| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 GNC to Sue Fox Over Rejected Super Bowl Spot | | The nutrition and dietary supplement retailer has sent a letter of intent to Fox Broadcasting saying it plans to pursue legal action against the network for rejecting its original Super Bowl commercial. According to an Ad Age report, the letter claims GNC suffered "significant economic and reputational damages, lost opportunities, and consequential damages" because the network rejected its ad after previously clearing it. GNC claims it spent "millions of dollars in production costs and in the development of a national, coordinated marketing and rebranding campaign centered around the advertisement." The commercial was rejected after the NFL told Fox it could not run it because two of the company's products contain substances on the NFL's banned substance list. However, the commercial Fox approved was generic and made no plugs for specific products. GNC said before Fox agreed to sell the retailer the ad time, it should have informed it that it was on the NFL banned list. The letter to Fox says the network should preserve all relevant documents involved in the transaction of the ad sale. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: TV networks have broad leeway in being able to reject ad buys by marketers, but in this case, GNC is contending that Fox should have known the retailer was on the NFL banned list and not given it the go ahead to produce a commercial. For that reason, the court battle merits watching. But all the money GNC spent on producing the commercial will not have been spent in vain. The retailer is still planning to air the commercial on other networks and also run it on digital sites. | Two Takes: Ad Age | USA Today
| | | | #2 MediaCom, Grey to Handle Walgreens Boots Account | | Agency holding company WPP earlier this week was awarded the $600 million global ad account of Walgreens Boots Alliance. The holding company has now announced which specific agencies under its umbrella will be handling the account in the U.S. While the account overall will be overseen by a dedicated unit called Team WBA, in the U.S. Grey will be the lead creative agency and MediaCom will handle media buying and planning. Burson-Marsteller will handle public relations and Townhouse will oversee production. MediaCom replaces Omnicom's OMD as U.S. media agency, while Grey replaces GSD&M for U.S. creative. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: This is a sizable chunk of new business for MediaCom which is part of WPP's GroupM unit, which includes three other media agencies. Grey was also selected over a bunch of other WPP creative agencies that include JWT, Ogilvy & Mather and Y&R. | | A Take: Adweek | | | | #3 What Marketers Should Know About Snapchat's IPO | | Snapchat parent Snap's initial public offering filing late Thursday has offered a glimpse into its ad strategy and how it plans to market itself going forward, according to reports by The Wall Street Journal and Ad Age. Snap says Snapchat's 158 million users are up 48% compared to last year and it touts those users as being a "desirable" and highly-engaged 18-34 demographic. Snap acknowledges the company does not have long-term commitments among advertisers and needs to get more of those. Although it also says it is not reliant on any one major advertiser. Snap sells most of its ads directly with 91% of ad revenue in 2016 being sold by its own staff sales people. Snap continues its plans to provide ad effectiveness data and to grow its use of automated ad sales tools. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: When a company goes the IPO rout it opens itself up to lots more scrutiny and also has to be as transparent as possible. Every marketer should read Snap's IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. | Two Takes: Ad Age | WSJ
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| | 56.2 | | Percentage of U.S. small business owners who plan to dedicate more social media dollars to their ad budgets in 2017, according to a study by Infusionsoft. Some 32.6% also plan to devote more ad spending to digital advertising and 26.7% said they plan to do more email marketing. | – Reported by eMarketer
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| | CBS' 'Superior Donuts' Off to Solid Start | by Luke McCord
CBS comedy Superior Donuts came out on top among the three series premieres Thursday, earning a 1.9 rating. Fellow newbie Training Day got off to a soft 0.9. The Big Bang Theory pulled in a 3.1 (down three tenths from its last original), Mom a 1.6 (down a tenth), and Life in Pieces a 1.3 (down two tenths). CBS came in second for the night with a 1.6 rating/6 share among adults 18-49, according to Nielsen overnight numbers.
ABC took the top spot with a 1.8/6. Grey's Anatomy fell three tenths to a 2.3. Scandal dropped 10% to a 1.8, and How to Get Away With Murder fell two tenths to a 1.3.
NBC followed with a 1.1/4. Superhero comedy Powerless scored a 1.1, while Superstore matched its last original at 1.2. Chicago Med was flat at 1.2, and Blacklist scored a 0.9.
Fox came in fourth with a 0.9/3. The finale of Hell's Kitchen did a 1.1, down a tenth, and My Kitchen Rules was flat at a 0.7.
The CW scored a 0.5/2. Supernatural was flat at 0.6, and Riverdale slipped a tenth to a 0.4. | |
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| • BRIAN TERKELSEN has resigned from his role as global president, MediaVest/Spark. A replacement is expected to be announced. Terkelsen has been with parent holding company Publicis Groupe since 2002 and headed up MediaVest's branded content unit LiquidThread and eventually rising to global president of the operation. He was named CEO of MediaVest U.S. in 2012 and then global president of MediaVest/Spark when the two agencies merged in 2016. Prior joining Publicis, he was a TV programming producer who produced cable reality series Eco-Challenge in partnership with Mark Burnett. He originally began his career as an investment banker.
• NIGEL VAZ was promoted to global president of DigitasLBi. At the same time, Luke Taylor, global CEO of Digitas is departing the agency. DigitasLBi is a unit of Publicis.Sapient. Vaz was previously CEO of Asia-Pacific and Europe Middle East and Asia for Publicis.Sapient and will continue in that role.
• KAT GATES and JEFFREY CASTELLANO have joined Wunderman New York as creative directors. Gates was previously creative lead at Facebook, and prior to that was a global creative director at Leo Burnett. Castellano was most recently a creative director at Google and prior to that was director of creative technology at JWT New York. | |
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