, which rose 5.5% to $30.3bn. However, rises in consumer magazines, Sunday supplements and especially Spanish language titles were offset by declines in business publications and local magazines. Outdoor registered a near-5% increase, although it remains the smallest of the mass media with spend of just over $4.0bn. The nation's largest advertiser was once again Procter & Gamble, whose spend rose 5.6% to almost $3.5bn. Rounding out the top ten were AT&T, Verizon, GM, Time Warner, Ford, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Sprint Nextel and News Corp. TNS expects performance in 2008 to be better, buoyed up by the US presidential elections and the Olympics. In January, TNS predicted a 4.2% uplift, although recent economic turbulence may have taken a little of the edge off that figure. John Swallen, TNS SVP research, told the WSJ, "We are not breaking out champagne, but we are not jumping out windows either."

UK trade paper Marketing published a ranking of the top spenders in online advertising in 2007, with data from Nielsen Media Research. The overall #1 was online-only financial services company Personal Loan Express, with a spend of £28.5m. It was the smallest name in the Top Ten, which also included eBay, Sky, Capital One, Microsoft, Orange, Virgin Money, O2, Amazon and COI Communications.

In the news this past week: Agencies

US ad industry legend Hal Riney died this week, aged 75. After learning his trade at other Bay Area agencies, he was recruited by David Ogilvy in 1976 to open a San Francisco office for O&M. Following the purchase of Ogilvy by WPP, Riney bought out the business, renaming it Hal Riney & Partners. Over the next few years, Riney established a strong following in the industry for a number of breakthrough campaigns including the launch of GM's Saturn, a long-running campaign for Gallo wines, and Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" re-election campaign. The agency became known for folksy, sincere, sometimes even sentimental ads, often accompanied by a warm, gravelly voiceover provided by Riney himself. He sold the agency in 1998 to Publicis but it has to-date remained separate from the rest of the Publicis USA network, operating under the Publicis & Hal Riney banner.

M&C Saatchi reported solid financial results for 2007. Billings rose 12% to £413m, while group revenues were up 16% to almost 88m. The group reported pretax profits of almost £8m, compared to a £1.2m loss the year before. Around 55% of revenues were generated in the UK, and another 28% in Asia & Australia. Although the US business reported a profit after several years of losses, America is M&C's smallest region, trailing even Europe where the network expanded during 2007 with new outposts in Germany and Spain.

Bruce Crouch, former founder of London agency Soul, now Nitro London, has launched his own start-up shop, Audacity, in partnership with Liz Addis, previously Nitro's head of new business. The duo's founding client is Ferrero confectionery bar Kinder Bueno. Meanwhile Digitas, the digital and direct marketing agency acquired by Publicis Groupe last year, has established a presence in South Asia with the absorption of Indian agency Solutions, which will now adopt the new name Solutions Digitas. Solutions has been a Publicis subsidiary since 2005.

 French trade magazine CB News reported that Euro RSCG BETC is one of the front runners to win the main branding campaign in France for McDonald's, whose general advertising account is currently held there by TBWA. That would mark a significant win for the resurgent Euro RSCG network. Havas stablemates Euro RSCG C&O and H Paris already handle some corporate work for the fast feeder. TBWA was dropped last week from McDonald's UK roster, although it retains a global place. The biggest confirmed win this week was Starcom's capture of Bank of America's media, worth around $235m in billings. In other news, Mitsubishi Motors is seeking a new creative agency in the US to replace BBDO West. In the UK, the AA and Saga called a review of media; DIY retailer Focus and transport company National Express launched creative reviews. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here.

In the news this past week: Media

News Corporation is one of three major media organisations bidding to acquire Long Island newspaper Newsday from its current owners, The Tribune Company. Rupert Murdoch is said to be keen to engineer a tie-up with his existing tabloid the New York Post. Also interested are Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the Post's tabloid rival the Daily News, and James Dolan from the family behind cable operator Cablevision. Newsday is one of America's ten highest-selling papers, and the largest serving a suburban rather than city market. The Tribune Company is selling off assets to raise cash to strengthen core titles, including the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, which have been hit hard by plunging ad revenues.

After just over a year of deliberation, the merger of US satellite radio broadcasters Sirius and XM was approved by antitrust regulators without any significant conditions. The deal is still awaiting a green light from the FCC. However the management buyout of Clear Channel Communications, the biggest US radio group, collapsed this week after the syndicate of banks who were set to provide $22bn of funding for the deal pulled out citing the current turmoil in bond markets. The banks, a roster of big names including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, had already warned Clear Channel and the private equity funds who negotiated the buyout that they were facing large losses on the funding because of the fall in market values. 

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Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands