| Today's Top Stories | | #1 | Dentsu Aegis to Acquire Experiential Agency MKTG for $52 Million
| | | The acquisition, which still has to be approved by MKTG stockholders, is Japanese holding company Dentsu's first U.S. acquisition since completing its takeover of the media and digital agency network Aegis in March 2013. MKTG specializes in events and promotions, with Google, P&G and Diageo among its clients.
Why This Matters: With its acquisition of Aegis, the Japanese ad giant took its first turn toward becoming a global player, and this is another step in that direction. It also indicates how experiential marketing is growing in stature and how traditional media agencies are looking to integrate the practice into their client offerings.
2 Takes: Ad Age | MediaPost
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| | #2 | Pizza Hut Marketing Campaign Promotes 'Millennial-Friendly' Pizzas
| | | The chain, which in past tried to build its reputation on attention-grabbing menu items such as the stuffed-crust pizza, P'zone and a Crazy Cheesy Crust pizza, will get less outlandish with its offerings, Ad Age reports. In introducing its latest menu items—garlic parmesan and three barbecue pizza—it is attempting to focus on millennials seeking pizza that is more gourmet, with unconventional flavor combinations.
Why This Matters: The marketing battle today among national pizza chains is not only fought on the basis of who spends the most ad and marketing dollars, but on which chain can come up with innovative menu items for the social media crowd who can lend their own support via Tweets, Facebook links and likes and Instagram photos.
A Take: Ad Age
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| | #3 | Huffy Video and Print Campaign Hopes to Get Moms Riding Bikes Again
| | | The bicycle company is forgoing TV spots promoting its product line in favor of a series of videos that tout bike riding for moms, The New York Times reports. Huffy is also in the midst of a promotional contest on its Facebook page that gives away one adult bike every day through June 13. The grand prize will be a family of bikes—two adult bikes and two for kids. Women's magazine print ads are also part of the campaign.
Why This Matters: The number of American women over 18 who biked six or more times a year fell 10% between 2000-2010, according to a report by the Gluskin Townley Group. Huffy wants to reverse that trend with a non-traditional campaign that will only cost about $700,000.
A Take: NYT
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#4 Turtle Wax Begins $4 Million Ad Campaign With Video Ads on Hulu (MediaPost)
#5 McDonald's Joins Gillette, Verizon as Sponsor of NFL's Online Video Service (Ad Age)
#6 Domino's, Pizza Hut Neck and Neck in TV Ad Spending (WSJ)
#7 Fullscreen Media to Launch Premium Video Platform Targeting Millennials (Mashable)
#8 360i Global CEO Balances Digital Agency Workload With Orthodox Judaism (Ad Age)
#9 Study: 80% of Consumers Like Bingeing, But Live Broadcast Still the Staple (MCN)
#10 National CineMedia CEO: Acquisition of Screenvision Benefits Marketers (Media Life)
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|  | • 88.4
Percentage of U.S. publishing executives who say their companies' digital revenues will increase over the next year, according to a poll by global software company Cxense in conjunction with Editor & Publisher.
– Reported by eMarketer
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| | MBPT Spotlight | 'Idol' Changes, the Search for Breakout Hits: Media Agency Execs Weigh In on Upfront Moves (Part Two)
By John Consoli
(This is part two of a series of questions addressed by a panel of media agency executives. The first part appeared in Tuesday's MBPT newsletter, and can be accessed here.)
The broadcast networks announced their new fall schedules at their upfront presentations recently, and as is the case every year at this time, everyone has an opinion on those new shows and the ways each network will try to draw in more viewers for the new season. But as usual, one thing of paramount importance to the networks is what the media agencies think, and what advice they give to their marketer clients who are in the process of spending billions on commercial time during the upfront buying process that's now underway.
MBPT gathered four veteran media agency programming research executives and tossed 10 questions at them based on some of the key network moves. The execs are: Brian Hughes, senior VP, audience analysis, MagnaGlobal; Sam Armando, senior VP and director, SMGx Strategic Intelligence; Billie Gold, VP, director of buying/programming research at Carat; and Brad Adgate, senior VP, director of research, Horizon Media.
Part one of this article covered the Blacklist move, programming shifts at The CW, diversity programming and more.
Fox has said it is cutting back on the number of hours for American Idol next season from close to 60 back down to 37, and is also going to revise the format of the show. Even doing that, will it be enough to stem the mass viewer losses that the series has endured over the past two seasons? And how much longer will Idol be able to stay on the air? Can it continue to hold up as well as CBS reality series Survivor has?
Brian Hughes: I don't think there's any way to stop the decline at this point, only slow it. The Voice is simply viewers' preferred singing competition at this point, even though Idol was the forerunner in the space. It's a bit different from Survivor, which remained the standout amidst the lookalike shows that came and went over the years. It's hard to say how much longer it has—even with the declines, it's still among Fox's top performers. That being said, I thought they would get another season or two out of X Factor before it got canceled.
Are lead-ins still as important in the age of greater fragmentation? And how do the panelists rate the broadcast networks' development for next season compared to this past one in terms of quality?
For more, click HERE
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| | Fates & Fortunes | • MARIE GULIN was named chief marketing officer at L'Oreal USA, succeeding Marc Speichert, who recently left to join Google. Gulin was most recently global head of integrated marketing communications for L'Oreal Paris.
• KOFI AMOO-GOTTFRIED was appointed chief strategy officer at FCB Garfinkel in New York. He was most recently global communications director at Bacardi Rum in London and succeeds Sara Bamber, who left the agency. Amoo-Gottfried was also previously a former managing director of Publicis West Africa and a senior strategic planner at Wieden + Kennedy. He is the nephew of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
• VERNON SANDERS was named executive VP of comedy programming at NBC and PEARLENA IGBOKWE was named executive VP of drama programming. Sanders was most recently head of current programming, while Igbokwe was previously head of drama series development. In his new role, Sanders will oversee development and current operations for comedy series at NBC. Igbokwe will oversee both development and current operations for all drama series. Both report to Jennifer Salke, president of NBC Entertainment. At the same time, TAL RABINOWITZ, who has been head of comedy development at NBC since 2011, is leaving the company.
• DAVID COOPERSTEIN has joined audience-targeted TV ad company Simulmedia as chief marketing officer. He was most recently VP, leader of the CMO research practice, at Forrester Research. He succeeds Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, who left the company to start her own Web business.
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| | What They're Watching | BROADCAST RATINGS
'America's Got Talent' Returns to Series Low Premiere
America's Got Talent returned for its ninth season on Tuesday down 3% from last summer's bow, a series low for a premiere. At 10 p.m., NBC premiered The Night Shift, which earned the best rating for a summer debut on the network since 2009. NBC won the night. Fox's I Wanna Marry "Harry" tumbled 43% from last week's debut (which had a lead-in from the performance finale of American Idol). Earlier, Riot rose a tenth from its debut two weeks ago. Fox finished in fourth among the English-language networks and behind both Spanish-language nets Univision and Telemundo. ABC took second. Extreme Weight Loss returned up 8% vs. last summer's premiere, and Celebrity Wife Swap was up 33% from its most recent episode. CBS and The CW both aired repeats.
For more, click HERE
CABLE RATINGS
Lifetime's 'Petals in the Wind' Draws 3.4M Viewers
Lifetime's original movie Petals in the Wind—a sequel to the network's Flowers in the Attic—drew 3.4 million total viewers Monday night. That viewership was down 44% from January's broadcast of Flowers, which at 6.1 million total viewers was Lifetime's most watched original movie since 2012's Steel Magnolias.
For more, click HERE
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| Overnight Ratings: Tuesday, May 27
| | 8 PM | | NET | SHOW | A18-49
Rating | TOTAL VIEWERS
(MILLIONS) | NBC
| AMERICA'S GOT TALENT
| 2.7
| 11.4
| CBS
| NCIS (R)
| 1.2
| 9.3
| ABC
| EXTREME WEIGHT LOSS
| 1.2
| 3.8
| UNIVISION
| DE QUE TE QUIERO, TE QUIERO
| 0.8
| 2.5
| FOX
| RIOT
| 0.6
| 1.4
| CW
| THE ORIGINALS (R)
| 0.3
| 0.9
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| | 9 PM | | NET | SHOW | A18-49
Rating | TOTAL VIEWERS
(MILLIONS) | NBC
| AMERICA'S GOT TALENT
| 3.2
| 12.4
| ABC
| EXTREME WEIGHT LOSS
| 1.4
| 3.9
| UNIVISION
| LO QUE LA VIDA ME ROBÓ
| 1.4
| 3.7
| CBS
| NCIS: LOS ANGELES (R)
| 1.1
| 7.8
| FOX
| I WANNA MARRY "HARRY"
| 0.4
| 1.2
| CW
| SUPERNATURAL (R)
| 0.4
| 1.1
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| | 10 PM | | NET | SHOW | A18-49
Rating | TOTAL VIEWERS
(MILLIONS) | NBC
| THE NIGHT SHIFT
| 1.6
| 7.8
| ABC
| CELEBRITY WIFE SWAP
| 1.2
| 3.7
| UNIVISION
| QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS
| 1.0
| 2.6
| CBS
| PERSON OF INTEREST (R)
| 0.8
| 5.3
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| | TOMORROW'S BIG RATINGS STORIES TODAY | • Fox Returns Once Again With Popular 'Dance' Stance
So You Think You Can Dance premieres its 11th season on Wednesday at 8 p.m. with a two-hour show, showcasing the audition rounds. The series will again be hosted by Cat Deeley and feature judges Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy, along with different celebrity judges each week. Last summer the series averaged 4.2 million viewers, a 1.5 18-49 demo rating, a 1.8 among viewers 25-54 and a 1.3 rating in the 18-34 demo. The upshot: The summer dance competition series has held up well for Fox since premiering in July 2005. It's not doing the 10 million it drew in its first season or even the 6 million and 2.2 18-49 demo rating it did two summers ago, but last summer's averages were still competitive against most other summer series. Plus, it has a median age audience of 47, much younger than most networks during the summer.
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| • One More Time: Repeat Drama Night on CBS
CBS is the only broadcast network that televised all of its regular season procedural dramas in repeat last summer and while viewership was down significantly from the regular season, it was still sizable compared to the other networks. On Wednesday night, CBS will move its Friday night drama Hawaii Five-0 to the 8 p.m. slot, airing a December repeat, leading into a repeat of Criminal Minds from November at 9 and a repeat of CSI at 10. Later this summer, reality series Big Brother will return to Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and will lead into new summer drama series Extant, starring Halle Berry. The upshot: CBS' procedurals have always repeated well. Last summer, Hawaii Five-0 averaged 5 million viewers, a 1.0 18-49 demo rating and a 1.4 25-54 rating. Criminal Minds averaged 4.8 million viewers, a 0.9 18-49 rating and a 1.3 25-54 rating. CSI averaged 6.1 million viewers, a 1.1 in the 18-49 demo and a 1.6 in 25-54. CSI on Wednesdays was the fourth most-watched summer broadcast drama, Five-0 was sixth and Criminal Minds seventh.
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| • NBC Offers First U.S. TV Interview With Edward Snowden
After months of negotiations between NBC News and reps for Edward Snowden, the former contractor at the National Security Agency, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams conducted a several-hours-long interview with him in Moscow last week. The condensed interview with Snowden, who, while working as an NSA contractor, illegally downloaded secret documents related to U.S. intelligence activities and then made some of them public, will air on Wednesday at 10 p.m. during an hour-long network primetime special. The U.S. government has charged Snowden with espionage and revoked his passport, and he has since been living in Russia, which granted him temporary asylum. Williams is expected to talk with Snowden about his motivation for downloading the documents and making them public. He also asks him his views on a possible plea bargain with the U.S. government. The upshot: Williams told The New York Times no money was paid to Snowden for the interview although other news organizations were also seeking him out for an interview. While Snowden hasn't been in the news lately, this special, titled Inside the Mind of Edward Snowden, should draw a sizable audience to NBC.
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| Media Buyer & Planner Today
Editorial Team
John Consoli, Contributing Editor
Phone: 201-314-0424 | Send Email
Jon Lafayette, Business Editor, Broadcasting & Cable
Phone: 917-281-4735 | Send Email
Brian Moran, Managing Editor, Broadcasting & Cable
Phone: 917-281-4708 | Send Email
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