At Barbie's Mansion, It's Time for Yoga With Pro Wrestlers
After all these years of marketing Barbie in all her glorious incarnations - and outfits - Mattel is about to gear up to sell a new plastic collectible figure with a different, but still distinctive, look: a 7-foot-tall wrestler named the Big Show.
Mattel, the world's largest toy manufacturer, is scheduled to announce on Monday a deal to become the new toy partner of World Wrestling Entertainment, the corporate titan of the pro wrestling world and producer of two of the most successful - and longest-running - franchises in television, "Smackdown" and "Raw."
Starting this week, a new line of toys derived from W.W.E. characters will hit store shelves, a result of two years of development by Mattel. The toys will include action figures of W.W.E. stars like the Big Show and his polar opposite Rey Mysterio (about a foot and a half shorter), as well as roped rings for the figures to wrestle in and toy-size championship belts with special lighting. The deal also includes significant advertising commitments from Mattel in the W.W.E. shows.
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Trying to Add Portability to Movie Files
It is easy to take a DVD to a friend's house and watch it on his TV. But things are more complicated when digital video downloads are involved. A movie file bought from Blockbuster.com will not work on a Sony HDTV, for example, and videos from iTunes work only on devices with Apple software.
At the Consumer Electronics Show, a big high-tech gathering that will begin Wednesday in Las Vegas, Hollywood studios and consumer electronics makers plan to lay out some steps they are taking to simplify this digital future - and perhaps stem the worrying decline in home entertainment sales.
Hollywood and its high-tech partners are deeply concerned that their customers will rebel against some of the limitations taking shape as video moves away from physical discs.
Consumers, the industry believes, could balk at buying digital movies and TV shows until they can bring their collections with them wherever they go - by and large the same freedom people have with DVDs.
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Ad Influx Brightens Hopes For Newspapers, Magazines
A year-end flurry of ad spending helped moderate steep declines at some newspapers and magazines, and has fueled an uptick at others, raising hopes for a recovery in 2010.
Still, following a brutal 2009, when scores of publications closed or made drastic cutbacks, publishers remain wary of declaring an ad rebound as marketers selectively reopen their wallets.
Publishing executives attribute the recent influx of ad money in part to marketers hurrying to spend the remainder of their annual ad budgets after doling out those funds sparingly earlier in the year amid fears of an economic collapse.
Auto makers, particularly General Motors Co., which spent part of the year in government-sanctioned bankruptcy proceedings, also have ramped up marketing after months of spending almost nothing to promote their cars.
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Planning Your Next Move in Ad Land
The Challenges and Pitfalls Ahead for the Industry in 2010
For many, 2009 will be remembered as a year the marketing world will happily put behind it. The lingering recession has depressed consumer spending and marketers have sharply curtailed their outlays on advertising. Two Detroit automakers filed for bankruptcy. TV and print have been trying to find their way in a digital future and agencies have been put in a vise by clients demanding better return on investment.
A new decade might mean a fresh start, but there will be significant challenges ahead in ad land. Ad Age asked its correspondents to look ahead to the coming year and identify the single-most important issue faced by the industries they cover in 2010.
Chat with any agency executive these days and there's a good chance the dreaded "procurement" word makes its way into the conversation. It's a safe bet that pushback from agencies will continue in 2010.
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'Career women make bad mothers' slogan fronts new outdoor push
Controversial ads launch today across buses, 11,500 billboards and poster sites nationwide, as part of a 1.25m campaign to promote the power of outdoor advertising.
The two-week 'Britain Thinks' initiativ, led by the Outdoor Advertising Association, will include ads that read; 'Career women make bad mothers' and '1966- It won't happen this year' in reference to this year's World Cup, in a bid to prove the impact of outdoor advertising.
The campaign hopes to demonstrate the power of outdoor advertising as a direct response medium with the ability to drive people online, according to Alan James, the chief executive of the OAA.
It aims to show an alternative to digital advertising and is based on research by Google that reveals offline activity is essential to driving people online.
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ADWEEK: Apple Dominates Social Brand Ranking
List populated by entertainment, technology
The key to brands coming out on top on the social Web is to have great products people want to talk about. It should come as no surprise then that Apple dominates a new list of the world's most social brands.
The iPhone retained the top slot for the second year in social media management company Vitrue's annual ranking of the most social brands. Its companion service, iTunes, ranked No. 6 and Apple itself was No. 8. Sony (overall brand, PlayStation) and Microsoft (overall brand, Xbox) were the only other companies to have multiple brands in the top 20.
Vitrue measures conversations about brands, both positive and negative, on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and blogs. It made the comparisons based on data collected throughout December.
Most major product categories are represented, although the top of the rankings are dominated by entertainment and technology brands.
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The BRIEF Bonus
"It is the mind that makes the body."
Sojourner Truth
Some of the most striking images from around the world
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