NBCU: Profits Plummet 30% In Q4

By Wayne Friedman

• NBC Universal had a difficult last three months of 2009 — with profits sinking 30% to $602 million. NBC also witnessed revenue slipping 4% to $4.3 billion.
• Much of the drop came from Universal Pictures, with few high-performing theatrical movies and fewer DVDs sales — some 12 million units from “Inglorious Bastards” and “Public Enemy,” versus 33 million in the fourth quarter of 2008, which had “Mamma Mia,” “Hulk” and “Wanted.”
• Operating profit at Universal dropped $200 million with revenue sinking by more than $400 million to $1.2 billion. Also contributing to declines was higher TV rights fees for NFL football.

(www.mediapost.com)

Nielsen Unveils Plan To Add Online Viewing To C3 Ratings

By Joe Mandese

• Nielsen Friday announced plans to merge online viewing of TV programs into its so-called C3 ratings, which are the official currency for buying and selling advertising in the national TV marketplace.
• Nielsen described the plan as “extended screen reporting,” and said it would be implemented after it completes the rollout of Internet meters in its national TV ratings panel by the end of August, with initial data being made available to the industry starting with the month of September.
• The change will add yet another source of viewing — online — to the time-shifted and “live” viewing that currently comprise Nielsen’s C3 ratings standard.

(www.mediapost.com)

‘WSJ’ Launches Latest Brand Venture: Travel Agency

By Erik Sass

• The nation’s leading newspaper for business and finance is extending its brand — to the travel front. The Wall Street Journal is getting into a new line of business, opening its own branded travel agency, WSJTravel, scheduled to launch Jan. 28.
• According to the WSJ announcement, the travel agency will offer destinations, itineraries and customized travel packages based on the newspaper’s travel-related content.
• WSJTravel will debut with a portfolio of 50 planned trips to destinations such as Vietnam, Tuscany and California’ s wine country. The WSJ has already ventured into travel book publishing with “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel” by Scott McCartney, which hit bookstores in paperback form in April 2009.
• Since it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. it has also introduced a number of branded, high-end services aiming to build consumer engagement with the brand and provide new revenue streams.

(www.mediapost.com)

ESPN Buys Vistas, Enhances Ad Insertions

By David Goetzl

• ESPN said last week it has acquired a company with technology facilitating virtual insertion of ads within sportscasts, such as a logo underneath a hockey player or Pepsi sign behind horses coming down the stretch.
• The acquisition of Vistas Unlimited could help ESPN financially, if it doesn’t have to license the embedded-advertising capability it already uses.
• Advertisers can insert logos in baseball, college basketball and other broadcasts, but not within marquee property “Monday Night Football,” since the NFL does not allow any sponsorship integrations in games.
• PVI Virtual Media Services has been a leader in the virtual insertion space — having developed the line that appears during football games showing the distance to a first down. Owned by Cablevision, it has worked with ESPN on advertising initiatives.

(www.mediapost.com)

Google’s Plan To Take Over Mobile With Android

By Laurie Sullivan

• Google’s plan to dominate advertising on mobile phones relies on pushing Android running devices into the marketplace to build an ecosystem of developers who support its platforms. That’s the message Google executives sent analysts during its fourth-quarter earnings call.
• The strategy will put inventory information from retail stores in mobile ads and search results. Mobile applications fueled by GPS and location-based services will spur growth in the ad market. Recently, Google began inserting phone numbers and coupons in mobile ads, which consumers tend to click on more frequently.
• There are some examples where advertisers such as AT&T use some of Google’s products to help people find local stores. Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt told analysts that mobile search traffic growth continues to rise much faster than on the PC.

(www.mediapost.com)

World Spending 82% More Time on Social Sites

By Mark Walsh

• Internet users worldwide spent an average of 5 and a half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December, an 82% increase from a year ago.
• New data from Nielsen Online also shows that the global audience for social networks has increased 50% in the last three years, from 211 million to 307 million.
• When it comes to time spent on social networks, Australia led the world with an average of nearly 7 hours (6:52), trumping the U.S.(6:09), the U.K. (6:08) and Italy (6:00).
• But the U.S. had by far the largest audiences for social sites and blogs, with 142 million, followed by Japan (46.5 million) and Brazil (31.3 million).

(www.mediapost.com)

Shazam To ‘Tag’ Dockers’ Super Bowl Ad

By Aaron Baar

• In this age of trying to have campaigns live on as many screens as possible, Dockers has enlisted music tagging app maker Shazam to help extend the reach and depth of its ad campaign, allowing viewers to “tag” a new brand ad to unlock further content.
• “The purpose of this is to create a more meaningful communication with the consumer,” Jen Sey, vice president of Dockers global marketing tells Marketing Daily. “As consumers are watching the ad, they can interact with it and get more.”
• The new spot in question will air during the Super Bowl on Feb. 7 (Dockers’ first appearance on the game since 2002). Viewers who use the Shazam app will be taken to a specially created branded-content page where they can learn more about the campaign, download the jingle and register for a Dockers giveaway promotion.

(www.mediapost.com)

EA To Tout ‘Mass Effect’ In 2-Minute Ad Pod

By Aaron Baar

• EA’s BioWare division bought out an entire commercial pod in Sunday’s NFC Championship game on Fox to run a full two-minute trailer touting the highly anticipated “Mass Effect 2″ game, hitting the market on Tuesday.
• “‘Mass Effect 2′ is an incredible game. Everything about it suggests it is an epic title that deserves to be promoted in an epic way,” Dustin Shekell, senior advertising manager at EA, tells Marketing Daily.

(www.mediapost.com)

Motorcycle Makers Target Younger Buyers

By Karl Greenberg

• Last year sucked mud for motorcycle makers nearly across the board. New-bike sales plummeted around 40% versus 2008 as people either chose to sit out the market or couldn’t get the credit to buy the bike they wanted.
• It’s way too early to tell if 2010 will be better, but indications are that people are at least more interested than they were last year. Ty Van Hooydonk, director of product communications at industry group Discover Today’s Motorcycling, says the International Motorcycle Show’s recent Washington, D.C. stop was so full, it was nearly uncomfortable.

(www.mediapost.com)

Dew keeps tour name through ‘11

By Tripp Mickle

• Pepsi has agreed to a two-year extension that will see Mountain Dew remain the title sponsor of NBC’s and MTV’s action sports series through 2011.
• Sources valued the deal at $4.5 million to $5.5 million a year.

(www.sportsbusinessjournal.com)

Connections create first naming-rights agreement for FSG

• The Dolphins-Sun Life agreement represents the first facility naming-rights deal for Fenway Sports Group, the sports marketing firm owned by New England Sports Ventures.
• FSG helped put the club and Sun Life together and assisted in the partnership talks.

(www.sportsbusinessjournal.com)

PGA eyes RBC as patron sponsor

By Jon Show

• The PGA of America is expected to introduce Royal Bank of Canada this week as its new sponsor in the banking category, multiple sources said, making it the first financial institution to make a new, multimillion-dollar commitment to professional golf since the implosion of the financial industry.

(www.sportsbusinessjournal.com)

Right Guard aims skills contest at youth demo

By Michael Smith

• The joint youth basketball initiative between the NCAA and the NBA, iHoops.com, is creating a new defensive skills challenge that will be sponsored by Right Guard.

(www.sportsbusinessjournal.com)

New York Life to present Big East tourneys

By Michael Smith

• The ultra-competitive insurance category has another player deepening its presence in the college sponsorship arena. New York Life Insurance, the largest mutual life insurance company in the U.S., will be presenting sponsor of both the men’s and women’s Big East Conference tournaments.

(www.sportsbusinessjournal.com)

Sponsors have more flexibility at X Games

By Tripp Mickle

• After more than a decade of defining sponsors as gold and associate-level partners, the X Games has dropped those categories and will define partners as media and X Fest sponsors.

(www.sportsbusinessjournal.com)

Twitter With a Twist

By: Brian Morrissey

• Brands are going beyond early Twitter efforts focused on customer service, buzz monitoring and contests, to embrace Twitter in its emerging role as a key part of the Internet infrastructure. They use it as a default content-syndication channel, pop-culture icon and real-time content source. What’s more, Twitter’s decision to open its application programming interface (API) has allowed brands to weave Twitter into campaigns, rather than have stand-alone Twitter strategies.

(www.adweek.com)

Sweet ‘N Low, Sibling Brands Move to Mother

By: Eleftheria Parpis

• Cumberland Packing Corp. has named Mother in New York lead agency for Sweet ‘N Low and all other brands marketed by the company.

(www.adweek.com)

Hill, Holliday and CVS Part Ways

By: David Gianatasio

• IPG’s Hill, Holliday in Boston, the longtime incumbent on the CVS account, today said it is not participating in the pharmacy giant’s review of creative and media chores.

(www.adweek.com)

Why Kraft’s Singles Push Has a Red-State Kind of Feel

By: Elaine Wong

• Kraft Foods is taking a page from the GOP playbook with a campaign for its Singles cheese slices celebrating small-town America.
• Kraft is launching the contest—which asks consumers to submit a photo and a short description of what they consider to be the “single best thing” in their hometowns

(www.brandweek.com)

Merrill Lynch Asks Jittery Boomers to Vent Via Text

By: Todd Wasserman

• Texting campaigns have usually been designed with younger consumers in mind, but now Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch Wealth Management unit is planning one aimed at jittery boomers looking to retire.

(www.brandweek.com)

P&G Growing Hair Growth Biz

By: Elaine Wong

• The link between dandruff and hair loss may not be completely proven, or even very well-known, but that hasn’t stopped Procter & Gamble from adding a Head & Shoulders line targeted at men with thinning hair.

(www.brandweek.com)