TV Commercials shrink to match Attention Spans

USA Today

 

And now, a word from our sponsors. A very brief word.

TV commercials are shrinking along with attention spans and advertising budgets. The 15-second ad is increasingly common, gradually supplanting the 30-second spot just as it knocked off the full-minute pitch decades ago.

For viewers, it means more commercials in a more rapid-fire format. For advertisers, shorter commercials are a way to save some money, and research shows they hold on to more eyeballs than the longer format.

"It used to be that the most valuable thing on the planet was time, and now the most valuable thing on the planet is attention," says John Greening, associate professor at Northwestern University's journalism school and a former executive vice president at ad agency DDB Chicago.

So instead of seeing a lengthier plot line, viewers are treated to the sight of, say, the popular "Old Spice man" riding backward on a horse through various scenes for just 15 seconds.

Or the "most interesting man in the world," the suave, rugged, Spanish-accented character pitching Dos Equis beer, appearing just long enough to turn his head and weigh in on the topic of rollerblading. (Verdict? A deadpan "No.")

The number of 15-second television commercials has jumped more than 70% in five years to nearly 5.5 million last year, according to Nielsen. They made up 34% of all national ads on the air last year, up from 29% in 2005.

Commercial-skipping digital video recorders and distractions such as laptops and phones have shortened viewers' attention spans, says Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin. Viewers are also watching TV streamed on sites like Hulu, where advertisers have less of a presence.

So companies figure: "Why spend money on anything longer anyway? Plus, if they're going to skip our ads, at least we have a better chance of them seeing something if it's really short," Mitchell said.

Fifteen-second ads cost about the same per second as longer ones. A 15-second ad on network TV cost about $20,000 on average last year, according to Nielsen.

"It becomes a very seductive thing to get your message out there at half the cost," says Mike Sheldon, CEO of advertising agency Deutsch LA, a unit of Interpublic Group.

On average, about 5% of an audience viewing a 15-second commercial will give up on it. The number jumps to about 6% for 30 seconds and 6.5% for 60 seconds, says Jeff Boehme, chief research officer for Kantar Media.

Previously, 15-second ads were mostly edited versions of 30-second spots, but that's changing. Advertisers are making shorter commercials as stand-alones. The length is ideal to remind people of products, stores or prices, but not to introduce them.

More than half of commercials run by packaged-goods companies and 60% of fast-food ads are 15 seconds, according to Kantar. The advertisers simply show a picture of the products, flash a price and the brain knows what the marketer means.

Take the new campaign for Burger King, which is selling its breakfast options. A 15-second ad airing now features a mailman walking down the street carrying a plate of eggs, pancakes and hash browns. There's no verbal description of the product. Instead he sings: "Did you know that breakfast was served at Burger King? The ultimate breakfast platter. That's what I call delivering."

The shorter ads also mean marketers can be on the air more frequently, even within the same commercial break. For example: During a recent episode of CBS' "How I Met Your Mother," viewers were bombarded with five ads in just a minute and a half, including two spots for Dunkin Donuts sandwiched around a more traditional 30-second ad for Aetna.

The quick-hit formula is common in the political ads flooding viewers ahead of Tuesday's elections. Fifteen seconds is plenty of time for an attack ad that can then be repeated, and repeated again.

Such repetition helps beat messages into viewers' heads. That's why Anheuser-Busch would rather air four 15-second ads for Select 55, its 55-calorie beer, than one 60-second ad, says Keith Levy, marketing vice president for the St. Louis subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev.

"With Select 55, we were trying to establish the notion that this was the lightest beer in the world," he says. Simple commercials featuring a bottle that floats on air don't need long to drive home that message.

Big advertisers are driving the shift. Procter & Gamble, the maker of Crest toothpaste and Tide detergent and the world's biggest advertiser, doubled its number of 15-second ads to more than 299,000 last year from the year before.

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, has increased its use of 15-second ads nearly 30-fold to 148,000 last year from only about 5,700 in 2005. The retailer plans even more this holiday season.

Shorter ads can be just as effective as longer ones. Viewers can form new associations — say, knowing about a discount — in a few seconds and then recall that information in just one second, Mitchell says. People can't help soaking up the message.

"When things are working that fast, you can't tell yourself, 'No, I'm not going to think about that,'" she says. "Your brain lights up so you don't have a choice."

Trojan Makes Concessions to Place a Suggestive Ad

NY Times

TROJAN, the condom brand, has had its share of run-ins with censors, most notably in 2007, when both Fox and CBS rejected a commercial with a safe-sex message that featured anthropomorphized pigs. Now Trojan is introducing a vibrator called Tri-Phoria, and it says a new commercial is actually drawing less resistance than it had expected.

Trojan says it thought the spot would most likely be relegated to the wee hours, but some cable networks, including Comedy Central, Spike and VH1, have approved it for day and early evening slots — and none have rejected it outright. A Tri-Phoria commercial has run since early September during the day and early evening, for example, on Comedy Central, appearing during “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report” and “South Park.”

For a smaller vibrator, the Mini, which Trojan introduced in 2009, cable networks restricted commercials to an average window of just five hours after midnight, said Kierie Courtney, senior manager of direct response marketing at Church & Dwight, which owns the Trojan brand.

With the Tri-Phoria, which sells for $40, “one of our key goals was around the acceptance and mainstreaming of the product category,” Ms. Courtney said.

For the first time, Trojan showed storyboards of prospective ads to representatives from cable networks this year, toning ads down to assuage concerns, and they said that as a result the average window for the new spot was 11 hours. But the concessions that Trojan consented to were considerable: it agreed to neither use the word “vibrator” nor show the product.

•

“Has life got you stressed out?” begins a voiceover in the commercial, in an over-the-top style of an infomercial, as a woman sits stuck in traffic. “Want to have some fun? New from Trojan, a brand you trust. Introducing vibrating Tri-Phoria — it’s like three massagers in one.”

The new commercial, by Sullivan Productions of Tampa, Fla., calls the product a “personal massager.” Borrowing a trope from pharmaceutical commercials, it continues, “Side effects of Tri-Phoria may include screams of ecstasy, curled toes, a sudden glow and intense waves of pleasure.”

In “The Technology of Orgasm,” a history of the vibrator, Rachel P. Maines writes that in the early 1900s the devices were advertised in women’s magazines and the Sears catalog, albeit obliquely as relaxation aids, and it was not until they started appearing in stag films in the 1920s that, as Ms. Maines puts it, their “social camouflage” was undone and such ads disappeared.

Asked to review the new Tri-Phoria commercial, Ms. Maines said it “comes very close to telling you what it is good for” without quite doing so.

“The camouflage used to be a lot thicker, but there’s still a very thin layer of camouflage,” she said. “The networks have moved to where they’re resigned to accept some sort of advertising — but they still require a fig leaf held up with suspenders.”

Brian Fays, executive vice president for advertising at MTV, which is owned by Viacom, lauded Trojan’s restraint.

“No matter how liberal you are, a little kid doesn’t need to hear the word ‘vibrator,’ ” said Mr. Fays, who knows about advertising decisions by other Viacom networks that accepted the Tri-Phoria commercial, like Comedy Central, Logo and Spike.

“At first there was a certain amount of trepidation that maybe the viewing public wasn’t prepared to see a commercial with vibrators, and we automatically put it in the overnight slot, but we opened it up because, instead of it being taboo, they got their point across subtly,” he said.

MTV, in fact, is among the most restrictive of the cable networks, permitting the Tri-Phoria spot only between 3:30 a.m. and 6 a.m., which Mr. Fays attributed to the network’s having a “younger demographic.” But if the commercial has “smooth sailing” during earlier slots on other Viacom networks, MTV may permit it to be seen in earlier time slots too, he said.

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Not everyone views television networks’ greater acceptance of ads of a sexual nature as a victory. On Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement urging, among other things, that ads for erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra be shown only after 10 p.m. and “not be overly suggestive.”

Trojan says the Tri-Phoria campaign represents the largest advertising campaign for a vibrator, and that the company is spending “millions” on it, but declines to be more specific. The Trojan brand spent a total of $22.4 million on advertising (most of it focused on condoms) in 2009, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

Market research companies that follow a variety of consumer goods do not track the vibrator market, but research by Trojan pegs annual revenue for the devices in the United States at about $1 billion, 2.5 times that of condoms.

According to Trojan-financed studies published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, 52.5 percent of women and 44.8 percent of men have used vibrators. Contrary to the perception that the devices are nearly always used by the unaccompanied, 40.9 percent of women and 40.5 percent of men report having used them with sexual partners.

Men made 40 percent of the online purchases of the Mini and the Touch, two small vibrators Trojan introduced in the last two years. In 2009 it focused on men with ads in Maxim for the Mini.

Jim Daniels, vice president for marketing at Trojan, said the restrained approach of the ad on cable networks would increase the likelihood of eventually gaining approval for the commercials on the major broadcast networks.

“Our goal is with facts and experience on our side to approach networks for approval, possibly in the early part of next year,” Mr. Daniels said.

He says that although Tri-Phoria is available only on Trojan’s Web site now, he expects it to be carried at major retailers like CVS, Walgreen’s and Wal-Mart beginning in the first half of 2011.

“This is right in Trojan’s wheelhouse,” he said. “We think we’re creating a good buzz — pun intended — and we think consumers will be happy with the products we’re offering.”

'Banned' TV Car Commercial Really Smart!

The Detroit News

Nobody banned this commercial from American television, any more than the back seat was banned from Smart cars. It was just never supposed to be there.

The ad is a killer, though -- 40 clever seconds of what seems like classic back-seat mayhem from the movies, even though every second was created for the spot.

It's a great example of how to turn a potential flaw into an attribute, and of how a few keystrokes on the Internet can turn something benign into a potential outlet for outrage. Why just post a video when you can pretend the networks or the government didn't want anyone to see it?

Banned? Hardly. Produced for German movie theaters when the second generation of Smarts came to the European market nearly four years ago, it was so loved by dealers that it wound up on TV in Italy and more European countries than its creator can remember.

At one auto show, says Toygar Bazarkaya of the BBDO ad agency in New York, the spot was projected onto the inside of the taped-up windshield of a Smart. The manufacturer, Mercedes-Benz, called it "the smallest movie theater in the world."
Up and down popularity

Things have been going somewhat downhill for the Smart, my favorite 8-foot-10-inch, two-passenger automobile.

I'm noticing more of them on the road, which is a good thing if they make you smile, and a very good thing if you're Roger Penske and you're running SmartUSA out of a row of offices behind the dealership in Bloomfield Hills. But in truth, U.S. sales peaked in the Smart fortwo's first year on the market, 2008, and haven't come close to those 24,622 units since.

Massive buzz and $4-a-gallon gasoline helped fuel the bonanza early on. Now that all the people who were entranced with the car have had a chance to buy one, practicality has set in.

If you've never driven a Smart, you don't realize how astonishingly roomy it is. The whole thing, after all, is two seats. And Smart owners will tell you that if a car with minimal luggage space suits your needs 90 percent of the time, it is by definition practical.

But still: There's no back seat. Never mind how rarely some people use the back seat or even notice it's there, the absence looms large.

That's why the client came to Bazarkaya and said, "Do something great."
Ad's German 'engineer'

He's a 42-year-old German, recently reassigned as an executive creative director in New York after having worked in the United States from 1997 to 2004. When he oversaw the Smart ad, he was back in Germany, where everyone knew what the car was and there were no fresh facts worth trumpeting.

Instead of getting technical, he says, "we thought of the worst thing you could ever communicate, and made it our strength." Put a mob hit man or a lurking stranger or a hockey-mask-wearing slasher in the rear of the car, fire up a tension-building sound track, and then cap 40 seconds of pretend rampage with a tagline: "No backseats. The Smart fortwo. Open your mind."

Among the tricks was to make a low-budget production look like a collection of reasonably high-budget film clips. The actors worked cheap, if they were even actors; the nodding man in the first scene was a Hamburg cabdriver, the man with the knife at the end was the sound mixer, and that's Bazarkaya with the glasses and curly hair, wielding the syringe.

"We're proud of who we are," he says. (That's a reference to the cars, not the homicidal tendencies.) "We don't have a back seat. So what? We're not going to pretend to have it."

He's mystified as to why anyone would claim the commercial was banned, but pleased that it's still circulating online. He's even considering buying a Smart for himself, though it'll take some more internal debate before he writes the check.

Like so many New Yorkers, he's already getting by with no backseats -- or for that matter, any seats at all.

Advertisers Approve of new Fall TV Line-Up

LA Times

 

Advertisers in the coming days will make billion-dollar bets on the TV networks' new fall schedules — and this time around, they actually like the script.

In recent years, with production costs soaring and profits falling, the broadcast networks scaled back prime-time comedies and dramas. To the dismay of advertisers hoping to place their products in a classier environment, the networks instead added cheaper reality shows and tried cost-saving gambits like shifting Jay Leno to prime time.

But when the broadcast networks unveiled their new fall lineups to advertisers in New York recently, expensive scripted dramas and comedies were back in vogue.

"There is more emphasis on scripted shows," said David Scardino, entertainment specialist at RPA, a Santa Monica advertising agency. "Networks are feeling a little more confident that there's money in the marketplace, and their schedules reflect that."

Call it post-recession programming.

Only three of the 38 new programs introduced by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the small CW network are unscripted, the industry term for contest and so-called reality shows. That signals a sharp retrenchment from last year, when the networks introduced eight unscripted shows, expanding the genre to fully one-third of prime-time programming, excluding football.

When the new TV season begins in September, 24% of the networks' prime-time schedule will be unscripted shows.

During the last two years, advertisers reined in spending, spooked by the bleak economy. On top of that, the 2007 screenwriters strike disrupted two seasons of development for scripted shows. Although a couple of gems were discovered, particularly this year's breakout hit "Undercover Boss" on CBS, there were far more clunkers, including "Momma's Boys" and the short-lived speed-dating show "Conveyor Belt of Love."

Advertisers were not smitten.

Network sales executives are now touting their new comedies and dramas as they begin selling commercial time for the upcoming TV season. Wall Street analysts predict a barn burner with networks booking 15% to 20% higher sales than the $7.94 billion they posted during last year's depressed market.

"What a difference a year makes," CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves told hundreds of advertisers who packed Carnegie Hall two weeks ago to preview CBS' fall schedule, which features the return of Tom Selleck in the family cop drama "Blue Bloods" and a remake of "Hawaii Five-O."

Indeed, TV advertising has roared back to life.

Ad research firm Kantar Media estimates network TV ad sales were up nearly 12% in the first quarter compared with the year-earlier period. Other media also climbed. Cable TV advertising was up 8%, and Spanish-language networks were able to hike their rates about 7%. Overall media spending, which includes TV, radio, newspapers and the Internet, increased for the first time in two years, Kantar said, rising 5% to $31 billion.

The TV "upfront" market — so named because the networks sell most of their commercial time in advance of the new season — is expected to be dramatically higher than 2009. Sales, which were off more than $1 billion last year, nonetheless may still be below 2008 levels.

"The upfront could be up 20%, but that's because it was down so much," said Donna Speciale, president of investment for the ad-buying firm MediaVest USA. "We are probably not even close to what it was two years ago in terms of dollar volume."

Last season, skittish advertisers, unsure which way the economy was heading, bought commercials closer to airdate — and ended up paying substantially higher rates than if they had bought time before the season began. This year, advertisers plan to lock in rates during the upfront market, Speciale said.

Still, Speciale and others do not expect reality shows to disappear. After all, "American Idol," "Survivor," "Dancing With the Stars" and "The Biggest Loser" continue to be among television's most popular shows.

"But the networks are being more choiceful and we are not seeing all the ones with 'content issues.' Advertisers want more family entertainment," Speciale said.

The networks have been bleeding viewers as audiences defect to cable channels, which have ramped up their original productions, and to other distractions such as Internet social networking sites and video games. And each network faces challenges in the coming season, which could temper advertisers' enthusiasm.

Fox, for example, is losing two big draws. The network's longtime spy thriller "24," starring Kiefer Sutherland, ended its run last week. And Simon Cowell, the razor-tongued British judge, will not be a regular next year on "American Idol," which has seen its ratings decline recently.

"That's a factor. Simon is the heart and soul of that show, but "Idol" is still by far the No. 1 television property in terms of equity," said Greg Kahn, an executive vice president of ad firm Optimedia US. "There was a little less cachet or buzz around the 'Idol' contestants this year. Maybe we have run our course on talent in America that can compete on that level."

Although CBS has the most stable schedule, it is making a bold bet by moving the comedy "The Big Bang Theory" to Thursday from Monday in a bid to boost CBS' share of the advertising pie. Advertisers, particularly Hollywood studios, pay the higher rates to advertise on Thursdays in advance of weekend movie openings.

ABC has lost its fan-favorite drama "Lost," as well as chunks of audience for its top shows, "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives." But it has a new medical examiner drama, "Body of Proof," starring Dana Delany.

And NBC must try to repair the damage from its ill-fated move of Leno to prime time. The network spent about $50 million more this year than last year to develop new comedies and dramas, including an hourlong comedy anthology called "Love Bites."

"The irony is that moving Leno was a cost-cutting move that ended up costing the network millions and millions of dollars," Scardino said. "If NBC can get two strong shows out of this season, then the legacy of Leno will be that it rededicated the network to scripted shows."

TV Networks now See a Seller's Market for Advertising

NY Times

A YEAR ago, as television executives prepared for the 2009-10 season, they suffered double-digit percentage losses in advertising revenue because the economy weakened demand among marketers for commercial time.

Now, as those executives get ready for the 2010-11 season, they are optimistic for a rebound in revenue, and higher rates, because demand has improved in recent months.

But as the stock market proved on Thursday, months of expectations can be undone in moments. The gyrations on Wall Street reminded everyone taking part in what is known as the upfront market — called that because the talks and deals occur before the TV season starts — that happy days are not quite here again.

“Going down 300 points, I say: whew,” Rob Master, North American media director for the giant marketer Unilever, said in a telephone interview on Thursday, referring to the decline of the Dow Jones industrial average, but “it’s not like we’re in an economic boom.”

“We were in a very different place 12 months ago, taking today out of the equation,” Mr. Master said, “so there’s more clarity. But it’s all relative.”

Unilever, which sells brands like Axe, Dove, Good Humor, Lipton and Ragú, will take part in the upfront market, he added, but is also looking at interactive media, social media and other places to spend its marketing dollars.

In fact, Mr. Master and other Unilever executives are in California this week, he said, to meet with Silicon Valley companies like Apple, Facebook and Google — all of which offer alternatives to traditional ways to advertise, like television commercials.

Although “TV remains an important part of our go-to-market strategy for our brands,” Mr. Master said, “we’re comfortable with continuing to move our dollars to other places.”

Steven Center, vice president for advertising and public relations at the American Honda Motor Company, agreed that “the predisposition now would be that things are getting better” compared with conditions during the upfront market last spring, “when the predisposition was that the end of the world is coming.”

Still, “we’re not seeing a lot of enormous underlying strength” in the economy, he added.

His colleague, Thomas J. Peyton, senior manager for national advertising at American Honda, said the company “intends to be active in the upfront this year. ” Because “ there are certainly more buyers in the market than there were last year,” Mr. Peyton said it would not be surprising if the broadcast networks and cable channels were able to put through “small increases” in rates.

Two brokerage firms that follow the media industry have forecast robust gains in ad revenue for the biggest broadcasters in the 2010-11 upfront market compared with the 2009-10 market. Barclays Capital predicted an increase of 20 percent, and Credit Suisse predicted an increase of 21 percent.

But as the trade publication Advertising Age pointed out, such results would leave the large broadcasters short of the ad revenue they took in during the 2008-9 upfront market, before the financial crisis sapped confidence among consumers and marketers.

That could mean that TV executives may need to do somewhat more promoting of the benefits of the upfront and television advertising to potential customers than is usual.

For instance, during an upfront presentation by the Oxygen cable channel, Lauren Zalaznick, president for the women and lifestyle entertainment networks at NBC Universal, told media agency employees in the audience, “You can look like a hero if you make a big, strategic deal in the upfront.”

And during a presentation by the CNN and HLN cable news channels, which are owned by Time Warner, Jim Walton, president for CNN Worldwide, began his remarks to the media agency audience members this way: “Thank you. Thank you in advance for your business this year.”

Those presentations precede the upfront market during which the television and marketing executives negotiate purchases and prices. The presentations are intended to offer previews of the shows being scheduled for the coming season.

The presentations range from simple to elaborate to over the top. Some analysts believe they can divine the health of the upfront market by how spartan or lavish the events are.

(Based on attendance at a half-dozen presentations, a reporter who noticed generous spreads on buffet tables, open bars galore and piles of napkins imprinted with the hosts’ logos is forecasting a bounce in the upfront market from last year.)

The cable channels typically present first, then the broadcast networks. This year, the cable presentations began somewhat earlier than usual, in early March. The broadcasters — ABC, CBS, CW, Fox and NBC — plan to follow their usual timetable and will make their presentations in mid-May; this year, the dates are May 17 to May 20.

Some cable channels, eager to compete with the broadcasters, have started scheduling their events during the broadcast upfront week. This year, ESPN, TBS and TNT will make presentations on days that broadcasters have scheduled events.

In years when demand lags for commercial time, the upfront market can last through the spring and into the summer. That was the case last year. In years when demand for spots is strong, the upfront market can wrap up in a couple of weeks or less; there have even been fiercely robust markets that concluded by Memorial Day.

Given the circumstances this year, it is unlikely to be a “two-week upfront,” said Steve Gigliotti, executive vice president for advertising sales at Scripps Networks Interactive, which operates cable channels like Food Network, HGTV and Travel Channel.

Still, “strong brands will do very well in this marketplace,” Mr. Gigliotti said, referring to channels that are enjoying growth in viewers and ratings, because of the rising prices in recent months for commercials that are bought shortly before they run rather than ahead of time in the upfront market. (Such short-term buying takes place in what is called the scatter market.)

“The scatter market has been incredibly strong,” Mr. Gigliotti said. “That’s going to push advertisers into thinking, ‘I have to make a decision for the long term’ ” and make deals in the upfront market.

Google Runs Television Ad During Super Bowl

Bloomberg

Google Inc., the world’s most popular search engine, ran a minute-long commercial during the Super Bowl, marking a rare use of TV advertising for the company.

The ad demonstrated features of the company’s search engine, including its translation functions. The commercial, called “Parisian Love,” showed an Internet user relying on Google to court someone in France.



Google hasn’t typically relied on television ads to publicize its products, though it did use TV to promote its Chrome Web browser last year. Those commercials, which were developed by Google’s Japanese employees, first aired on the YouTube video site. The Super Bowl commercial had a similar origin: It was part of a series of videos that ran on YouTube for more than three months.

“We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search,” Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a blog posting yesterday. “Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it’s had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.”

Schmidt signaled that the Super Bowl commercial was coming last week, saying in a Twitter update that he couldn’t wait to watch the game. “Be sure to watch the ads in the third quarter,” he said.

The Super Bowl, held at the Sun Life Stadium in Miami, pitted the Indianapolis Colts against the New Orleans Saints for the National Football League championship. The Saints won 31-17.

CBS Corp., which broadcast the game, said the cost of some of the Super Bowl ads exceeded $3 million for a 30-second spot. The game drew an estimated 106.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched program in U.S. television history, according to Nielsen Co.

Google rose $2.18 to $533.47 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have fallen 14 percent this year.

Super Bowl Ad Prices Drop; Still Cost Millions

USA Today

The economic slump has prices for Super Bowl commercial time falling for only the second time in its history, but it is still the most expensive on U.S. television.

TNS Media Intelligence said Monday that 30-second commercials during next month's Super Bowl, the highly watched NFL football championship game, are selling for $2.5 million and $2.8 million on the CBS network. That's a drop from last year, when ads averaged $3 million on NBC.

Some big players like Pepsi and General Motors are staying on the sidelines. This leaves holes for smaller companies like Diamond Foods and Dr Pepper Snapple to use the Super Bowl to get their wares in front of 100 million viewers who are practically guaranteed to watch their ads. The annual game's high viewership has made it a platform for companies' most creative ads, to the extent that some viewers who are not sports fans tune in for the commercials more than the game itself.

CBS won't say what it paid for the rights to the Super Bowl. The three networks that now alternate carrying the game, CBS, NBC and Fox, get it in a package along with the games they broadcast through the football season.

It's unclear how much revenue Super Bowl advertising will generate for CBS. Nearly all of the 62 commercial slots have been sold. While not conceding that ad rates have slipped, CBS said the pace of sales has been better than it was for NBC a year ago.

"We believe our pricing is similar and believe we are in a better sellout position than they were at this time going into the game," John Bogusz, executive vice president of sports sales and marketing for CBS Television, said.

In economic downturns, companies are more likely to buy Super Bowl advertising when they want to make an impact by jumpstarting a brand or introducing themselves, said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Kellogg School of Management. But it's an expensive proposition for companies like Pepsi and FedEx that would otherwise use the game to simply remind people they're still out there.

He said it's encouraging most of the slots have been filled.

"In a way, Super Bowl advertisers are acting like people are acting in the economy, which is they'll buy only if there's a deal," he said. "If the price is right, people will step up."

About 20% to 25% of each year's Super Bowl advertisers are new, according to TNS. The average tenure for advertisers is three to four years before dropping out.

Big money is at stake. From 1990 through last year, the Super Bowl game has generated $2.17 billion of network sales including 1,400 commercials from 210 advertisers, TNS said.

The 2009 Super Bowl brought in $213 million in advertising revenue — just for ads airing during the game, not pregame or post game. That was a 14% increase from the previous year's $186.3 million, when the average 30-second slot cost $2.7 million.

For the first time in 23 years, PepsiCo won't advertise its Pepsi brand or any other beverages during the game, shifting its ad dollars instead to a new, mostly online marketing effort. But its snack unit, Frito-Lay, will have Doritos commercials in the game.

GM dropped out last year as it teetered on the edge of a bankruptcy that came in June. It had advertised in 11 of the previous 12 years.

Learning Stealth Branding From 'Mad Men'

Canadian Business Online

Mad Men is lauded for many things — historical accuracy, wit, and layered characterization — but slaughterhouse gore is not considered its forte. Nonetheless, a brief detour into graphic violence proved a highlight of the recently concluded third season. During an office party at Sterling Cooper, the show’s fictional ad agency, a drunken secretary took the wheel of a lawn tractor made by John Deere, one of the firm’s clients, and quickly mangled the foot of a young executive. With Don Draper, the show’s hero, and Joan Harris, the resident bombshell, tending the wounded, it was left to senior partner Roger Sterling to reassure the nervous employees. “Believe me, somewhere in this business, this has happened before,” he says.

The incident left Mad Men’s characters fretting for their jobs and some viewers questioning whether it was a misguided bit of product placement. Once ridiculed as ham-handed, product placement has become its own art as companies find new, ever-more effective ways to integrate their wares into the entertainment itself. What makes the product integration on Mad Men so seamless is that the show needs brand names to give verisimilitude to its portrayal of the advertising world. Indeed, rather than irritating their audience, product integration gives Don Draper something to sell, clients to chase, and products to muse upon as he stares into the middle distance, imagining the next big step in advertising.

Mad Men has featured dozens of brand names — from Gillette to American Airlines — in all sorts of contexts, flattering and otherwise, but the John Deere incident demonstrates how hard it is to tell which ones the companies planted and which came unprompted from the show’s writers. (A statement issued by John Deere shortly after the episode aired made it clear the company had no part in its tractor’s use as an executive toe trimmer.)

The last season of American Idol featured 4,636 instances of product placement.

“[The practice] definitely has evolved,” says Melissa Wasserman, vice-president of advertising sales marketing for AMC, Mad Men’s network. “The trend is toward integration, finding new ways to get products on television. But the more seamless it feels, the better reputation your shows will have.”

Wasserman, like everyone who works on Mad Men, is coy about its blend of art and commerce. Some companies lobby to appear, some pay, some strike cross-promotional deals and some have no involvement in their cameos at all. The show’s makers feel no compunction to say which products fit into which category. Ambiguity seems to be part of product placement’s refinement. “We don’t really distinguish between placed or not-placed products,” Wasserman says. “We don’t have a distinction about how the products got on there. The most important thing for us is that they be written appropriately.”

As an advertising tool, product placement existed long before Don Draper’s era. In 1925, the makers of The Lost World, an adaptation of an Arthur Conan Doyle novel, armed their hero with a Corona typewriter to record his encounters with dinosaurs. (In a cross-promotion, Corona hyped its products as the only typewriters worth taking up the Amazon.) But the practice has skyrocketed recently, as technological wonders like personal video recorders, which make it easier for viewers to avoid ads entirely, reached a critical mass. Product placement leapt 33.7% in 2007, according to PQ Media, a media research firm. There was a further 39% hike in early 2008, according to Nielsen. Advertisers spent roughly $3.6 billion on product placements last year. And consider this: The last season of American Idol featured 4,636 instances of product placement.

Wasserman says Mad Men’s writers, led by creator Matthew Weiner, are responsible for determining which brands suit the show’s needs, but that does not mean they are not open to lobbying. Last year, Weiner met with executives from Hilton Worldwide, the hotel chain, who suggested incorporating their founder, Conrad Hilton, into the show. After a little research, Weiner became enamoured with the idea, particularly the notion of presenting a businessman motivated by principles rather than just greed. “There were people like Hilton,” Mr. Weiner recently told The Wall Street Journal, “and I love what he was about.”

Over the course of the third season, “Connie” Hilton becomes a client and mentor to Draper, before severing their contract in the season finale. In his final scene, the hotel magnate gives the fictional ad man a fatherly talking to. “I got everything I have on my own,” he says. “It has made me immune to those who complain and cry because they can’t. I didn’t take you for one of them, Don.”

The portrayal of Hilton — shrewd businessman, vocal anti-Communist, deeply religious and principled — was accurate, according to Mark Young, the archivist at the Conrad Hilton College in Houston. “Hilton was a little beefier, but that’s splitting hairs,” he says. “The character has a direct approach like Hilton. Hilton was folksy but he was very much a businessman.”

Transforming Hilton, who died nearly two decades ago, into the fictionalized embodiment of the company he founded, a sort of upscale Colonel Sanders, made some sense to Young. “He had a sense of style, and he had this genius of knowing when to buy a hotel, when to sell, and I can see why for some people, particularly in other countries, the name ‘Hilton’ is synonymous with hotels,” Young says.

AMC and Hilton’s relationship extended beyond making Conrad Hilton famous once again for being something other than Paris’s grandfather. The companies co-sponsored a “Live Like a Mad Man,” contest, which promised three nights at the Waldorf-Astoria, a wardrobe item from the show and other swag. Similarly, Heineken’s partnership with the show sprawled beyond the small screen. Draper pursued Heineken as a client, pushing them to market their beer to housewives rather than beer halls. In the real world, the beer maker sponsored the show’s second-season finale and a high-profile wrap party.

John Deere, it goes without saying, did not throw a party the day their episode aired. In fact, John Deere learned of its appearance on the show at the same time as the viewing public, according to spokesman Ken Golden. “We did not endorse the activities that happened during that show,” Golden says. “We would never want our product to be displayed in an unsafe way.” American Airlines was also not consulted about an episode focused on the 1962 crash of one of its planes during takeoff in New York, an actual event. While the companies may not like how they are portrayed, there is little they can do, Golden says. “When products are publicly sold, you face the possibility that a show will display your product,” he says, adding the tractor that appeared was not yet available in 1963.

Even co-ordinated product placements can create problems. A public-relations team facilitated London Fog’s inclusion in the third-season premiere, with Draper crafting a campaign for the firm featuring a nude model and the slogan: “Limit your exposure.” The plotline annoyed Richard Gilbert, a noted ad man from the era, who complained London Fog was far more successful in 1963 than the show portrayed. Furthermore, Draper’s campaign would have never made it past magazine censors. “The show’s producers claim that they did meticulous research, and they obviously did — on girdles, cigarettes, clothing, furnishings, art work, etc. But they seem to have done little or none on advertising for an advertising-themed show,” Gilbert said in a missive sent to Ad Age magazine.

Viacom Up, Sees TV Advertising Demand Rising

from the Wall Street Journal

Viacom Inc. executives said Tuesday that they were seeing increased demand and strong prices for television advertising heading into the holiday season, adding to an up-tempo chorus from media executives after a brutal year in which advertisers have slashed budgets.

The comments came as Viacom reported a 15% increase in second-quarter income, with cost cutting boosting brisk ticket sales for summer blockbuster movies.

Viacom, which owns a suite of cable networks including MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, saw its U.S. ad revenue decline 4% in the third quarter from the year-earlier period. But that was an improvement from a 6% decline in the third quarter.

"There is demand out there at the moment," Philippe Dauman, Viacom's chief executive, said of the advertising market. He said prices in the fourth quarter for last-minute ads, known as "scatter," are up "double-digit" percentages above ads sold in advance, in what is called the "upfront" market.

But Mr. Dauman added that many commercials remain unsold for the fourth quarter, because both cable and broadcast networks received fewer advance commitments in the upfront season.

"The next several weeks going forward will really tell the tale, as companies in different industries evaluate their own condition," Mr. Dauman added during a conference call to discuss results.

There are some signs that advertisers are spending more money, however, after months of cutting commitments and tightening purse strings. Some cable-TV networks are running out of spots to sell in November and early December, driving prices for last-minute ads well above prices for those sold in advance, ad buyers say.

"Inventory's very tight on some networks, especially in November or early December," said Chris Boothe, president and chief operating officer of Publicis Groupe SA's Starcom USA in an interview.

In part, TV ad spending appears increased because it comes against easier comparisons to last year's historic economic collapse. Increased prices for ads sold close to airdate also face easier comparisons to the lower prices TV networks were forced to accept over the summer in the upfront market. It was the first time since 2001 that many major network groups were forced to take across-the-board rate cuts.

Executives at major advertising holding companies have said recently that it's too early to call an ad recovery. While the tone of conversations with advertisers about the economy is improving, advertisers "generally remain cautious about committing to new marketing expenditures or increasing spending behind existing efforts," Michael I. Roth, chief executive of Interpublic Group of Cos., said last week on a conference call to discuss third-quarter results.

But ad buyers say some advertisers that cut money earlier in the year are putting that money back into the ad market in time for the holidays. Viacom's Mr. Dauman said he sees potential growth in some categories of advertisers, including technology companies and even car manufacturers.

"You see some categories that suffered a lot in the recession, such as automotive, who are coming back in," Mr. Dauman said.

Viacom reported a profit of $463 million, or 76 cents a share, up from $401 million, or 65 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding a tax benefit as well as an after-tax loss related to paying off debt in the latest quarter, earnings rose to 69 cents a share from 55 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 57 cents a share on revenue of $3.3 billion.

Revenue dropped 2.7% to $3.32 billion, as Viacom's Paramount movie studio saw revenue decline 6.5% to $1.2 billion. Paramount's results were dragged down by enduring weakness in DVD sales, more than offsetting an 16% increase in world-wide theatrical revenue from big summer blockbusters like "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra."

The home-video picture could improve somewhat in the fourth quarter because of DVD releases of its summer popcorn films, Viacom executives said. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" has sold 8.3 million DVDs since its release on Oct. 20, Mr. Dauman said.

For the last year, Viacom's results have also been dragged down by the poor performance of its flagship MTV cable channel. In the third quarter, viewership in its target audience of people between 12 and 34 years old declined 2.8%, compared with the year-earlier period, according to Nielsen Co. The company has shifted executives and increased the number of programs on the air, helping slow the decline in recent quarters.

"We are continuing to adjust MTV's content mix and schedule, bringing in more original shows, as well as targeted acquisitions that are being used to help lift daytime and afternoon ratings," Mr. Dauman said, adding that MTV will have a "bigger marketing presence" off the channel.

Viacom's new version of the "Rock Band" game, which features songs from the Beatles, helped boost the company's revenue, selling 595,000 copies in September, according to tracking firm NPD Group. Because of the expensive hardware sold with the game, "Rock Band" is a drag on Viacom's profit margin. But Tom Dooley, Viacom's chief financial officer, said the company expects the game to break even or become "slightly profitable" in the fourth quarter, depending on how many copies sell in the holiday period.

"It really depends literally on the next three to six weeks," Mr. Dooley said.

Neuromarketing Tells Advertisers: Keep It Simple

Reuters

They are on the airwaves often. And every time they are, TV viewers' brains are silently but strongly protesting.

Advertisers, beware the risks you run when audio visual synchrony is absent from your spots.

So says NeuroFocus (www.NeuroFocus.com), the world's leading neuromarketing company and as such, experts in how consumers respond at the deep subconscious level of the mind to stimuli like advertising. Prompted by a spate of animated spots in which the voice track is out of synchronization with the mouth
movements of characters on screen, the company advises advertisers about the hazards involved.

"Your brain is 'wired' to expect synchronicity between what you see and what you hear," said Dr. A.K. Pradeep, founder and CEO of NeuroFocus. "When there is a disconnect between those two modalities, the brain generates what neuroscientists call a 'mismatch negativity,' a signal which indicates that the brain has to devote additional resources to try to resolve the discrepancy. It reflects distraction from the content and can lead to an overall drop in the effectiveness of the message that an advertiser is attempting to communicate. The brain essentially rebels against what is fundamentally abnormal and discordant to it--and your sales message gets caught in the crossfire."

Advertisers in the automotive, insurance, and lodging fields, among others, have run campaigns that feature animated characters who speak at considerable length on screen. NeuroFocus warns that despite how much consumers may say they like the advertising in surveys and focus groups, their brainwaves may tell a different story.

"We encounter this gap constantly," Dr. Pradeep said. "Neuroscience research shows that when you ask someone about how they felt or what they thought or what they remember about something, in the process of replying their brain actually changes the original information it recorded. In contrast, when you measure at the subconscious, precognitive level of the brain, you're accessing the original information immediately following its reception, before it can be distorted by all the factors that can influence articulated responses, from cultural and language differences to education levels and many more."

To codify the impact that aural visual synchrony can have, Dr. Robert T. Knight, one of the world's top-ranked neuroscientists, Director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley and Chief Science Advisor to NeuroFocus, states it this way:

"If the auditory component in a commercial is X, and the visual component is X, when you don't have synchrony between the two the best result you can get is basically 2X. When you do have synchrony though, you get a 'multiplier ' effect--you achieve 3X or more. This is what we describe as the power of sensory integration, and we see both effects in many of the brain measurement studies we've done over the years."

Neuroscience research has shown that, contrary to previous beliefs, the auditory cortex and the visual cortex in the brain interact early in the perceptual process, and one can prime the other. Recent scientific papers have

revealed that such integration occurs in the brain before even 200 milliseconds have elapsed, and that the more precise the synchrony, the faster that sensory integration can occur.

"This 'crossover' effect can actually enhance your perceptual experience, because it can prompt your brain to anticipate what you're about to hear based upon what you're seeing, and vice versa," said Dr. Michael Smith, a neuroscientist on NeuroFocus' staff noted for his pioneering work in the field. "The brain does have a preference, however; we believe more in what we see than in what we hear. We synthesize these two streams of stimuli to render the world consistent with our experiences and expectations. So when audio visual synchrony is 'off,' the brain has to work harder to reconcile the conflict."

Dr. Smith added another cautionary note: one for marketers who embark on neuromarketing research using inadequate technologies and methodologies.

"Both the auditory and the visual cortexes are located in lateral and posterior regions of the brain," Dr. Smith explained. "Unless you measure those areas with electrodes positioned to capture information generated in
them, you will be missing this vital data. Plus, the brain is a vastly complex series of neural networks. Simple, severely limited arrays of sensors that measure only at the forehead are incapable of capturing the massive flows of brainwave activity that occur between critical regions of the brain, and are incapable of detecting the synergistic effects of multisensory integration."

NeuroFocus points out that the potential negative effect on viewers' subconscious when audio visual synchrony is poor may be aggravated as the quality of home entertainment systems continues to improve.

"As gratifying as high definition TVs and digital surround sound systems are, they also pose a greater risk for advertisers who don't heed what neuroscience advises about synchrony," said Dr. Pradeep. "Consumers' enhanced abilities to see and hear more accurately than ever before means that marketing messages must be as coherent and consistent as possible with what the deep subconscious mind wants and expects to receive."

About NeuroFocus
NeuroFocus Inc. is the leader in bringing neuroscience knowledge and expertise to the worlds of advertising, marketing, product development and packaging, and entertainment. The company leverages Doctorate-level academic credentials in neuroscience and marketing from UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, and the Hebrew University combined with C-suite level business management and consulting experience.

NeuroFocus clients include Fortune 100 companies across dozens of categories, including automotive, consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, financial services, Internet, retail, and many more sectors. Entertainment category clients include major companies in the broadcast and cable television and  
motion picture industries.

The Nielsen Company is a strategic investor in NeuroFocus.

Chicago Ad Firm Cramer-Krasselt Scores Big Wth Porsche TV Spot

Chicago Sun-Times

The family of Porsche models comes together 

in a desert setting to welcome the new Panamera in a 

television spot from Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago

Mention the words "cars" and "advertising" in the same breath, and most people's eyes start to glaze over fast. Cars rarely are the most fascinating or innovative category in the advertising world, though the Modernista shop in Boston did try to do some interesting things with the Cadillac brand. But now that account is in review, and, probably wisely, Modernista won't be pitching to retain it. Welcome to the advertising world circa 2009, where there's little rhyme or reason for much of what happens.

But while Cadillac starts to sort out where it wants to go with its advertising, we're happy to report that Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago has developed a rather nifty campaign to introduce Porsche's new Panamera, the very-high-end car manufacturer's first four-door sports car. The campaign's theme line is "Welcome to the Family," a reference to a long line of Porsche models introduced over the course of 60 years the German carmaker has been in business.

When C-K announced a couple of years ago that it had won the Porsche business, some observers believed the high-gloss account's arrival in Chicago would mark the start of a major turnaround in the local ad industry and the addition of more such accounts at agencies all over town. Things, of course, haven't quite worked out that way. And frankly, some of C-K's early, rather perfunctory-looking Porsche work didn't suggest the agency was exactly going to catapult car advertising to new heights or that the shop was singlehandedly going to turn around Chicago's entire ad industry.

But now comes the introductory television commercial for the "Welcome to the Family" campaign, and it's definitely a cut above C-K's previous Porsche work. Called "Family Tree," the debut spot was filmed in a dramatic desert setting, where what looks to be nearly the entire family of Porsche models -- including the 917 model driven by Steve McQueen in the movie "Le Mans" -- have come together to welcome the four-door Panamera into the fold.



With the help of some razor-sharp editing, the commercial tracks the Porsches racing across the flat terrain, while the voiceover explains Porsche's reason for being -- suggesting that every model introduced has answered a dream of one sort or another. That insight serves as the segue to welcome the Panamera into the mix. As the forceful voiceover talent describes the Panamera as another bold line on the Porsche family tree, we see an illustrative overhead shot of the cars creating a tree and its branches on the desert floor.

Altogether, this is a beautifully shot, edited and written commercial, though we would have preferred that the line of copy "the first true sports car for four" include the word "passengers" just for clarity's sake.

The "Family Tree" spot has a great deal of spit, polish and impact, but the new print work for the Panamera introduction isn't quite so spiffy. There's some exceedingly slick and rhythmic writing in the executions, to be sure, but C-K has chosen to include several images of design details from Porsches of the past that do tend to create a cluttered look that isn't in keeping with the sleek Porsche aesthetic this campaign otherwise so effectively underscores.