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Our favourite ads this week: 

The Cannes Lions festival wrapped up last weekend. No one will have been much surprised by the overall Grand Prix winner in the film category: Ogilvy Canada's superb Evolution spot for Dove, which also took home the top award in the Cyber category, becoming the first ad ever to win both (a special exception was made to allow its inclusion in the two shortlists). Regular Adbrands Weekly Update readers will already have seen Evolution, and most of the Gold winners as well, in this space. But here are a few we haven't featured for one reason or another: 

Wieden & Kennedy's delicious I Feel Pretty film for Nike, featuring Maria Sharapova; Crispin Porter & Bogusky's excellent Safe Happens for Volkswagen; a very funny spot for BAFICI, the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival, by La Comunidad Argentina; and a poignant animation from TBWA\Paris for Amnesty International. 

BBDO was named as the Lions festival's first ever Network of the Year. It set a new record for itself, winning no less than 47 awards across its various offices, four up on last year. All the winners in all categories are featured on the Cannes Lions site. 

In the news this week: Advertisers & Media

Fears that "upfront", the annual advertising sales drive by US broadcast networks, was in steady decline appear to be unfounded. Each summer, the networks present pitches for the forthcoming Fall/Winter season to secure advance bookings for around 75% of their prime-time advertising slots. In recent years, several major advertisers have declined to attend or have reined in advance spend, mainly because of the rapid rise of online, and as a result total bookings have trended downwards. This year, however, has seen a rebound, helped to some extent by the introduction of Nielsen's new commercial ratings system, which promises to deliver greater accountability on audience and rates. The ABC and Fox networks closed their books last week, netting around $2.4bn and $1.85bn respectively. CBS is expected to complete at $2.45bn, NBC at $1.85bn and new CBS/Time Warner network CW at around $650m. As a result the final committed spend for the major free-to-air networks could total as much as $9.2bn, a healthy increase on last year's $9bn, and $9.1bn in 2005. All the networks registered an increase except NBC, still stuck in 4th place, and flat at best compared to last year.

Visa was confirmed as the main sponsor of the FIFA World Cup in 2010 and 2014 after a long legal battle with MasterCard. The latter had been the world football association's global financial services sector sponsor since 1990, but was abruptly dumped last summer in favour of Visa. This partnership was to run until 2014, spanning the next two World Cups. However, MasterCard filed a lawsuit claiming first rights on the tournament, and its case was upheld by a US court in December 2006. Earlier this month, however, as a result of an appeal by FIFA, another US judge ordered that the injunction be overturned. Visa was reconfirmed as the sponsor for 2010 and 2014, and FIFA has agreed to pay MasterCard $90m in compensation. 

Italian group Luxottica confirmed its position as the world's foremost manufacturer of sunglasses by agreeing to buy Oakley of the US for around $2bn. That business joins a portfolio of more than 30 leading names, including own-brands Ray-Ban and Killer Loop and the licenses for Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan, Prada, Versace and Bulgari, as well as retailers Sunglass Hut and LensCrafters. Luxottica's revenues for 2006 were almost E4.7bn.

British roadside services giant the Automobile Association is to merge with Saga, a travel and insurance provider specialising in the over-50s market. The resulting £6.1m business hopes to combine the benefits of the AA's substantial membership with Saga's skills in direct marketing. Both companies are controlled by private equity funds, who will generate a substantial profit from the deal, as will senior staff at the AA and Saga.

German broadcasting giant ProSiebenSat1 has agreed a merger with pan-European media group SBS to create a stronger rival to Bertelsmann's RTL. The ProSieben and Sat 1 channels are the main commercial competitors in Germany to RTL, but the group has until now had a limited presence outside its home market, unlike RTL which also has significant interests in France, the UK and Spain. SBS, however, has a similarly broad footprint. Headquartered in the Netherlands, it also has free-to-air, pay TV and radio interests in nine other countries including Denmark. Norway, Sweden, Belgium and Hungary.

Swiss drug company Hoffman-La Roche launched an uncharacteristic $3bn hostile takeover bid for US company Ventana Medical Systems, which specialises in diagnostics of cancer tissue. Roche said it had chosen this route after trying unsuccessfully for six months to negotiate a friendly merger. The Swiss company already control US biotechnology developer Genentech.

In the news this week: Agencies

It has been a terrible week for Interpublic, whose relationship with two of its biggest clients could be in serious jeopardy. McCann Erickson, previously one of the main roster agencies for the personal care brands of Johnson & Johnson, this week lost all but one of the accounts it handled. It will retain the AcueVue contact lens business, but the other five brands - including Band-Aid, Reach and Stayfree - will be reassigned among Johnsons' other agencies. Meanwhile Johnsons' Splenda sweetener will move to BBDO from Lowe's Alchemy satellite. IPG still handles marketing for Johnsons' pharmaceutical division, but is also currently pitching to retain the group's global media business. Even more damaging was General Motors' decision to shift the accounts for both Buick and GMC out of McCann and Lowe respectively, to Leo Burnett. The two brands spent a combined total of around $380m in the US last year. IPG still holds GM's corporate marketing, Chevrolet, Saturn and Saab.

In other news, Wrigley was said to have narrowed its global creative review to three finalists, DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi and DraftFCB. Budweiser called a review of UK creative. Domino's Pizza is to shift US creative out of JWT, and Nitro joined the Kraft roster for the Singles cheese brand. Subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here. 

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Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands