OMD on top in Gunn Report for Media

LONDON – Omnicom network named agency of the year for the fourth time in succession, as Nike heads 2007 advertiser rankings.

Momentum buys Greenroom

LONDON – McCann Worldgroup’s Momentum Worldwide has acquired Greenroom Digital and its sister media agency Entertainment Intelligence for an undisclosed sum.

WPP-backed Santo to launch in the UKSanto

LONDON – Santo, the Argentinian crea­tive hotshop backed by WPP, is to open in London, as the holding company looks to bolster its portfolio of crea­tively led micro-networks.

Green and Betts exit DLKW as earn-out ends

LONDON – Malcolm Green and Gary Betts, the executive creative directors and founding part­ners of Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners, are to leave after eight years.

BA seeks European digital ad network

British Airways has kicked off a pitch for its consolidated digital advertising business across continental Europe and Africa.

Advertising Space Innovation Needed

Considering how much the banner format has evolved over the past decade, it’s surprising how little innovation we see on the publishers’ side of the equation. For the most part, publishers treat their ad space as just that: a blank piece of real estate that they rent out. As in real estate, the neighborhood and the location is important, but a lot with extra features could command a higher price. To be fair, many publishers offer targeting capabilities that are much more advanced than in the past, although even with targeting the lowest common denominator is pretty low. And, to continue with the real estate metaphor, most of the lots for rent lack something as basic as a sewage hook-up.

The only two examples of ad spaces with extras I could think of are CNet and Facebook (but please drop a comment if I’m missing something).

Ad units throughout the CNet network (see this page, for example) come with “Ad Feedback” links to the unique feedback forms, although I don’t know if the feedback is for advertisers’ or CNet’s use.



The feedback link above an ad unit on a CNet site.



Ad feedback form on CNet.

[Update]: Adpinion and BrandJury are two start-ups pursuing the ad feedback idea (from the comments on Steve Rubel’s post on the subject a few weeks ago).

And Facebook aggregates all ads that share a common audience on Ad Board, a page you can reach by following the “More Ads” link under the ad.



Click the “More Ads” link on Facebook…


… to see more ads targeted at you.

Google has been offering a feature similar to Facebook’s Ad Board for a long time now: search for a popular product then click the More Sponsored Links link on the bottom of the AdWords column but it looks more like an afterthought than a feature intended to be actively used. I’d clean up the formatting and somehow display ads associated with similar queries: a search for “gaming laptop” produces a slightly different set of ads that could be combined with those for “laptop for games” on one classifieds-like page.

Google’s Sponsored Links pages even have a dedicated search feature.

A few other things on my wish list. None of them guarantee success, but then how are we going to know for sure if we don’t experiment?

1. Bookmarking. Jacob Nielsen wrote about it five years ago: “Why not make it possible for users to review ads after they rotate off the screen? If every site that featured rotating, dynamically generated ads simply offered a button at the ad location — “view last 10 ads here” — we predict that advertisement success rates would increase.”

2. Associate ad content with site content where possible. The CNet ad above for Sprint could come along with links to past tried it two year ago; I wonder how it went. [update: It died because advertisers didn’t want to take the risk, Engadget’s Peter Rojas explains.]

4. Sharing. Cutting out and sharing coupons is a well established behavior offline with barely any online analogs.

Earlier:
10 Tips for New Ad-Supported Ad Businesses

Ssang Yong calls creative pitch

SEOUL – Ssang Yong Motor Company, South Korea’s fourth largest car manufacturer, has called a review of its Won 25 billion (US$26 million) domestic creative business.

Don’t Stop at Shaking Your Ass. SHAKE TA LIFE.

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Viacom is the parent company behind a covert French mobile phone promotion called Shake Ta Life (probably the most wince-worthy Franglais EVAR), where, with one quick shake, phones do all kinds of wild and wonderful things to improve the lives of their MTV-enslaved owners.

Now There’s a Home for Your Lame Home-Made Sports Videos

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That home is “Homestyle Sports.”

Flickr Users Protest Video, iJustine Says Quit Being A Btchr

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What the hell? Flickr decides to make it possible for users to upload videos along with their photos and what do some people do? That’s right. They bitch.

Feed Company Drops Stats on Zune ‘Masks’ Effort

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Hey, remember that Zune Masks spot? Feed Company, which seeded it on YouTube and elsewhere, sent us metrics on how well it fared.

AdLand Investigates: Is there a bear penis flopping around in a Lowe’s Home Improvement commercial?

It’s not often that we get questions regarding ursine sexual organs here at AdLand,* but one of our site’s good pals was watching his large screen HDTV (show-off) when a Lowe’s commercial came on featuring a ornery grizzly bear. The minute-long commercial was about 32 seconds in when he noticed “something dangling and wiggling ‘down there'” on the bear.

Of course, AdLand had to investigate, and what did we find? Was it indeed a happy bear penis? Was it simply a matted clump of bear hair? Was it really David Hasselhoff’s stunt double in the bear costume? Judge for yourself.

Superadgrunts, see the full commercial here, and then, thanks to our patented AdLand Bear Penis Detector Zoom 3000, see a close-up of the scene in question here.

*I know! I know! Hard to believe!

read more

Meet Pike Place, the Ghost of Starbucks Past

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On Tuesday Starbucks debuted the fresh-brewed Pike Place Roast, named after the street where, in 1971, the first Starbucks was born.

Space Goggles – Bright, Futuristic Glasses (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) With the increasing buzz about luxury space travel, there has been a heavy emphasis on futurism in fashion, from metallic fabrics, to fun, over-sized space goggles like these.

Sure they’re a little bit ’80s, and look a lot like something you’d pluck from your childhood dress-up trunk, but the conf…

Neg’s Urban Sports (RIDICULOUS) – Top 6 Games to Prank Your Way to a Good Time (VIDEO)

(TrendHunter.com) Bored? Downtown? Neg’s Urban Sports are outlandish challenges where contestants disrupt social norms, pranking victims in score-able challenges. For example, how long can you ride a big stranger? When you knock on a stranger’s door, how long can you keep them from closing the door? Be crazy, and …

DIY Music Videos – Animoto Slide Shows (VIDEO)

(TrendHunter.com) Animoto is an easy-to-use website that allows you to create completely customized music videos using your own photographs. This is the future of animated slide shows; you’ll never go back to PowerPoint presentations again!

After selecting a song of your choice and the images you want integrated in …

Xiaxue Was iJustine Before Justine Became iJustine

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Back in 2004, Singapore hottie Wendy Cheng, aka Xiaxue was just a blogger.

Coffee, Tea … or Richard Kirshenbaum?

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Sassy Richard of kishenbaum + bond is launching a show on Plum called Creative Lunch. Think Oprah, except people will be picking at food while weighing in on almighty Creativity. Slated guests include Martha Stewart, Matt Lauer, and David and Dylan Lauren.

Yahoo Taps Google, Webby Would-Bes Go Live, BMW Gets Tagged, and the Most Beautiful Marker We’ve Ever Seen

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– YAHOO’S PARTNERING WITH GOOGLE FOR SEARCH ADS OMG. Whew. Glad that’s out of the way.

Real Insight That Builds A Business Doesn’t Grow On Trees

Matthew Milan, Director of Insight and Planning at Critical Mass, is sharing slides.

On page eight of this deck, there’s a nice quote from Ron Johnson of Apple. He says, “Design works if its authentic, inspired and has a clear point of view. It can’t be a collection of input.”

I love it when people refuse to compromise their vision. That is, I love it when their vision is grand and wise.

[via Jack Vinson]