5 Blogs Before Lunch

Pepsi Super Bowl Ads Premiere Before The Game On YouTube

Is there no room for suspense? Gone the days when you sat and watched the Super Bowl just to catch the premiere of some of the most captivating ads of the year.

Now, in the era of YouTube, you can check out the Pepsi Ads on You Tube...launched days before the Superbowl as an online viral social media marketing campaign.

Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi S To Merge With Green Agency, Act Now Productions

Publicis Groupe has acquired former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach's sustainability and environmental agency, Act Now Productions. Plans are to integrate the San Francisco-based agency into the Saatchi & Saatchi S Network. Werbach will become CEO OF S&S S, and will report to the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X, the shopper marketing agency. Act Now will change its name to Saatchi & Saatchi S.

Publicis calls Saatchi & Saatchi S "a revolutionary market offering designed to activate corporate and consumer action on a mass scale to address environmental and economic sustainability."

Act Now Productions currently specializes in providing clients with advice and consultancy in balancing and improving sustainability levels and environmental initiatives. Under the new entity, the agency will add brand navigation, planning and creative work to its offerings.

Caroline Kennedy's Obama Ad

5 Blogs is based in San Francisco. We're now seeing the full affect of the broadcast media dollars being spent by the presidential candidates. I just saw the Caroline Kennedy endorsed Obama spot.

A New Talk Show for Marie Osmond

Oprah, Martha, Rachel, and Barbara be forewarned.

Advertisers, alert your media buyers.

There's a new--well, maybe not so new, talk show host vying for the broadcast eyeballs of american women.

Marie Osmond is planning a return to daytime television. The singer-actress, doll-hawker and celebrity dance star is launching an hour-long entertainment/lifestyle talk show targeted to launch in fall 2009.

Of course this isn't Osmond's first stint holding title to her own TV show. Marie and her brother Donny have hosted a variety show in the late '70;s and a talk show in the late-'90s. In her launch announcement Osmond said the new show, called "Marie," will focus on topics of interest to women.

"It will be a real feel-good show," she said. "I've been through a lot of things in life and have no problem talking about it. Women need a safe place where they can laugh, feel good and relate to (other women)."

More from Reuters

The sleaziest Super Bowl ads of all time

A farting horse, a catfight over beer and mud wrestling bimbos--this must be the Super Bowl.

Writer Peter Hartlaub offers his Top 10 list of the "sleaziest" Super Bowl ads. And, why is important to take a look at these ads? Well, in his words, it is because "sleaze sells."

So, before you sit down on Sunday to enjoy an avalanche of ads featuring sexual innuendos, bodily functions, crotch injuries, erectile dysfunction talk and various combinations of the four, take a look at theseall time favorites.

Bob Schieffer Announces Retirement Plans

Veteran CBS Washington TV journalist Bob Schieffer, who has anchored "Face the Nation" since 1991, and was (in my opinion) one of the best things to hit the network nightly news since Tom Brokaw and Walter Cronkite, has announced plans to retire.

Miller Lite Tries To Shift The Game On Bud Light's Super Bowl Ad Strategy

Miller Lite can't advertise during the Super Bowl, because Anheuser-Busch is the big game's exclusive alcohol sponsor. But viewers who are watching other programming during the game might catch a new Miller Lite ad that thumbs its nose at rival Bud Light by borrowing Anheuser-Busch's Dalmatian mascot.

From The Wall Street Journal:

The spot shows a Dalmatian sitting on a couch watching an earlier Miller ad. After seeing the commercial, the dog leaps off the couch and runs down the street, where it's joined by other Dalmatians, which scamper out of a barn full of Clydesdales (another reference to Anheuser). The pack of pooches follows a Miller truck that reads: "Miller Lite Has More Taste Than Bud Light."

Trying to undercut AB during its biggest day of the advertising year, the Super Bowl is a formidable task. The WSJ reports that Miller will air its new spot about 300 times across 30 other networks such as ESPN and Comedy Central. Miller plans to spend $2.5 million to $2.7 million on the spot in the four days leading up to the Super Bowl. After its Super Bowl blitz, the commercial will run well into February.

The spot can be seen here.

Innovative Marketing Campaign Launches New "Lost" Season In The UK

Britain's TV network Sky One has an innovative approach to promoting the launch of the fourth season of "Lost" in the UK.

The campaign will include outdoor, press and radio activity. But most interestingly, the multimedia marketing campaign also includes the creation of a Bluetooth Zone in London's Victoria Station where fans can download exclusive content.

Brand Republic says that Sky will have a dedicated Lost area in Victoria station where commuters can download exclusive interviews with cast, wallpapers, ringtones and message alerts. The zone will be promoted throughout the stations with six-sheet posters and on Titan's 'Transvision' screen.

Soap Operas To Get a New "Guiding Light"

Proctor & Gamble Productions created the daytime soap opera--I mean, daytime drama, "The Guiding Light", back in 1937 on radio as a vehicle to sell soap (thus, the soap opera name). Now, over 70 years later, it is time for a change.

Ten years ago, the show attracted an average 4.8 million viewers an episode, according to Nielsen Media Research. This season, it averages about 2.6 million viewers.

In a bid to reclaim viewers and attract a younger audience to the "Guiding Light," Procter & Gamble Productions is introducing the use of hand-held cameras, tripling the number of indoor sets and adding more outdoor locations. "This is all about continuing the evolution of the show so that it will have longevity," said Barbara Bloom, CBS' SVP for daytime programs.

From The Los Angeles Times:
“Soap operas have been shot, by and large, the same way since the 1950s, the same way that ‘I Love Lucy’ was shot — with pedestal cameras, in just a few interior sets,” Ellen Wheeler, executive producer of “Guiding Light,” said in an interview Monday. “Our audience is sophisticated enough to understand that’s old-fashioned, and it isn’t working for them anymore.”

Toby Gabriner named CEO of Adzilla

Toby Gabriner, formerly an executive with Carat, has been named CEO of behavioral ad-targeting firm Adzilla. He succeeds John Farlinger, who will continue on as company president. I worked with Toby several years ago before he joined New York Web optimization firm X+1. Toby's one of the "good guys" in the agency world. Congratulations, Toby. More at Adweek.