| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 Lego Launches Agency Review | | The Danish toy giant has placed its global media planning and buying business up for review for the first time since 2000, Adweek reports. Publicis Groupe's Starcom has handled U.S. media business during that period of time. Carat has handled Lego's European business since 2004 and won the Asia Pacific media business in 2015. Sources say most of the major media agency holding companies are participating in the review. Starcom is defending, however Omnicom media agency OMD cannot participate because it handles another toy account Hasbro. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Lego spent about $85 million on U.S. advertising last year, according to Kantar Media, and its sales for 2016 were flat. The review comes several months after the promotion of former chief operations officer Bali Padda to CEO of The Lego Group in January. He is the first CEO not connected to the Kirk Christiansen family that founded the company more than 80 years ago. | | A Take: Adweek | | | | #2 Google Chrome to Automatically Block Annoying Ads | | The internet giant will introduce a new ad-blocking tool in its Chrome web browser next year to prevent ads deemed to provide a bad advertising experience for users from appearing on websites. Unacceptable ad types include those identified by the Coalition for Better Ads. They generally include pop-up ads, auto-paying video ads with sound and "prestitial" ads that count down before displaying content. The tool, called "The Ad Experience Report" will be provided to publishers before the Chrome ad blocker goes live inform them which of their ads will be blocked. To make it more palatable, Google is describing the new feature as an ad "filter" as opposed to a an ad "blocker." Google is also offering another new tool called "Funding Choices," designed to combat the effects of ad blockers offered by other companies. If publishers enable that feature on their sites, users with ad blockers turned on would be presented with messaging prompting them to disable their blockers to access content, or pay for a "pass" to remove advertising entirely, The Wall Street Journal reports. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The impact is broad because Google Chrome currently has close to a 60% share of the internet browser market across desktop and mobile devices, according to NetMarketShare. The move could cost Google a significant amount of online ad revenue, however employing its own blocking tool will give it more control over which ads to block, rather than having users use blocking tools offered by other companies. | Three Takes: WSJ | Ad Age | Adweek
| | | | #3 Has Influencer Marketing Become Clickbait? | | David Hunegnaw, founder of on-demand photography platform Bylined and a partner at Loud Capital, writes in Ad Age that digital influencer marketing for many has devolved into situations where brands get eviscerated almost daily as a result of staged campaigns gone wrong. He says paying instafamous folks based on clicks to tout random brands to their fans is not the best way to build brand reputation. He adds that "tricking consumers into a false reality is a bad business model, one with short-term gains and long-term brand damage." | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Hunegnaw says "the future of marketing must be one where brands look to their real fans and customers for less, yet better, branded content for their campaigns." He continues, "Rather than engaging celebrities and the instafamous in order to engineer campaigns, brands should be engaging real fans and customers for authentic brand stories – using those stories to help drive like-minded consumers down the path to purchase." | A Take: Ad Age
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| | 35.6 | | Number in millions of Americans who will use a voice-activated assistance device this year, according to eMarketer projections. That number is up 128.9% over 2016. Amazon Echo is expected to control 70.8% of the U.S. market this year, followed by Google Home with 23.8%. The remaining share will be split among smaller players including Lenovo, LG, Harmon, Kardon and Mattel. | – Reported by eMarketer
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| | ABC Rolls With NBA Finals | by Michael Malone
ABC coasted to a massive ratings win Thursday, thanks to Game 1 of the NBA Finals, putting up a 4.8 rating in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 19 share. After Jimmy Kimmel's pre-game show did a 2.5 and NBA Countdown a 2.7, the game, featuring the Golden State Warriors versus the Cleveland Cavaliers, did a 5.9. That was level with last year's opener, as 15.7 million total viewers tuned in. Among the competition, only Fox reached 1.0, that network tallying a 4 share. Beat Shazam fell 8% from its premiere at 1.1, while Love Connection was off 27% from its debut at 0.8. CBS was at 0.8/3, with repeats leading into The Amazing Race, which climbed 17% to 0.7. Airing repeats, NBC had a 0.6/2. The CW too was in repeats, with a couple Supernatural episodes in prime. It did a 0.2/1. Among Spanish-language nets, Univision rated a 0.5/2 and Telemundo a 0.4/1.
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| • SCOTT HAYES has joined MullenLowe as executive creative director, while CHRIS RIBEIRO and DREW STALKER have been named senior VP, group creative directors. Hayes was previously a group creative director at Anomaly, where he headed up creative for Budweiser. Ribeiro and Stalker were creative directors at TBWA/Chiat/Day.
• RUSSELL WILSON will return as host of the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Sports awards, to be televised on the cable network on July 16 at 8 p.m. The Seattle Seahawks' quarterback will be hosting for the third time. Among the sponsors for this year's event are Airheads, Capri Sun, Chrysler Pacifica, Crest, Nationwide, Popsicle and Verizon.
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| | IT/Digital Media Manager, WRC | | NBCUniversal - WRC – Dist. Columbia, United States | | | | Senior Manager, Engineering & IT, WRC | | WRC - NBCUniversal – Washington DC, Dist. Columbia, United States | | | | MaintenanceTechnician | | WHDH-TV – Boston, MA, United States | | | | General Manager--Campus Television Channel | | Appalachian State University – Boone, NC, United States | | | | more jobs » | |
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