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What, Microsoft? Again? Maintaining a relentless barrage on our consciousness, the Seattle giant has unveiled its third big ad in three weeks. You will remember of course the last two, misguided attempts to rewire Apple's superb "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" campaign, with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates painfully miscast as the Laurel & Hardy of Silicon Valley. (If you're new to this debate, see our previous Updates here and here). Finally, however, agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky seems to be finding its groove, and the new film is a marked improvement, even if it does give Bill Gates more screen time than he deserves. Note once again Microsoft's touchiness over the Apple ads, so much so that they become the whole starting point for this campaign. OK, says this spot, I am a PC. We may not be cool, but we're real people just like you, with glasses and beards and everything. (By the way, what is that bag Bill's carrying in the ad? Is he meant to be, like, doing the grocery shopping or something? What is the point of being a billionaire if you don't have someone who does that stuff for you?) 

Stripper - sorry, Burlesque Artiste - Dita Von Teese is not a PC at all of course. Unless of course it's one of those fancy ones with a tassel attached to its on/off switch. The latest instalment in her world domination strategy is this rather nifty starring role in the new ad for Wonderbra, promoting her own lingerie designs. Very nice it is too in a rather corny old-fashioned sort of way. Which agency was responsible? Oddly, there are no credits.

Culture of a rather higher nature is on offer in this handsome spot for The Getty Center from the Los Angeles outpost of M&C Saatchi. Great imagery. We particularly like the guy on the escalator. However, sadly, we are not cultured enough to tell you what that is he has instead of a head...

And finally, an interesting new(ish) idea from Sony Ericsson, which hopes to win back some of the market share it's lost over the last year or so with its new Xperia smartphone, a rival to the iPhone and the Android G1 (for which, see below). This new viral campaign is by digital agency Dare and takes the form of an urban thriller, "Who Is Johnny X?", broken up into eight three-minute webisodes. With a big nod to Christopher Nolan's excellent thriller Memento of a few years back, Who is Johnny X tells the story of an amnesiac who tries to work out who he is with the help of his Xperia smartphone, while also evading the bad guys who are out to get him. (UK viewers may be reminded of those Orange Gold Spot cinema ads in which Orange's horrendous marketing chief tries to shoe-horn a blatant plug for mobile phones into the pitch idea for a good movie). The Johnny X trailer is a blast. If it wasn't for the mobile phone angle it might have made a really great movie...

In the news this past week: Advertisers

There have been no further failures yet, but the after-shocks of last week's banking crisis continued to reverberate around the industry, with stock markets blowing hot and cold every day in response to each new twist in the negotiations between Hank Paulson and Congress over his $700bn bailout plan. At the same time, America's last two pure-play investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, volunteered to renounce their legal status as securities houses and are to become traditional bank holding companies. That change will force them to submit to much tighter regulation, and will prevent them from making the sort of high-risk investments in which they have specialised to-date. On the other hand, it will also boost investor confidence and allow them to call upon the US Government's financial assistance if the market remains so volatile. That change also led to the termination of merger negotiations between Morgan Stanley and struggling retail and commercial bank Wachovia. Under its new holding company structure Morgan Stanley will be able to buy, rather than simply merge with, a company such as Wachovia. In the mean time, the firm strengthened its balance sheet by agreeing to sell a shareholding of up to 20% to Japan's biggest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. 

Another well-capitalised Japanese bank, the securities house Nomura, took advantage of the turmoil to acquire the Asian and European operations of the collapsed US investment bank Lehman Brothers at a bargain price. Goldman Sachs also had been in talks with Asian investors. In the end however it agreed a domestic deal with billionaire Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway group purchased $5bn of Goldman preferred stock as well as warrants to buy another $5bn of shares over the next five years. That vote of confidence allowed Goldman to raise another $5bn from a public issue during the week.  Meanwhile five other banks - JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, HSBC and Santander - have been poring over the books of struggling thrift bank Washington Mutual, which has effectively put itself up for sale to avoid collapse. The business is likely to be split up. . 

Interbrand published its new ranking of the world's Top 100 Global Brands. The highest new addition to the list was H&M, in at #22. The fashion retailer had been excluded from the list in previous years, for reasons that are not entirely clear. However other major brands such as Tesco, Wal-Mart and major phone companies are not included in the ranking because they fail Interbrand's test of generating at least a third of their revenues outside their country of origin. Other new additions to this year's list were BlackBerry, Ferrari, Armani, Visa, Marriott (but not Hilton?) and FedEx (but not UPS?). Leaving the Top 100 this year were Kodak, Kraft, Burberry, Nissan, LG and Polo Ralph Lauren. The highest climber was Google, which joined the Top 10 for the first time, followed by Apple, Amazon, Zara and Nintendo. The biggest falls within the list were Merrill Lynch, Gap, Morgan Stanley, Citi and Ford. Download the full report here.

General Motors unveiled the first production model of the car which, it hopes, will provide the platform for its future, and help it drive back to profit. When it launches to the public in 2010, the Chevrolet Volt is expected to be the first mass-production fully electric car, delivering equivalent performance to Toyota's current hybrid Prius. Powered from a normal electricity socket, the Volt has acceleration of 0 to 60 in 9 seconds, faster than the current Prius, and will be capable of travelling 40 miles on a single charge. Pricing has yet to be confirmed, but it is expected to go onsale at upwards of $30,000. Toyota hopes to launch its own all-electric version of the Prius at around the same time, and is also developing another sort of hybrid car which will run on a mixture of electricity and compressed natural gas.

Watch out iPhone, here comes Android. Google unveiled the first smartphone powered by its much-vaunted Android operating system. The G1 handset has been built by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC and will be launched in key global markets by T-Mobile from next month. Strongly reminiscent of the iPhone in looks, the device has a large touchscreen, and a variety of touch-operated software features including web search, easy music downloading (via Amazon) and GPS. Reviews of the phone were mixed. Most reviewers said its looks compared unfavourably with the iPhone, but noted that it did offer some key advantages, not least a slide-out qwerty keyboard for easier typing. Another feature that attracted considerable attention was built-in GPS software that acts as a sort of photographic compass. Using images from Google's web-based Street View service, the phone provides ground-level pictures of big-city locations, which rotate as the phone is moved to give a 360-degree panoramic view of chosen locations. The G1 will launch in the US in October, with a target price of $179. It arrives in the UK in November and in Germany and other European markets in early 2009. Samsung and LG have signed up to develop further Android phones for next year.

Gap announced a step in a slightly different direction, with its first acquisition in more than 20 years. It has agreed to buy direct-to-consumer women's sportswear manufacturer Athleta for around $150m. The last significant purchase by Gap was in 1983, when it acquired what was then just a two-outlet chain, Banana Republic. A year later it acquired home decoration retailer Pottery Barn, but sold that business again at a loss in 1986. Athleta will join another recently developed web-only brand, shoe store Piperlime, under the umbrella of Gap Direct.

In the news this past week: Agencies

Esther Lee, who joined Euro RSCG last summer from Coca-Cola as its first CEO for North America, is to step down after little more than a year in the job. At the time, her appointment was seen as a major coup for global CEO David Jones. Lee had almost 20 years' experience on the agency side of the business before she joined Coke in 2002 as chief creative officer, supervising all creative output. However, in the months following her arrival, local Euro RSCG officers Ron Berger and Ron Bess, previously regional heads of the agency's two main bases in New York and Chicago, were also given expanded responsibility for the national network, and Jose Cabaco joined as the agency's first North American executive creative director. The resulting mix appears to have led to what Advertising Age described as "a clash of egos in the C-suite".

After a year of suspense, Korean car manufacturer Hyundai confirmed plans to transfer its advertising account from Goodby Silverstein to World Marketing Group, the US subsidiary of the auto company's inhouse advertising division Innocean. Rumours of an impending break have been bubbling under all year. Goodby is expected to hand over the account at the end of 1Q 2009. WMG will also take over creative responsibility for affiliated auto brand Kia Motors. Hyundai's marketing VP Joel Ewanick explained to Adweek that the move had nothing to do with Goodby's creative work, "but was a more about the need to move and talk with one voice around the world; a corporate strategic decision."

In account assignments, Orange appointed Mediaedge:CIA to take over UK media from Initiative. Mediaedge:CIA also gets interactive media for the main branding campaign, although direct response interactive will stay with incumbent i-level. OMD and Carat were named as the two finalists in a shoot-out for the consolidated Renault and Nissan global media accounts. Carat currently handles Renault in most markets, while OMD has Nissan. SSF Group, the alliance between Publicis Groupe's Fallon and Saatchi & Saatchi networks, got its first major assignment as a result of the transfer of all Cadbury's chocolate brands out of Publicis Worldwide in the UK and other countries. Direct responsibility for the brand will vary from country to country. Fallon will take charge in London, where it already handles the main Cadbury's Dairy Milk. Saatchi & Saatchi New York will handle a big new push for Cadbury's chocolate in the US. Cadbury's gum brands account will stay with their existing agencies, JWT and McCann. 

Among other assignments, Coca-Cola called a review of pan-Euro creative for Powerade, currently at Mother. Heineken placed global digital with AKQA. Pernod's The Glenlivet whisky transferred to Publicis from Ogilvy. Internet security software firm McAfee appointed DDB and OMD to its worldwide business. Vodafone Australia placed local creative with Clemenger BBDO. In the US, Starbucks split from Wieden & Kennedy. UK financial services website Comparethemarket.com called a review out of VCCP. For all other appointments, subscribers can access the full Adbrands Account Assignments database here.

In the news this past week: Media

Hot on the heels of its clutch of awards at the crafts Emmys last week, AMC's Mad Men made history at this week's Prime-Time Emmys, becoming the first basic cable series ever to take home a major trophy. It was honoured for Best Drama Series and Best Writing For a Drama Series. Meanwhile pay-cable channel HBO once again swept the board for most other drama trophies with its John Adams mini-series, and NBC's inside-the-industry sitcom 30 Rock took Best Comedy Series as well as Best Comedy Actress and Actor and for its stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin.

There were hopes of a breakthrough in the contract negotiations between the US actors' unions and the entertainment studios. The two sides have spent more than three months attempting to agree terms for a new contract that will cover payments for film and television performances for the next three years. The previous contract actually expired on July 1st, but renewal talks broke down over disagreement on residuals for DVDs and internet downloads, the same dispute which caused last winter's writers strike. That dispute, of course, brought the industry to a virtual standstill for several months, at a significant financial cost to all echelons of the entertainment community. Mindful of that damage, the actors opted to continue working rather than go on strike, but discussions were quickly complicated by another battle, this time between the two major actors unions. The smaller union, AFTRA, voted to accept terms suggested by the studios, while its bigger and more powerful rival SAG held out for a better deal, leading to increasingly bitter internecine fighting between performers who should actually have all been on the same side. Last week however, the more conciliatory actors' group Unite For Strength won a majority of seats on the SAG board, overtaking the hold-out group, Membership First. Unite For Strength counts among its supporters such luminaries as Tom Hanks, Sally Field and Desperate Housewives' Felicity Huffman. Membership First is backed by a more hard-core group including bad boys Jack Nicholson, Nick Nolte and Viggo Mortensen.

Steven Spielberg and David Geffen finally closed a deal to raise around $500m from Reliance Communications, the Indian conglomerate controlled by billionaire Amil Ambani. Together with DreamWorks president Stacey Snider, they will sever their ties with Paramount at the end of the year, and re-establish their studio as an independent. That freedom will come at a cost. Paramount is happy to let them go, but is insisting on keeping control over all development projects, including several dear to Spielberg, such as a long-planned Abe Lincoln biopic.

The new board of Yahoo had its first meeting this week, and is said to have given its approval for managers to open new talks with Time Warner concerning a merger with AOL. Yawn. Don't know about you, but we're getting a little tired of hearing about Yahoo and its on-again, off-again negotiations with different partners. So make a deal already.

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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