Trump endorses MITCH TV

Penney For Your Thoughts: Retailer Tries Live TV Spots To Engage Consumers

David Goetzl MediaPost

IF LIVE CONTENT TENDS TO reduce DVR-aided skipping, perhaps JC Penney is onto something. It plans to air live-content ads during Thursday's Video Music Awards on MTV.
The two live spots are part of the retailer's category-exclusive sponsorship of the VMAs and a last-gasp push in its back-to-school campaign. The creative concept takes live footage from the VMAs and places it on screens embedded within the spots, which include shots inside teens' and kids' bedrooms. Ultimately, it links back to the live show inside New York's Radio City Music Hall.

Echoing a popular refrain among marketing executives increasingly interested in branded entertainment, JC Penney's vice president of brand marketing, Michael Cape, said in a statement: "We are looking to blur the edges between advertising and show content."

Other aspects of the company's relationship with the event, popular with the 12-to-34 demo, include several new "recorded" spots, such as the debut of fall fashion ads.

CBS News Promotion Turns Odd, Uses Odds To Tout Couric

Tom Siebert MediaPost

IN WHAT CAN ONLY BE described as an odd turn of events, venerable CBS News has turned to an online odds-maker to help tout incoming evening news anchor Katie Couric.
In fact, now viewers can literally gamble on Couric's debut as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." On Tuesday, CBS News' publicity department circulated releases alerting the press that Costa Rica-based online gambling site BetCRIS.com is offering betting lines on how many viewers "CBS Evening News" will watch Couric's first day.

Odds range from 12-to-1 that she'll draw less than amiable placeholder Bob Schieffer's lowest summertime ratings, about 6.5 million, to 3.75-to-1 that she'll top 8.5 million on opening night.
So far, betting has been sporadic, says BetCRIS CEO Mickey Richardson, who also thinks the numbers need "tweaking.

It seems every night now I turn on the TV and have got to hear about it--and not only on CBS."
CBS, long a third-place finisher in the evening-news race, averaged 7.07 million nightly viewers the week of August 21, and has been averaging roughly between 6.5 million and 7 million viewers a night throughout the summer.

The spin comes as CBS News was exposed for another questionable publicity move: releasing digitally altered press photos depicting a virtually slimmer version of Couric.

CBS to use Bluetooth wireless to market new shows

CBS plans to use Bluetooth wireless technology coupled with billboard posters to market new TV shows in its fall lineup on mobile handsets.

Starting in September, people will be able to download short video clips of five CBS prime-time shows onto their cell phones or PDAs (personal digital assistants) from billboards in New York City's Grand Central Station, according to a Wall Street Journal article published Thursday.

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Your TV commercials on the web!

TV commercials could help your site become RICH!

Mitch Drew
August 21, 2006

With the increase in broadband, North Americans are demanding a richer experience when visiting web sites.

Many small and medium sized businesses are finding that by adding TV commercials to a site, the number of trackable views can be suprisingly high.

Since launching my BLOG, MITCH-TV in November 2005, I've added a link to my rich media page at www.vimeo.com and host over 45 Channel M TV commercials available for viewing. As of today, my site has recorded over 2,500 individual commercial views and last week, my site experienced the highest single daily views of 37!

If you would to find out how Channel M can help you produce a high quality TV commercial and air it on TV and ONLINE, call or email me today!

Mitch Drew
Account Manager
Channel M
604-678-3912 direct
mdrew@channelm.ca

Elvis fans mark anniversary of death

Fans of the King from around the world are in Memphis, Tenn., honoring the 29th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death.

Presley died of heart disease and prescription drug abuse at his Graceland mansion on Aug. 16, 1977. The singer's fans traditionally file past his grave site at Graceland on the eve of the anniversary. A spokesman says as many as 10,000 fans could visit the mansion for this year's vigil.

President Bush and his wife, who brought Elvis fan and Japanese leader Junichiro Koizumi to Memphis in June for a tour of Graceland, sent their regards.

The White House sent a letter to be read to the fans noting Presley's "special place in the cultural life of America." It says the anniversary gives fans around the world an opportunity to come together, share memories and celebrate Presley's legacy.

Fox To Sell Movies, TV Shows On MySpace

Mark Walsh
MEDIAPOST.COM
Tuesday, Aug 15, 2006

BETTING BIGGER ON INTERNET VIDEO, Fox will begin selling movie and TV show downloads via online properties including IGN Entertainment Inc. and MySpace.com this year.
Fox will charge about $20 for new feature films and $2 for TV show episodes that will be sold starting in October through a platform now used for video game downloads on IGN Entertainment sites.

Among the first movies available will be "X-Men: The Last Stand," the remake of "The Omen," and "Thank You for Smoking." Availability through the Direct2Drive service will be simultaneous with DVD releases.

TV shows to be offered include "24," "Prison Break," and FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Fox began selling episodes of "24" and other shows through Apple's iTunes service last year, but those programs can only be downloaded to iPods or to computers via the iTunes software.

Consumers will be able to download the movies and TV shows offered by Fox for computer playback, and transfer to devices running Microsoft's Windows Media Player software.
During the next year, video sales will also be available on MySpace.com and other Fox sites.

According to a recent survey by Frank N. Magid Associates, almost 60 percent of respondents said they would be willing to pay for online entertainment content to have the freedom to watch it whenever they wanted. In the same survey, 30 percent said they would pay up to $20 to access online video.

You, On-Demand

Time Warner Cable adds a channel to host subscribers’ multimedia photo and video albums.

In a move to keep people glued to their televisions, Time Warner cable has teamed up with software company Simple Star to give subscribers yet another way to share photos—on their TVs.

Time Warner subscribers who have both digital cable and Road Runner high-speed Internet service can download Simple Star software to their PCs to build multimedia photo shows and post them to a dedicated on-demand channel, allowing cable subscribers to watch the photo shows anytime with the click of a remote.

READ THE ARTICLE AT REDHERRING.COM

Get The Office At Your Office

Spending more time with your computer than with your TV? Then TV's coming to find you




The Office is an acutely funny workplace sitcom in which the cubicle prisoners fight wrenching boredom and dream of escape. By happy coincidence, that describes many actual offices, minus the acutely funny part. So NBC is giving real workers an escape this summer--by offering new episodes of the show to watch online, in the comfort of their own cubicles.

On July 13, The Office began streaming 10 2-min. "webisodes" through nbc.com Think of them as The Office, the downsized version. The cast is smaller: the plot follows the supporting characters of the Dunder-Mifflin paper company's accounting department as they track down $3,000 missing from the books. Most important, from the network's standpoint, the budget is smaller. "I don't even know if we had a budget," says executive producer Greg Daniels. "It's more like an extra fee." Chalk up another irony for The Office: you have a big year, and the boss asks you to work overtime for peanuts. But the webisode project is less a comedown than the highest-profile example of the race at the networks to bring the small screen to the even smaller screen, fast.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT TIME.COM

MySpace, Google Ink $900 Million Search Deal

IN A DEAL THAT WILL vastly expand Google's available ad inventory, Fox Interactive Network has tapped Google to power paid search on all of the company's Web properties, including the hugely popular social networking site MySpace.com, gaming site IGN Entertainment, and movie site Rotten Tomatoes.

Google has agreed to pay Fox at least $900 million between the first quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2010, provided that the Fox sites maintain certain minimum traffic levels. Fox also will place Google search bars on every MySpace page, starting in the fourth quarter.
The deal also calls for Google to provide display ads to Fox, and gives Google the right of first refusal on all display ads sold through third parties. Previously, Yahoo powered search on MySpace.

Fox Interactive President Ross Levinsohn said Google will provide several new search functionalities to MySpace--including category search, blog search, Web search, and search throughout the entire site--and will also provide a way for Fox to make some money off all the traffic MySpace generates. "This is an opportunity to monetize that traffic that we didn't have before," he said in a conference call Monday afternoon.

Industry observers said the deal is a huge win for Google, by potentially expanding its search volume. MySpace alone garnered 52.3 million unique visitors in June 2006--up 196 percent from the same period a year ago, according to comScore Networks.

"It's an enormous amount of search volume," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst for Sterling Marketing Intelligence, referring to potential searches on MySpace. "Obviously, Fox is trying to generate as much revenue from that site that they can, and this is a very direct, plug-and-play way to do that."

David Berkowitz, director of strategic planning for search engine marketing firm 360i, added that Fox was "giving Google one of the best inventory sources out there right now."

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Advertisers, eBay to test ad sales idea

Several major advertisers are teaming up with online auctioneer eBay Inc. to test an idea for selling television advertising in an electronic marketplace, the group announced Friday.

A group of marketers and advertising agencies wants to try what would be a vastly different way of selling TV ads, which are usually negotiated in closed-door deals between networks and advertisers.

The process has long been criticized as cumbersome and opaque, since the exact prices paid by different advertisers often isn't known, meaning that some will wind up paying more than others.

"As you look at the existing media buying and selling process, there is a level of perceived inefficiency in the system," says Bob Liodice, president of the Association of National Advertisers. "The marketers believe there may be a more transparent approach toward the buying and selling of advertising."

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Home Depot's Online Advertising Play

Home Depot does not plan to make megabucks through its ads just yet. Currently, it has signed up 12 vendors. "We hope to make defray the costs involved with running the ads and managing the Web site," says Home Depot's Greg Foglesong, director of Web marketing and sales.

Walk into a Home Depot and chances are you will be confronted by large displays showcasing new products from manufacturers such as Moen, Maytag, or Kohler. Vendors pay Home Depot and similar retailers for such prime promotional space, and it usually doesn't come cheap.

Now the Atlanta home-improvement retailer is trying to replicate that in-store experience, selling streaming video advertising on its Web site to manufacturers, promoting the fact that Home Depot's online store is visited by 4 million shoppers each week.

"Our vendors can definitely do much more online than with their in-store displays," says Greg Foglesong, director of Web marketing and sales at Home Depot in Atlanta. "Vendors can communicate their stories of innovation, and new product selection via video."

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