For your consideration, an Oscars post

As Academy Awards season descends on Hollywood like a plague of locusts in a C.B. DeMille religious epic, Angelinos will again be subject to one of the oddest mass-media marketing phenomena: local television and radio (local meaning, in this case, reaching 10 million people in Los Angeles County alone) designed to speak to the 5,800 or so voting members of the Academy. In recent years, this trade advertising has extended beyond The Hollywood Reporter and Variety and become more prominent and obvious to all. To overcome Academnesia, studios will release ads for movies no longer even in theaters to promote this director or that actor. In the past, radio spots have featured sound from nominated scores, with snippets of interviews by the composer. For the next month, rather than featuring a current release for its overall appeal, commercials will laud a single performance—conspicuously, that of a nominee. These ads don’t run across the nation, or even necessarily in New York, where at least some Academy members still reside. The campaigns are made to flatter Academy voters with big studio spend—a squandering of media resources made necessary because the Academy discourages direct marketing to its members. Of course, in order to be effective, that means Oscar-solicitous advertising pours money into lefty media, a badly needed boon for Air America.

—Posted by Gregory Solman

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

A marketing tie-in waiting to happen

Surely a marketer of slip-on shoes can make something of this. Link via CBS News.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

George Parker bumped from ‘Today’

We just scrolled through all three DVR-ed hours of this morning’s Today show and didn’t see George Parker anywhere. The curmudgeonly author of the AdScam and AdHurl blogs was due for an appearance to talk about advertising, but George reports that he was bumped. He evidently had to make way for more serious news, such as the death of Coretta Scott King, the Oscar nominations and not one but two segments with Al Roker cooking food. He has been rescheduled for tomorrow, apparently at 7:15 a.m. George explains on AdScam: “Apparently Katie wants to spend more time with me on Wednesday and Al Roker wants me to do the weather. So, Matt is pissed. But what can I say?”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

5 days to kickoff: The techies are all in ABC’s trailers, not on screen

The latest Super Bowl XL news: ABC has brought more than 400 people to Detroit to coordinate one of the largest remote broadcast operations imaginable. (The Detroit News) • The Super Bowl just ain’t the showcase for tech marketers that it used to be. (Investor’s Business Daily) • Ever wonder why advertisers always call it “the Big Game” and never “the Super Bowl”? (The Washington Post) • How to enjoy the game in spite of the hype. (USA Today). • Consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimates that the Super Bowl will cost American employers some $780 million in lost employee productivity. (Seattle Times) • MJZ’s Craig Gillespie, who directed two Ameriquest spots for this year’s Super Bowl, was named the Directors Guild of America’s outstanding commercial director for 2005 over the weekend. He directed last year’s cat-and-tomato-sauce Ameriquest ad, which won an Emmy Award. (Adweek)

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have the King and Brooke tied the knot?

Brooke Burke has her own crown now, anyway. Link via The Superficial. Our favorite non-obscene comment in response to the post: “This is terrible. If Burger King marries a commoner, he’ll have to renounce the throne. Then he’ll just be Burger Dude and have to get a job as a Burger Actuary, or a Burger Subcontracter.” Others are convinced that the natural next step in the campaign will involve a Brooke “bump watch.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Filed under Burger King

Adman winds up with Enron’s big ‘E’

With Enron back in the news, ABC tackles that crucial question: Just where the hell did the company’s big electronic “E” signs go? Well, it turns out there were four of them altogether, and the one that sat in front of Enron HQ on Smith Street in Houston ended up at an ad agency in town called StanAndLou Advertising. The agency’s president, Lou Congelio, picked it up for a mere $8,500, after the man who originally bought it at auction to use as a coffee table sold it under pressure from his wife. Congelio did lend the E to Playboy for its “Women of Enron” photo shoot. And he tells ABC News that he does have some sympathy for Ken Lay: “I think he is a decent guy. He got stuck in the middle of all of this. But he was the keeper of the flame; he should have been paying attention.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

‘Sleepless in Seattle’ gets spoof trailer

Movie trailers are all about the music. That’s our conclusion from watching the latest spoof trailer—Sleepless in Seattle recut to look like a horror movie. This follows last year’s hugely popular Shining trailer, which make the old Stanley Kubrick horror film look like a romantic comedy. So, maybe not surprisingly, romance and horror seem to be somewhat interchangeable. But can anyone recut a Western to make it look like sci-fi? Link via Boing Boing.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

AdFreak readers, you’re our only hope

It is a dark time for the rebellion. The Battle of the Ad Blogs 2006 is entering the home stretch, and our top rival, Adrants the Hutt, is using valuable ad space to declare its intention to “smoke AdFreak’s ass” and possibly carbon-freeze us as well, who knows. We’re down by like 100 votes, give or take. So again we’re asking our readers (and, we thought it went without saying, only our readers) to deliver us, Skywalker-like, from a gruesome fate like this. If you enjoy our dispatches, click on this link and vote for the Freak. Oh yeah, and it’s all in good fun.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

For iTunes users, the drink is hard cider

The New York Times today picks up a study by Nielsen/NetRatings (a distant and more respectable AdFreak relative) about iTunes users which contains some interesting—if not entirely shocking—factoids about their other brand preferences. They are 2.2 times more likely to drive a Volkswagen than the rest of the population and also have a thing for Audis (when they start making more money, presumably) and Subarus. They also drink a disproportionate amount of hard cider. As far as their TV networks, well, it depends on how loosely you want to define network—they are inordinately fond of the Cartoon Network, BBC America and HBO, selections that are simultaneously high-brow, low-brow and infantile, sprinkled with occasional four-letter words.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Long Island. We want a cool slogan too.

After the resounding success (or was that failure?) of New Jersey’s recent slogan contest, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican recently challenged his readers to come up with a slogan for Long Island. As far as we know, Long Island doesn’t have an official motto. Nor is its tourism office looking for one. But that hasn’t stopped Henican’s readers from offering a few. “Sifting through the electronic heap,” Henican writes, “it’s obvious that funny and snarky and twisted come a whole lot easier to a lot of people around here than nice and kind and sweet.” Some of the suggestions: “Long Island: What’s it to you?" “Long Island: Yeah, we’re better than you!” And “Long Island: Do it here and your mother will know.” You can e-mail others to henican@newsday.com.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (9)