ColemanMedia Report

A new marketing campaign from Skittles that encouraged teens in China with messages of fun and rebellion has inadvertently landed an entire generation of teens aged 13-17 in an undisclosed Chinese prison, according to officials with the Chinese government, who asked to remain anonymous.  The campaign, which urged teens to “Skittlize routine school activities,” reportedly backfired when the teens refused to turn in homework assignments on time, landing them in a state prison somewhere in the rural Xinjiang province.  Regardless, the Skittles marketing department is pleased with the results.  ”We consider this campaign a monumental success,” said Kitty Wang.  ”Our brand awareness within the target market is through the roof.  Our challenge now is that our entire target market is now in jail, and physically unable to buy our product.  And we have no word yet on when they might be let out.”

The blogosphere was abuzz early Tuesday after a recent round of financing by Derivative Capital valued popular micro-blog Twitter at just over 5 billion Retweets, dramatically topping earlier estimates of $250.17.  While the buzz seems to be mostly confusion over what exactly 5 billion Retweets actually means, most bloggers agree that the prognosis is good, despite Twitter’s inability to turn a profit thus far.  ”Technically a Retweet has absolutely no monetary value whatsoever,” said Moishe Malakai, lead blogger at Mashable.com.  ”But Twitter’s not concerned about making money, and they shouldn’t have to be.  Twitter as a business subsists entirely on buzz, popularity, and growth, not a sustainable revenue plan.  And so far they’ve done a bang-up job with that.  Besides, if someone named Derivative Capital places a big bet on you, you have to be doing something right.  Right?”

A complaint lodged by Western Regional VP of Sales Vince Chillini Monday afternoon accused junior media planner Judy Wittenmeier of comparing “apples to oranges” when justifying her selection of rival behavioral ad network SpyBot over CookieCutter Networks, according witnesses at the scene.  ”You can’t possibly make a comparison between SpyBot and CookieCutter,” Chillini said in an email to Wittenmeier.  ”CookieCutter uses a proprietary formula of complex algorithms and automatic back-end optimization that’s so advanced, I don’t even know how it works.  And as far as I can tell, neither does our ad operations team.  But it’s clearly outlined on slide 26 of my PowerPoint, so it has to be true.”  Wittenmeier wasn’t available for comment, but a planner on Wittenmeier’s team, who asked to remain anonymous said, “He can’t be serious, right?”

The Central Intelligence Agency announced late Friday that a new technology contract will allow the agency to instantly track criminals, suspects and ex-girlfriends within popular social networks Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.  The contract, with Seattle-based Visible Technologies, will allow agents to track any and all social networking activity of “persons of interest” secretely – without logging in or revealing their identities.  ”This is a huge leap forward in allowing us to stalk ex-girlfriends,” said CIA Director Leon Panetta.  ”Before we had to log in and send friend requests to find out what they were up to.  Most of the time they would just ignore or deny us.  But now I can track Peggy, Donna, and Gladys Steinberg without them knowing, and find out if they really hooked up with Kevin from senior gym class.”  Financial details of the contract were not released, but Panetta characterized the cost as “totally worth it.”

Popular Web portal and erstwhile search engine Yahoo’s $100 million, multi-platform ad campaign has netted 3 new visitors to the site since launching on September 28th, according to online audience measurement firm Hitwise.  The campaign, running in TV, print, online and outdoor, and centered around the theme “It’s You,” increased Yahoo’s monthly traffic in September to 120,000,003 unique users.  Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz is already deeming the campaign a “huge” success.  ”The goal of this campaign was to go back to the spend first, think later days of 2000 and 2001,” said Bartz.  ”And in that respect, we’re thrilled with the results.  We’ve spent a shitload of money on an entirely forgettable campaign trying to convince people that we’re cool and different.  To get three people to actually buy into that is a tremendous achievement.  Right now we’re looking into whether or not we can get three more people by spending another $100 mil.”

After recording a record 622 million sales calls and emails to ad agencies and marketing departments in the first 12 days of the month, the Internet Advertising Bureau officially declared October National Ad Sales Month.   The industry organization, which monitors online marketing and sales activity, awarded the label to October due to a 4,727% increase in sales calls and emails from the prior month.  ”The numbers are out of this world,” said Jerry Van Winklesmith, a researcher with the IAB.  ”A property crime is committed approximately every 3 seconds in the United States.  In those 3 seconds, ad agencies across the country were hit with 722.3 sales calls and emails asking about Q4 plans.  So, like we always do in this industry, we put a positive spin on a ridiculous situation, slap a label on it, and send two weeks worth of emails around that theme.”  The IAB plans to celebrate the occasion by hosting a two-day conference on how to manage sales calls.

While the Justice Department and the rest of the online ad industry closely watch developments in the proposed merger between Yahoo! and Bing, search giant Google quietly completed its purchase of the Internet Tuesday morning, according to sources with Price Waterhouse Coopers, who brokered the deal.  Google, which already effectively owns online search and online video, went back into “acquisition mode” last week after admitting that it overpaid by approximately $1 billion for YouTube.  ”We’ve made some mistakes in the past with our acquisitions,” said Google President Sergey Brin.  ”But I think the Internet is a good buy.  Unlike the banks, we’ve got the cash, so it made sense to buy when the price was right.  We’re already in negotiations to buy Music, and we’ll probably buy Fear as well, since it’s such an effective marketing tool.”  Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

A Study released Tuesday by the Foundation for Misguided Ad Projections revealed that 6 out of 10 media buyers, when surveyed about their predictions for Q4 ad budget growth or contraction, responded by asking: “Is it Friday yet?”  The study, which is meant to gauge the health of the ad industry in the eyes of industry insiders, also revealed that 5 out of 10 media buyers responded with “what’s this call about again?” and 2 in 10 buyers asked “are you going to finish that bagel?”  ”The results were right in line with our expectations,” said Hans Brinklehaufer of FMAP.  ”Media buyers can’t be bothered with details like what their quarterly budgets are or what their client’s objectives are.  They have more important issues to address, like where they’re going to meet for lunch.  Besides, we make the forecasts up anyway.  It’s not like anyone reads them.”

ASE Certified Mechanic Lou “Boom Boom” Damiano informed the Internet Advertising Bureau early Monday afternoon that in order to fix online display advertising, he would need to install completely new brakes, rotors, and pads, along with other “minor” repairs.  Online display advertising, which has been “making a funny sound for some time now,” according to representatives with the IAB, has been beset recently by reports of falling CPMs, dwindling creative, and an over-burdened planning process.  ”You hear that hissing sound?” said Damiano.  ”That’s probably where your CPMs are leaking out.  I can fix it no problem, but I’ll need to take the manifold apart, replace two piston seals and a head gasket.  And while I’m down there, I really should take a look at the tranny.”  Damiano estimated that he should have online display advertising up and running in two weeks, three weeks max if he has to wait for parts.

Just days after “Gwen,” the homeless doll generated a chorus of outcry in the mommy blogosphere, El Segundo-based toymaker Mattel announced that it will hold off on launching its “Crack Babies” line of dolls until it can conduct more research into the marketability of the toys.  The doll line, aimed at girls 3-11, was originally slated to launch in mid-October, just in time for holiday shopping season, but may be held back at least two weeks, according to a company spokesperson.  ”Initial research indicated that social responsibility was a hot-button issue with parents at the moment,” said Mattel CEO Robert A. Eckert.  ”And we know that people want to look like they care about important issues without actually doing something about it.  Because, let’s be honest, no one wants to get their hands dirty.  But the automatic ‘fiending’ feature may have been a bit too much.  So we’re looking at more subtle ways to allow privileged kids to have fun at the expense of those much less fortunate.”