Family Drama, the CW Way


LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — While the CW has done a good job of developing buzzworthy shows — from "Gossip Girl" and "90210" to "Aliens in America" and "Reaper" — translating hype into ratings has proven a tougher task. Dawn Ostroff, president of entertainment for the CW, took a few minutes during a busy week to answer 10 e-mailed questions from Ad Age sibling publication TV Week.

City Room: Rowling Wins Copyright Ruling

J.K. Rowling, author of ‘Harry Potter’ series, prevails in federal court against a librarian who wanted to publish a Harry Potter lexicon.

Whimsical Security Products – Sweet Dreams Security (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Sweet Dreams Security (UK) live up to their name for not only do they provide security products like railings, barbed or razor wire, padlocks and security cameras to give you piece of mind but they also…

NBC Universal, Google to Work Together on Ad Sales

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — NBC Universal and Google said they would form a strategic partnership that would give the search-advertising giant access to TV-ad inventory on various NBC cable channels, a move that could be seen as a major victory in Google's quest to sell ad time in more targeted fashion and in a way that would have a TV network give up some of its control over the ad-sales process.

Vegetarianism to Slow Global Warming – IPCC’s New Climate Spin

(TrendHunter.com) The chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make a speech tonight (Monday, September 8), in London that will call for people to reduce their consumption of meat. According to…

Tongue Tattoos – More Unusual Areas to Get Inked (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) All the other issues aside, this must seriously hurt. Tongue tattoos are a new trend that is rapidly spreading across the world of body modification.

Why one would want a tattoo on their tongue is way…

Political Action Figures – HeroBuilders Sarah Palin Doll

Sarah Palin as an action hero, and her sidekick John McCain are creations of Herobuilder. I am particularly fond of Beach Blanket Obama, just because of the name and the pecs. Not so fond of Customer #9…

Political Action Figures – HeroBuilders Sarah Palin Action Figures and Dolls

Sarah Palin as an action hero, and her sidekick John McCain are creations of Herobuilder. I am particularly fond of Beach Blanket Obama, just because of the name and the pecs. Not so fond of Customer #9…

Creative Marketers Make Successful Businesses

Mark-Hans Richer, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Harley-Davidson, believes people in his position need to be creative.

Creativity is as much a core skill set for a successful CMO as a results orientation. In fact, it may be the key differentiator between business success and failure.

My supposition is that creativity vs. results is a false choice and one that Jobs, Pickens and Reinhardt would find ridiculous, as should you. In fact, creativity has defined the most successful businesses so much that creativity must be considered a competitive advantage. It probably describes the engine of capitalism more than capital itself. Capital seeks good ideas, and good ideas come from creativity.

With that type of thinking coming from the corner suite, I could be tempted to move to the client side (especially, if said client happened to be aligned with my values, and I was already an advocate for their products).

[via Ad Age]

$100 Laptops Now Online – Amazon.com Sells Hand-Crank Laptop

(TrendHunter.com) For all of you that missed out on last year’s opportunity to get your hands on one of the most important computers designed in recent history, and do your bit for the developing world at the same time,…

10 Bizarre Ronald McDonald Spin-Offs (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) I hate Ronald McDonald and I hate clowns. For a bit of cognitive behavioural therapy I decided to do a round up of the ten best Ronald McDonalds I could find online… From buff to baby’s it remains they…

Bits: Tech Blogger Om Malik Becomes Venture Partner

Om Malik, the longtime journalist who founded the technology blog GigaOm, has become a partner in True Ventures, the venture capital firm that backed his company.

Fondling Breasts For AIDS – Could Perversion Save The World? (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Japan is one of the few industrialized nations in which AIDS is on the rise. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare reported that the number of new infections of HIV reached a record high in 2007.…

Anti-Theft Lunch Bags – Fake Mold Sherwood Forlee Plastic Bags

(TrendHunter.com) The anti-theft lunch bag is guaranteed to put even the hungriest thief off for it looks like your sandwich has flora. But it’s just a trick – the green stuff is just the pattern on the plastic zip lock!…

In Need of Head Space And Some for the Body Too

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I’m about to head up the street to check out a coworking space on Fremont. Given that activity, I couldn’t have picked a better time to stumble upon this meditation on open work space from Tim Siedell of Fusebox.

Understand that it’s not for everyone.

Make sure you recruit accordingly. In our experience, the best creative people crave this type of an environment and a spirit of teamwork will prevail. On the other hand, manipulative, project-hoarding, non-collaborative, and dishonest people will not last long. That’s the best part.

Embrace the chaos.

At times, it’s going to be loud, chaotic, and hard to concentrate. Turn on your radar and see if the creative solution you’re looking for is really floating around in the chaos around you. You’ll be surprised how often it is, which is the greatest creative benefit of all. Walk around. See what other people are working on. Tip in an idea on someone else’s project. In our experience, your work will get better as a result.

Tim’s take on chaos is especially interesting to me right now. Moving across country, having the house in disarray, going to conferences, working my job, blogging, Tweeting, reactivating Facebook, seeing live shows and meeting new friends is chaotic. Yet, like Tim, I have faith in the long term benefits of these actions.

Political Action Figures – HeroBuilders Sarah Palin Doll (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Sarah Palin as an action hero, and her sidekick John McCain are creations of Herobuilder. I am particularly fond of Beach Blanket Obama, just because of the name and the pecs. Not so fond of Customer #9…

Hot Ad (Wo)Man Of The Day: Matt Fischvogt

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Meet Matt Fischvogt.

Agency: CD, Innovation and Integration, Mullen

Key Work: “Art of the Heist” for Audi.

Little Known Fact: “However, his proudest accomplishment is cutting patterns into the outfield of Camden Yards, having been a full-time member of the Baltimore Orioles grounds crew during the 1999 season.”

[image source]

We’re looking for the best and brightest from account mangers, directors, creatives, producers, planners, etc. A little recognition in this hard ass industry is a very good thing indeed. Know someone who works their ass off and deserves to be the Hot Ad (Wo)Man of the day? Email me at superspyin at gmail dot com.

More: See all the Hot Ad (Wo)Men

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Political Convention Visual Summaries – Wordle Interprets DNC and RNC (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Many of you are familiar with Wordle, the website that lets you plug in a sentence, paragraph or web site to produce an interactive word cloud. The folks at Wired took some of the key memorable passages…

Esquire’s E-Ink Cover and Ad for Ford

Today must be like that October day in 1994 when the first web banner appeared on a web page and everyone was excited about it without fully realizing what it all meant. The small blinking insert on Esquire’s cover is just like that — kind of simplistic and not at all scary. But you just wait.

During my lunch break today, I ran out to Borders to pick up a copy of the October issue of Esquire that came out with an e-ink insert on its cover.  Boston Globe wrote about the upcoming e-ink issue a couple of weeks ago. Today, the story is all over the web. Wired says its a flop. I say sour grapes, even though, yes, the creative execution is a bit underwhelming.  The cover and the ad are controlled by one circuit and run on six batteries that are supposed to last 6-8 months.
As you’ll see in the video, the e-ink screens are pretty thin, fairly high-contrast and bend well. 

Besides “the world’s first e-ink cover”, Esquire also sports what must be one of the first e-ink ads, for Ford Flex. Production costs for the e-ink insert are reportedly $8-$10 per cover.

Coincidentally, Plastic Logic today revealed its e-reader with the 8.5 x 11-inch form factor targeted at business users.

Earlier:

Spinning Trees as Art – ‘Joyful Trees’ of Liverpool (VIDEO)

(TrendHunter.com) This spinning tree installation called ‘Arbores Laetae’, which means ‘Joyful Trees’ is part of the Liverpool Arts Festival. The exhibit consists of 3 large trees ingeniously installed on rotating disks…