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In celebration of the Cannes International Advertising Festival - for more of which, see below - we bring you this week a French-speaking special. But for those of you who lack fluency in la langue Francaise, we went to extreme lengths to get hold of English language versions for each spot so no one misses out. First up are two ads from the Paris-based creative duo Fred & Farid. The first is for Pulco, a juice drink from the Orangina Schweppes stable. Nicely captures the lazy days of summer we feel. The second is designed to introduce the delights of McVities biscuits, made here in Angleterre, to a French audience. Thank heavens we Brits are able to laugh at ourselves from time to time.

Next up is an ad by another French shop, Les Ouvriers, for Okay, the kitchen towel marketed in France by the American company Georgia Pacific. It's a funny idea. Nice performance from the elephant as well. 

And finally, we nip across the border to Belgium for an ad promoting the video on demand service offered by national telecoms operator Belgacom. The agency is VVL BBDO. In case you were wondering, a peignoir is of course a dressing gown. As for the rest of the ad, we won't spoil the surprise. Suffice it to say that the supporting cast in the ad do a pretty good job as well. (Though not as good as that Okay elephant...)

In the news this past week: Advertisers

If you work in the US advertising or media industries and you think this year's bad, just wait until 2010. That's the underlying message from WPP's GroupM media division, which released its updated forecasts for media expenditure this week. GroupM anticipates an overall 4.3% slump for US adex in 2009, and then predicts a further 6.5% fall in 2010 to total spend of just under $141bn. If so that would be the lowest figure for total US spend since 2003. However the slump in radio and newspaper expenditure is even worse, taking those two media back to lows not experienced for a decade or more. The picture for the UK is even more marked. GroupM forecasts total spend for 2009 to plunge by as much as 14% to $15.3bn, resulting in what it describes as "unprecedented media closures". That will be followed by a gentler, though still significant, 2.7% decrease in 2010 to $14.9bn. This too would be the lowest figure since 2003, with all four major media of TV, radio, newspapers and magazines experiencing their lowest levels since the 1990s. The global picture, however, is a little less bleak, thanks largely to the emerging BRIC markets. Global adspend is forecast to fall by 5.5% in 2009, to $417bn, and by a further 1.4% in 2010 to $411bn. That knocks us back to just above 2006 levels, when global spend totalled $408bn.

So far at least, General Motors' bankruptcy restructuring has gone much more smoothly than anticipated, leading to speculation that the company could relaunch itself as soon as early July, a month or more ahead of schedule. Under the proposed plan, "old" GM will sell a selection of good assets including the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC brands and some manufacturing facilities, to a new company 60%-owned by the US government. The Canadian government and the UAW labour union will also be significant shareholders. The main outlines of the plan have already been approved by the presiding judge overseeing the case and could be completed by the end of June, barring any significant challenge from bondholders or dealerships. In the mean time, while in Chapter 11, GM is maintaining advertising expenditure at more or less the same level as previously this year. Marketing chief Mark LaNeve confirmed that the company's spend is continuing at around $40m to $50m per month, unchanged from earlier in the year, though considerably lower than the $63m or so it spent each week back in 2006.

Apple revealed that CEO and presiding guru Steve Jobs underwent a successful liver transplant in April this year. According to the company, he has enjoyed a speedy recovery and is expected to return to work on a part-time basis by the end of the month. Jobs took a leave of absence in January after he was discovered to be suffering from what was described at the time as a rare "hormone imbalance". However no specific details of the case and of Jobs' wellbeing over the past six months were made public. The liver transplant demonstrates just how serious was his condition. This latest procedure seems to mark yet another extraordinary recovery for a man who has already survived a bout of pancreatic cancer in 2004. Jobs' most recent illness could well be connected with a recurrence of that cancer, although Apple has made no declaration of the fact. Rightly or wrongly, Jobs is considered integral to the ongoing success of the company. Yet the company has nevertheless done pretty well for itself in the six months he was out of action. Separately this week, Apple announced that it sold 1m units of its new iPhone 3GS handsets in just their first three days on-sale, defying sceptics who had forecast the new model would not match the levels attained by its 3G predecessor.

According to weekend press reports, British Airways is considering the closure of its OpenSkies spin-off, which flies from continental Europe to the US. Passenger numbers have fallen sharply since the service launched, and BA is struggling to find ways of cutting costs to regain profitability. Separately, Lufthansa and BMI British Midland resolved a long-running dispute over the purchase of the British carrier, which is BA's biggest rival at Heathrow Airport. Lufthansa already owned a minority stake in BMI and was forced to acquire majority control earlier this year under a "put" option exercised by the smaller company's chairman and founder Sir Michael Bishop. However, that deal then stalled as a result of a disagreement over price. Lufthansa had attempted to argue that the put price of £298m set in 1999 failed to reflect BMI's current weakened financial position. After several months of negotiations, the two side have settled on a lower figure of £223m. Once the takeover is complete Lufthansa will become the second largest airline operating out of Heathrow.

A new study of buying habits among US shoppers reveals an alarming lack of loyalty towards leading brands. According to research commissioned by the CMO Council, which represents chief marketing officers, more than half of many US brands' most loyal customers have either reduced the frequency of their purchases over the past two years or switched altogether to a rival product. The study analyses supermarket spending habits tracked by loyalty cards for around 32m US customers. In one of the most marked swings highlight in the report, 21% of customers who were regular buyers of the analgesic Tylenol in 2007 had reduced their loyalty to the brand by 2009, and 45% were no longer buying it at all. Similarly, only 41% of buyers of Crest toothpaste had remained loyal to the brand over the period. Copies of the report can be ordered direct from the CMO Council

Personnel news: former Bacardi marketing chief Stella David is to become the new CEO of William Grant & Sons. That company's brands include Grant's and Glenfiddich whisky, and the company has a strategic alliance in several countries with Remy Cointreau and Russian Standard vodka. Separately, Simon Davies quit his job as group marketing director for Molson Coors UK after 13 years. His replacement is being sought. MasterCard named Ajay Banga, previously head of Citigroup's Asia Pacific operations, as president & COO, a new role. The appointment makes Banga the likely successor to MasterCard's long-serving CEO Robert Selander. It's another step-up for India's Banga family: Ajay's older brother Manvinder "Vindi" Banga is the de facto #2 at Unilever.   

Procter & Gamble has acquired high end men's skincare and grooming range Zirh for an undisclosed price. Distributed mainly in the US, Zirh was owned for several years by Japanese beauty company Shiseido before being sold to private equity investors in 2007.

Japanese brewer Kirin's bid to acquire the shares it doesn't already own in Lion Nathan was approved by local regulators. Once complete, that deal will establish Kirin as Australia's #2 brewer behind Foster's. brands include Castlemaine XXXX, Steinlager and local favourite Toohey's.

In the news this past week: Agencies

The Cannes Lions, arguably the global ad industry's most prestigious annual awards event, kicked off last Sunday. However this year's jamboree is far more low-key than last year, with attendance down by around 40% on last year according to organisers EMAP. According to media reports, many larger agencies including BBH and TBWA London aren't sending any delegates at all this year. Campaign last week noted that entries for the awards had declined by around 20% year-on-year. In these straitened times, it's harder to justify the costs of participation. The price for submitting an entry ranges from E270 for the radio category to E620 for film and E1150 for the Titanium & integrated segment. Registration as a full delegate, with access to all the events, costs a recession-defying E2175.

There's always one campaign which sweeps up a clutch of awards at Cannes. Last year it was BBDO's Voyeur installation for HBO; this year it's The Best Job In The World, the multimedia promotion launched by Australian agency Cummins Nitro on behalf of Tourism Queensland. So far it's snapped no less than three Grand Prix, in the Direct and Cyber categories as well as in PR, a new discipline being recognised for the first time at the festival. It's also a frontrunner for the integrated Titanium prize. The campaign generated considerable international media coverage earlier this year. CumminsNitro placed classified recruitment ads in newspapers around the world requesting applications for a six month job as caretaker of an island in the Great Barrier Reef. The campaign generated an astonishing 34,684 applications from 201 countries, and some 3.4m unique users visited the accompanying website before 34-year-old Briton Ben Southall was picked for the job in May. 

Best Job In The World was one of an unprecedented trio of Grand Prix winners in the Cyber category. The other two went to AKQA for Fiat's Eco:Drive interactive marketing campaign, and to Californian digital shop 42 Entertainment for their multi-channel promotional campaign for last summer's The Dark Knight movie. Overall, the Grand Prix winners announced to-date are a typically cosmopolitan bunch, with US and UK agencies conspicuous for their comparative low profile. The countries of Japan and South Africa deserve special mention. Japan has scored three Grand Prix winners so far. The Grand Prix in the Promo category went to Tokyo's Beacon Communications for its work promoting the mining town of Yubari, which has relaunched itself as a tourist resort after going bust last year. JWT Tokyo took the Media Grand Prix for an innovative campaign on behalf of Kit Kat in association with the Japanese Post Office. Bars of chocolate were repackaged as easy-to-mail edible good luck postcards. Famously, Kit Kats are widely regarded in Japan as good luck tokens, customarily given as gifts to students on the eve of a big exam. (The brand name sounds similar to the Japanese phrase kitto katso, meaning "certain to win"). However the top media prize for Media Agency of the Year was snapped up by the country's Dentsu agency.

Two Grand Prix went to agencies in South Africa. The top Outdoor Lion went to TBWA\Hunt\Lascari for a poster campaign for The Zimbabwean, an international newspaper aimed at ex-pats from the African nation struggling under Robert Mugabe's dictatorship. Each poster was made out of a patchwork of the country's worthless trillion and million dollar banknotes. NetworkBBDO of Jo'burg took the Grand Prix in radio for a campaign for Virgin Atlantic. In other categories, the award for Direct Agency of the Year went to Shackleton of Madrid; Goodby Silverstein of the US was Cyber Agency of the Year; French shop Fred & Farid took the Press Grand Prix for their We Are Animals campaign for Wrangler Jeans; and McCann Hong Kong took the Design prize for a set of posters promoting the island's Nike Basketball League Competition. The last four major awards, for the Film and Titanium & Integrated categories, as well as Agency Network of the Year and the Palme d'Or for best production company, will be announced on Saturday. A full list of prizewinners, including all Gold, Silver and Bronze prizes, is available on the Cannes Lions website. 

Michael Wall, a former founding partner of Fallon London, was confirmed as the new CEO of the Lowe Worldwide network. In Australia, Craig Davis, previously the London-based global chief creative officer of JWT, was named as the new co-chairman and CCO of Publicis Mojo. Australian-born Davis quit his job at JWT last summer to return home. 

The week's biggest account move was the $120m creative assignment for US tax specialist H&R Block, awarded to DDB New York (out of Campbell Mithun). In other developments, Wal-Mart confirmed GolinHarris, Porter Novelli and Cohn & Wolfe as the three new additions to its PR roster, alongside incumbent Edelman. Each of the four will be invited to pitch for individual briefs. Publicis New York took a new assignment to handle Corona Light beer in the US; Cramer-Krasselt retains the main Corona Extra account. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here. 

In the news this past week: Media

The upfront market, in which the major US TV networks secure advance advertising commitments for the coming Fall/Winter season, appears to have reached a stalemate. Normally, all the key deals should have been agreed by now - last year the networks had closed their books by the second week of June. This year, however, advertisers and mediaowners appear to be at standstill, a state of affairs that could result in the worst upfront in history. The reason for the deadlock appears to be the big difference between the prices demands of the networks and the amount that advertisers are prepared to pay. Rumours suggest that client budgets have been cut by as much as 20%. The only deals being done right now seem to be for sponsorships and branded entertainment, with many advertisers likely to postpone any decisions until the weeks before the season actually kicks off.

Struggling UK pay-TV broadcaster Setanta collapsed into administration at the beginning of the week after failing to secure the funding it needed to pay an instalment payment for rights to televise British Premier League football games. The company's UK channels went off-air on Monday night, although it continues to operate in Ireland and some international territories for the time being. All its UK sports rights, including those for Indian cricket and the US PGA, reverted to their organising bodies and will be auctioned off. Setanta's Premier League package, which covers 46 live games from the next football season and 23 from the three following years, have already been resold. The buyer was US sports TV giant ESPN, marking that company's biggest step to-date into the international sports TV arena. This move will put ESPN in direct competition with Sky Sports; however the two companies are likely to agree a far more amicable arrangement than existed between Sky and Setanta. ESPN and News Corp are already partners in a joint venture to air Premier League football in Asia, and the US company has already appointed Sky to handle advertising sales around its UK broadcasts. It is also likely to sell on its coverage on a wholesale basis to other pay TV operators including Virgin media and BT Vision. ESPN is a division of the Walt Disney-owned ABC TV network.

Separately, News Corp's newspaper subsidiary News International named Rebekah Wade, previously editor of The Sun, as its new chief executive. The fiery redhead will take up the role in September, overseeing not only The Sun and News of the World but also The Times, Sunday Times and freebie thelondonpaper.

How's this for a gruesome twosome? Retail billionaire Sir Philip Green, of Top Shop fame, and media mogul Simon Cowell are to join forces to launch their own entertainment business which will create and control international television content. Although Cowell devised the hugely popular Idols, Talent and X Factor TV franchises, he sold his rights to the profits from those formats to Sony and Simon Fuller's 19 company. Cowell now aims to renegotiate his existing contracts, which are due to expire next year, with Green as his adviser and business partner.

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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