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I never thought I would be picking a spot from UK optician Specsavers as an Ad of the Week but, well, wonders never cease. Notably, Specsavers still produces all its advertising in-house. In the past this has led to some cringe-worthy commercials, but the quality of the ads has steadily improved under creative director Graham Daldry, and this latest film, made by production company Rattling Stick, is really rather good, even if it is underpinned by a joke so old it's past retirement age. 

Rattling Stick is also the production company responsible for the excellent new Heineken ad, Lobster, conceived by Frank Lowe's Red Brick Road agency. Viewed alongside Specsavers' Eerie, it demonstrates that, however good a marketer's inhouse creative talent may be, it takes a good advertising agency to come up with a really great idea for an ad rather than simply a new twist on an old joke. 

You may remember last year's ads for the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (known locally as BAFICI) featuring a group of mates discussing "the saddest picture in the world" (the cat with a pipe). There were two ads in circulation for this year's festival, which took place last month. Our favourite is the one with the Tom Sellecks, but you should also take a look at the Bon Jovi Clowns. Both ads are by La Comunidad, proof once again that Buenos Aires is one of the global industry's most intriguing creative communities.

And finally, an elegant film from BBDO New York for General Electric's water recycling technology. Classy stuff.

In the news this past week: Advertisers

There was a palpable sigh of relief among Sony shareholders as the group delivered strong results for its financial year ending March 2008. After several years of disappointing performance, gaijin CEO Howard Stringer's turnaround finally appears to have gained traction. Revenues were up 7% to the equivalent of around $78bn, but the most encouraging news came from the bottom line where net income almost tripled to Y369bn ($3.2bn), Sony's best-ever result. The strongest performance came from the resurgent consumer electronics business. The PlayStation division was still dripping in red ink, however, although at least last year's disastrous $2bn loss was halved to just over $1.1bn. Better still, Sony said those losses were confined to the first half of the fiscal year, and that the PlayStation group had generated a small profit in the second half. 

Two other Japanese consumer electronics firms, Kenwood and JVC, announced plans to merge later this year. Kenwood acquired a 30% stake in JVC last year, backed by a private equity investment group, and the two manufacturers will establish a joint holding company later this year. Combined sales will be around $8bn. However the elephant in this particular room remains Matsushita - makers of Panasonic - which currently has a shareholding of around 37% in JVC and is expected to retain a sizeable role in the combined JVC-Kenwood company.

In what could turn out to be a milestone in the often stormy debate over direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, US giant Merck agreed to pay a combined total of $58m to attorneys general in 30 US states to settle claims that it had had played down health risks in its advertising for Vioxx, the pain-reliever withdrawn in 2004 for its negative effects on some patients. More significantly, the group agreed to submit all future direct-to-consumer advertising to the Food & Drug Administration for approval before airing, and to make any changes to that marketing required by the FDA. Several other drug companies have already to started to submit their ads voluntarily in a bid to forestall legislation, but this is the first time any manufacturer has specifically guaranteed such a process, and more particularly agreed to wait for approval or make changes. The pharma industry in general is under intense pressure to suspend all direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription products, because it encourages patients to demand drugs before doctors fully understand their potential side-effects.

Business Week reported (here) on the slow take-up of Android, the mobile phone operating system launched by Google at the end of last year. Despite the hype which accompanied that launch, six months down the line not a single manufacturer has yet set a firm date for introduction of an Android phone. It's not that there's anything wrong with the concept, but traditionally mobile phone manufacturers have always fought shy of adopting operating software developed by a single company. Those fears are heightened when that single company is as powerful as Google. Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin expressed the concerns of many in the industry when he said he wouldn't support the system until it was known exactly what Google planned to do with the data it could collect via Android-powered phones. Instead, Vodafone and several other leading operators and manufacturers, including Motorola, Samsung, SFR of France and NTT DoCoMo of Japan, are jointly backing LiMo, a rival operating system based on the Linux open source code. This week, in what is considered to be a major development, US giant Verizon Wireless lent its support to LiMo. 

The Virgin Group sealed a five-year deal to become the new sponsor of the London Marathon from 2010. It will replace Unilever's Flora margarine which has supported the race since 1996. Unilever announced plans earlier this year to terminate its arrangement after next year's run. Virgin Money will be the lead sponsor, though there is also likely to be involvement from the group's Virgin Active chain of fitness clubs. 

In the news this past week: Agencies

WPP has finally confirmed a CEO for its dedicated global Dell agency, previously known as Project Da Vinci. The new appointee, Torrence Boone, was previously president of Digitas Boston. What WPP hasn't confirmed just yet is the name of the agency. Last week, it was widely reported in the trade press that Synarchy Worldwide had been selected as Da Vinci's official title. So far, however, WPP has yet to confirm this officially, and the group may in fact have backed off the Synarchy name as a result of a frenzied negative response to the moniker in the blogosphere. 

In a separate development, Boone's former employer Digitas, announced the launch of a dedicated branded content unit, Third Act, which will generate advertiser-funded programming for distribution over the internet.

The D&AD Awards is arguably London's most prestigious advertising and marketing event. This year's ceremony saw an unprecedented hand-out of no less than six Black Pencils, the event's top prize. Usually no more than two or three Black Pencils are awarded, sometimes none at all. As had been anticipated, Fallon London's Drumming Gorilla film for Cadbury was one of the awardees. Apple took home two, for its iPod and iPhone campaigns. Other recipients were apparel retailer Uniqlo, The National Gallery and Goodby Silverstein for its US-based Get The Glass campaign for California Milk Processors. Another 60 or so companies or agencies carried off Yellow Pencils.

The newly created London outpost of Argentinean creative hotshop Santo has already snapped up its first important account, Coca-Cola's sponsorship campaign for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. In other news, Coke also called a review of pan-Euro creative for Sprite; UK furniture retailer MFI transferred creative and media into McCann Birmingham; French retailer Monoprix called a review of its E29m creative; and US independent LM&O retained stewardship of the $125m account for the National Guard. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here.

In the news this past week: Media

The battle for Yahoo began to heat up again as a result of intervention from activist investor Carl Icahn, who has accumulated a shareholding of around 4% in the company, and is seeking support from other large minority investors as well as SEC approval to build his own stake to around 7%. Icahn has made a considerable fortune out of shaking up large corporations where he feels incumbent management are underperforming. He issued a stinging rebuke of Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang and non-executive chairman Roy Bostock, accusing them of having "completely botched" negotiations with Microsoft - the software company dropped its takeover bid last week as a result of Yahoo's repeated refusal to enter meaningful talks. Icahn also initiated a formal proxy battle - the hostile approach previously threatened but not implemented by Microsoft - which calls for the replacement of the entire Yahoo board of directors. Soon afterwards it was reported that Microsoft had itself made a new approach to Yahoo, suggesting a compromise arrangement that would stop short of a full merger but would combine parts of their respective online operations. Explicit details of the latest discussions have not been revealed but are thought to involve a partnership on search-related advertising. 

Separately, Yahoo made a big fuss about having agreed a "multi-year strategic alliance" with marketing service giant WPP. In fact, the deal was not especially notable. WPP's 24/7 Real Media digital media buying unit agreed to sign up to Yahoo's Right Media Exchange ad platform. The latter serves ads to more than 170 web networks including such heavyweight names such as Fox, and WPP agencies are already among its 45,000 or so buyers and sellers. The new arrangement is merely a consolidation of the existing arrangements. As several commentators noted, the fact that Yahoo made such a fuss about the deal reflects its need to make the most of any scrap of good news going in order to bolster investor and staff morale.

US radio giant ClearChannel Communications agreed the terms of a revised $17.9bn deal with private equity firms Bain and THL after a bitter legal dispute. A consortium of six lenders including Citi, Deutsche Bank and Wachovia, agreed in 2007 to lend Bain and THL funding for a buyout at $39.20 a share, but pulled out earlier this year because of the downturn in the market. ClearChannel and its private equity buyers issued a lawsuit against the banks in attempt to force them to go through with the purchase. After arbitration, a new deal has been inked at a revised price of $36 per share, but it will require approval from ClearChannel's current shareholders. The banks have also negotiated a higher rate of interest on the loan.

US broadcast network CBS substantially expanded its digital division with the purchase of online publisher CNET for $1.8bn. Although CBS already manages a high-profile online presence for its own CBS-branded news and sports sites, it has been slow to establish other web brands. However it acquired music community Last.fm in 2007, and this latest deal gives it an extensive portfolio of additional sites. CNET is best-known for its technology news portals including ZDNet and TechRepublic. However its portfolio also houses TV fansite TV.com, music service MP3.com, foodie specialist CHOW, shopping comparison service MySimon, gaming portal GameSpot and parenting community UrbanBaby. CBS said the CNET acquisition would make it one of top ten internet companies in the US, with 54m unique users per month. In two separate developments, cable giant Comcast acquired Plaxo, one of the original online social networks, for an undisclosed sum; and Time Warner confirmed plans to spin off its Time Warner Cable subsidiary, the #2 cable operator behind Comcast, as an entirely separate company before the end of the year. The media giant will take a one-off special dividend of $9.25bn in payment for the separation.

Also this week, as the 2007/08 TV season came to an official close, CBS lost its crown as the top US TV network to Fox. Although the latter has held the position as top network among young adults for several years, it is the first time the Murdoch-owned broadcaster has achieved the same spot in overall viewers. It was helped along considerably by its role as host for the 2008 Super Bowl and its strength in reality shows. The three-month writers' strike forced all the networks to suspend production of scripted dramas and comedy shows, causing a considerable shake-up in viewing patterns. Fox's American Idol remained the most watched program overall, and its House was neck and neck with ABC's Desperate Housewives as the most-watched scripted show. Two other Fox brands, reality show Moment of Truth and sci-fi drama Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, were the most-watched new shows. ABC was the #3 network, while NBC was placed last of the big four for the fourth consecutive year.

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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