An affluent community in the US state of Connecticut is coming to terms with a fire that killed an advertising executives three children and parents.

Madonna Badger was unable to save her daughters – a 10-year-old and seven-year-old twins – and her parents as flames devoured her waterfront home.

Neighbours said they were awoken by screaming in the early hours of Christmas Day in the Stamford suburb.

Fire officials are trying to establish the cause of the blaze.

Ms Badger, who developed the Calvin Klein underwear adverts featuring rapper-turned-actor Mark Wahlberg in the 1990s, was treated at Stamford Hospital and discharged on Sunday evening.

A male friend who was reportedly carrying out work on the five-bedroom property was also taken to hospital – his condition was unknown.

Rihanna’s ads for Armani were hailed as the sexiest of the year in Advertising Age magazine. (Internet Image)

Thu, December 29, 2011 – 12:07 AM

NEW YORK, Dec. 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Online advertising took significant leaps forward in 2011, and, riding a wave of technological advancements and savvy companies looking at not just click-through rates but actual visitor engagement, should continue to generate positive brand awareness in 2012, according to global food advertising network Gourmet Ads.

For the past four years, Ive looked to the future trying to predict what the advertising landscape has in store for us. While some of my predictions have been wrong, looking back I think for the most part my advertising trends predictions have been on the money, says Benjamin Christie, Gourmet Ads founder and managing director. This is what I see coming in 2012, based on our own companys experience.

Media Buying with Data
In 2011, the buzz term by Q2 was DMP (data management platform). Our prediction is that digital media buying using some sort of data will grow significantly in 2012. I think its the sole motivation for advertisers contemplating a move to real-time bidding platforms, ie the fact they can pair up the media buy with data and then buy the impressions they actually want at scale. Once advertisers have developed a clear use of their own 1st Party Data sets and can begin to only buy the impressions they want, we will see continued growth in data.

Mobile Advertising to Grow
During Q3 in 2011 we started seeing questions on both the advertiser and publisher sides regarding mobile advertising, says Christie. We had advertisers asking about inventory and publishers asking about demand (which is always great). When publishers in the food space are asking our publisher team about mobile advertising because theyre building an app or dedicated mobile site, then its clear 2012 will be all about mobile.

Christie expects to see better-quality mobile advertising in 2012, that goes well above the text ads that are still the main type of creative used on mobile devices.

Real-Time Bidding Budgets to Increase
Real-time bidding budgets was something I predicted last year and again its among my advertising trend predictions for 2012. Gourmet Ads launched ourprivate ad exchangein late 2011 and have seen an amazing response to real-time bidding. As the year came to a close, we spoke to all our major media buying partners and not one of them said that budgets were going backwards. Nearly all of them said they will have many more advertising clients in 2012.

Branded Recipes
During 2011 we saw a major uptick in food manufacturers and some supermarkets producing brandedrecipes. I would say nearly every RFP we received requested some sort of recipe integration as part of the media plan. We believe this is only the beginning for branded recipes. When people search for a recipe such as fondant recipe, brands with fondant recipes will be displayed alongside other recipe sites, where consumers can then click through to the brands website for the ingredients, cooking method and presentation.

Video Advertising
If you dont think video advertising for the digital advertising industry was huge in 2011, you havent been paying attention. I recall sitting in a conference in the fall watching a presentation on the State of the Industry on Digital Video and being amazed by nearly every statistic that appeared on the screen. This is why Im adding it as an Advertising Trend in 2012, says Christie.

Why the huge recent growth in video advertising? For one thing, its very similar to buying television, and advertisers and their agencies understand how to buy TV media. Also, engagement rates are consistently solid (notice I didnt mention click-through rates). Creative is rather standard now. Most video advertisers are using a 15 or 30 second pre-roll video together with a 300250 Companion Ad using either VAST or VPAID formats. Weve also seen in 2011 more non linear advertising solutions come to market.

For Gourmet Ads, video advertising was the fastest growing section of our business in 2011. Weve seen huge demand from advertisers and we dont think this will subside anytime soon. That said, there are still lots of challenges for video. Lack of quality video inventory is one. Weve worked hard to build a large collection ofcooking videoson Tastydays.com. Secondly is the technical requirements needed to set up a publisher to accept video pre-roll ads. We have made some great progress with our own video hosting platform for publishers, but more education is required.

The300600 Ad Size
Theres something to be said for big things, and the 300600 is one the largest display ad sizes available, with many calling it the half page ad unit. Not only is there lots of space to get the message across from a creative standpoint, but in our testing weve seen engagement rates three to 10 times better than regular display sizes.

Over the past six months weve slowly started to see more advertisers ask for the 300600 size and given the great performance of the unit, we believe that 2012 will see more advertisers using this size.

Vertical Ad Networks will Continue to Grow
There was plenty of consolidation across the digital advertising ecosystem last year. We saw video companies acquire other video advertising companies, we saw ad networks acquire other ad networks and major web portals continue making investments that made sense for them. What we didnt see was any acquisitions of vertical ad networks in 2011.

Many in the digital press predicted that vertical ad networks will die a slow death, which really surprises me. From our perspective, they are very much alive and kicking. Weve seen amazing growth again this year and are expecting continued growth in 2012. In talking to my peers at other vertical ad networks, all report solid growth and revenues. Gourmet Ads in 2011 strengthened our inventory by investing in RecipeBridge.com, and I know other networks have been quietly acquiring more web properties and inventory which they can call their own. So Im predicting vertical networks will continue to grow in 2012.

CPG Brands to Increase Budgets
We saw a number of new advertisers in the CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) space in 2011 and were already seeing new brands at major CPGs advertising for the first time. That said, were hopeful all CPGs start using online. In 2011 we started to see CPGs run longer campaigns, compared to previous years where they were just concentrating on Q4, then going dark for the rest of the year.

We predict that in 2012 were going to see smaller to mid-sized companies move to online, where they can easily compete with large FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods)/CPG companies, possibly more so on a localized/geo-targeted basis.

Contextual Advertising for Food Advertisers
Another advertising trend weve seen from food advertisers in 2011 is the desire to advertise on pages where recipe content is closely related or contextually relevant, Christie says. Were predicting this will continue into 2012 as some advertisers want to only reach the exact target each and every time.

An example of contextual advertising would be a seafood company running a campaign for salmon and only advertising on pages where salmon was being featured, say in recipes for smoked or grilled salmon. Its relatively easy for a single site to provide this type of targeting, but were working on being able to target contextually against videos with pre-roll video advertising. The challenge has always been one of lack of contextually targeted inventory available.

Ringing in 2012, we predict that companies will use contextual advertising for part of their media plan in two ways. First, they will allocate 10-20 percent of the media plans budget to contextual advertising to ensure the plan remains relevant, then useretargetingand then general run of food. And secondly, they will book a six- or 12-month media plan to own the term, ie they will own salmon recipes much like a sponsorship-type investment, changing the ad creative when required.

About Gourmet Ads
Placing more than 100 million ads per month, Gourmet Ads (http://www.gourmetads.com) is a global food advertising network focusing on branding campaigns for reaching the grocery buyer online. With operations in the USA., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Gourmet Ads consists of over 300 cooking websites where consumers are spending time online researching recipes, making meal decisions and developing their grocery shopping lists. Gourmet Ads develops customized advertising solutions from regular IAB units, to portal type solutions such as background skins, roadblocks and interstitials which go beyond the banner. It has represented such marquee brands as General Mills, Starbucks, Orville Redenbachers, Campbells, Nestle, Swiffer and Kraft Foods, as well as retailers Walmart, Kroger, Fresh amp; Easy and Safeway.

CONTACT:
Gary Frisch / Swordfish Communications
856-767-7772 / gfrisch@swordfishcomm.com

SOURCE Gourmet Ads

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In what looks like a firesale, Call Genie has acquired US-based mobile analytics and advertising network company VoodooVox, which has raised a ton of venture capital from investors like Apax Partners, Softbank Capital, Steamboat Ventures (Disney), Berkshire Capital Investors and Village Ventures.

VoodooVox provides demographic information on phone calls and mobile ad traffic in real-time, enabling companies to gain insights into their call volume and mobile application activity.

Call Genie, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, says it acquired the company to expand its product offering and move deeper into the mobile advertising market.

Under the terms of the agreement, Call Genie will issue 11.25 million shares to VoodooVox shareholders, as well as pay an additional $1.8 million in cash over an unspecified period of time.

VoodooVox CEO J. Scott Hamilton in a statement says the company has amassed roughly 300 million phone records of individuals and companies alike. He continues:

We have paid particular attention to mobile phone numbers, and believe we have created the reference data source for rich demographic information on cell phone numbers.

Through our library of APIs, this information source can be easily integrated into carrier platforms and mobile ad serving networks.

The transaction should be completed in January 2012.

Four women in Detroit were found dead in two car trunks Sunday. Their connection to a website offering escort services is reviving an ongoing debate about the right of online media outlets to host advertising that many say enables criminal activity.

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At first glance, this chart (below) of GDP percentage growth plotted alongside organic revenue growth of three large ad agency holding companies suggests that advertising revenues are a lousy predictor of broader economic growth in the US economy.

Think again.

The problem with GDP growth stats, as macroeconomists know, is that the Bureau of Economic Analysis takes several weeks to come up with an accurate GDP number, and only does so after one or two revisions to its original number. Only on Dec. 22, for instance, did the BEA finally announce that GDP growth in Q3 2011 was just 1.8 percent, and not 2 percent or 2.5 percent, as it previously estimated.

Ad agency revenue growth, on the other hand, is available a few days after the end of each quarter and isnt revised. Its accurate from the get-go.

• WANT MORE? Check out Business Insiders Advertising news channel.

Advertising agency revenues are interesting for anyone who cares about economic growth because the large holding companies — WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic and Publicis — have hundreds of clients representing a broad range of companies which sell goods and services to both consumers and other businesses. Ad budgets tend to be set as a portion of sales at each company, or expected sales, and thus rise and fall as companies expect to contract or grow. Ad agencies take a slice of that money as it passes into ad buys, often about 10 percent, and that is their revenue.

If companies increase their ad budgets because they are experiencing or expecting revenue growth, it shows up almost immediately in ad agency revenues. Agencies, therefore, are a proxy for corporate economic activity as a whole.

Put all that together and its enormously tempting to use ad growth as a predictor of GDP growth.

Depressingly, this chart shows that organic (or like-for-like) ad agency revenue growth is a lagging indicator for GDP:

That doesnt mean its useless, however. In 16 quarters since Q4 2007, agency growth and GDP growth have mostly both been positive or negative at the same time. Only in five periods of sudden flux were agency revenues a misleading guide as to whether the economy was growing or shrinking.

Heres what the agency chiefs are saying about their expected Q4 revenues and their outlook for 2012:

WPP CEO Martin Sorrell and MDC Partners chief Miles Nadal:

UBS global media and communications conference in New York City, WPP chief executive Martin Sorrell and MDC Partners chairman Miles S. Nadal both said that the past few weeks have them a bit more optimistic about next year. Sorrell said that Novembers bottom line was higher than anticipated, and that the market was seeing good momentum. Nadal said that clients confidence was rising and that he felt better about 2012 ad spending than he had just four or six weeks ago,

Publicis CEO Maurice Levy:

Next year, he said, should have been a year for joy, with the Olympics, other special events and earlier expectations that the global economy would be back on track after the recession. Instead, agencies and clients alike will be faced with more challenges. To meet them, we will need to improve performance on every level,

(Levy has been gloomy since November, incidentally.)

IPG CEO Michael Roth:

Michael Roth, the Interpublic Group CEO. said that clients are keeping cutbacks to ad spending commitments at a minimum, despite continuing worries about the macroeconomic picture.

Roth, speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York, said the amount of project work that has been pulled in the US remains under 4%, or a very minimal amount in his view.

In Europe, however, clients have pulled back more, although Roth didnt indicate how much more. But he stressed those pullbacks were anticipated, given the ongoing economic woes in the region, and that they were factored into the companys assumptions about 2011 performance.

Valassis CEO Rob Mason:

We expect low-single-digit growth in US advertising spend for 2012, along with continued economic uncertainty which we believe will maintain the heightened consumer demand for value-oriented media.

Media buying agency ZenithOptimedias forecast:

According to a new forecast by media service agency ZenithOptimedia, the global advertising market will grow by 3.5 percent in 2011 and by 4.7 percent in 2012, down from a forecast in October of 3.6 percent growth in 2011 and 5.3 percent in 2012.

Interestingly, the chart and the CEOs growth guidance dovetails nicely with what Wall Streets economists are predicting for Q4: Weak growth.

Caveats: The chart has plenty of them. First, GDP growth is sequential from the previous quarter. Agencies present their growth in year-on-year form, so its an exaggeration, and it compares apples with oranges. And agencies gather their revenues globally, although most do about 50 percent of their business in the US

Nonetheless, these lines track each other so closely they are hard to ignore hellip;

Advertising agencies are working through the Christmas holiday period to meet a Treasury request for proposals to provide the advertising and communications campaigns that will accompany the Governments partial privatisation agenda over the next three years.

While no budget is given for the contract, it is likely to be one of the largest new pieces of Government-funded advertising work agencies have seen for some time, but they have been given just 28 days to respond over the traditional shutdown period of Christmas and New Year.

A formal Request for Proposals was issued on Decermber 15, with a deadline of January 9 for responses, leading industry veterans to suggest the Treasury has already made a choice of agency, but needs to follow Government rules requiring a tender process.

Advertising consultant and agency developer Mike Hutcheson says it is likely the Treasury already knows who they will give the job to, and this kind of fast-tracking is typical of such Government contracts.

Its a bit of a charade that Government departments and local authorities always go through because their choice is quite limited. There will be relatively few who can actually handle it, said Hutcheson.

Government departments have to go through a process and in fact its meant to be quite a transparent process, but usually its pre-determined.

There will be someone in Government who would favour someone for sure. Theyll want someone to win, and whoever it is generally knows in advance.

aviationblog.dallasnews.com:

Southwest Airlines Co. and some other carriers are fighting the US Department of Transportation over a new airfare advertising rule scheduled to take effect next month, saying the change violates their free speech rights.

For decades, airline ticket prices have been advertised separately from government-mandated taxes and fees. That will change on Jan. 24, when a new rule will require ads for airfares to include such charges. Taxes and fees account for about 20 percent of the cost of an average airfare.

Read the whole story: aviationblog.dallasnews.com

CLEVELAND, Dec. 28, 2011 — /PRNewswire/ — Understanding the legal issues related to protection of intellectual property is critical for every communications practitioner. Thats why Sharon Toerek, intellectual property attorney, Partner of the Cleveland Firm Licata Toerek and president of the American Advertising Federation of Cleveland, will be discussing issues like ownership of creative work, plagiarism problems, and copyright and trademark rights in a presentation hosted by International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Cleveland. The Its All Youve Got: How to Protect Your Intellectual Property program #x2013; #iabccleIP #x2013; will be on Thursday, January 19, from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, at The City Club, 850 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, with opportunities for networking. The presentation will begin at noon. Cost to IABC members is $23; to non-members, $32; and $14 for members and non-members in transition and students. Register online at iabccleveland.com.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20070517/IABCLOGO )

The presentation will provide up-to-date advice relevant for business communicators and advertising and marketing professionals who work either in-house or for agencies. #xA0;

Toereks practice at Licata Toerek focuses on protection of creative assets for clients in the advertising, marketing and creative services industries. She provides legal counsel on legal issues faced by those industries including copyright and content protection, licensing of creative content, trademark and brand protection matters, agency service contracts, advertising compliance, and direct marketing regulations.

In the communications industry, Toerek is a recognized author and educator to numerous advertising and communications industries organizations, advertising agencies, and in-house marketing teams, and has created and presented numerous training sessions to industry professionals that enable them to recognize legal issues and protect their valuable work and rights.

She has chaired the Intellectual Property Section of the Cleveland Bar Association, and has conducted numerous presentations on intellectual property and advertising law topics before the Cleveland Bar Association, American Advertising Federation (AAF) Cleveland, the Independent Practitioners Group, the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Akron, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Cleveland, and the Greater Cleveland Partnerships Council of Small Enterprises (COSE).

Toerek is a graduate of Cleveland State University and earned her Juris Doctor from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

Parking is available at the City Club for $3.00. Bring your parking stub with you for validation. Visit http://www.cityclub.org/AboutUs/ParkingDirections/tabid/170/Default.aspx for additional parking information.

For updates on IABC events and other news, fan us on Facebook or connect with us through LinkedIn.

Founded in 1970, the International Association of Business Communicators provides a professional network of more than 15,200 business communication professionals in more than 80 countries. The local Cleveland chapter includes nearly 130 members who support the highest professional standards of communication and drive innovation in the communication field. Visit http://www.iabccleveland.com/.

#xA0;

SOURCE IABC Cleveland

HOUSTON — BP is launching a new nationwide television advertising campaign to update the American people on progress being made to clean up and restore the Gulf Coast region in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon accident and subsequent oil spill.

The initial advertisement in the series, which debuted Dec. 26, marks the first time since late last year that BP has gone on the air nationally with ads providing such an update.

It comes as the cleanup phase of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill response is nearing completion and the first set of early restoration projects is preparing to move forward.

We made a commitment not only to restore the Gulf, but also to keep the American people informed of that effort, said Geoff Morrell, BP Americas vice president for communications. Weve made significant strides over the past year and believe its a good time to provide a progress report to the nation.

Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon accident, BP took to the airwaves with its Voices of BP campaign, featuring employees committing to the American people that the major oil company would clean up the spill and help the Gulf Coast recover. A subsequent ad campaign, Voices of the Gulf, featured local business and community leaders promoting tourism along the Gulf Coast.

Like the original Voices of BP campaign, the newest ads once again feature BP employees.

In the first ad, New Orleans native Iris Cross, a 29-year veteran of the company who manages external affairs in Louisiana, reports on BPs progress in the 20 months since the spill. She reminds viewers of the $20-billion fund BP established for economic and environmental recovery and the $500 million dedicated to scientific research of the Gulf ecosystem. She also reports that all Gulf beaches and waters are open and the economy continues to show improvement, with many areas along the Gulf Coast marking 2011 as one of the best tourism seasons in years.

BP is expanding this new advertising campaign into social media channels, including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter with additional custom content.

We are proud of the progress that has been made this year along the Gulf Coast, but we know our work is not yet done. We are committed to seeing it through and providing updates to the public along the way, Morrell said.