Independent News & Media
April 30, 2009
The Mexican stand-off between the media group, the banks and the bondholders is frightening the market
From: http://www.ft.com/rss/companies/media
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EMI expands marketing team to forge links between music and brands
April 30, 2009
LONDON – EMI Music has followed up its appointment last week of Andria Vidler as UK president with several senior marketing appointments.
From: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/RSS/
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Watch consumers interact with McDonald’s digital billboard at Piccadilly Circus
April 30, 2009
LONDON – McDonald’s has unveiled a fresh sign concept at Piccadilly Circus, aimed at encouraging visitors to take pictures against the back-drop of the iconic outdoor site, which is seen by an estimated 1.1m people a week.
From: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/RSS/
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BBC Good Homes magazine to close
April 30, 2009
LONDON – BBC Magazines is to close BBC Good Homes magazine in May, after its ABC figures fell by 23 per cent, year on year.
From: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/RSS/
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Westfield partners with Vue to build multiplex cinemas
April 30, 2009
LONDON – Westfield Group has signed a partnership deal with Vue Entertainment to build and run two multiplex cinemas at Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City.
From: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/RSS/
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Patents, pirates and iPods
April 30, 2009
Did the patent system slow down or speed up the development of the steam engine in 19th century Britain? Just one topic for debate at a conference I’ve been attending in Prague on the impact of patents and other forms of intellectual property protection on innovation. It might seem a dry topic – but it sparked some impassioned arguments between Europe’s creative businesses and the ICT industry.
Round One saw John Kennedy of the IFPI – the music industry body which led the fight against Pirate Bay – laying into all and sundry with some gusto. The Swedes behind Pirate Bay were “not Robin Hood but robbers”, backed by a “right-wing fascist”, hiding money away in overseas banks accounts and stealing from artists and the Swedish taxpayer.
But that was just for starters – his real target was the internet service providers and Europe’s politicians. The ISPs needed to step up to the plate in the battle against piracy – they hadn’t even blocked Pirate Bay since the IFPI’s court victory – and Brussels was hesitant at a time when strategic leadership was needed. “Engaging ISPs in the battle against piracy, ” he ended, “is the single most important priority for the music and creative industries today.” An Italian consumer organisation fired back with protestations that it wasn’t the job of ISPs to police the net – but Mr Kennedy was on the front foot.
But it was the content creators who were on the defensive in Round Two at a seminar on a subject which may shock British readers. How would you like to pay a “private copying levy” every time you bought an iPod, a printer or a blank CD? No, I thought not – but in many countries across the EU, it’s the norm.
Europe’s consumers are “lucky” – according to a media rights organisation at the seminar – to be granted an exemption from copyright law allowing them to make private copies of films, musics, and articles they own. But in return a price is paid by the electronics industry in the form of levies, with revenues going back to the content creators.
Apple and HP are among the companies who must exact these levies – and their representatives outlined in hair-raising detail what it meant. In Belgium, according to the woman representing HP, you can end up paying a levy on a printer which is more than its basic cost. In Sweden, countered the man from Apple, the levy on an iPod was related to its capacity – and with Moore’s Law continuing to operate, that meant the cost was rising to ridiculous levels.
Each country applies the levies in a different way, and the Apple and HP executives both described the system as a “nightmare”, fiendishly complex, and costly to administer. But neither was arguing for its abolition – a hopeless quest apparently – just for a bit more uniformity in its application, and for consumers to be told why they were paying.
So does it serve any purpose? The woman from the media rights organisation said the levies supported artists and media companies across Europe – and, confronted with my slightly amazed questioning, she pointed out that the BBC was a keen collector of some of the cash from countries where its programmes are sold.
But an executive from Nokia insisted it was a brake on innovation – his company had chosen to launch its “Comes With Music” service in Britain partly because the levies were not applied here.
So is there any chance that UK consumers could eventually be “lucky” enough to be forced to pay up too? Under UK legislation, copying music or video to a blank CD or an iPod is still technically illegal, and there’s talk of a change in the law. The UK music industry says that if that happens an “iPod tax” should be brought in here, although it’s difficult to see ministers selling that to the public.
But make no mistake: content creators who are struggling to get consumers to pay for movies or music in a digital world are on the warpath. They’re telling ISPs and consumer technology firms that they must help plug the hole in the creative industries’ finances caused by file-sharing or copying. And they seem increasingly confident that governments will listen to their message.
From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/rss.xml
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Cole Moreton: Offensive? A dog in a bloody car?
April 30, 2009
It’s not the ads, it’s the complaints that upset me – the world is going to hell and we complain about a clip of a dog driving
Do you know what upsets people most in these terrible times? The financial crisis? War? No. Woodland animals dancing together, a chef kissing another man and a dog driving a Volkswagen.
This we learn from the Advertising Standards Authority, which has published a chart of the 10 television ads that drew most complaints in Britain last year. It says so much about us.
Featured in the top five are the promo for mayonnaise in which a chef makes his family packed lunches, then gets kissed by his partner who is – horrors – another man; and the Orangina ad in which the creatures of the forest dance together (suggestively and inappropriately, complainants said) before the slogan, “Life is Juicy”. Then there’s my favourite, the second most offensive advertisement of 2008 according to the British public: the one showing a dog at the wheel of a car.
This cute white canine sings happily as he drives, but whimpers and trembles when out of his Volkswagen. Those who complained were worried that the dog might have been harmed (although some were more offended at the sight of the Highway Code being broken). How deliciously British. The world is going to hell, advertisers are bombarding us with the need to buy more junk, eat more fat, look thinner, look younger, look sexier (even while at primary school) but the thing that really inspires people to pick up the phone and say, “Stop! No more!” is a dog in a bloody car.
The ad at the top of the chart, deemed the most offensive of all, does contain distressing scenes but is not by some peddler of soft porn or a corporation that pours sugar all over kiddie cereal, it is by Barnardos. The charity. It shows a teenage girl being slapped, told she’s worthless and taking drugs, as a way of demonstrating what it says is the “vicious cycle” linking abuse to crime.
The ASA received 840 complaints from people upset by the imagery. Faced with a shocking portrayal of a terrible problem, what did those 840 people do? Phone Barnardos and offer to help with a campaign? No, they called the authorities and told them to get this stuff off their screens.
That’s it then, I’m going into advertising. Here’s the pitch: a hound, a really sweet looking one, is driving a pimped-up street car. He’s smoking, right, and listening to Snoop Dogg – “eligible bachelor, million-dollar boat, that’s whiter than what’s pouring down your throat” – and wooing a pretty little French poodle who is in the passenger seat. Only she’s not a girl dog, okay, she’s a boy.
Woah, hang on, he’s going too fast and here comes a world famous promotional clown handing out free hamburgers to fat little children. The car nearly kills the lot of them. Perfect. Watch those letters fly.
No need to worry though, because not a single advertisement in the ASA’s top 10 had a complaint upheld against it. That couldn’t possibly mean, could it, that the advertisers have worked out what generates the most outrage – and publicity – without breaking the rules? If they haven’t, I have. You know what will get the people really angry about my ad, don’t you? The dog. He’s not wearing a seatbelt.
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/advertising/rss
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Making money from Twitter, ReallyWorried.com style
April 30, 2009
The founder of ReallyWorried.com thinks he’s come across a way to make money from Twitter.
Richard Rubin’s site invites users to sign up, post their worries and get advice from other people, but also pulls common concerns out of Twitter under a section called ‘ReallyTworried’. At the moment these channels are determined by what the site editor chooses to search for, rather than automatically pulling out the most popular trending subjects, but include money worries, feeling ill, losing weight and hair and fashion.
What these have created, Rubin says, are bespoke audiences for advertisers who can reach people that have expressed an opinion or asked for advice in real-time.
“For two years we’ve been pulling our hair out… this is what will make the difference to a site that has been non-commercial for two years. In the first 24 hours we were contacted by six large, multi-national brands,” said Rubin, who thinks the opportunity is a marketer’s dream.
ReallyWorried’s channels need plenty of polishing; inevitably tweets picked out by keyword aren’t always relevant, though Rubin insists that refining the selection by filtering words that contextualise the post – and cut out jokes, for example – maintains the quality. That had better be true if any of those multi-national brands do sign up – they’d expect it to be squeaky clean with no room for #budget mischief.
This is not the first proposal to make money out of Twitter by aggregating messages around certain subjects, and pulling in relevant advertisers. The recently founded Twitter Partners is exploring more strategic models around audience profiling, ecommerce and branding through Twitter.
There’s also ExecTweets, which places ads around posts from influential executives (thereby assuring a certain quality standard, generally) and a handful of nascent recruitment sites including Twitter JobSearch and TwitJobs, which pull out any job-related messages.
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/advertising/rss
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MPs in revolt over product placement
April 30, 2009
LONDON – Labour MPs are in revolt over the Government’s refusal to allow product placement in British TV programmes.
From: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/RSS/
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DoH ad campaign to combat swine flu crisis
April 30, 2009
LONDON – The Department of Health is launching a public health ad campaign on swine flu today, across TV, print and radio, as the World Health Organisation raises the influenza pandemic alert to stage four.
From: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/RSS/
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