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DDB Paris has two new ads out for Lipton, supporting a big new push in Europe and the US. One promotes new Lipton Forest Fruit tea bags, and features women jumping into a giant swimming pool filled with fruits (see it here). We like it, but not as much as this Bourne-inspired action epic. Cool!

British viral agency Them produced this cheeky viral for shaving specialist Schick Wilkinson Sword. The film is stuffed full of innuendo, and careful attention to the song lyrics will also provide you with additional entertainment. Kitties and "Tulips on the mound" indeed. Snigger.

Here's a movie we'd like to see in real time. The Amsterdam office of Tribal DDB teamed up with production house Stink to deliver this stunning "frozen motion" viral which aims to convey the cinematic impact of Philips' new Carousel TV, the first flat screen with the same 21:9 screen size proportions as a cinema (so no more letterboxing). We've seen this technique used before (there's a good example in the Sky TV ad embedded top left here), but rarely with such an elaborate set-up. Get the full effect at the dedicated Philips Carousel website.

And finally, a nice new ad for Toyota from CHI & Partners, breaking in the UK and rolling out across Europe to support a clutch of new models. Car ads often bring out the best in an agency, and this spot is elegant and stylish, with great effects. Enjoy.

In the news this past week: Advertisers

Banks finally had some good news to report. Most of the US majors demonstrated a marked improvement in their 1Q financial results, even if some needed to indulge in a bit of creative accounting to get there. One key factor has been the fall in interest rates. This encouraged many homeowners to refinance their mortgages, providing a much-needed source of profits for some lenders. JP Morgan Chase, for example, said it had extended around $150bn of new credit to consumer and corporate customers during the quarter. It also reported handsome profits from bond and currency trading, and said it was keen to pay back the $25bn of funding it received from the US government as soon as regulators would allow. Goldman Sachs also delivered stellar results and raised a further $5bn through a stock offering. It too is keen to pay off the Treasury's investment in order to lift the cap imposed on executive salaries. Equally impressive was the record $3bn profit reported by Wells Fargo, bolstered by the acquisition late last year of failed rival Wachovia. Even Citi reported a quarterly profit, its first for a year and a half, totalling $1.6bn, although that position was largely the result of a complex $2.4bn accounting adjustment on the value of its own debt. 

It wasn't all good news though. Bank of America, the country's biggest bank by assets, reported a huge leap in net income to $4.2bn, but that figure was almost entirely generated by one-off gains or accounting adjustments. And Morgan Stanley reported a net loss for the quarter, the first time in its history as a public company that it has posted two consecutive quarterly losses. It underlined its continuing predicament with a 62% fall in revenues and an 81% cut to its dividend.  Within the sector as a whole, the growth in mortgage refinancing disguised a continuing drought in other forms of commercial and consumer lending. With good reason. Despite the government's efforts to kickstart the sector, there are clear signs that the economic impact of the squeeze has shifted from the property market to credit card borrowing and consumer finance. All the major banks reported a worrying jump in loan defaults. Citi absorbed an additional $7bn during the quarter, while BofA had almost $6bn and Wells Fargo close to $5bn. Clearly, there are plenty of borrowers out there struggling to pay off their debts. US credit card delinquencies reached a record high in February, and are expected to continue rising during the course of the year. Don't expect the banks' 2Q results to be as upbeat as 1Q.

Detroit will also have an important part to play in what happens next in the economy. In an interview with Canada's Globe & Mail newspaper, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne rated his chances of pulling off a deal with Chrysler as no better than 50/50. He has only until the end of the month to agree terms before the government switches off Chrysler's financial life support machine. So far, Chrysler's unions are still balking at the concessions on pay and terms that Fiat demands. Another major sticking point is provided by the holders of Chrysler's $6.9bn of debt, who include Citi and JP Morgan Chase. This week they rejected a government proposal to buy them out for around $1bn in total, saying they would do better to let the business go bust and sell off its parts. The Treasury upped its offer to $1.5bn today and is waiting for the debtholders' response. Meanwhile, General Motors, which has until the end of May before its government funding terminates, is said to be offering to hand over a controlling stake in its European Opel, Vauxhall and Saab operations for free, provided the prospective buyer pledges to inject at least E500m of capital into the business.

Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline expanded its portfolio with two deals this week. The group expanded its consumer healthcare portfolio with the purchase for $3.6bn of Stiefel Laboratories, a maker of dermatological products including Duac, Olux-E and Soriatane. The most surprising development, though, was the announcement of a partnership with global arch-rival Pfizer. The two companies agreed to pool their AIDS and HIV-related drugs in a joint venture. GSK is already the global #1, but its products are relatively dated and it has few HIV drugs in development. Pfizer on the other hand has only a minimal presence in the sector so far but has several promising products in research. The combined business, to be 85% controlled by GSK, will manage a portfolio of 11 existing drugs and seven in development. Pfizer's stake will increase to as much as 31% if its HIV drugs are approved for launch; if not its share will drop to 9%. 

The UK's National Lottery, one of the country's biggest advertisers, is likely to have new owners by the end of the year. Currently, its parent group Camelot is jointly owned by five companies - Cadbury, Royal Mail, banknote printer De La Rue, electronics company Thales and Fujitsu. However four of the five have declared their intention to sell their shares this year, and any purchaser of 30% or more of the business will also be obliged to buy out the fifth shareholder, Royal Mail.

Following the collapse of IBM's negotiations to acquire server and internet software group Sun Microsystems, rival Oracle has stepped into the breach with an offer worth $7.4bn. That move came as a complete surprise to most observers, since Oracle has until now steered clear of the hardware sector, still Sun's biggest business. The main prize here, as far as Oracle is concerned, is Sun's Java programming software, widely used in web and mobile applications. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison called Java "the single most important software asset we have ever acquired".

As had been widely anticipated, much admired UK smoothies maker Innocent raised £30m of expansion funding a couple of weeks ago through the sale of a minority stake of between 10% and 20% to global giant Coca-Cola. The two companies will work together to boost Innocent's presence in Continental Europe. Meanwhile PepsiCo issued an offer to acquire the outstanding shares in two of its biggest US bottlers. Currently, it holds a stake of around 33% of Pepsi Bottling Group and 43% of PepsiAmericas. It believes that it can make significant cost savings by controlling and consolidating the two businesses. 

Pernod-Ricard sold the iconic Wild Turkey bourbon whisky to Campari for $575m, and also shuffled its brand groups. Its Malibu, Kahlua and Tia Maria spirits are to be merged into Swedish-based Absolut from summer this year. Meanwhile US spirits company Brown-Forman, home to Jack Daniel's and Southern Comfort, was the subject of takeover speculation, with Bacardi rumoured to have made a preliminary approach. Separately, LVMH was reported by the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper to be in talks to sell some or all of its 66% stake in its Moet Hennessy drinks division to minority partner Diageo. LVMH subsequently denied that any such negotiations were in progress, but observers pointed out that the denial's careful wording did not rule out the possibility of such a deal taking place. Diageo declined to comment.

Anheuser-Busch InBev was reported to be considering the sale of its niche US beer Rolling Rock. Anheuser actually acquired the brand from InBev in 2006, when the two companies were separate businesses. Now that InBev owns Anheuser-Busch, poor old Rolling Rock is back on the chopping block once again. In the Asia Pacific region, Japanese brewer Kirin made an indicative offer to acquire the 54% stake it doesn't already own in Lion Nathan, Australia's #2 beer company, owner of brands including Castlemaine, Toohey's Hahn's and Steinlager. 

Starwood Hotels issued a lawsuit against rival Hilton over the latter's newly announced luxury hotel chain Denizen. Starwood claims the brand is directly based on its own blueprints for a new chain. The former heads of Starwood's luxury division were poached last year by Hilton, and the suit alleges that the two execs "misused" their position to steal more than 100,000 separate paper and electronic documents from Starwood before their departure. It is, argues Starwood, "the clearest imaginable case of corporate espionage, theft of trade secrets, unfair competition and computer fraud". 

EBay is to spin off its telecoms unit Skype next year after talks to sell the business back to its founders collapsed. The online auction giant paid a staggering $2.6bn to acquire Skype in 2005, but despite steady growth the business has failed to live up to expectations. In particular, eBay has been unable to develop the expected synergies between the online calling service and its existing auction service - it had hoped that buyers and sellers would use the service to talk to one another. EBay also consolidated its position as the leading online retailer in South Korea by acquiring its main rival Gmarket for $1.2bn. 

In an extraordinary and somewhat terrifying demonstration of the power of the internet, pizza delivery chain Domino's has been attempting to regain the trust of customers after what has been dubbed by media commentators as "Boogergate". Last week two employees posted a video of themselves on YouTube in which they performed various unhygienic acts on the company's food, breaking wind and blowing their noses on sandwich ingredients, and sneezing on a freshly cooked pizza. Alerted to the film by a web user, Domino's tried at first to contain the situation by maintaining a low profile for fear that a formal response would only generate even bigger headlines. With a couple of days, though, news of the offending videos had been widely distributed throughout the blogosphere, resulting in more than 1m views in three days. As a result, Domino's was forced to go public with the story, posting its own YouTube video in which it apologised for the incident and vowed not to let it happen again. 

By then, another web user had managed to track down the offending employees by diligently matching clues contained in the videos with Google Street View images of Domino's outlets, and relayed that information to the pizza company. The pair were immediately dismissed, and subsequently arrested on felony charges. Adding to Domino's woes, it turns out that one of the two is already a registered sex offender. The pranksters claim that the tainted food was never actually delivered to customers. Nevertheless the incident has widely affected perceptions of Domino's food. "We got blindsided by two idiots with a video camera and an awful idea," said company spokesman Tim McIntyre. "Even people who've been with us as loyal customers for 10, 15, 20 years, people are second-guessing their relationship with Domino's, and that's not fair." The only winners in the whole incident were the various Good Samaritans who helped Domino's identify the culprits. Reportedly, they were rewarded with vouchers sufficient to buy themselves a year's worth of free pizzas. Hold the boogers.

In the news this past week: Agencies

WPP announced major changes to two of its advertising subsidiaries. After almost 120 years of operation, the Chicago office of JWT was shuttered, following a slow decline precipitated by the loss of its flagship client Kraft two years ago. The remaining accounts transferred to New York. Also, Enfatico, the dedicated global network created last year to manage the Dell account, was absorbed into the Y&R Brands group. It will retain separate branding - for now at least - but will report to Y&R chief Peter Stringham, rather than centrally to WPP chief Martin Sorrell. Y&R also agreed a partnership with independent US agency Mars Advertising, a specialist in instore marketing. Y&R clients will be able to take advantage of Mars's expertise in US retailers, and the two agencies may also expand the joint offering into other countries.

Two of the UK's best-known advertising executives, Robert Campbell and Garry Lace, announced plans to launch their own start-up agency. Both have experienced a comparatively fallow period over the last couple of years. Campbell was one of the founders of what is now RKCR/Y&R London, but left the company in 2005 to join United, a reinvention of the once-celebrated HHCL. That venture proved notably unsuccessful and Campbell jumped ship in 2007, setting up his own consultancy. Lace too has been out of the industry spotlight for a few years. After making a name for himself at TBWA, he joined Grey London with what was said at the time to be one of the industry's most lucrative contracts. He left under a cloud in 2004 after being implicated in a plot to poach one of the agency's clients, an allegation he denied. A stay at Lowe London also ended unhappily when Lace was dragged into the row over Frank Lowe's capture of the agency's Tesco account. The new shop opens its doors in May under the name Campbell Lace Beta.

Digital agency Razorfish named Bob Lord as its new global CEO, replacing Clark Kokich, who moves up to chairman.

UK-based regional marketing group The Mission reported strong growth in revenues and profits for 2008. Turnover was up 31% to almost £105m, while pretax profits jumped 37% to £7.2m. The Mission's subsidiary agencies include Bray Leino, based in Devon, Big Communications of Leicester and Edinburgh's Story UK.

There were plenty of new account assignments. Among the more significant: Charles Schwab is reviewing US media, out of PHD; eBay placed pan-Euro creative with Bartle Bogle Hegarty; Jacob's Creek wines appointed Euro RSCG worldwide; HP gave pan-Euro responsibility for its PC division to a Publicis Group team headed by Saatchi & Saatchi Geneva and Publicis Modem/Dialog; Ikea called a global review of media, currently split between MediaCom and Mediaedge:cia; US electronics retailer Radio Shack handed creative to indie Butler Shine & Stern; JWT London picked up UK department store Debenhams. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here. 

In the news this past week: Media

Michael Grade, executive chairman of UK broadcaster ITV, agreed to step down early from an executive role, following pressure from shareholders concerned at the company's continuing troubles and rock bottom share price. A skilled TV executive, Grade has nevertheless been unable to protect ITV from the impact of falling ad revenues. He will relinquish his current role before the end of the year, to become non-executive chairman. The company has begun its search for a new CEO. Among the favourites are current ITV COO John Cresswell, commercial director Rupert Howell, and Five's Dawn Airey. Also in the frame is Greg Dyke, a former colleague of Grade's. However the two men have fallen out badly in recent times, making a renewed working partnership very unlikely. Grade is currently suing Dyke for libel over a piece he penned for the Times newspaper earlier this year.

Universal Music Group and YouTube announced plans for a new music video portal, Vevo. The jointly owned site would host the entire back catalogue of Universal's music videos. YouTube also plans to unveil a new service which will offer full-length TV shows and movies, optimised for viewing on standard TVs rather than computer monitors.

Time Warner is thought to preparing for a full spin-off of its long-suffering AOL division. It offered new terms to AOL bondholders, a move almost certainly designed to clear the way for a divestment of the business. CEO Jeff Bewkes also acknowledged that the group was considering acquisitions in the content area. One key hunting ground could be the software sector. Game developers Electronic Arts and Take Two could be in Time Warner's sights.

Not even Google is immune to the current recession. For the first time in its history, the company reported a decline in quarter-on-quarter revenues. Sales for 1Q 2009 were $5.5bn, around 3% lower than for the last three months of 2008. However, the latest quarter still reported an increase of 6% compared to 1Q of 2008. 

The Screen Actors Guild, the main union representing movie and prime time TV performers, finally agreed terms with film and TV producers for a new contract to cover pay and terms until 2011. The two sides have been in often acrimonious negotiations for almost a year. The last contract actually expired in July 2008, but the actors agreed to continue working even without contract cover in order to avoid a damaging repetition of the writers strike which paralysed the industry over the winter of 2007/08. The new terms must now be ratified by the union's 120,000 members.

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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