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Media Decoder: Equestria Girls, a My Little Pony Offshoot, in Its Movie Debut

May 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The ponies, a Hasbro staple for 30 years, have experienced a resurgence of popularity lately, thanks in part to the TV series “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.” Hoping to build on that interest, Hasbro recently revealed plans for brand extension called Equestria Girls.

The new property will get the red-carpet treatment when it premieres as a full-length animated feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June. The movie, created by Hasbro Studios, the company’s production division, will then be released in more than 200 theaters nationwide; its trailer will start appearing in theaters on Wednesday.

“We are responding to the desire by our fans to experience the brand in more ways,” said John A. Frascotti, Hasbro’s chief marketing officer. “They imagined themselves as which pony they would be or which pony they identified with the most.”

So Hasbro created Equestria Girls, a parallel world in which the My Little Pony characters were reconceived as teenage girls in high school. To maintain continuity, Hasbro retained the same creative talent, animation style and message of friendship.

“Our goal is to stay true to who those characters are,” said Meghan McCarthy, the head writer for the movie, adding that the high school setting allowed for new storytelling possibilities. “It’s new but still an extension of our mythology.”

The movie — titled “My Little Pony: Equestria Girls” — will be released on DVD later in the United States and other markets worldwide, followed by a television debut on the Hub network in the fall.

“It is a major strategic initiative for us,” Mr. Frascotti said, one that will feature toys, apparel, publishing and accessories. Multimedia components include an interactive Web site, content on YouTube and a partnership with Stardoll.com, a fashion Web site for girls.

Hasbro does not break out revenue for My Little Pony, but in its earnings statement in April, the company said its girls’ category rose 23 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period last year, growth that was helped in part by the My Little Pony brand.

Equestria Girls offers an opportunity to build on that growth, said Michael Vogel, vice president for development at Hasbro Studios. “This is a bold new direction,” he said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/business/equestria-girls-a-my-little-pony-offshoot-in-its-movie-debut.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

Advertising: Nationwide Insurance Teams Up With ‘Mad Men’

April 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The series is “Mad Men,” which begins its sixth season with a two-hour episode Sunday night. Nationwide Insurance has made a deal with AMC, the cable channel that is home to “Mad Men,” to become a season-long sponsor of the series, making this the first time the company has advertised on AMC.

The agreement, which includes sponsorship of other AMC series like “The Walking Dead,” has an estimated value of $2 million to $2.5 million. As part of the deal, Nationwide will run during a coming episode of “Mad Men” a special commercial, styled to resemble a programming vignette. The special spot will be in addition to appearances during the show’s season of regular commercials that are part of the current campaign for Nationwide, which carry the slogan “Join the Nation” and use the actress Julia Roberts as the voice-over announcer.

The special commercial is to feature Matt Jauchius, chief marketing officer at Nationwide, discussing the company’s advertising history, including a memorandum found in the Nationwide archives, which contain materials that date to its founding in 1926 as the Farm Bureau Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.

The memo was written on May 13, 1964, by the Nationwide advertising agency at the time, Ogilvy, Benson Mather, now known as Ogilvy Mather Worldwide. The memo suggested seven possible replacements for what was then the slogan for Nationwide’s ads, “In service with people,” which, Mr. Jauchius said in a phone interview, had been in use “pretty much since the founding” of the company.

The suggestions included “Nationwide is on your side,” “On your side … Nationwide,” “Nationwide … a friend in need from cradle to grave” and “You’d send a friend to Nationwide.” Nationwide executives chose to rework “Nationwide is on your side” into “The man from Nationwide is on your side,” Mr. Jauchius said, adding the first three words to reflect that “we distributed our products through agents” — who, in “a sign of the times,” were referred to as men.

The slogan was changed to “Nationwide is on your side” in 1973, he added, when the company adopted a seven-note jingle that was heard in its commercials for decades.

The memo was signed by an Ogilvy executive named Ted Shaw. Coincidentally, there has been a character on “Mad Men” since the fourth season — an agency executive who is a rival of the principal characters on the series — named Ted Chaough, pronounced “Shaw.” (Chaough appears in Sunday’s episode.)

The educated and affluent viewers who watch “Mad Men,” particularly those ages 18 to 49, “are exactly the people we want to reach,” said Mr. Jauchius, who works in Columbus, Ohio.

Even more appealingly, “the people who watch ‘Mad Men’ love the show and watch it religiously,” he added, “and if they see a brand that supports their passion, it’s something they’ll pay more attention to.”

Mr. Jauchius likened that fervor for the series to the avid viewership of sports programming. Nationwide is a major advertiser on coverage of Nascar races, sponsoring the Nascar Nationwide Series, and with the National Football League playoffs last year, “we became more of a buyer” of commercial time during football games, he said.

The deal between AMC and Nationwide was made during the “upfront” negotiations for the 2012-13 season by the media agency for Nationwide, which is Universal McCann in New York, part of the Mediabrands division of the Interpublic Group of Companies. The script for the special commercial was written by AMC, “in close partnership with the Nationwide brand team,” Mr. Jauchius said. (The agency that creates Nationwide’s regular commercials is McKinney in Durham, N.C., part of Cheil Worldwide.)

Nationwide joins a lengthy list of marketers to work with AMC on producing special commercials for “Mad Men” in addition to running regular spots. Others include BMW; the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, for Canada Dry; the Clorox Company, for Clorox bleach; and Unilever, for six brands like Dove, Hellmann’s and Vaseline.

Because “Mad Men” is about Madison Avenue, it “is in the unique position of enabling us to tell a brand’s story,” said Scott Collins, executive vice president for ad sales at the AMC and WE TV cable channels that are part of AMC Networks.

“We’ve been chasing them and wooing them” to advertise on AMC, Mr. Collins said, referring to Nationwide executives, and thus he was pleasantly surprised when at a meeting he was presented with “this large pitch book, called ‘AMC and “Mad Men” and Nationwide, a Match Made on Madison Avenue,’ ” which recounted the company’s ad heritage.

For instance, Mr. Collins said, when he read the slogan “The man from Nationwide is on your side,” “I thought how perfectly ‘Mad Men’-ish that line is,” referring to a central theme of the series, the unequal treatment of the sexes in the 1960s.

The special commercial is scheduled to run during the June 16 episode of “Mad Men,” he added, the next-to-last of the sixth season.

“It’s a pleasant burden,” Mr. Collins said, to deal with the heightened scrutiny that commercials during “Mad Men” receive, particularly as the series “gets more and more precious as the end nears.” (Plans call for seven seasons.)

“There are lots of times I get an e-mail on a Sunday night about a position,” he added, referring to complaints over a spot’s placement. “The reverse would be, no one cares; I cannot tell you how much they care.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/business/media/nationwide-insurance-teams-up-with-mad-men.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: Are Businesses Hesitant to Connect With Hispanic Consumers?

January 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Juan Tornoe: “Some Latinos get ticked off when you reach out to them in Spanish.Courtesy of Cultural Strategies. Juan Tornoe: “Some Latinos get ticked off when you reach out to them in Spanish.”

Branded

An insider’s guide to small-business marketing.

As we learned in the recent presidential election, it’s always a good idea to connect with Hispanic Americans. In many parts of the country, this is as true in business as it is in politics. But for some reason, many businesses seem hesitant to try to appeal to this big and important demographic.

At my boutique advertising agency in Austin, Tex., I see lots of opportunities for businesses to set themselves apart and pick up some market share by reaching out. But I am often puzzled by the number of retail and professional service businesses that pass up these opportunities. When we have broached incorporating Hispanic outreach with retailers, we have explained why outreach makes business sense and how subtle shifts in their marketing programs might appeal to Latino consumers. The initial reaction has been one of surprise, intrigue and excitement — followed by little or no action.

Here’s what we know about the size of this large and growing market: According to the Selig Center for Economic Growth, Hispanics control $1 trillion in annual buying power in the United States. By 2015, Selig projects that power to grow to $1.5 trillion, basically the size of the economy of Mexico. So why does this large and desirable population continue to be overlooked by many businesses?

Over a recent lunch of tortas de hongo and nopales at an East Austin Mexican restaurant, I posed this question to Juan Tornoe of Cultural Strategies, a multicultural marketing and communications firm my agency has partnered with. Mr. Tornoe is chief marketing officer at Cultural Strategies and also writes a Latino marketing blog called Hispanic Trending. His insights have been quoted by The Times, NPR, CNN and many others, and as you’ll see, he is quite passionate about Hispanic marketing.

Mr. Tornoe said that while he has spoken on this topic at lots of national business meetings, he too often sees lots of enthusiasm but little action. Why is that? He believes one reason is that many marketers think they have to advertise in Spanish, and he suspects this intimidates them. But he insists that reaching this demographic does not require Spanish-language advertising. In fact, he said, placing a few Spanish-language ads on Telemundo or Univision is unlikely to accomplish any goals.

This confusion, he said, was apparent last summer when Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. Some people were surprised to learn that Mr. Castro is not bilingual. “Many business people think that Spanish language is the only thing that defines people as Latinos,” Mr. Tornoe said. “Julian is an English-dominant guy because his mother, the daughter of an immigrant, got ridiculed at school because of her English. So she made sure her kids’ first language was English.”

Mr. Tornoe also cited the presidential campaigns and the advice the candidates must have received from their staffs that the only way to reach out to Hispanic voters is through Hispanic media. “That is completely untrue,” he said. “If you are Univision, you go out there and tell the world, ‘I bring you the Spanish market.’ But the fact is, they bring you Spanish-dominant Latinos, which is a smaller percentage of the Spanish market as a whole.”

The biggest growth in this fast-growing demographic, he said, is coming not from immigrants but from the birth of second- and third-generation Hispanic Americans. “Some Latinos,” he said, “get ticked off when you reach out to them in Spanish — those who are third or fourth generation.”

Mr. Tornoe cites himself as an attractive target for any marketer. He is 44, an immigrant from Guatemala, and he lives in Austin. “According to media and advertising circles,” he said, “I should be glued to Telemundo, Univision, and Spanish-language radio, newspapers and Web sites. But the reality is, I don’t access any information in Spanish. Everything I absorb is in English.”

He finds most businesses that try to reach Spanish audiences try to simplify marketing to a degree that renders their efforts ineffective. But there are some marketers, he said, who get it. For example, he noted a Volkswagen commercial you may have seen that shows two guys getting in a car for a road trip. The point of the ad, titled Vámonos, is to highlight the fuel efficiency of a Passat. The guys, who don’t speak Spanish, start a Spanish-language lesson CD as their trip gets underway. At their first stop, a gas station, they alight from the car speaking Spanish fluently and with passion.

“This ad is brilliant in so many ways,” Mr. Tornoe said. “They get the gas economy point across. And for Latinos who are not glued to Hispanic TV, suddenly those guys are speaking to us in Spanish! And they reflect my reality that I live a very bilingual and bi-cultural life. I have no idea if that was the advertiser’s intention, but it was a huge home run.”

Personally, I believe Volkswagen is much too savvy a marketer for the language these guys were learning to have been just a happy creative coincidence. In my next post, I will offer some suggestions on how small businesses can better connect with this audience.

MP Mueller is the founder of Door Number 3, a boutique advertising agency in Austin, Tex. Follow Door Number 3 on Facebook.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/are-businesses-hesitant-to-connect-with-hispanic-consumers/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

Miami’s Rising Tides

August 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

THE skies last Saturday were fickle, dense gray-yellow clouds threatening a downpour. But visitors to the Soho Beach House, an extravagantly trim and tawny contingent that might have breezed in from the set of “Entourage,” were unfazed.

Most were content to stay in the pool, swigging spirits from a pitcher, playing an aquatic form of ring around the rosie and studiously ignoring the wilting heat of August, a time when travelers have traditionally deserted this resort town for more hospitable shores.

“It used to be that August here was slow, reserved mostly for us locals,” said Carmen Ferreira, a graphic artist, who last week dined poolside with friends at the Soho Beach House, a private club and hotel on Collins Avenue. “But that just isn’t true anymore.” In Miami Beach, the once-strict delineation between high and low seasons has eroded of late. Rogue squalls and the intermittent threat of hurricanes (and a restiveness fueled by an unstable economy) have done little to stem the tide of tourists thronging restaurants, bars, hotels and shops, and crowding beaches to catch a vagrant gust of wind.

Their presence has fattened the city’s coffers, driving retail sales and boosting hotel occupancy to new seasonal highs, transforming Miami Beach and its environs from a wan summer ghost town into a magnet for visitors of every stripe. “Summer here has practically caught up with winter,” said Rolando Aedo, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, which has seen occupancy rates at luxury hotels jump by 16 percent the first week of August, compared to the same period last year.

Torrid temperatures (the mercury last week climbed to the mid-90s) had done little to scare off visitors, he said, since so many were experiencing heat waves at home. In summer here, he said, “the lines are shorter, the drinks are cheaper, and there’s always a breeze on the beach.”

As a result, the gap between the low and high seasons has conspicuously narrowed, with Miami and Miami Beach welcoming 3 million visitors in the third quarter of this year, compared with 3.4 million in the peak months. Deal hunters and heat seekers alike descended on Lincoln Road, the eight-block-long pedestrian street that is South Beach’s town center, chattering in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian — and a smattering of Brooklynese.

At least half of all visitors are from international markets, Mr. Aedo said, many from Europe but especially Latin America, where, in some parts, winter is just setting in. Some sampled carpaccio di manzo at Quattro or gawked at the perversely skeletal parking garage designed by Herzog de Meuron, an anchor to the west. Others toted trophy bags from modish shops like Base and AllSaints Spitalfields.

Sales surged this summer at Alchemist, near Drexel Avenue, with the arrival of tourists from Brazil, where a favorable exchange rate has sent vacationers scouting for bargains, and in some instances scouring the city for second homes. The Brazilians are “their own sort of animal right now,” said Roma Cohen, an owner of Alchemist. “Literally, they will call us from the airport, asking ‘Do you have the latest Céline or Proenza Schouler bag?’ ” he said, and they are prepared to pay $3,300 or more for one of those coveted labels.

Elsewhere in town, patrons jostled for tables at Prime One Twelve on Ocean Drive, where diners in pale linen suits and abbreviated cocktail frocks ordered the chilled crab or the $88 porterhouse, or nibbled fried Oreos, the restaurant’s over-the-top rendition of comfort food.  

Attractions in this city are nearly as plentiful now as during the hectic winter months. Clubs like Mynt Lounge, Wall and Mansion continue to draw capacity crowds. At Set, which caters mostly to youthful high rollers, guests on a recent Friday after midnight stood four deep at the bar, gyrated atop banquettes waving phallic neon-colored wands and gulped Grey Goose, contributing to the kind of frenzy more commonly witnessed in Ibiza or St.-Tropez.

At any one of the string of strenuously hip hotels lining Collins Avenue, among them the Raleigh and the Delano, and to the north, the W hotel and the fabled Fontainebleau, visitors gossiped and preened in wispy caftans, eyes darting now and then to catch a glimpse, perhaps, of Cameron Diaz, who has been seen around town on the arm of Alex Rodriguez; Jennifer Lopez, who was said to have embarked last week on a whirlwind shopping spree at Hermès, Dolce Gabbana, and Pucci; or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who recently kicked up their heels at the Soho Beach House.

Celebrities busy on a few productions being filmed in Miami this summer, including “Rock of Ages,” and TV shows like the coming “Charlie’s Angels” and “Magic City,” set in 1960s Miami Beach, have lured the paparazzi, who perch on rooftops, prowl the beach and stand rooted like sentries near the doors of the city’s most fashionable dining spots.

 “Those guys will put up ladders on the boardwalk to get to shoot our tiki club on the beach,” said Lilaj Segal Battista, the marketing director of the Soho Beach House.  “They’ll check into a room at the hotel next door, so that they can shoot our pool from the roof.  You can’t fight them off.” Clearly, she wouldn’t have it any other way.  

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6c1a3351a141cb5ca3094957c768507c

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

Advertising: Amalgamated Hires a New Chief Executive

August 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Amalgamated, which works for marketers like Ben Jerry’s, CarMax, Coca-Cola, MSG Networks and Qdoba Mexican Grill, is hiring Brian Martin as chief executive, succeeding Charles Rosen. Mr. Rosen, who was one of the three founders of Amalgamated in 2003, is leaving to pursue what he described as his longtime interests in public affairs and progressive politics.

The arrival of Mr. Martin is to be formally announced on Friday. It comes 11 months after a majority stake in Amalgamated was acquired by Eric Silver, a creative executive who left DDB Worldwide in New York to join Amalgamated as chief creative officer. Mr. Silver continues in that post, and is the majority owner of Amalgamated; Mr. Martin is acquiring an unspecified minority share in the agency as he comes aboard.

Mr. Martin, who is 51, has worked in management posts for agencies that include Deutsch, JWT and what is now Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal Partners. His specialty was business development, helping agencies attract new clients. Mr. Martin also served as chief marketing officer and chief executive of Qtopics, an online polling service.

For the last five years, Mr. Martin has run his own consultancy in New York, Source Martin, where he worked on agency reviews and other assignments for marketers like ATT, Citibank and MetLife. Source Martin is being dissolved as Mr. Martin arrives at Amalgamated, effective on Sept. 1.

The moves are among a recent reshuffling of the executive suites at agencies that has involved many prominent industry figures. The increasing challenges that agencies face as they seek to keep up with changes in consumer behavior, technology and the economy are leading to more changes in top posts.

“I think it’s the most exciting time in my lifetime to be in this business,” Mr. Martin said in a phone interview. He compared it to “the beginning of the TV era” in the early 1950s and added, “The next 10 years is when the most interesting things are going to get done.”

For that reason, Mr. Martin said, the place to be is “in the middle of the action” — that is, at an agency — rather than on the periphery at someplace like a consultancy.

Joining Amalgamated represents “an opportunity to come into a place where you don’t have to fix things, just turn up the volume,” he added.

Mr. Silver, 44, said he was pleased with results at the agency since his arrival, citing an expansion to about 40 employees, from 34 a year ago; new digital work like a “Fair Tweets” campaign for Ben Jerry’s on Twitter, which was tied to World Fair Trade Day; and the addition of new clients like CarMax.

Still, “I want us to play on a bigger stage,” Mr. Silver said, “expand, grow bigger.”

Mr. Martin “knows how agencies operate, knows how clients operate,” he added, “and his new-business record at his prior agencies seems pretty impressive.” That should offset any potential drawbacks from Mr. Martin’s never having been a chief executive at an agency, Mr. Silver said.

Mr. Rosen, in a separate phone interview, also endorsed Mr. Martin, calling him “a wonderful addition” to Amalgamated who will “fill in the mortar” around the agency’s “bricks” of its digital, creative and strategic work.

Mr. Rosen, 44, said he would sell his minority stake in Amalgamated as he steps down. He will subsequently serve as a consultant, he added, working with the agency on projects.

Although “I have such mixed emotions about leaving,” Mr. Rosen said, he agreed with an opinion expressed by Mr. Silver at a recent dinner.

“He said, ‘You know, Charles, when you talk about politics, your eyes light up,’ and it made me think,” said Mr. Rosen, who has worked in advertising for 13 years at agencies that in addition to Amalgamated included Cliff Freeman Partners.

“As I look at the current political climate,” Mr. Rosen said, “the discourse has shifted so far to the right that I felt it was time to take everything I’ve learned in the industry, at Amalgamated, about cultural strategy and branding, and apply it.”

“Look at how shockingly effective the Tea Party was from a marketing perspective,” Mr. Rosen said, adding that he would like to work on “creating an entity that would be a new populist movement” to serve as a liberal counterpoint to the Tea Party.

Mr. Rosen’s departure will leave only one of the three founders of Amalgamated still at the agency: Doug Cameron, the chief strategy officer. (Fiona McBride, president of Amalgamated, joined the agency in 2008.)

The third founder, Jason Gaboriau, was executive creative director before Mr. Silver’s arrival. He sold his stake in Amalgamated to Mr. Silver and left the agency; he is now a co-executive creative director of the Los Angeles office of Crispin Porter Bogusky, part of MDC Partners.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=899f37b33928ad126ad0f8f6f63f201c

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,