Ad Industry Roundup: Time; YouTube; Publishers Clearing House; Website Brands
This story was written by David Kaplan.
Departing Time exec's online/offline disappointment: Ed McCarrick, who leaves Time magazine after 35 years this week to go to Omnicom barter unit Icon International, tells AdAge's Nat Ives that one of his biggest disappointments was not being able to change advertisers' habits about selling beyond the paid subscription. Two years ago, McCarrick began trying to convince marketers and agencies to buy against the entire audience across print, digital and mobile. But "when you go in and have conversations, 99.9% of the time, with an agencyor even a client, for that matteryou talk about audience primarily. I don't think that's changed."
YouTube tries to cure pharma marketers' "Excedrin Headache": YouTube's sponsored contests are pretty run of the mill at this point. But the Google-owned video channel hopes its Excedrin video challenge promoting the painkiller's curative speed this fall will open the doors to a marketing category that's remained averse to YouTube ads: big pharma. YouTube is trying to use the campaignemphasizing Excedrin's control on the placementsas proof that being surrounded by user-gen won't cause the heavily-regulated drug makers any huge headaches (pardon the pun).
Publishers Clearing House hopes to win digital sweepstakes: Speaking of contests, Publishers Clearing House has parked the Prize Patrol Van with its over-sized checks. Instead it is taking its sweepstakes to Twitter, the iPhone, MySpace and Facebook, offering prizes ranging from $100 to $2,500. Realizing that many younger consumers might not even know what PCH is, the company has bought time on MTV's The Real World to promote the digital contests. Still, the gambit is long on hope, short on strategy. As Alex Betancur, VP/GM of the PCH Online Network concedes: "The truth of the matter is, we have no idea how we would make money on Twitter."
You can judge a company by its website: When consumers were asked how they define a company's brand, they say it's the entity's web presence that provides the best look. An unpublished survey by brand consultant MS&L and audience researcher GfK Roper surveyed 6,000 consumers in the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, Sweden and China on the issue found that U.S. individuals were most likely to consider a company's website when making a determination about a company's values.
By David Kaplan