Hasta La Creative!

Classic women’s retail chain Talbots has chosen MullenLowe to handle a rebranding campaign set to launch this fall.

The IPG network’s Boston headquarters will handle strategy, creative development, media planning and PR for the integrated effort designed to re-establish Talbots’ position in the struggling retail market.

MullenLowe will use its “hyperbundled service offering” to grant its newest client “high levels of consumer engagement and an unfair share of attention in the marketplace.”

“Talbots has undergone an incredible transformation and achieved momentum throughout the last five years, and now we feel it is time to bring our creative expression and campaign strategy to the next level,” said svp of marketing Deborah Cavanagh, who added that MullenLowe’s “challenger mindset” facilitated “a strong understanding of our authentic brand mission and distinct brand voice.”

The company, established in Massachusetts in 1947, was acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners in 2012. That firm has been on a buying spree, picking up such retailers as Hot Topic, Belk, Coldwater Creek, The Limited and Nine West.

A recent Bloomberg feature characterized managing director Stefan Kaluzny as a Wall Street contrarian, calling Talbots his “most conspicuous deal” and highlighting the fact that the $193 million acquisition led to a sixfold return based largely on a decision to focus more exclusively on the chain’s target audience: older women with income to spare. It’s unclear whether Sycamore’s decision to go all in on a struggling industry will prove successful in the long run.

Talbots’ last agency review came 10 years ago, when it picked Publicis as AOR after a decade with Arnold. And the company is in comeback mode. According to the Kantar Media, Talbots spent just over $11 million on measured media in the U.S. last year; its 2015 marketing budget was a fraction of that total at less than $200,000.

The fall campaign will coincide with the client’s 70th anniversary and aim to present a new face of Talbots to the public.

“Our MullenLowe team is excited to be working with an amazing group of new leaders at Talbots who are driven to transform perceptions of the brand and to deliver an inspiring message to their audience,” said MullenLowe svp and group account director Rebekah Pagis. “We’re proud of the work we’ve developed together and sure that the market will be surprised by the spirit and confidence of the modern Talbots brand.”

Image via

For some TV networks, the Golden Age of Television is losing its luster.

MTV, A&E and WGN are all cutting back on high-end productions after failing to attract big enough audiences in an increasingly crowded landscape.

Their decision to retreat from non-reality series suggests a reckoning may loom for other networks and the studios that make shows. Last year, the industry produced a record number of original scripted programs — a total of 455. John Landgraf, head of the FX network, has warned of a glut that he’s labeled “peak TV,” arguing the networks and streaming services are making more than viewers can watch.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

About 18 months ago, Meredith Kopit Levien and her team at The New York Times made a bold decision. “We needed to start thinking about The New York Times as a consumer brand, and take its power as a brand much more seriously,” she says. As chief revenue officer, Kopit Levien understood that for The Times to continue providing value to advertisers and readers, it would need to innovate and transform consumer expectations.

“There was always this sense that we had this opportunity to begin to behave more like a world-class consumer brand,” she says. They hired talent with extensive brand experience, and dug deep into their brand definition with the help of the newsroom to stay true to the “product.” Eventually, they settled on a simple brand statement: The Times helps people understand the world.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

About 18 months ago, Meredith Kopit Levien and her team at The New York Times made a bold decision. “We needed to start thinking about The New York Times as a consumer brand, and take its power as a brand much more seriously,” she says. As chief revenue officer, Kopit Levien understood that for The Times to continue providing value to advertisers and readers, it would need to innovate and transform consumer expectations.

“There was always this sense that we had this opportunity to begin to behave more like a world-class consumer brand,” she says. They hired talent with extensive brand experience, and dug deep into their brand definition with the help of the newsroom to stay true to the “product.” Eventually, they settled on a simple brand statement: The Times helps people understand the world.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Tech Lab recently released a blueprint of sorts that, in theory, would prevent another Methbot from happening.

Methbot, of course, is the ad fraud attack from late last year that has been crowned by some as the biggest in history. (Others disagree.)

The IAB’s effort, blandly dubbed “ads.txt,” has been applauded by both publishers and ad tech vendors as a step in the right direction in the fight against ad fraud.

Continue reading at AdAge.com