from New York Times: Clients, facing relentless competition and consolidation in categories like automobiles, fast food and telecommunications, are anxiously squeezing every nickel of waste from their ad budgets. "In the 80's, we used to fight with clients over creative. In the 90's, it was about strategy. Now, it's only about money," said Jonathan Bond, co-chairman of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners in New York. So in …
Times Says Fast Company Is Done
from New York Times: When the Meredith Corporation announced its purchase of Gruner & Jahr's women's magazines last Tuesday, Meredith said that Gruner's business magazines, Fast Company and Inc., were not "material" to the sale. What that means is that two magazines that sold for more than half a billion dollars four years ago now have a value of zero. As it flees toward its exit from a billion-dollar experiment gone …
Dude, Where Are My Coupons?
from Newsday: A year after revelations of dumped papers led to lawsuits and federal investigations, dozens of bundles of a free Newsday advertising circular were found in an abandoned lot in Islip this past weekend. Stacks of the Newsday Food Extra, a package of features, advertising circulars and coupons delivered free to non-subscribers, were visible in a box-trailer in an industrial area of Freeman Avenue off …
The Fix Is In
Mark Wnek, writing yesterday in The Independent had this to say: The number of people in or around the ad business spouting about the future "beyond advertising" etc etc is climbing up to the thousands. In most cases these people are either commentators with no fiscal attachment to the accuracy of their predictions; people from ailing companies who would love it known that actually their poor performance in easily …
Morgan Stanley Is A Great Company. (Now Will They Buy Ads On AdPulp?)
According to this article on Ad Age, brokerage firm Morgan Stanley has issued a directive to immediately pull all advertising from any publication that prints negative stories about the company. The complicity between advertisers and the press is nothing new, but making overt demands like this isn't going to make the MSM (mainstream media) any more relevant these days. It's no wonder bloggers are getting noted for …
Continue Reading about Morgan Stanley Is A Great Company. (Now Will They Buy Ads On AdPulp?) →
NYTimes.com Is No Longer The Land Of The Free
I always make it a point to glance at The New York Times online edition. But according to reports, including this one in Ad Age, some content including prominent columnists will only be available to subscribers who fork out $50 a year. (I'm sorry, that's $49.95.) This is just the latest in the growing media trend in the US: consumers are being asked more and more to subsidize the media, when advertisers used to be …
Continue Reading about NYTimes.com Is No Longer The Land Of The Free →
Maybe Al Gore Did Invent The Internet
Influx recently interviewed Karl Carter, Current TV's VP of Marketing. Karl talks to us about Current's new advertising model and its radical plan to involve the consumer in the development of both programming and advertising. Is it true Current's ad model is radically different from other networks-if so why? Actually, the Current ad model is able to work with both traditional and non-traditional spots. We will …
Continue Reading about Maybe Al Gore Did Invent The Internet →
That’s A $3.5 Billion Dollar Account–Yes, BILLION
The top story in the ad world today--Ad Age and Adweek both report on the $3.2 Billion GM Media business being awarded to Starcom MediaVest based in Chicago. The incumbents were GM Mediaworks in Warren, Mich., and LCI in New York. I can't even concieve of the numbers involved. It just blows my mind how a review like this could be conducted and how the decision gets made. …
Continue Reading about That’s A $3.5 Billion Dollar Account–Yes, BILLION →