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Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers who narrowly clinched last Sunday's Super Bowl with an extraordinary fourth-quarter comeback. Congratulations also to NBC, this year's host for the televised game, which managed to amass a record $206m in advertising revenue for the broadcast, always one of America's most-watched events and a key date in the advertising calendar. According to final Nielsen figures, this year's game was actually the biggest ever, attracting an average of 98.7m viewers, more than 1m up on last year. That places the 2009 Super Bowl in overall 2nd place as the most watched telecast in history. The all-time #1 is still the final episode of comedy show M*A*S*H back in 1983, which attracted an average of 106m viewers. 

As usual, this year's broadcast featured a mixed bag of ads. Many commentators bemoaned the relative paucity of new ideas. Several ads rehashed familiar ideas: Coca-Cola, for example, revisited its seminal "Mean Joe Greene" ad from the 1980s in an uninspiring addition to the current Coke Zero campaign. Not even the 3-D offered by DreamWorks and PepsiCo's SoBe was new - Diet Coke first ran a 3-D Super Bowl ad back in 1985. Other advertisers went for the always-safe common denominator of sentiment. Animals featured in numerous ads, and the Budweiser spots delivered their usual blend of pride and patriotism in the form of the ever-popular Clydesdales drayhorses, a familiar site every Super Bowl. Anheuser was, as usual, the most prolific advertiser, with five separate ads. No doubt most Adbrands readers will have caught up with most of the Super Bowl ads already online. So we're going to rerun just two. For the rest, we point you in the direction of the Wall Street Journal's coverage here. 

Actually there were three ads which lodged in our craniums, but two of them were in the same vein. It would be overkill to bring you both, so here's our favourite by a whisker: the BBDO New York spot for Monster. I urge you to click here for the other, Wieden & Kennedy's almost-as-funny ad for CareerBuilder. 

As big fans of 30 Rock, we couldn't resist Alec Baldwin's turn as the spokesman for Hulu, the online video portal co-owned by NBC Universal and News Corp. The agency is Crispin Porter & Bogusky. 

OK, enough Super Bowl, let's move on. A very different change of pace and mood now, in the form of the new UK public service announcement from AMV BBDO for the Department of Transport's Road Safety campaign. There are definitely no laughs here. It's a deeply affecting depiction of the possible repercussions of driving too fast. Haunting indeed.

And finally, we'll cheer ourselves up a bit with this three-minute epic for Onitsuka Tiger sports shoes from Japan. According to ancient legend, the Japanese signs of the zodiac secured their places in the calendar in an epic race. Here, Amsterdam Worldwide, the Dutch arm of what used to be StrawberryFrog, give us their take on just how that might have gone. Enjoy.

In the news this past week: Advertisers

According to the Wall Street Journal, computer manufacturer Dell has been working secretly on a wireless smartphone, and could be ready to launch the product as soon as next month. That would be a high-risk strategy for the company, which is still struggling to win back market share from arch-rival HP. According to new figures from researcher IDC, Dell was stuck in second place for global PC sales in 2008 behind HP. Worse still, HP continued to widen the gap, with unit sales up 12.7%, while Dell managed an increase of only 11%. Dell retained the top spot in the US, with 29.5% market share, compared to HP's 24.9%. However, Dell's sales slumped dramatically in the final quarter, in which its US market share slid to just 26.5%, compared to HP's 25.1%. In the EMEA region, Dell was still languishing in 3rd place behind HP and the enlarged Acer. The most impressive growth in Europe came from 4th-placed Asus, another Taiwanese company, whose unit sales more than doubled during the year. More details from IDC here.

If it's serious about the handsets market, Dell might consider rescuing (if such a thing is possible) the mobile operations of struggling Motorola, which reported yet another set of dismal results. Although the group's enterprise and home networks units are doing well, the handsets business is in freefall. Once the world's biggest manufacturer of mobile phones, with more than 50% market share, Motorola's performance continued to plummet during 2008. By the end of the year its market share had almost halved from 12.4% in 4Q 2007 to just 6.6% for 4Q 2008. It now languishes in 5th place in the global rankings, behind Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson. More details from IDC here.

Ford also reported grim figures for 2008, including a net loss of $14.6bn, the worst result in the company's 106-year history. Unit sales slumped by 18% to a total of 5.4m vehicles worldwide. As a result, Ford slipped another place in the global ranking, falling to the #4 position behind Volkswagen Group for the first time. The German manufacturer reported sales of 6.2m vehicles. Even so, Ford continued to assure investors that it has enough cash to sit out the current crisis, and that it will not need to call on the US government for financial assistance unless the industry is rocked by a further "significant event", such as the bankruptcy of either General Motors or Chrysler. 

That sort of significant event may still be on the horizon. Sales figures for January demonstrated that the US car market remains in dire straits to say the least. Combined sales for the month from all the main manufacturers came in at under 670,000 vehicles, the worst monthly figure since 1963, almost 50 years ago. Also, for the first time in history, the US slumped to second place in the global rankings for new car sales, behind China, which notched up unit sales of around 790,000 according to GM's head of global insights Mike DiGiovanni. All the major US players suffered exceptional falls for January 2008, compared to the same month in 2007, ranging from 30% for Nissan to around 55% for Chrysler.

Was there any good news? Well, yes, some. Amazon cheered technology investors with strong results for 2008. While most traditional bricks and mortar retailers were struggling with their worst quarter for a decade, Amazon picked up a good deal of the slack. Its 4Q sales jumped by 18%, while full year revenues rose by an impressive 29% to $19.2bn.

Last week's announcement that Pfizer plans to buy smaller rival Wyeth has spurred other pharmaceutical groups into action. Roche, which has been engaged since last summer in drawn-out negotiations to acquire the shares it doesn't already own in US biotech Genentech, finally lost patience with the smaller company's intransigence. It withdrew its previous offer of $44bn, made last summer before the current economic downturn, and said it would go hostile with a lower bid of $42bn which it will take directly to Genentech's minority shareholders. Meanwhile, French giant Sanofi-Aventis also hinted at acquisitions. It is understood to be in talks with bankers regarding funding. First on its shopping list is likely to be Bristol-Myers Squibb, with whom it shares US rights to the blockbuster Plavix. Merck & Co's CEO Richard Clark also said he was open to a large acquisition. Merck operates two joint ventures in Europe with Sanofi-Aventis, making that a possible takeover target. There is also a partnership with Schering Plough in the US. One of the smaller businesses in play is the $2bn prescription pharmaceuticals division of Procter & Gamble. According to press reports, P&G is considering the sale of that unit to allow it to concentrate on OTC healthcare and its other packaged goods.

In the UK, pharmacy group Alliance Boots announced plans to merge its Boots Opticians subsidiary into a joint venture with smaller competitor Dollond & Atchison, currently owned by Italian eyewear manufacturer De Rigo. The latter is best known for its Police, Lozza and Sting glasses and sunglasses. Alliance Boots will end up with around 60% of the combined business, which would have 690 stores in the UK. The D&A outlets are expected to adopt the Boots brandname in due course. Despite its size, the merged entity will still lag behind local market-leader Specsavers, which has an estimated 23% share, compared to 18% for a combined Boots/D&A's. 

The Woolworths brandname is to be resurrected as an online service. Britain's long-lived general retailer went bust over the Christmas holidays with debts of £385m, the biggest victim so far in Britain of the current downturn. Although there were no buyers for the bricks and mortar business, the brand name and some other assets have been acquired by the Barclay brothers, owners of the Littlewoods mail order empire. It is to be relaunched in summer 2009 as an arm of the brothers' Shop Direct group. The Barclays also acquired Woolworths' Ladybird childrens' clothing business. 

Several other British retailers could soon change hands following news that Icelandic retail conglomerate Baugur has filed for court protection from its creditors under local laws similar to America's Chapter 11. The group owns part or all of numerous UK retail brands including supermarket chain Iceland, toy store Hamleys, department store House of Fraser, fashion retailers Warehouse, Oasis, Karen Millen, Whistles and Principles, Wyevale Garden Centres and jewellers Mappin & Webb and Goldsmiths. Most if not all of Baugur's assets are likely to survive in the event of a collapse, but liquidation could spark off a feeding frenzy among other buyers. Baugur founder Jon Asgeir Johannesson gave an interview to local television in which he denounced Iceland's banks for not being more supportive. "These good assets abroad now will wind up in the hands of British vultures, who will probably get all of this for a very low price or nothing at all." There are few doubts about who he regards as vulture-in-chief. In another interview he said: "I’m sure that Philip Green is dancing a war dance in his living room, because now he will become a large owner of our companies for virtually nothing." Green, the owner of the Arcadia fashion group and Bhs, has already expressed his interest in parts of Baugur's portfolio. 

Two of the biggest players in live music were reported to be in the final stages of negotiating a merger which would dominate the global entertainment industry. Live Nation is already by far the world's biggest concert promoter, and has also secured exclusive recording contracts with performers including Madonna, Shakira and Nickleback. Ticketmaster is the dominant force in ticket sales, and also controls band management company Front Line, whose artists include The Eagles, Christina Aguilera, Jimmy Buffett and Neil Diamond. The terms of the planned merger have not been disclosed. 

Honeyshed, the experimental online shopping venture, has closed, citing economic factors for its disappointing performance. The service was originally launched in 2007 by adman Dave Droga in a partnership between his creative boutique Droga5 and production company Smuggler. Much of the funding was provided by Droga5's backers, Publicis Groupe. Honeyshed aimed to sell general consumer products to a young, streetwise audience by featuring them in odd viral-style film clips or counter-culture spoofs of a traditional QVC and HSN sales pitch. However, the company had considerable difficulty in attracting big name clients, who were for the most part put off by the deliberately bizarre, often amateurish style of the featured clips. Nike and Volvo were among the marketers who dipped a toe in the water in Honeyshed's early days, but failed to follow through with further support.

One of the biggest victims of the current recession could be the sports sponsorship market. Formula 1 racing was the first big loser, with the news last year that Honda would pull out of the sport altogether. Last week, Dutch bank ING was also reviewing its commitment to racing. Several other advertisers have followed in other areas. This week, in the UK, rugby suffered two blows, as Magners cider cut its ties with the London Wasps team and Barclays pulled out out of the Barclays Churchill Cup tournament for rising stars. (However, soft drink Irn-Bru renewed its deal as the official soft drink of rugby league). In the US, struggling bank Citigroup was said to be seeking ways of backing out of a new 20-year deal to sponsor the New York Mets baseball team, whose new stadium is set to open in April under the name Citi Field. However the alliance carries a price-tag of almost $400m, and has been publicly criticised as a misuse of funds. 

Oddly enough, one development not apparently troubling sports sponsors was the news story which broke last Sunday in British scandal-mongering newspaper The News Of The World. That paper published a photo of superstar swimmer Michael Phelps smoking marijuana from a bong. Phelps issued a grovelling apology for his "youthful and inappropriate" behaviour, but his sponsors, who include Subway, Kellogg's and Mazda, don't seem too bothered. Watch manufacturer Omega, whose product Phelps is actually wearing in the offending picture, dismissed the issue as a private matter and reiterated its support of the athlete. In fact, according to the influential Huffington Post blog, some sponsors actually welcomed the coverage. "Phelps's sponsors are proactive, seizing on [the] snapshot as a way to re-market a guy the country already loves, only now with 10% more bad boy included. 'Girls love a bad boy!' the Power Bar communications director stated. 'And everyone likes getting 10% more of something for free.'"

In the news this past week: Agencies

WPP scored a coup by negotiating the purchase a 49% shareholding in South Africa's most widely acclaimed ad agency The Jupiter Drawing Room. Jupiter is the country's #4 marketing services group and was until this deal the largest independent by far. It will continue to maintain standalone status within WPP, and is expected to begin establishing a presence outside its domestic market. 

In the US, Dentsu shuttered its West Coast agency Dentsu Next, previously Colby & Partners. The shop lost the Suzuki car account last year, and has failed to capture any significant new business. Its largest remaining client, Sharp Electronics, was transferred into newly acquired McGarryBowen.

In account assignments, Sony's Playstation division called a review of media in Europe and Australia, currently split between OMD and Mindshare; insurance giant Zurich is also reviewing European media, out of ZenithOptimedia; UK department store chain John Lewis appointed Adam & Eve to its £20m creative account after a drawn-out review. McCann Erickson's Detroit office has captured US creative for Aldi's fast-expanding supermarket chain. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here. 

In the news this past week: Media

Time Warner reported grim figures for 2008 as a result of a huge $24bn charge for asset impairments in the final quarter. That caused earnings to plummet from $4.4bn in 2007 to a $13.4bn loss. Revenues edged up by 1% to just under $47.0bn. There wasn't much good news to report. The bleakest news came from the Time Inc magazine publishing division, which reported an operating loss of $6.6bn, some $2bn more than it even made in revenues during the year. That reflected a savage $7.1bn charge against goodwill. Even without that non-cash charge, the division's position is under intense pressure, with advertising sales falling by around 20% in the last quarter. Time's UK subsidiary IPC lost its long-held ranking as the country's biggest magazine publisher during 2008 following the acquisition of the former EMAP consumer magazine company by German publisher Bauer, already a major player in Britain. By comparison with Time Inc, the group's traditional problem child AOL didn't do too badly, despite a $1bn fall in revenues to $4.2bn. It reported an operating loss of "only" $1.1bn, including asset impairment charges of $2.2bn. Not even the filmed entertainment division gave much to smile about (unless you happen to be The Joker). Despite the phenomenal success of its Dark Knight movie, Warner actually reported a slight decline in revenues for the year because of fewer releases and a sharp fall in DVD sales. 

Separately, AOL ousted the head of its Platform A online advertising network after less than a year in the job. Lynda Clarizio was appointed in March 2008. She in turn had replaced Curt Viebranz, who lasted just five months. Previously head of Advertising.com, one of the three major networks merged to create Platform A, Clarizio oversaw the final stages of that integration. Now, however, that process is complete according to AOL chief Randy Falco, and he named Greg Coleman, a former Yahoo exec, as the best person to take the business forward.

The UK's Competition Commission has blocked the plans of BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 to establish a jointly owned video-on-demand service, codenamed Project Kangaroo. The regulator found that, since those three companies also control the vast majority of UK TV content, the proposed service would restrict competition from other supplies of video on demand services. ITV's executive chairman Michael Grade expressed his surprise and disappointment. He was supported in this by a number of figures from the ad industry, which had regarded Kangaroo as a potentially valuable marketing tool, and the catalyst for further investment in digital advertising.

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

Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands

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