News Hotline

• Facebook Seeks $700K From Users Who Lost Lawsuit
  by Wendy Davis 28 minutes ago

  A court in Berlin ruled this week that Facebook violated users' rights with its Friend Finder feature, which drew on members' email contacts to suggest friends. But in the U.S., Facebook not only won a potential class-action lawsuit relating to Friend Finder but is now seeking to recover ...

• ANA Slams 'Today' Carnival Ad Placement
  by Steve McClellan 89 minutes ago

  Bill Duggan, group EVP at the Association of National Advertisers, has taken NBC to task for sloppy coordination last week between the editorial and ad traffic departments. A story ran on Today about Carnival Cruise Lines and its recent ship disasters, which was immediately followed by an upbeat ...

• Undertone Promises Brand Lift Or Money Back
  by Gavin O'Malley 98 minutes ago

  On a mission to distinguish itself from rival ad networks, Undertone is making what it considers to be a bold promise: money-back guarantees. Undertone is offering advertisers and agencies up to $50,000 back -- on minimum buys of $200,000 that exceed 40 million impressions -- if a certain ...

• Ad Retargeting Returns Higher Results With Prospecting
  by Laurie Sullivan over 1 hour ago

  Prospecting -- the technique of finding consumers interested in specific products that may not know exist -- can lead to 147% higher conversion rates when combined with ad retargeting for some industries, according to a new DataXu study. ...

• Stars Record Song For ConAgra Anti-Hunger Campaign
  by Karlene Lukovitz 2 hours ago

  This year, ConAgra Foods' annual "Child Hunger Ends Here" campaign has its own original theme song, recorded in three versions by Jewel, Owl City and Jay Sean. Free downloads are available by purchasing products. ...

• Consumer Confidence Up ... Kind Of
  by Karl Greenberg 2 hours ago

  Consumers are spending somewhat more, but that is tempered by a stubborn sense among consumers that the economy is better, but still chronically ill, Discover's U.S. Spending Monitor says. ...

• Super Tuesday Big Win For Fox, NBC's 'Decision'
  by Wayne Friedman 3 hours ago

  In the prime-time period, the Super Tuesday Republican primary contests around the country gave Fox News an easy win against its cable competitors -- earning an Nielsen preliminary average 2.84 million total viewers. CNN was next at 1.48 million. ...

• Apple Lives Up To The Rumor Mill With 'New iPad'
  by Steve Smith 3 hours ago

  With a higher-res display, support for LTE wireless connectivity and voice dictation support, Apple's new iPad satisfied most of the rumors that preceded its launch today. ...

• Automakers' Sites Are Digital Wind Tunnels
  by Karl Greenberg 4 hours ago

  Automotive brand loyalty happens after a customer drives off the dealership lot with their new, or pre-owned vehicle. Automakers have an opportunity and responsibility to build that post-purchase relationship. ...

• Getting Up To Speed On Don And Peggy
  by Phyllis Fine 4 hours ago

  "Mad Men" fans, you've got a bit more than two weeks to get yourself in shape for March 25, when that fascinating enigmathon premieres season five -- and New York mag is here to help, with a whole section in its latest issue devoted to the show. Looks ...

• Is The Set-Top Box Dying?

  "This just in: The TV set-top box is on its deathbed," begins Claire Atkinson in her story reporting that Google is looking to sell the  set-top business it's set to acquire from Motorola Mobility, even before its acquisition deal closes. Atkinson provides more evidence of the set-top box's ...

• Netflix Quietly Looking For Cable Deals

  "At least one cable company could end up experimenting with offering Netflix by the end of the year," if the quiet meetings reported between Netflix CEO's Reed Hastings and several cable companies lead to parternships, writes George Szalai. "A cable deal would increase Netflix's competition with Time Warner's ...

• New 'New Yorker' Web Editor Wants More 'Online Newsbreaks'

  Is "The New Yorker... starting to take the web more seriously?" asks Joe Pompeo, analyzing reports that newyorker.com has a new editor:  Nicholas Thompson, formerly in charge of print features. Thompson, who already has digital chops -- he spent five years on staff at Wired, another pub in ...

• Hearst Taps Sprout For Mobile Ads

  Hearst Digital Media, a division of Hearst Magazines, has formed a partnership with Sprout giving the latter responsibility for creating rich-media ads for mobile and tablet devices. The alliance will help promote Hearst magazines, including including "Marie Claire," "Good Housekeeping," "Cosmopolitan," and "Seventeen." ...

• Scared Straight: Graphic Anti-Meth Ads Work

  While the emotionally neutral and "fear-only" anti-meth ads produced little change in the college students' perceptions of the drug, gruesome images create a "distancing behavior" in its viewers, noted an anti-drug study. The findings are germane to other public-health publicity campaigns. ...

• PWW Names Atchison CEO, Absorbs ZAAZ

  WPP is bulking up its Possible Worldwide digital agency with the addition of some new executive firepower and added resources. Shane Atchison has been appointed PWW's new CEO. And the agency that Atchison co-founded 14 years ago--ZAAZ--is being folded into PWW. ...

• Is Amazon Testing "Original" Television?

  Potentially following the lead of YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix, Amazon could be getting into original content. “At least that is what appeared to be the case for a fleeting few hours March 6 on LinkedIn,” reports Fortune. “Joe Lewis, a new executive with the tech giant … briefly listed ...

• Netflix Talks Delivery Deals With Cable Cos.

  Netflix is reportedly in discussions with top cable companies about adding its online movie streaming service to their cable offerings. “In what would ratchet up its competition with HBO, the talks could lead to Netflix becoming available as another on-demand option for cable subscribers through their set-top boxes,” reports ...

• Apple App Store Getting "Catalogs"

  Elsewhere on the app front, Apple is in the process of adding a new category to its App Store. Called "Catalogs," some are speculating that the vertical could challenge -- or perhaps compliment -- those massive, mailbox-clogging product directories for which Pottery Barn, Victoria’s Secret, and Lands’ End ...

• IPTV To Hit 105M Subscribers By 2015

  Television delivered by IPTV systems will almost double in subscribers on a worldwide basis in four years -- outpacing the growth of cable and satellite TV businesses. ...

• Link Prospecting With Tilde

  Garrett French gives us a guide to link prospecting with the tilde. He outlines some findings on experiments with the Tilde operator in guest post prospecting for the health industry. French writes that it enables the discovery of synonyms for big head tearms, works in conjunction with intitle ...

• SEO Best Practices

  Use multilingual markup tags, implement geographic specific schema tags, create webmaster accounts for each country, set up Google Places listings, and engage in local link-building. These are five of the top SEO strategies suggested by Crispin Sheridan. He walks through each to explain some best practices for global ...

• Should Search Marketers Learn Pinterest?

  Francesca James says yes. She tells us Pinterest has more than 10.4 million registered members, with about "20.8 million potential eyes on your pinboards." There are some important points to consider when it comes to posting content and topics. While there's no official business section on the site, ...

• St. Patrick's On Saturday: A Mixed Blessing

  With St. Patrick's Day looming, retailers, restaurants and bartenders all over the country are thinking green, and hoping that the holiday landing on a Saturday this year will boost bucks. ...

• Velti Sees 87% Of Tablet Ad Impressions Coming From iPads

  Despite rapid gains by Amazon's Kindle Fire, ad impressions served to iPads continue to crush the competition worldwide, says mobile ad exchange provider Velti. ...

• Coldplay's Lessons For Global Marketing (Yes, Seriously)

  Coldplay named an album "Mylo Xyloto," a play on Mylo and portmanteau (of toe and xylophone) Xyloto. Coldplay is a global brand, whose last album, "Viva La Vida," or "Death and All of His Friends," was the global best-selling album of 2008. ...

• IPads Become Hand-Me-Downs

  As tablet prices drop and new versions land in stores, family members are passing their castoffs to children and grandparents. The trend is good for device makers who need to keep offering the next thing. Apple will introduce the third-generation iPad on Wednesday. More than half of tablet ...

• Pet Insurance Sales Are Up

  Pet insurance providers have grown tenfold during the last decade to 11 companies - including Pets Best Insurance, the Hartville Group and Embrace Pet Insurance. ...

• 40 New Stores For Dick's Sporting Goods

  Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. reported Tuesday that profit for the fourth quarter rose 27% to $111.1 million, compared with $87.5 million in the year-ago period. Revenue increased 6% to $1.61 billion from $1.52 billion, matching Wall Street expectations. Same-store sales inched up 0.1%. ...

• Target And Walmart Take Over Canada

  Supermarket retailers in Canada are particularly vulnerable to disruption as a result of the ongoing and planned expansions of U.S. retail brands Target and Wal-Mart there, according to a report released this week by BMO Capital Markets. Wal-Mart Stores, based in Bentonville, Ark., has captured around 5.9% of ...

• Pop Star Sings For Mercedes-Benz

  Pop star Aloe Blacc sang "I Need a Dollar" for Mercedes-Benz when the company pulled the wraps off of the next-generation A-Class during its news conference at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show. The company says it will make the car, which comes to market later this year, its ...

• BlogFrog Pushes Social Activation Platform

  BlogFrog earned a name for itself in 2009 by hatching a healthy network of female bloggers. It is pursuing a social activation platform, which helps brands from Lego to Random House engage "social influencers" among niche audiences. ...

• TRUSTe Launches Service That Scans Publishers' Sites For Trackers

  Privacy company TRUSTe is launching a product today that tells publishers the identities of the tracking companies that drop cookies on visitors' computers. The service, dubbed EU Cookie Audit, is aimed at helping companies in the U.K. comply with that country's privacy regulations. ...

• UGG Captures The Thrill Of 'The Chase'

  UGG Australia is launching an integrated campaign that is a homage to the short film, "The Chase." The depth of the men's spring 2012 line extends beyond what most consumers believe about the UGG brand - which is generally viewed as a cold-weather footware. The line consists of ...

• Radio Connects with Voters: Arbitron Study

  Political advertising is a boon to radio broadcasters -- and a wise investment for political campaigns too, judging by the results of a new Arbitron study of political ads and radio audiences using data from Scarborough Research, which reveals that radio excels at reaching voters with specific political ...

• 'People' Asks Readers For Beautiful People

  After years of dispensing the conventional wisdom about who's beautiful, People is turning to its readers, who are being asked to submit candidates for the magazine's 23rd annual "Most Beautiful People" issue, due to hit newsstands on April 27. ...

• MPAA Argues Hotfile Liable For Users' Copyright Infringement

  The digital locker service Hotfile "actively fosters the massive copyright infringement that fuels its business," a coalition of movie studios argues in court papers made public this week. ...

• Mindshare Launches Culture Vulture Reports, Debut Studies GenY

  WPP's Mindshare is ramping up its trend-spotting efforts with a series of new in-depth quarterly reports under the title Culture Vulture. ...

• Pandora Misses Q4 Estimates Despite Usage Gains

  Online radio service Pandora Tuesday reported another quarter of user growth in the fourth quarter, but continues to struggle with profitability. ...

• Cross-Channel Mobile Ad Tracking Becomes Next Challenge

  Cross-channel attribution that allows ad tracking from desktop computers to mobile devices continues to emerge as the next challenge for online marketers and ad industry execs. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have been working on the ability to traverse platforms, but it doesn't appear that the search engines will ...

• Sports Fans Love Mobile Stats, Apps

  According to a new national survey commissioned by Motricity that focuses on sports fans and how they use their mobile devices, 79% of sports fans have used their device for watching or following sports this past year. ...

• Agencies Share Ideas Aboard SXSW StartupBus

  Advertising agencies and companies supporting the online ad space will begin making their way to South by Southwest this week on the StartupBus. It travels with about 30 entrepreneurs who get daily sessions on advertising and social marketing. ...

• IPG Acquires Frukt, Adds It To Octagon Unit

  The Interpublic Group of Companies has acquired Frukt Communications, the London-based music-focused entertainment marketing company. Frukt also has offices in New York. The unit will become part of IPG's Octagon, the holding company's sports and entertainment marketing unit, but IPG stressed that the Frukt brand would be retai ...

• UM Revamps U.S. Management, Cohen Named Chief Media Officer

  IPG's UM confirmed a restructuring at its U.S. management team. David Cohen has been named chief media officer, a newly formed position in which he will lead the Media Management discipline of the agency. ...

• Macy's Takes Annual Flower Show Outside

  Linked to its Brazilian-themed merchandising and marketing initiative, the show tent will open to New Yorkers March 25 and run through April 7. "This year's Macy's Flower Show will be a completely different experience for our audience." ...

• Ex-Apple Exec Takes On iAd With New Platform

  Apple's iAd platform faces more competition -- from one of its own creators. Lars Albright, who helped launch iAd, has introduced a rival mobile ad offering. His startup, SessionM, is launching a mobile ad platform that promises to boost engagement rates by investing apps with game-like features. ...

• Virgin's Branson Submits To Higher Calling

  A new television advertisement for Virgin Mobile depicts Branson in his youth (complete with signature goatee) as he ponders the idea of founding a wireless telephone company in the future. ...

• Ciroc Scores With During-Bowl Videos, Social

  Ciroc vodka saw strong engagement results from videos with integrated interactive capabilities across social media and mobile platforms shown during this year's Super Bowl and following days. ...

• NBC Music Shows Hit Higher Note

  NBC must be feeling better -- both its prized midseason shows, "The Voice" and "Smash," showed improvement on Monday. "Smash" gained nearly 20% to a 2.7 rating/7 share. ...

• SNTA Pushes Syndie Show Value To Advertisers

  To push its value to the upfront, the Syndication Network Television Association is wooing advertisers with stats: National syndication TV shows have 30% shorter commercial pods than either network TV or cable TV shows. ...

• Election-Year Campaigns: Pubs Target Readers With Coverage

  Print publications are jumping on the digital and social media bandwagons to attract readers eager for election coverage. First up, the New York Times is offering its most extensive bit of video coverage today, Super Tuesday. Starting at 7 p.m., the nytimes.com will feature live and preproduced videos ...

• 'People' Mag Seeks Regular Folks As 'Most Beautiful' Candidates

  People magazine is trying to increase reader engagement with its annual "World's Most Beautiful" double issue by, some would say, appealing to readers' vanity: they can nominate themselves or a worthy female candidate aged 20 to 59 to be featured in the late April issue along with more ...

• Conde Nast Heads List Of Top iPad Apps

  Condé Nast had the most mags of any U.S. publisher on a list of top iPad apps ranked on "design, functionality and use of rich media" by McPheters app watcher iMonitor, writes Steve Smith. In fact, Condé's  mag leads the list (but we think it's an alphabetical one, ...

• Comcast's Sports-Heavy Strategy For Turning Around NBCU

  The stakes are high for "Comcast as it seeks to make a success of NBCU, and in the process validate [the] decision to merge the two companies into a content and distribution colossus. Such conglomerates are now seen as unmanageable at best -- and at worst, disastrous like ...

• Changes Afoot In Bing-Yahoo Search Alliance

  Updates in Microsoft adCenter make daily account management easier, according to Shirin Miller. She runs through tweaks in features, such as location extension, browser updates, gender-age targeting, adCenter desktop updates, negative keywords, and global targeting. For example, she expects that by mid-March, negative keywords set at ad group ...