:: adgruntie :: Plethora of stuff

+ Independent agencies are doing better than the conglomerates- in London at least. And with all the recent news about big agencies vs. independents, it's not all that surprising.

All over London, independent agencies are thriving. They have persuaded an increasing number of clients to leave the mammoth agencies.

The confidence and profitability of these maturing agencies - companies with a track record of a decade or less - is the most interesting fact to emerge from a report which is released this week.

Willott Kingston Smith's annual survey of the financial performance of marketing services companies shows the independents are now more profitable than subsidiaries of the global advertising giants.

+ Reuters reports that "P&G's Old Spice brand for men will tout its new Red Zone scented body wash in 10-minute to 20-minute segments that mimic television's reality shows".

The segments revolve around a contest on U.S. college campuses to choose the best-smelling candidate for a "Red Zone Presidential Election," and will be available on demand for cable television subscribers to Comcast Corp.'s video-on-demand services.

"We're creating branded content to make it more interesting and reach more people," said Nancy Newman, integrated marketing manager at Comcast Spotlight, which created the campaign with Old Spice. "Showing scent on television isn't a very easy thing to do. This turned into a presidential parody."

Brent Miller, communications manager for Old Spice, said the brand was experimenting with longer advertising forms to reach young male viewers.

Advertising agencies have held out on-demand services as a new way to invite consumers to find out more about brands, or build ties to products through entertainment.

Yawn. Another election spoof type advert. Scary how many we see pop up during an election year. I wonder if guys will actually care enough to want to tune in. The idea is in the right direction, but the concept itself- who smells best- I mean, who cares?

+ Men- Listen to music while you pee. Yes, it's another urnial cake ad, but this one's a bit different.

As men in barrooms all over America will soon discover, Country Music Television’s latest advertising ploy gives new meaning to the phrase “streaming audio.”
The week of Oct. 25, men who select the right urinal will be staring straight down at a flashing, lighted message and hearing a woman’s voice announcing: “Don’t miss Outlaws on CMT. You seem to miss everything else!”...The Wizmark is a motion-activated, deodorizing drain filter cover with an anti-glare lenticular viewing display and pre-recorded audio unit powered by two AA-volt batteries. It’s also waterproof.

Seems to me this has the potential of turning bathrooms everywhere in to a bit of a mess- especially if the woman's voice catches the blokes off-guard. ;)

+ A press release from Stoli discusses their new "Frozen" campaign which is going to be breaking soon, created by Publicis NYC. But the odd thing about the press release is that it states that the ads were previewed at Cannes this year- and won Bronze Lions in the outdoor/out of home category. But what makes no sense is that ads must have run to be eligible for a Lion, and if these ads are breaking now- how the hell did they win Lions? One guess is that it ran in Europe- although it does seem odd if it was done by Publicis in New York- but not totally unlikely.

But the way in which the press release is worded, it makes it sound like it was just previewed at Cannes- which would make it not eligible to win. We call these things a ghost ad or scam ad- ads that have not run. And the worst part about it is that this is a press release- not an article by a journalist- so if there was a mistake, it's the PR person or someone in-house.

+ McDonalds drops the golden arches from UK adverts and replaces it with a gold question mark in a poster campaign due to begin this week. "Posters will include close-up photographs of fresh salad, fruit pieces and a bagel smothered in cream cheese.The strap-line for the adverts, which appears below the gold question mark, reads: “McDonald’s. But not as you know it.”" Since when is a bagel smothered in cream cheese healthy? It is impressive though to see them take away the arches. Bold move for a brand that tends to stick to more traditional methods.

+ Rogue Molson ad airs over the weekend in Toronto and Montreal, Canada. Apparently it was a part of a pitch by Toronto agency Vaughn Whelan & Partners. The ad was just one part of the pitch campaign, which also included emails and directing people to Project Hijack web site. On the web site you'll find the ad along with a letter stating the idea behind the premise and "The goal is to literally hijack the pitch process so that our little agency can get our big idea on the table." The linked article that this information was found at, does not state if the Molson honchos are annoyed by this or not. Talk about a different approach to pitching to a client.