SMG's Desmond expects marketers to simplify

By Andrew McMains

Starcom MediaVest Group global CEO Laura Desmond expects marketers to get back to basics and simplify their brand portfolios as the recession wears on and consumers cut back on discretionary spending.
  Desmond (pictured), speaking on Monday during an Advertising Week panel discussion moderated by The New York Times' Stuart Elliott, predicted that marketers in the consumer packaged-goods arena, in particular, will produce fewer products and therefore advertise fewer brands.
  "More marketers, more advertisers of CPG products have to be obsessed with value," Desmond said. "Probably what you're going to see is a big change in how many products advertisers market, a big change in how many products advertisers actually manufacture. [They'll be] looking for more globalization in the formula, packaging and advertising idea, and looking to simplify their portfolio." Marketers will offer goods and services where "there are clear needs those products are fulfilling, as opposed to being there almost because consumption is so high," she said.

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Published on September 21, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2)
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Colle+McVoy fuses Twitter, augmented reality

Twitter and augmented reality are both pretty hot topics, though separate ones, in marketing these days. Now, Minneapolis agency Colle+McVoy is hoping for a little peanut-butter-and-chocolate action by combining them for Advertising Week. An ad in the Advertising Week guide directs readers to ColleMcVoy.com/big. By holding the ad up to your webcam, you can conjure two cityscapes: With the page right-side up, you see Minneapolis; turning it upside down reveals New York. In each case, you can see Tweets floating around the skyline. The Minneapolis page collects Tweets about Colle+McVoy itself. The NYC page gathers Tweets about Advertising Week. Like a lot of augmented-reality marketing (and Twitter marketing, for that matter), this effort doesn't bring a whole lot of value. In a way, it feels almost like a sarcastic commentary on the herd mentality in advertising. We're still waiting on that big augmented-reality campaign that steps beyond the novelty phase.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on September 21, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2)
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Deutsch crunching Advertising Week numbers

A couple of years ago, Deutsch celebrated Advertising Week with an "adsturbation" theme. That clearly won't do in this economic climate, so this year the agency goes with a more data-driven effort. This full-page ad in the Advertising Week guide uses a bit.ly link to send readers to DeutschInc.com/adweek, where we get lots of bogus number crunching, like how many people had green eggs and ham at today's leadership breakfast. It's basically a spoof of Goodby's "Now Network" stuff for Sprint, with an overarching theme, "It's on," borrowed from Southwest Airlines.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on September 21, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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