Hasta La Creative!

Even the venerable New York Times isn’t immune to the newspaper slump. From The Wired Blog Network:

Compared to last July, total revenues from continuing operations decreased 10.1 percent, advertising revenues decreased 16.2 percent and circulation revenues decreased 0.5 percent.

Print ad sales were the killer once again, and all is pretty much in line with last month’s report, except for online.

Total Internet revenues grew only 2.6 percent and Internet advertising revenues increased only 5.5 percent. Last month these numbers were a lot higher, at both 11.7 percent and 18 percent respectively.

This is not a good sign when papers are now looking at the Web to boost ad sales.

Online ad revenue simply can’t make up for the loss of print ad revenue. And that seems to be the case for all newspapers. So what’s the answer? Publish less than 7 days a week? Less reporters? Reading a paper online is great, but somebody’s gotta pay for it.

LONDON – MTV has created a racy online game, which distracts people from their goal with footage of attractive women, to promote its ‘Totally Calum Best – The Best is Yet to Come’ reality show.

Judging by this back-to-school ad (click to enlarge), Sears doesn’t fully grasp the concept of “playing hard,” a phrase reserved for things more physically taxing than sitting on one’s ass playing video games. But there are greater inaccuracies here: The kid is playing Metal Gear Solid 4, a PlayStation 3 game, with an Xbox 360 controller. Sears is clueless about video games? Color me shocked and appalled! Seriously, I’m finding it hard to get too upset about this. And I’m not alone—even the commenter nerds at Kotaku aren’t getting that worked up. Maybe they’re like me and accept that Sears has enough trouble organizing its stores, let alone keeping gaming systems straight.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

I think Marc Jacobs is trying to tell us something. That the nineties have been over for ten years and 2009 will birth new looks to dog us for years just like the fashion party of 1999 did.

Remember the bright and bold haircolors? The “Matrix” inspired thin sun glasses with no rim? The thick soles on every shoe available? The pleather, latex and fake snakeskin? The exposed navel? The low-cut jeans? The hipster shorts? I’m telling you we need to stop doing all of this now it’s been going on for years. The big T-shirt and leggings look that took over after that did not help matters one bit.

That has got to be the reason he named Russian duo t.A.T.u. as the faces of his autumn/winter line. They’re well past their fame as faux lesbian pop tarts, by about ten years – but they did know how to do the school girl uniform look right.

Marc Jacobs stuffed Posh Spice into a shopping bag, what will he do with this duo? He’s had strange picks before – among them controversial child star Dakota Fanning, director Sofia Coppola, The White Stripes’ Meg White, and singer M.I.A. I can’t wait to see what he does with the Tatu girls – and I hope neither one of them is pregnant during the shoot.

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LONDON – All daily and Sunday Northern Irish newspapers experienced a year-on-year decline in circulation, according to the ABC’s Island of Ireland report for the first half of 2008, although Northern Ireland’s magazines posted a mixed set of results.

LONDON – Channel 4’s ‘The Secret Millionaire’, which featured Carl Hopkins, the former chairman of direct marketing agency JDA, pulled in 3.7m viewers last night, according to unofficial overnight figures.

LONDON – Lloyds TSB has appointed Golley Slater to provide the customer acquisition strategy for its insurance comparison site insurance.co.uk.

LONDON – Carat has revised downward its forecasts for UK advertising spend in 2008 and 2009, as it also cut its prediction for worldwide ad spend expansion in 2008 by 1.1% to 4.9%.

LONDON – Tom Toumazis, the former head of Disney’s TV operations in Europe, has been hired by Big Brother creator Endemol to lead the expansion of its commercial activities.

LONDON – Endemol has appointed senior Disney executive Tom Toumazis as its new chief commercial officer.