LONDON – The BBC has licensed digital rights management software in order to make iPlayer downloads available to mobile phone users, and claims Mac users will be able to use iPlayer’s download feature by the end of the year.
LONDON – Telegraph group head Kimberly Butler has left the media company after five years without a job to go to, with her departure prompting a restructure of the group’s advertising travel team.
LONDON – CNBC has secured BT Global Services as the international sponsor of its weekly series, Collaboration Now.
LONDON – EBay has launched an investigation after two former housekeepers of David and Victoria Beckham were arrested after selling items on the online auction site that were stolen from the Beckham household.
David Fincher directed this epic new Nike commercial, titled “Fate,” in which NFL players LaDainian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu are literally born to pummel each other in a football game. Polamalu, it seems, has had long hair since his days in the womb. Wieden, Nike and Fincher have teamed up before, of course, notably on the Nike Gridiron stuff from 2003.
—Posted by Tim Nudd
This Sony PSP ad by British ad agency Mike & Blake puts a twist on a schoolyard “fight” with the confrontation revealed as being almost entirely digital. On one level, the spot is clever, if unremarkable. But I think it (no doubt unintentionally) brings the schisms of our virtual media age into focus. One can easily picture real-life kids actually settling disputes this way, using their thumbs to play games instead of their fists to throw punches. On the plus side, no one gets hurt. And yet, learning to cope with emotional and physical pain is an essential part of growing up and a hallmark of the human experience. This scenario shown in this clip, and video games themselves, create a stimulating yet safe realm in which bruises bloom via electronic palettes and vanish with the flip of a switch. Emotions like pain, courage, fear and shame become stylized, stripped of meaning—and forgotten. Until real stress or peril appear. Then those emotions tend to explode. Bottom line: I probably took too many blows to the head on the playground in third grade. Via Ads of the World.
—Posted by David Gianatasio
LONDON – WPP-owned 24/7 Real Media is to be readmitted to IASH (Internet Advertising Sales Houses) after passing an ABCe audit.
LONDON – Discussions between JCDecaux and News Corporation about the potential purchase of its Russian and eastern European outdoor company, News Outdoor Group, have ended without an agreement.
(TrendHunter.com) Toyota iQ City Car is the tiniest car since R.E. Olds unhitched a horse and added a one lung engine and puttered around. But the Toyota iQ is making a real impression because of its 3+1 seating arrangement;…
LONDON – Recent bank nationalisations and stock market gyrations have seen consumers turn to the internet to help deal with financial pressures.
LONDON – Sony BMG is rolling out its biggest marketing campaign of the year to promote the release of the first album by heavy-metal band AC/DC in eight years.
LONDON – The COI is understood to have hired agency Profero to handle the digital element of the Department of Health’s anti-obesity drive.
(TrendHunter.com) Our modern tabloid culture has helped perpetuate some pretty bizarre body image standards, as the media’s intense scrutiny of size-zero Eva Longoria proves. Tabloids are constantly looking for the first…
LONDON – Suzanne Douglas, chief marketing officer for Heinz UK & Ireland, is leaving to run the Australian arm of the company’s business.
LONDON – UK self-catering holiday cottage company Hoseasons is expanding into the city-breaks market to cater for couples in search of an amorous holiday.
In recent days there has been a range of false Internet reports that managed to gain great purchase across the globe while the truth is still logging on.
LONDON – Nationwide Building Society has appointed Carat to handle the £5m media planning and buying account for its new insurance business, set to launch in conjunction with Liverpool Victoria (LV=) in December.
LONDON – Mindshare has appointed former Naked strategist Gary Armitage as director of business planning for its multi-market Ford of Europe account.
LONDON – Celebrity magazine Hello! has appointed Jacqueline O’Donnell, head of agency sales at Eve, the recently closed women’s monthly, as advertising director.
LONDON – Channel 4 has insisted it has no plans to change its marketing arrangements, including the use of OMD as its media agency, as it prepares to restructure its marketing operation.
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