This week's magazines

Thought I'd cover some of the things I found interesting in a couple of magazines:

Campaign Magazine, 14 October 2005

Planners are in the news this week.

Quite an interesting article about the BA pitch on page 2, including this mysterious point -

"M&C was forced to fire one of its planners after he accidentally sent a spoof e-mail to...the airline's commercial director."

Also, it says the P J O'Rourke ads started in 1997, that long ago?

Ogilvy & Mather's chairman is 'hindered by shock departure of key staff' including the planning director Jane Cunningham, who is planning to set up a business with the O&M client services director. Jane's a charming Irish gal, got married to Matt Willifer, the planning director of Heresy back in April, very best of luck to you guys.

The Advertising Association is predicting UK growth of just 0.7 % this year for "national newspapers" and 39.6% growth for "digital". They're claiming the value of the online advertising market this year will be more than £1 billion. Sorry, that's a theme for another day.

A letter from MT Rainey (the Queen of Planners as far as I'm concerned) about her lunch date with Tim Lindsay in the letters section.

Planners aren't just geeks! In the diary, a note about WCRS's Cameron Saunders, who is interviewed in the latest edition of DJ magazine, about being, what else? a four letter word spouting member of the underground dj scene, 'Young Punx' indeed.

Nice big article about Beth Barry, former exec planning director at O&M and her daughter Becky, who's the planning director at Leo Burnett. Becky's memory of the agency coffee machine reminds me of my memories of dad's soda machine. He had a key so we got our pop from the machine for free and when I was little this proved to me that he was a BIG DEAL. I like all her stories about her mom, including the fact that she's jealous of her mom's "ballsiness" and her ability to say what she thinks.

"I can't do that; I worry too much about what other people think." She's clearly a very wise person.

Of all of the new UK campaigns outlined in "The Work", the one that interests me most is the PG Tips free Brewometer - that's how they've spelled it. I'm always saying to guests "is that strong enough or should the bag stay in longer?", now I can get them to point at the paint colour strip and say "this will do". To keep with the planning theme - agency Cake, planner Hannah Cooper.

No ads for planners in the career/appointments section. I saved the one that offered a salary of £140,000 from a few weeks ago as that was kind of exciting.

A couple more interesting news items: "The Times has replaced the Daily Mail as the most read national daily newspaper among UK business leaders" and "WPP is taking a stake in a new film company...WPP is expected to get exclusive marketing rights for content...in exchange for its $50 million investment."

Marketing Week, October 13 2005

I only bought Marketing Week because it had the 2005 Effectiveness Awards winners.

A couple of interesting news items: "Nestle has been awarded a Fairtrade mark for a new brand of coffee, called Partners Blend"; "Metro launched in Dublin on Monday, the same day as another rival freesheet"; "Campaign of the Year: TV Licensing & BBC - 8 per cent year on year sales increase (among students) and tracking shows an increased awareness of likelihood of being caught if no licence has been purchased" -- well, is this nationwide tax a licence or a license? hmmm, sorry, that's my attempt at humour, you know I'm not a big fan of taxing every tv for what is it these days? £130? so $260, for every household with a tv and that includes dorm rooms being counted as households. There's so little England gets wrong but that is definitely up there with changing the clocks back at the end of October.

Plus that 8 per cent increase is dwarfed by the gains outlined in the HSBC advertising summary, which are fantastic.

The Hollywood Reporter, October 11-17, 2005

Because planners shouldn't just read their own trade press!

My favourite ad from all the publications is for: "March of the Penguins - North American gross to date: $75,000,000 - and still marching". The Warner Bros. film hasn't come out in London but I saw it in the States a few months ago and loved it. It is visually delightful, the story is uplifting and Morgan Freeman's honeyed voice is perfect for the voice over.

"BBC Director General...will unveil full details of the BBC's forthcoming budget plans today...we will be laying out the BBC's plans and costing them for the first time, a BBC spokesmans said."

"The NYTimes is launching "OnMovies", a free in-theater magazine, on December 16...will distribute copies to 1.25 million movie goers in eight metropolitan areas."

"Internet advertising revenue in the US rose for the ninth quarter out of 10 on its way to what should be a record year of as much as $12 billion...more than last years $9.6 billion...up on $267 million in 1996."

Paul Verhoeven, at the Dutch Film Festival - "the US government is holding Hollywood in its grip, since 9/11, there has been immense pressure by the government to produce films that are totally without meaning." "The festival bestowed its top price (think they mean prize) the Golden Calf to...about two Palestinian terrorists planning a suicide-bomb attack (sic) in Tel Aviv." (There is no hint of irony in this next sentence) The festival jury also gave a special posthumous award to helmer Theo van Gogh who was murdered last year" (you don't say!).

"I've enjoyed about as much as I can stand" - Kenneth Tomlinson, in his final meeting as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, on his two-year term in which he spent a lot of time battling "liberal advocacy journalism" (as opposed to, ahem, reporting, say).

Films in production (that are totally without meaning):
Click, comedy, with Adam Sandler
The Da Vinci Code, thriller, with Tom Hanks
Untitled Will Ferrell Nascar Project, comedy
Flags of our Fathers, Action/drama, Director Clint Eastwood
A Good Year, drama, Dr. Ridley Scott
Little Children, comedy/drama, Dr. Todd Field
Mission Impossible 3, action
Zodiac, thriller, Dr. David Fincher
Garfield 2, live action
The Good Sheperd, drama/thriller, Dr. Robert de Niro
Miami Vice, action/drama, Dr. Michael Mann
Denizens of the Deep, Documentary,
The Good German, romantic thriller/drama, George Clooney

end of page one, with eight more pages of movies in production that are "totally without meaning" lol.

Interesting full page ad from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, headline: How to plot a predawn raid on a clandestine meth lab. Tag line: write it real. Drugstory.org

The top three US product markets - the going rate for documentaries: in the UK: $15-50,000, Japan 5-25, Italy 5-25.

Warehouse blaze claims Aardman's 'entire history'.

Well, that DID take a bit of time.