Please note: If you are attempting to view these ads shortly after receiving this mailout on a Thursday, you may find that the video streams run slowly because of heavy simultaneous demand from other Adbrands subscribers who have also just received the same email. Please wait for the ads to load before pressing play, or try again later. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Bartle Bogle Hegarty maintains its run of great ads for Audi with this stunning new spot promoting energy efficient technology.

Comedian Rhys Darby, probably best known internationally as Murray in the Flight of the Conchords series, is the spokesman for New Zealand's start-up mobile service 2 Degrees. The ad is by the local outpost of TBWA\Whybin in Auckland. 

TBWA again, but this time back in Los Angeles, with a new spot for Absolut vodka. Great art, and a nice ad, but shame about the slogan. As blogger AdFreak rightly points out, if you're going to spend this much time and effort on an ad campaign, couldn't you at least come up with a catchier slogan than "Doing things differently leads to something exceptional"?

And finally, cool animation in the new spot from Saatchi & Saatchi in LA for Toyota's new Venza model. Enjoy. 

In the news this past week: Advertisers

Procter & Gamble delivered its final results for the year ended June. The figures demonstrated that even the world's biggest packaged goods marketer is finding current economic conditions challenging, as customers seek cheaper alternatives to premium brands. The latest results were the group's weakest for several years. Revenues declined 3% to $79bn, reflecting the sale of the Folgers business during the year as well as currency fluctuations. Organic revenues, excluding these effects, rose 2%. However virtually all business units experienced a slide in sales and profits. The Gillette-based grooming unit was the worst affected, with revenues down 9% and earnings by 11%. Only baby & family care enjoyed modest growth, just 1% in revenues and 2% in earnings. Group net profit was also up, by 11% to $13.4bn, but that figure was helped along by a $2.1bn gain from Folgers. Separately, P&G signed off on a deal to sponsor the NFL with a range of wash products. Items such as Old Spice and Head & Shoulders will begin to carry a new emblem declaring them to be an "Official Locker Room Product of the NFL". The multi-year deal is thought to be worth around $10m a year. P&G said it was the costliest in its history.

General Motors' new chairman Edward Whitacre outlined his priorities for the turnaround of the business in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The single most important goal, he said, was to remain #1 by US sales. In July, GM was only marginally ahead of Toyota by market share, and without the benefit of its Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and Hummer brands - all soon to be closed or divested - would have fallen to second place. GM's total market share for the month was 18.9%, compared to 17.5% for Toyota and 16.5% for Ford. GM's current position is a sad reflection of the company's steady decline since the 1970s. As recently as 1980, GM had around 49% share of the US market.

Dave Burwick stepped down as chief marketing officer of PepsiCo North America after just one year, and is being replaced by Jill Beraud, previously head of global marketing. Burwick was responsible for masterminding last year's controversial "Refresh Everything" rebrand of PepsiCo's drinks brands. Beraud joined the company last December to lead global marketing; her successor in that role has yet to be appointed. Separately this week, PepsiCo reached agreement to acquire full control of two of its biggest bottling suppliers, Pepsi Bottling Ventures and PepsiAmericas. Negotiations have been continuing for the past two months. The group's original offer of $6bn was dismissed as "grossly inadequate" by the bottling companies. It sealed the deal with an improved offer of $7.8bn.

Just as is the case with US banks, the British banking sector now shows a clear divide between the strong and the weak. HSBC and Barclays both reported strong results for the half year, each delivering a half-year profit at around the £3bn mark. Both companies benefited from strong performances in their corporate and investment banking divisions. By contrast, Lloyds Banking Group, which incorporates the Lloyds TSB and HBOS businesses, reported a half-year loss of £4bn because of a £13bn charge for bad debts, mostly on investments made by HBOS in the run-up to its near-collapse last year. Ironically, analysts were pleased by the result, which was less than the £5bn loss they were anticipating. (Lloyds' statutory reported figure was a £6bn pretax profit, because of an accounting adjustment on the valuation of HBOS). Royal Bank of Scotland, the other bank part-nationalised last year, is also expected to report grim figures for the half-year, due out on Friday. In the mean time it continued its asset sale, disposing of the bulk of its operations in smaller Asian markets to Australia's ANZ Bank for $550m. It is negotiating with Standard Chartered, among others, to sell its remaining subsidiaries in China and India.

Robert Benmosche, previously the CEO of MetLife, was named as the new chief executive of struggling insurance giant AIG. He replaces interim head Edward Liddy who oversaw the company's effective nationalisation by the US government in the wake of huge losses created by the credit crunch. Over at another crunch-affected US giant, Sallie Krawcheck was picked to head Bank of America's global wealth and investment management operations. Krawcheck held a similar role at Citigroup until late last year, until being forced out as a result of growing friction with Citi CEO Vikram Pandit. 

The latest niche food business to come up for sale is Gu, the UK-based dessert manufacturer. Founded in 2002, the company specialises in premium-quality chocolate souffles sold in glass ramekins, and has even managed to build a successful business in France. (Arguably the equivalent, for a British company, of selling ice to Eskimos). Several multinational groups are reported to have expressed their interest, with Nestle currently considered the frontrunner. The sale price is likely to be around £40m. Several premium food and beverage business have come onto the market in recent months including Innocent smoothies, now part-owned by Coca-Cola, and Alpro soya milk products, acquired last month by Dean Foods.

In the news this past week: Agencies

Toyota's ad agencies were effectively put on notice after the car giant announced plans to establish two new marketing companies, one to "primarily handle marketing within Japan"; the other "to carry out and assist global marketing". Although Toyota already owns the Delphys ad agency in Japan, it has depended until now almost entirely on third-party suppliers to provide marketing services in international markets. However some other Asian companies, including Korea's Hyundai and Samsung, channel part or all of their global marketing through what are effectively inhouse agencies. Hyundai's Innocean is owned and run by the car company's controlling family, while Cheil is a part-owned subsidiary of Samsung. Currently these inhouse units work alongside Western ad networks, but have shown clear signs that they intend to play a larger role in the creation and execution of brand marketing. Similar moves by Toyota, now the world's largest automobile company, could have a serious impact on its current retained agencies. Publicis Group's Saatchi & Saatchi and ZenithOptimedia networks would be the biggest losers in any such shift.

In what could be a related development, Publicis Groupe folded its German integrated agency BMZ into Saatchi & Saatchi. It had previously been affiliated to the Publicis Worldwide network. Once a sizeable standalone business, BMZ has drifted between several of the group's various operating divisions in recent years. The latest development follows key client Toyota's decision to move the Toyota and Lexus brand accounts, previously retained by BMZ, into sister agency Saatchi.

Elsewhere in Germany, struggling creative agency Springer & Jacoby announced plans to lay off around 20% of its staff in an attempt to regain profitability. Once the darling of the local advertising industry, the agency has struggled for the past three years with weakened creative output and management turmoil. It is controlled by marketing group Schaffhausen, which is undergoing similar problems. 

Publicis Groupe is currently the favourite to acquire digital agency Razorfish, which has been put up for sale by Microsoft. According to the Wall Street Journal, Dentsu and at least one other marketing group submitted offers for the business. However, Microsoft is said to have told the Japanese company that it has entered due diligence with another bidder, which is widely believed to be the French marketing group. 

In account assignments, General Motors called a review of media for its European subsidiaries, prior to their sale. The business is held currently by Aegis's Carat and Vizeum units. The Molson Coors UK media business, also held by Vizeum, came up for review. In Australia, WPP's Maxus network resigned the business of confectioner Ferrero. In Germany, Citibank appointed Heye & Partner to take over creative work for its local business. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here. 

In the news this past week: Media

Media industry insiders expect the annual Upfront ad sales market to close within the next week or so, well behind schedule, and with a net total forecast at between $7.8bn and $8.2bn. That figure would represent a fall of up to 15% from last year's $9.2bn. The upfront spend figure has been under pressure for several years since hitting a high of $9.5bn in 2005. Commitments in 2006 and 2007 were lowered mainly by concerns over the effectiveness of TV advertising and the rise of online. Those fears have been exacerbated in the last two years by economic worries.

Simon Fox, currently head of entertainment retailer HMV, has been tipped as the favourite to take over as CEO of embattled UK broadcaster ITV. He is one of four men on a shortlist being considered by ITV's board. Another strong contender is Pascal Cagni, CEO of Apple Europe. The shortlist is rounded out by John Cresswell, currently ITV's chief operating officer, and Tony Ball, former chief executive of BSkyB. 

Separately, ITV agreed to sell Friends Reunited, the online publisher it acquired for an extraordinary £170m in 2005. The sale price was just £25m, representing a loss of £145m. Once a pioneer in the UK social networking sector, Friends Reunited was quickly overtaken by free access competitors Bebo, MySpace and Facebook. It also faces stiff competition for its other offerings in genealogy and dating services. Last year, revenues fell from £22m to £18m. The buyer is Scottish magazine and comic publisher DC Thomson, which already owns rival genealogy site FindMyPast.com.

News Corp released full year figures for its financial year to June, reporting a $3.4bn net loss as a result of a large impairment charge against MySpace and other businesses. The group's worst hit subsidiary was its television business, where lower ad revenues and higher programming costs caused a $1bn drop in profits to just $174m. That was partly offset by a sharp rise in profits from cable programming. News Corp also announced plans to introduce charges for all its online news content, including the websites for the Times newspaper in the UK and Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile satellite broadcaster Sky, controlled by News Corp, reported a sevenfold leap in its own profits in its own financial year. (The previous year's figure was severely impacted by the write-off of Sky's minority shareholding in ITV). The company reported the highest growth in subscribers for more than five years, to a total of 9.4m, and said that its high-definition offering was largely responsible. The number of HD subscribers doubled during the year. Sky plans to launch Europe's first 3D TV service during the next 12 months, as well as a full video-on-demand service.

The world's oldest surviving Sunday newspaper, The Observer, is facing closure in the UK as a result of high losses at its parent company, Guardian Media Group. First launched in London in 1791, it was acquired by The Guardian in 1993, becoming what was effectively the Sunday edition of that daily paper. However it has long trailed far behind quality rivals such as the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph. The story of its possible closure broke after news leaked that a team from GMG had secretly produced the dummy for a weekly news magazine that would keep the Observer name, but be published on a Thursday rather than a Sunday.

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

Forwarding this email to colleagues? No problem at all. The more the merrier as far as we're concerned. But we're also very happy to take that responsibility off your hands if you'd prefer it. Just drop us a line by return email with the addresses of your colleagues and we'll add them to our list. There's no charge, and don't worry, we won't send them anything else.