Advertising Industry Archive

Mommy bloggers are evil blackmailers who need to be stopped — by the FTC! That is the conclusion of an entertaining piece in Forbes riffing off the news that the FTC is considering regulating blogs for sponsorship or other paid interests, just like regular advertisers. The item also recounts the tale of George Smith, a social media specialist for Crocs, the clunky, hole-y shoes that are...

More...

When Fox declined to renew Steven Cohen’s contract as a Fox Soccer Channel host, it was a rare example of a successful advertiser boycott. They don’t usually work — an attempt by Christians to boycott Campbell Soup over an ad featuring a lesbian family, which BNET noted in January, came to naught. So when American fans of Liverpool F.C. attempted to persuade advertisers on Fox...

More...

Lamar Advertising sold a billboard to escort service MyPlayBunny.com in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, after refusing to take the money of an atheist group in Alabama. The Texas Play Bunny board says “I’ll be your play bunny” and advertises a phone number. Although the number and web site appear to be extinct — possibly as a result of this TV News report — a Google...

More...

MDC Partners CEO Miles Nadal is getting further away from his goal of growing revenues 1-3 percent in 2009, which he announced at the beginning of the year. In Q2 2009, MDC’s revenues shrank 14.1 percent to $134.9 million. Net income was $0.1 million, compared to a loss of $4.5 million in 2008. Nadal put a brave face on things: We are seeing signs of an expanding advertising economy which...

More...

Lamar Advertising has found another small town to bash with its First Amendment stick: Havelock, N.C. (pop. 22,442). Officials there tried to change their regulations in order to prevent Times Square-style electronic billboards taking over their town.  They didn’t reckon on Lamar Advertising general manager Mark Odell showing up to tell them about the law. BNET readers are already...

More...

The verdict is in: Modernista!’s surreal, creepy ads for the Palm Pre – featuring actress Tamara Hope talking in a halting stage whisper — are driving everyone crazy. And not in a good way. (See video below.) You know these ads. A woman, back to the camera, turns to face you and then begins a monologue fraught with capital-M “meaning.” In one, she says (with a...

More...

Credit where credit is due: Publicis boss Maurice Levy has come clean and admitted that he’s cut 1,800 staff from his agency network, according to the Guardian. BNET chided Publicis a couple of weeks ago for being coy about layoffs. The admission means that Levy’s December forecast of no layoffs at Publicis was completely wrong. And it provides a number to gauge the scale of his...

More...

Steven Cohen, the Fox Soccer Channel personality, has been replaced as a host of Fox Football Fone-In by Eric Wynalda, the former U.S. national team star, according to USA Today’s soccer blog. The move came after a months-long advertising boycott called for by fans of Liverpool F.C. Cohen lost at least four sponsors of his Sirius XM radio show, World Soccer Daily, in the boycott....

More...

The transcript of Interpublic’s earnings conference call gives a few more clues to layoffs planned across the agency network. CFO Frank Mergenthaler said IPG had cut 9 percent of its entire workforce so far. He added that severance expenses will be higher in the third quarter (meaning more layoffs than the same period last year) and lower in the fourth quarter (meaning fewer): The...

More...

WPP joins mission to the moon, Wienermobile crashes, and a 1983 Donny Deutsch beach pic surfaces on MSNBC — it all happened in July. WPP funds joins moon mission by Isle of Man The tiny tourist resort and tax haven has apparently persuaded Martin Sorrell’s network to help pay for with an attempt on the orbiting planetoid. Episode closely resembles plot of 1963 film ‘The...

More...