March 29, 2024

Media Decoder: AT&T’s Ads With Cute Kids Are a Neat Fit for Mother’s Day

ATT is offering consumers — regardless of which carrier they use — a chance to visit a microsite, or special Web site, to send personalized video cards to their mothers for Mother’s Day. The video clip that will be part of the greeting also forms the basis for the newest commercial in ATT’s series of cute-children spots.

The new commercial, which is to begin running on television on Friday, plays down any pitching for ATT. The company’s logo is there, though, and the spot uses the theme of the current campaign, “It’s not complicated.”

And, it ought to be noted, Mother’s Day is typically the busiest day of the year each year for phoning, sending texts and other telecommunicating.

But the new commercial eschews overt selling in favor of a general greeting to mothers. The commercial presents Beck Bennett, the comedian who interviews the children in each spot, asking, “What’s better, a big hug or a small hug?” (Big, natch.)

And when he asks, “Who gives the best hugs?” the response is unanimous: “Mom.”

An announcer comes on at the end to declare: “It’s not complicated. Moms are the best. Happy Mother’s Day from ATT.”

The ATT part is missing from the version that can be personalized on the microsite, ATTmothersday.com, which is being billed as the “ATT Mother’s Day Card Maker.” (There are ATT brand logos, lest one forget the sponsor.)

The video cards, which can be sent via Facebook, Twitter or e-mail, will end with the words “To the best mom ever” and be signed, “Love,” followed by the given names provided by users.

ATT will also promote the video card in social media like Facebook and YouTube.

The Mother’s Day commercial is the second time since the campaign began in November that a special spot based on a calendar event is being produced. For the N.C.A.A. tournament, ATT and its advertising agency, BBDO Atlanta, brought out a commercial in which Mr. Bennett bantered with professional basketball legends.

That raises a question: How many times can ATT and BBDO Atlanta go to the well before it runs dry?

“We look at that very carefully,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer at the ATT Mobility unit of ATT in Atlanta.

“We measure this campaign, and every campaign, every which way to Sunday,” he added, “measuring wear-out and sentiment.” So far, the campaign is still a hit, Mr. Christopher said, and still being welcomed by consumers.

Stephen McMennamy, a creative director at BBDO Atlanta — part of the BBDO Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group — said the goal was to reserve special spots “for special moments,” adding, “We by no means want to be greedy about it.”

“You can overdo something like this,” Mr. McMennamy acknowledged. To that end, the run of the commercial on television is being limited to three days, Friday through Sunday, rather than a longer period.

What about Father’s Day?

“We haven’t talked about that yet,” Mr. McMennamy replied. “I feel like once Dad sees this, there might be a tear.”

ATT is among scores of marketers coming out with special campaigns for Mother’s Day. There are far fewer ad agencies doing so, with a notable exception: the agency known as Mother, which is based in London and has offices in New York and Buenos Aires.

Each year, staff members in London and New York create projects for Mother’s Day. The 2013 effort from Mother New York is centered on a microsite, themomtract.com, offering a mock contract that rewards a mother for her child-raising.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/business/media/atts-ads-with-cute-kids-are-a-neat-fit-for-mothers-day.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Media Decoder Blog: ‘The Test’ Will Join Television Talk Shows

MIAMI — Imagine a tabloid talk show like “Maury” distilled to its essence: the enduring question, “are you the father?”

That’s sort of what CBS Television Distribution is imagining its next daytime talk show, “The Test,” to be.

The series, the distributor said in a news release Tuesday, “is a one-hour conflict resolution talk show that will use lie detector and DNA tests to settle relationship and paternity disputes among the guests.” It will start in the fall and will be hosted by Kirk Fox, an actor and stand-up comedian.

CBS announced “The Test” earlier this month, but at the time it had only done syndication deals with stations representing about 55 percent of the country. On Tuesday, in an annual syndication conference here, it announced more deals, enough to reach more than 80 percent of the country.

The series will be produced by the company operated by the psychologist and talk show host Phil McGraw’s son, Jay. The same company is behind the successful daytime show “The Doctors.”

Jay McGraw said earlier this month that “The Test” is “a fresh take on a proven genre that has been working in daytime for years.” A competitor, MGM Television, is selling a series called “Paternity Court” to local stations ahead of a planned fall premiere.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/the-test-will-join-television-talk-shows/?partner=rss&emc=rss

The Haggler: Yielding My Time to a Comedian’s Grousing

A recurring theme of his show is the frustration of interacting with, well, just about everyone. But he’s especially skilled at sketching the shortcomings of all manner of commercial transactions. This time, the Haggler asked Mr. Carolla to opine, extemporaneously, on topics where he’d like to see some consumer-related changes in the coming year:

Restaurants

All of their cute stuff needs to go. A club sandwich needs to resemble a club sandwich, or I need to be notified. I was in Phoenix, sitting at the pool of a hip hotel with a friend, and I saw “club sandwich” on the menu. So we ordered two, but what came back was a Kaiser roll with some ham and some Swiss in it. Not the triangular cuts of bread with the bacon and the three layers.

So I said, “I ordered a club sandwich.”

The waiter said, “Oh, yeah, that’s how we do it.”

If you’re stupid enough to call that a club sandwich, you might want to tell me while I’m ordering, “Hey, I hope you’re not expecting a club sandwich.”

It’s the same with passion fruit iced tea, which has destroyed what is left of our culture in Southern California. You order iced tea in Los Angeles and you get something that tastes like somebody put potpourri in a gym sock and dipped it in warm water. I’m not kidding. When you say, “I wanted iced tea, regular iced tea,” they say, “That is our regular iced tea.”

If I went to your restaurant and said, “Give me a club sandwich and an iced tea,” and you brought me the Kaiser roll with the ham and the boiled potpourri, there’s no chance that I’d go: “This is exactly what I had in mind! You’re right. I know I said iced tea and I know I said club sandwich, but I wanted something completely different and you’ve hit it right on the head.”

I’m not into big government, but I want it to get involved with iced tea and club sandwiches.

Movie Ads

I have a fun game that readers can play at home. When an ad comes on for a comedy, especially one starring Adam Sandler or Kevin James, see if you can count to eight seconds before someone in that ad takes, like, a shovel to the head. There will be head trauma in the first eight seconds. It used to be groin trauma, but we’ve evolved.

At the movies, you watch, like, 10 or 11 trailers in a row. The good thing is that by the end, you’ve forgotten what movie you’ve come to see. Which makes it more exciting. It’s like having sex with your wife for the first time, 10 years into your marriage.

Credit Cards

First, I don’t know why the school systems are doing it, but they’re acting as if you’ll never see money your entire life. They’re so focused on cooking classes, ceramics classes, sewing classes, French, German, Spanish. Literally, I took agriculture, horticulture and five semesters of ceramics when I was in school. I never took one class in basic finance. Never learned how to handle a credit card. Never learned about compound interest.

And we tell the government, “Hey, you’ve got to regulate these credit card guys because they’re predatory.”

But the I.R.S. does the same thing. I owed the I.R.S. about $4,000 when I was 28, and they worked out a minimum payment, which for me was like $30 a month. I paid $30 a month for three years, and when I actually had made some money, and could settle up, I owed it $4,000. I was just paying interest and penalties. Didn’t touch the principal. The I.R.S., credit card companies and others need to be clear that sometimes, the minimum payment isn’t touching the principal. It’s as if you’re just paying protection money, so you won’t get a brick through the window.

Buying a Used Car

I’d buy a car that’s two years old. Buy it from the single, nonsmoker who put 17,000 miles on it. You can knock 25 percent off the retail price and it’s still under warranty. And if you want to know what the real price of a car is, go to eBay. A lot of people say, “The Kelley Blue Book says it should be between $12,000 and $15,000.” Just go to eBay and find the car you want. Whatever that thing sells for on eBay is the current market value of your car.

Some people will say, “Here’s what the dealer says it’s worth.” But I always see signs on those used-car lots that say, “We Pay the Most for Trade-Ins.” And underneath that it says, “Lowest Prices on Used Cars.” Uh, well, one or the other. You can’t pay the most for trade-ins and have the lowest prices. I’d like to find a dealership that says: “We really gouge you on the trade-in. But we have great deals on used cars.”

E-mail: haggler@nytimes.com. Keep it brief and family-friendly, and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=7b762833892f8ab2b752e807ef59ce39

Bits: Facebook Unveils Timeline View and Media Partnerships

Nick Bilton/The New York TimesAndy Samberg, a comedian who plays Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday Night Live, opened the Facebook F8 conference.

1:56 p.m. | Updated Adding more announcements from conference.

Facebook’s F8 annual developer conference didn’t open with any new company announcements but rather with Andy Samberg, a comedian on Saturday Night Live who often plays Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, on the show. After he spent several minutes poking fun at Facebook, the real Mark Zuckerberg appeared on stage.

Mr. Zuckerberg soon jumped into discussing new features on Facebook. He touted the growth of Facebook in recent years, noting that the company reached a milestone last week “when half a billion people used Facebook in a single day.”

Mr. Zuckerberg said one of the problems with Facebook is the profile page. Over the years, he said, the profile page has become difficult to navigate, and it is hard to find older posts. To solve this problem, Facebook is releasing a product called Timeline. Mr. Zuckerberg said Timeline “has three pieces: all your stories, all your life and a new way to express who you are.”

Timeline offers a highly visual view of a user’s Facebook profile and organizes content into photos, events and apps, all based on a timeline view that stretches back to the beginning of a user’s time on Facebook.

Timeline is designed to work on mobile devices too, offering a visually immersed stream. “It’s the story of your life,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.

Mr. Zuckerberg said the company was updating the Open Graph, the company’s developer platform. These updates will create “real-time serendipity,” allowing people to engage with their friends’ activities online beyond just “liking” something.

For example, if a friend updates his Facebook status to note that he is listening to a song on Spotify, the online music service, you will be able to click on the link and listen to the song together, at the same time. The Spotify track will also play directly within the Facebook page.

But the new developer updates go beyond music to include videos, gaming and news. Facebook has partnered with more than a dozen developers and music platforms including Spotify, iHeartRadio and Rdio. The company’s video partners include Netflix, Hulu and Blockbuster.

Check back for more updates from F8.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=3d4319a44d2f53ef12735c949a38d7ee