Hasta La Creative!

Tomorrow marks the official launch of Hulu, which is the latest move to provide full-length TV shows and movies via the Web. And it has some big names behind it:

Hulu, the online video joint venture of News Corp and General Electric’s NBC Universal, will make its public debut on Wednesday with programming from Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros Television Group, Lionsgate and from sports leagues.

Missing from the list of providers are media mogul Sumner Redstone-controlled companies Viacom Inc, which continues to hold discussions, Viacom said recently, and CBS Corp, which has said it was not averse to a licensing deal.

At launch, Hulu will offer full-length episodes of more than 250 TV series from current hits such as “The Simpsons” as well as older shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” It also will offer 100 movies including “The Big Lebowski” and “Mulholland Drive.”

Hulu said it has signed licensing deals with the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League.

Hulu’s launch is a big bet by big media companies that consumers are as eager to spend long periods of time watching TV shows and movies in front of their computers as they are in front of their televisions.

That last sentence is an interesting one. I tend to drift (or click away) from long-form content when I’m on the net. What about you?

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — Ken Taylor will return to Publicis Groupe's GM Planworks for another tour of duty — this time at the top of the dedicated shop for General Motors Corp.

Privacy is always going to be a hot topic on the Internet. After all, the thing that separates the Web from other media is its ability to target. The problem is, what if people get too creeped out by ad companies tracking their movements? AOL’s answer: Let Mr. Penguin do the ’splaining. The New York Times’s Bits blog has the storyboards of an upcoming AOL ad that explains the importance of Internet cookies, using the lovable Mr. Penguin to tell the wonderful story of behavioral targeting. As we learned back on Penguin Day here on AdFreak, penguins do tend to put the mind at ease. Still, I don’t know about Mr. Penguin’s look when he receives a targeted ad in the storyboard shown here. Shock? Glee? Alarm?

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

LONDON – Regional media owners will continue to develop the hybrid part-paid and part-free newspaper model to raise and maintain circulation levels, according to Georgina Harvey, managing director of Trinity Mirror’s regional division.

LONDON – Betfair, the online betting exchange, is launching a multi-channel marketing strategy to coincide with the Cheltenham Festival.

LONDON – A pre-watershed ban on the TV advertising of alcohol and foods high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) could cost commercial broadcasters £450m in lost ad revenues.

With spring training in full swing (now that’s wordplay), Major League Baseball teams have begun to grind out the commercials. The Minnesota Twins, who finished 79-83 last year and are preparing for their 17th consecutive year of not winning a World Series, trot out young pitcher Pat Neshek, who looks concerned (and rightly so) at the prospect of a season without ace Johan Santana, who recently defected to the New York Mets for big money. Even the kids in the ad (students at Neshek’s alma mater, Minneapolis’s Park Center High School) seem to know the score (wordplay again), as they ask silly questions about the team’s catcher, Joe Mauer. It’s about as funny the Twins sub-.500 season will be. Go Yanks!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

When last I left you in Part One, I had traveled to Miami under mysterious circumstances with a few burning questions on my mind:
What is DIME?
What is going on here?
What’s up with Sony?
Did I forget to pack underwear?

Things were soon revealed.

read more

LONDON – Love-it-or-hate-it soft drink Dr Pepper is returning to TV after more than four years with a revived ad campaign by Mother.