5 Blogs Before Lunch

Dior Dumps Stone Over China Comments

Christian Dior has dropped ads featuring Sharon Stone from its advertising campaign in China.

Last week, Stone apparently suggested last week that the recent earthquakes in Sichuan Province were karmic retribution for Beijing’s treatment of Tibet.

Facing the possibility of a boycott of its products, Dior quickly dropped Stone like a hot lava rock.

Here's what Stone said last week during the Cannes Film Festival: “I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And then the earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?"

Source: The New York Times

Honda's High-Flying Skydiving Ad

In the United States, Honda cars are marketed with brand attributes such as "simplicity" and "sensibility."

Apparently, the brand in the UK is in search of other brand associations such as "risk taking" and "high flying."

It is being reported that Honda's skydiving team made history last night as they successfully spelled out their brand name up in the sky--during a live television commercial.

The paid ad, which lasted 3 minutes and 20 seconds, went smoothly and without a single hitch, as the 19 stuntmen plummeted to the Earth from 40,000 feet.

The ad, which was billed as the first live ad in modern times, was one of the most audacious attempts yet by an advertiser to create a must-see, unique media experience, in an age of personal video recorders and audience fragmentation.

More CMO's in the Corporate Suite Means More Pressure to Perform

Del Monte Foods, Papa Murphy's, Lord & Taylor and Samsung Telecom, are just a few of the companies this year that have hired a chief marketing officer for the first time.

This is important to note, because in most cases, hiring a CMO is more than a change in title. It is acknowledgment that marketing is a strategic and integral part of the organization. It is also key to becoming a more customer-centric company--in many cases.

From Brandweek:"It's been a long time coming, in terms of marketers who have been clamoring for a more strategic role, and it's starting to pop up in more organizations," said Cindy Commander, an analyst at Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass. "A lot of it is that there is so much out there now about a customer-centric focus that the executive teams need that voice in the C-suite, and so they're creating these chief marketing roles."

But, as I've pointed out many times, corporate visibility comes with a price, though: 86% of marketers said there was more pressure put on them to account for results, and 68% said that organizations were measuring marketing's contribution to the bottom line.

Again, from Brandweek: "The words 'marketing' and '[sales] growth' are becoming synonymous," said Jane Stevenson, managing partner at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, Chicago. "When organizations are looking for growth, they need someone who can build opportunity for the company . . . and the head of marketing today is much more participating in driving that agenda."

Perhaps this is why the typical tenure of a CMO lasts only 18 months.

Dunkin' Donuts Pulls Ad Featuring Rachael Ray Because of a Keffiyeh--or maybe it is just a paisley scarf

Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an ad featuring TV chef/host Rachael. The reason: a controversy has arisen as to whether Ray is wearing a keffiyeh

A keffiyeh you say.

Yes, apparently Ray's stylist added a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design to her wardrobe for the ad's photo shoot. The scarf, according to some, looks a lot like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men.

And this is where the racism, stereotyping and bigotry begins.

It seems that certain individuals, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin have decided that the keffiyeh symbolizes murderous Palestinian jihad, due to its common use by Yasser Arafat ("and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos."), and that this has no place in a Dunkin' Donuts ad.

So, this leads us back to Dunkin' Donuts, who, afraid of boycotts by the ultra right wing, have pulled the ad for fear that their consumers might mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist. The company at first pooh-poohed the complaints, claiming the black-and-white wrap was not a keffiyeh. But the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere continued and finally Dunkin' Donuts decided it'd be easier just to yank the ad. 

Dunkin' said in a statement: "In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design . It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial." 

Source:  Boston.com and SF Chronicle.

Toma Leche?

The "Got Milk?" campaign rolls out its Spanish-language site, TomaLeche.com, today. The site, with creative by Hispanic agency Grupo Gallegos, Long Beach, Calif., uses animation to present stories that showcase the benefits of drinking milk.

From Adweek: "We want to have a Web site that speaks the language and culture of Latinos," said Steve James, executive director, California Milk Processor Board. "We hope that we'll be able to better communicate, better reach and better connect with our Hispanic base by having a site that speaks to them."

TomaLeche.com provides a full-service site with a whimsical, fairytale style as the backdrop for a magical world of milk. Grupo Gallegos created the fanciful online setting with U.K.-based animation production house Hanrahan.

Mentos Gum Spending $41 Million To Launch in the U.S.

Italy's Perfetti Van Melle, maker of Mentos mints, is relaunching in the U.S. with a new product—Mentos Gum—its second attempt in five years to crack the U.S. gum market.

The gum's launch budget is $41 million much of it to be spent during prime time shows such as Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives.

Brandweek reports that a 30-second spot created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London, features a man sitting near an office water cooler chewing Mentos gum. A woman approaches and locks on with an open mouth kiss. She then wipes the water that trickled down her chin and departs. The camera zooms in on the man who resumes chewing gum as the tagline appears: "New Mentos gum. It's Mouthwatering."

The TV spot broke this month and is slated to run through April 2009. Other support includes radio spots on "American Top 40" with Ryan Seacrest, print, coupons and sampling. Mentos gum is available in Spearmint, Red Fruit and Peppermint flavors.

Starcom Re-launches Branded Entertainment Arm as "The Bridge"

Starcom MediaVest Group has relaunched its branded content group as "The Bridge."

Originally called "Starcom Entertainment" when the Chicago-based agency launched it in 1998, the re-named agency has plans to expand beyond being the branded entertainment arm for existing Starcom clients. The Bridge will be focusing on Asian clients.

The unit aims to be "Asia's most imaginative entertainment marketing offering" with expertise in product placement, celebrity endorsement and advertiser funded programming. The goal of the agency is to provide the asian marketplace with a ready database of talent and partners

Shanghai and Mumbai will serve as the North and South Asia hubs for The Bridge. The Singapore office will be the Southeast Asia hub.

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Nike Is Running Back To Wieden+Kennedy

Wieden+Kennedy+Nike. It has always been a relationship that "fit."

The running shoe company started cheating on its longtime agency (or more accurately began an "open relationship") a year ago with hotshop Crispin Porter + Bogusky. But now it appears the affair is over (after producing only one ad), and Nike is returning its running-shoe and Nike-Plus accounts back to longtime shop Wieden+Kennedy.

Crispin's first work for Nike broke last December in the form of a 60-second Nike Plus running spot. It celebrated running in bold imagery including shots of a caveman, ancient Romans and a Native American, ending with a bunch of runners crashing through a contemporary gym wall.

Advertising Age reports that Nike continues to sample the work of other agencies, including 72 and Sunny, which it recently tapped for a project related to the athletic shoe company's European soccer account.

Guest Blogger Mugs Buckley: All Eyes on Cable Industry's "Project Canoe"

This morning we have the honor of having a guest blogger on 5 Blogs Before Lunch.

Mugs Buckley is a New Media consultant specializing in video on demand, interactive television, business development and ad-related models for broadband and interactive television.



All Eyes on Cable Industry's "Project Canoe"
posted by: Mugs Buckley
mugsbuckley@yahoo.com

To the disappointment of many, it looks like there won't be any big news about the cable industry's "Project Canoe" at the Cable Show convention in New Orleans this week.

Project Canoe is a high-profile partnership among the nation¹s six largest cable companies (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Cox Communications, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks) to enable national interactive advertising campaigns to be executed across the companies¹ cable operations. The code-name Canoe is meant to emphasize that cable operators are working together in the same boat, so to speak.

For the past nine months, the partners' Canoe leads have been meeting weekly. Once a top secret initiative, Canoe's existence was leaked in a September, 2007 Wall Street Journal article. But since then there has been no new information, leading to speculation about how much progress has been made.

Yet Canoe remains a top priority throughout the industry, and for good reason. With big advertisers like GM and Intel shifting their once big-budgeted TV ad campaigns to the Internet in significant sums, it¹s key that the cable operators need to figure out a way to not only protect the $5 billion or so that they generate in spot-cable advertising today, but also to increase their piece of the $70 billion dollar TV ad spend or cut into other slices of the massive US total ad spend pie. The next 3-5 years will be critical as cable advertising, the Internet and broadband video jostle for advertisers' affections.

The buzz in New Orleans suggests advertisers and agencies are excited about Canoe, though its development seems slower than they prefer. Why the slow progress that's perceived? Several operators stated that integrating the infrastructure required to execute Canoe with cable¹s legacy systems is hard stuff. No doubt. Then of course there are other key priorities weighing on the industry resources, such as the February 2009 digital transition.

Meanwhile, the Internet and broadband video advertising continue steaming ahead, giving advertisers and their agencies the measurement and targetability that they yearn for on TV. Cable operators have been stymied in their ability to jointly offer advertisers easy access to a nationwide or near-nationwide footprint, especially critical for Video on Demand to blossom. Canoe addresses this and other opportunities, in part by creating a set of standards for all to follow.

The only Canoe "news" at this week's Cable Show came from Comcast's Steve Burke, who stated that a CEO would be announced on June 1. Comcast is a key player in Canoe, funding between $50-70 million of the $150 million initial investment. Rumors have swirled that David Verklin, who recently stepped down as CEO of Aegis North America (a large advertising services firm) will assume the position of CEO. If true, that could be the news to break on June 1.

For those of us who have been around the interactive advertising and TV mulberry bush for many years, Canoe's potential is exciting. But we¹re hoping that the Canoe gets it in gear. Paddle on, gang.

This article orginally appeared in Will Richmond's VideoNuze.

Seven Ways American Idol Has Impacted The World

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik offers seven ways in which "American Idol" has impacted TV and the larger world, including making TV "more commercial than ever," uniting black and white viewers and influencing how networks schedule their top shows.

No. 1: Shifted when networks broadcast our favorite shows
No. 2: Brought black and white audiences together
No. 3: Helped introduce young people to voting
No. 4: Made TV more commercial than ever
No. 5: Resurrected the variety show
No 6: Crowned the 10 o'clock news a winner
No. 7: Influenced how we "judge" politics