Cell C Takes Care of Your Morning Clumsiness

Sometimes things just don't go quite right when you are getting ready for your day. Thankfully, there's Cell C, a South African cellular company that offers free medical rescue as part of its service. Odd thing to offer as part of a cell phone package but maybe South African's are accident prone by nature.

Oh, and that butt shot? Well, what part of the ad did you think you'd see cropped here on Adrants?

Network Execs Still Fat And Happy...And Clueless

Executives at the Milken Global Conference yesterday brushed off the notion that television is a dying medium.

"What time has shown is the unbelievable power of network TV," said Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp., which owns the Fox Group. "The fact that people are still watching that much network television is a testament to its remarkable strength." Perhaps he hasn't seen the massive declines in Nielsen numbers.

Sumner Redstone also chimed in saying, "The only way you reach all American people is through network television." Sumner, there's this big thing called the Internet. Perhaps you've heard of it. Lots of people are using it. Really. I'm serious. You should check it out.

Big Changes Coming in Advertising

Stephanie Olsen writes in CNET about the many dramatic changes occurring in the advertising segment including the shift to accountability driven by available new technologies and the shift of marketing control from advertiser to consumer. Everything from TiVo to behavioral targeting to addressable advertising to performance-based campaigns are covered. All of which might finally lay the rest the famous statement, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The problem is, I don't know which half."

Internet Increasingly A Primary Medium For Women

Categorizing audiences as only an agency could into groups called Digital Cowgirl, Digital Cassandra, Digital Diva, Digital Debutante, Digital Detective , Digital Voyeur, Digital Shopkeeper and Digital Socialite, Stacom MediaVest and Yahoo have released a study done by Just Ask a Woman and TNS Media Research on women's Internet usage. The study, called "The Untold Story of Women on the Web," was presented today at Yahoo's California headquarters.

Key findings include confirmation that daytime is prime time for women at work who alternate usage of the Internet for both work and non-work needs to achieve their increasingly mutltitask-driven lives. In fact, the study found the amount of activities done by women in the study equated to 38 hours in one 24 hour period. With more women spending an increased number of hours working each day, marketers would be wise to reallocate daytime and talk show TV dollars to a dayparted web campaign.

Nationwide Insurance Launches New Campaign

In this week's Out to Launch column by Amy Coor, a new ad campaign from Nationwide Insurance is highlighted. Called "Life Comes At You Fast," the campaign illustrates how time flys and if you don't plan ahead, your children will be old and you will be facing retirement unprepared. The campaign will include print, online, outdoor, bus wraps, transit shelters, mall posters and airport dioramas. The campaign was created by Temerlin McClain.

Other new campaign launches include Ireland's Boru vodka, Hewlett-Packard's enterprise solutions, United Nations' AIDS campaign, San Diego's Convention and Visitor Bureau promotional campaign, Infiniti's G35 and Chrysler's 300C.

IAB Announces Guidelines For Pop Up Ads

Late to the game and addressing a dying ad format, the Internet Advertising Bureau has announced proposed guidelines for the use of pop up advertising. While a more admirable definition might be, "the IAB defines a pop up as any advertising experience that causes a consumer to punch their computer screen and send death threats to the advertiser," the actual guidelines define this ad unit as "any advertising experience that utilizes a web-browser initiated additional window to deliver an ad impression either directly above or below the existing browser experience." The guidleines go on to address frequency, labelling and size specifications. There will be a two month comment period after which the guidelines will become final.

Paris Hilton's Parents Join Reality TV Crowd

Following in their daughter's footsteps, parents of celebutant Paris Hilton will appear in their own reality series entitled "The Good Life" on NBC. The series will follow the couple as the oversee a group of ten young, and hopefully hot, women who are seeking to fulfill unrealized potential. Apart from that making no sense, the series will be filmed in the Hilton's New York City Waldorf Astoria and contestants will be voted off weekly in the usual manner. What they are competing for is not quite clear but it just might be fun to watch a bunch of over priviledged rich girls break down and cry as they get booted.

Agencies and Networks Gather to Discuss TV Buying Process

Today, advertisers, agencies and representatives from ABC, CBS, FOX, UPN, WB, Turner and Court TV will attend the first of its kind meeting about how television advertising is bought during the upfront. The committee, called the Network Upfront Discussion Group, will look at how the upfront can be changed so that it is not the frenetic, overpriced folly it is today.