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What a terrible week. Devastation in Galveston, a fire in the Channel Tunnel, and signs of a meltdown in the global economy. Let's take our minds off the doom and gloom for a moment, but we'll keep the preamble brief. Canadian creative boutique John St is responsible for this pastiche training film on behalf of the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer charity. It made us laugh, but our cheeks are still stinging. How many times did that poor guy have to get slapped before they got the best take? Ouch. There's also an alternative spot, Elevator, but it's not quite as good. 

For more on the battle of the sexes, try "The Woman Whisperer", a spot by Clemenger BBDO for Australia's Carlton Mid lager. Nice idea.

As mentioned last week, a new campaign has launched in the UK for iconic packaged loaf Hovis, celebrating 122 years of its heritage. We're not sure how good this ad, by MCBD, will be at selling bread, but it's lavishly and painstakingly conceived, designed and shot, so we couldn't possibly omit it from Ads of the Week. Commendations all round for technical excellence. 

And finally, hamburger chain Wendy's is running a new viral campaign by Kirshenbaum Bond under the Meatatarians Unite banner. This is the first unbranded ad, Crazy Lettuce. 

Oh, yeah. One more thing. Microsoft issued a second Seinfeld/Gates ad by Crispin Porter Bogusky this week. If you have to watch it, it's here - we're not going to dignify it with a position in Ads of the Week. Although marginally better than the abysmal Shoe Circus spot, it's still rubbish. Too long and not funny. At all. Microsoft appears to have been paying attention to the acres of bad press, because today the blogosphere is awash with reports, as yet unconfirmed, that the ads have been pulled, or at least that Jerry Seinfeld has been dropped from them. True? False? Apparently, a big new Microsoft launch will be unveiled next week.

In the news this past week: Advertisers

It was a week of extraordinary chaos in the financial sector, one that would have seemed impossible even a few months ago. On Monday morning, after two weeks of frenzied but fruitless negotiations to raise capital,  investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the biggest bank failure since the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1990. Under its aggressive CEO Richard Fuld, Lehman had been one of the prime movers in high risk commercial property investments designed to deliver even higher returns - provided they could be sold. Instead the worsening economic situation left Lehman sitting on huge investments it was unable to shift. Yet despite substantial losses already this year, the obstinate Fuld seems to have refused to accept the reality of Lehman's precarious position until the very last minute. He could arguably have dug his company out of the hole it was in by selling shares or assets earlier this year, but he waited too long and then the price he demanded was too high. Several other banks, including Bank of America and Barclays, came close to offering a last minute lifeline over the weekend, but ultimately withdrew from talks for fear of being infected by Lehman's toxic property portfolio. A crucial obstacle was the US government's refusal to provide financial support for Lehman until a deal could completed. Instead, Barclays let Lehman fail and then nipped in to snap up its US investment banking and capital markets divisions for a bargain price of just $250,000. Barclays will pay another $1.5bn to buy Lehman's New York HQ as well as two data centres.

Having passed on Lehman, Bank of America turned to Merrill Lynch, an even more prestigious name in the industry, which was struggling to shore up its own position in the face of plunging confidence. BofA offered to buy Merrill for around $50bn, a premium over the company's share price at the end of last week, but less than half its value at the start of this year. Fearing that it would itself be dragged down by the shockwaves emanating from Lehman's collapse, Merrill's board agreed on Sunday to accept BofA's offer. The jewel in Merrill's portfolio is its substantial retail brokerage and wealth management division.

Despite intervention by central banks in the US and Europe, as well as the creation of a giant $70bn liquidity fund to protect other institutions, global stock markets plunged on Monday on the news from Lehman and Merrill. The next victim was quick to materialise. AIG, the world's biggest insurer, launched a desperate appeal for $20bn in additional capital to secure its own failing balance sheet, heavily exposed not only to subprime bonds but also a complex and unregulated form of corporate insurance known as credit default swaps, complex financial contracts which insure buyers of mortgage-backed securities against losses. Because of the restructuring of mortgage guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the collapse of Lehman and other possible failures to come, AIG was sitting on a massive potential payout. Its stock price plunged by 60% on Monday morning, and by Tuesday evening AIG was also on the brink of a catastrophic meltdown which would almost certainly have pulled down other banks in the US and Europe with it. On Wednesday morning, the US government agreed in effect to nationalise AIG, acquiring an 80% shareholding in return for a staggering $85bn loan. AIG has two years to pay it off, most probably from asset sales. Despite the horrendous problems in its financial products division, the main insurance business is still highly profitable.

A day later, on Wednesday, it was the turn of the UK's biggest mortgage lender, HBOS, which agreed to sell itself to Lloyds TSB following a further collapse in its share price and continuing concerns over its ability to fund itself. A deal was struck that evening, with HBOS agreeing to be acquired for an equivalent value of £12.2bn. The enlarged Lloyds TSB will become the dominant force in the UK's mortgage market, with a 28% share and home loans of around £335bn. The merged group has already pledged to make cuts of around £1bn annually, which could include as many as 40,000 jobs, and it will almost certainly lead to consolidation of both company's marketing departments and suppliers. The bank is expected to maintain a strong base in Scotland, and to continue to issue Bank of Scotland currency. Other details of the merger have yet to be finalised. 

Who's next? The two remaining pure-play investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs both saw their shares plunge in value - Morgan's by more than 40% - on speculation that they too need to seek support. As of this morning, Morgan Stanley was in talks to merge with the equally vulnerable retail bank Wachovia. America's largest savings and loan, Washington Mutual, is also struggling with huge writedowns on its assets, and has hired Goldman Sachs to find a buyer. Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan were all said to be interested, so it may be that WaMu ends up being split between more than one buyer.

There was similar chaos in the UK travel industry when the country's third largest tour operator XL was forced to suspend operations at the weekend and call in administrators, leaving around 90,000 holidaymakers stranded without flights home. Among the many victims of the failure of XL is London football club West Ham, which agreed a three-year £7.5m shirt sponsorship deal with the tour operator earlier this year. Adding to the misery, Italian airline Alitalia, also struggling to survive, cancelled flights after rescue talks between management and unions collapsed. 

Sigh. Was there any good news this week? Well, US electronics retailer Best Buy continued its aggressive strategy of expansion and diversification by signing off on a $121m deal to acquire Napster, the online music download and streaming service. Earlier this year, it agreed to invest $1bn in a 50% shareholding in the retail network of European mobile phone seller Carphone Warehouse. Best Buy said it will use Napster's capabilities and its 700,000-strong subscribers as the platform to offer "an enhanced experience for exploring and selecting music and other digital entertainment products over an increasing array of devices". Meanwhile Samsung launched a hostile $5.8bn takeover for US memory manufacturer SanDisk after several weeks of private talks appeared to reach no conclusion. SanDisk's board rejected the bid, calling it "inadequate in multiple respects".

Also in the financial sector, Deutsche Bank saw off a challenge from Santander of Spain to acquire a 30% stake in the state-controlled Postbank for E2.8bn. It is expected to acquire a further 21% holding from Deutsche Post at some time before 2011. Postbank is one of Germany's biggest domestic retail banks, serving around 14.2m ordinary customers.

In the UK, supermarket leaders Tesco and Asda kicked off a new price war to fend off what appears to be growing competition from discounters Aldi and Lidl. According to new research from TNS, Tesco's leading market share declined marginally over the 12 weeks to September 7th from 31.7% to 31.5%. However, Aldi and Lidl both edged up, reaching 2.9% and 2.4% share respectively, as did Asda, up from 17.0% to 17.3%. As a result, Tesco this week launched a new private label line, Discount Brands, which promises price cuts worth a combined total of more than £100m on staple grocery products such as tea and coffee, bread, pasta and sugar. Asda's counter-attack, which offers further cuts to its existing low-cost Smart Price range, followed a day later.

Lastly, something to refresh your palate. Budweiser is to launch another new variant in the US, hoping to emulate the success of its very popular Bud Light Lime. The new launch, arriving next week, is Budweiser American Ale. Targeting the high-end craft beer segment, the premium brew promises "the full-bodied taste profile of the amber ale style". 

In the news this past week: Agencies

Grey's European network was named as Agency Network of the Year for the fourth consecutive year at the 2008 Euro Effie awards ceremony in Brussels, scooping four trophies in three categories. A Gold went to "As It Should Be" for Coke Zero in Scandinavia and Germany. A UK campaign for P&G's Lenor took Silver; Grey London and affiliated Atletico International in Spain received Bronze awards for work for GlaxoSmithKline's Corega and Seat.

Rapp Collins Worldwide lost weight, in its name at least, announcing that it will from now on be known simply as Rapp. A new logo accompanies the new name.

Juan Cabral, creative partner at Fallon London, is to move back to his home country of Argentina to be near his family for the birth of his first child. Cabral is widely considered one of the key forces in the remarkable success of Fallon's London office, and was responsible for conceiving the Sony "Balls" and Cadbury "Gorilla" films. He will continue to supervise Fallon's creative output from Argentina.

French creative boutique FFL confirmed the departure of founding partner Christophe Lambert. The agency was established in 2007 as a breakaway from Publicis Group. Creative partners Fred Raillard and Farid Mokart had previously served as the core of creative boutique Marcel, itself named after the founder of Publicis. They were joined by Lambert, then president of the main Publicis Conseil agency. In a highly controversial step which added to the animosity between Publicis and rival Havas, the latter's chairman Vincent Bolloré provided the start-up capital for the new agency in return for a 30% shareholding, held privately through his Group Bolloré investment company. Almost two years later, however, Lambert has developed itchy feet once again, and is leaving to establish a branded entertainment company in partnership with French producer-director Luc Besson. 

PepsiCo called a review of its Quaker cereals business in the US. Previously the account was handled by the Omnicom agency Element 79, but that shop has not been asked to participate in the review. Originally established in 2001 to handle the Gatorade and Quaker accounts, Element 79 subsequently won a series of other Pepsi brands. Since the beginning of this year, however, these have all steadily departed the agency for other Omnicom-owned shops. The reasons for the losses are unclear, but have caused some speculation within the industry regarding the future viability of Element 79. However, one contributing factor may be that the agency has at the same time steadily increased the number of brands it handles for another food client, ConAgra. 

In other account assignments, TBWA captured the consolidated advertising account for Visa in all global markets except Europe. It already held the US business. Luxury group Hermes appointed MPG to handle pan-European media. Mother collected the assignment to run Coca-Cola's pan-Euro campaign for summer 2009. Argentinean boutique Santo will take over global creative for Unilever's Sunsilk shampoo. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here.

In the news this past week: Media

Despite the general economic gloom, US network NBC announced that it has already sold all but 10 of the 65 ad slots in and around the NFL 2009 Super Bowl, which it will be hosting in February. As many as a dozen spots sold for $3m each. This puts NBC well ahead of past Super Bowls. Previously, networks have expected to sell around half their inventory by the end of the summer, whereas NBC claims to have closed off as much as 85%.

The TV industry's equivalent to the Oscars, the Emmys, were handed out last Saturday evening. Time Warner's HBO network was, as usual, the supreme champion, collecting no less than 16 trophies, most of them for the John Adams mini-series. Among other notable awards, advertising drama series Mad Men got four, for best hair, art direction, title design and cinematography; and Sarah Silverman and her team took home two Emmys for her "I'm F***ing Matt Damon" song and video on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. Yay! The outstanding commercial Emmy went to DDB Chicago's Swear Jar spot for Bud Light, one of our favourites last year. If you missed it, here it is again. 

Here's hoping for a calmer week next week!

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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