:: adgruntie :: Saturday Morning News

+ Nielsen indefinitely postpones their plan for commercial ratings.

The networks — CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox — refused to allow Nielsen to rate their commercials unless it changes the way it counts viewers who use digital video recorders like TiVos.

In related news, CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves said that next year advertisers would start paying for viewers who watched ads on their digital video recorders.

"In terms of DVRs, we think it is inevitable that they're going to have to start counting DVR usage as part of ratings, and I think everybody in the world -- even the advertising community -- is acknowledging that this year they were able to exclude it," Mr. Moonves told analysts on a conference call to report the company's third-quarter results. "But next year there is no way that's going to happen. So once again, we think as technology advances, as Nielsen advances, as recording advances, the strong broadcast networks are going to be even stronger."

Two other articles from Adage, which I found amusing considering their juxtaposition in the adage email, was an article on David Jones, CEO of global agency network Euro RSCG Worldwide in which he said that rather than talking about how to redefine creativity in a fast-changing world, "we should just get on and do it."

His first piece of advice: Stop worrying about the 30-second TV commercial. The death of the TV ad is highly overrated, he maintained, and "to talk about it is to miss the point. Our industry is the best in the world at short-form content. We should think of ourselves as creators of short-form content, not 30-second ads." He then criticized a popular trend in advertising today: the use consumer-generated content. "We've got to stop thinking that consumer-generated content is an idea," he said. "It isn't. It is a phenomenon." The problem with relying on communications created by regular Joes, he said, is that they "rarely create content with your brand strategy in their pocket."

Just down the page of the email was then an article on the NFL asking fans/viewers to create commercials for them. More on that here.

Also of note, Dodge Nitro ads go testosterone heavy but this time it's not a CPK idea, and three tips to get them to listen for better writing and fonts that make you look lame which has the usual suspects along with some others.