Ad Age Super Top Ten: Ads, Marketers, Product Launches

This week's Ad Age sums up the year with several top ten lists including Ten Most Watched Videos (Devo Swiffer number one), Ten Top Marketers (A.G. Lafley President-CEO, Procter & Gamble number one), Ten Non-Traditional Ad Campaigns (Nike's Roy Jones documentary number one), Ten Ads America Won't See (Nativity birth ad number one), Ten Most Successful Product Launches (Apple's iPod growth and iTunes launch number one) and the Ten Most Read Stories (Chevy Chases Turkish Cola Ads number one).

by Steve Hall    Dec-22-03    




FOX Delivers More Mindless Reality

FOX is launching a new reality series called, "Forever Eden," which will follow the lives of single men and women in isolation on a luxury resort but unlike "Paradise Hotel," the show will have no conclusion. The idea is that the cameras will roll as long as there's something worth filming. While we wonder why the cameras would roll in the first place, the show will be spiced up by new participants joining the group, other being voted off, old contestants coming back and special visits from family and friends. Maybe if the show resembles reality, it might be worth watching. That is, if the mindless conversation between players gets edited out. Oh wait, there will be nothing left to air then.

FOX has ordered 25 hours of the series to fill holes in their schedule and will begin in the next month or so.

by Steve Hall    Dec-22-03    




Broadcast Television Still Beats the Crap Out of Cable

For a contrarian viewpoint on cable's growth and importance, a look at the numbers puts broadcast TV in a very comfortable place for the year. To hush the cable cheerleaders, the Television Bureau of Advertising has put out a list of the top TV shows for 2003. Cable doesn't even show up until number 258.

by Steve Hall    Dec-22-03    




Holiday Season Brings Bribes...Um Gifts...to Media Department

Working in the media department at an ad agency has its many perks. Free tickets to anything you want. Great seats at any event you can think of. Free lunches and dinners. Great parties. And for what? All for handing millions of dollars over to the media. Oh, it's legit business of course and we do love out Christmas presents but can we stop with the fruit baskets?

I will say I did get a beautiful clock as a gift this year from MNI and the most incredibly delicious coffee cake from Clear Channel Outdoor. Oh, and wine from a local radio station. I'm not complaining but I will say the worst gift a sales person can give to a media person as anything with a logo on it. If anyone thinks that will make a jaded media person think more highly of a media outlet, their thinking is flawed. We buy on the numbers. Nothing more, nothing less. Unless, of course, you give us cruise tickets. Then we'll buy whether or not you are right for the client. Oh, come one, just kidding. All the free stuff we get goes the clients anyway. Sure.

So tanks to all the wonderful media outlets for making our lives in media so much better than the lives of the "suits" in the client service department. Free tickets are so much more fun than those weekly status reports AE's have to do for clients who never read them.

by Steve Hall    Dec-22-03    




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