ColemanMedia Report

A study released early Monday by the Center for Speculative Media & Measurement revealed that only 5 days after the official announcement, online media coverage and chatter around Apple’s iPad tablet device has surpassed all media coverage of the January 12th earthquake near the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince.  According to the study, 622 million news stories, blog posts, & Twitter feeds flooded the world wide web during the first hour of the iPad news conference in San Francisco, quickly surpassing the number of news reports, text messages and celebrity outcries combined around the Haitian earthquake.  ”The instinctive spirit of coming to the aid of our fellow man during a humanitarian crisis is one thing,” said lead researcher Karl Von Schnitzengrubel, “but nothing captures the attention of our collective psyche like the announcement of a highly-anticipated and gratuitously nonessential gadget.  The announcement of the iPad is the single-largest collection of media events in modern history around a product that hasn’t even hit the shelves.”

A report by the Bell Center for Media Prognostication predicts that mobile advertising sales pitches will become 93.2% more aggressive in 2010 on the heels of three very public acquisitions of mobile ad companies AdMob, Quattro Wireless and AdMarvel by media giants such as Google and Apple.  According to the report, advertising agencies can expect a 57% increase in meeting requests, an 83% increase in “the year of Mobile is here” claims, and a 726% increase in “you’re missing the boat by not buying with us” hard sells.  ”Our comfort level with these projections is very high,” said Chuck Waterford of Bell.  ”Reckless investment of this scale in any industry tends to give sales organizations the confidence to make largely unsubstantiated claims in order to pressure buyers into buying into the hype.  Like the claim that death of the PC is near.  Come back to me with that one in 5 years.”

Toyota announced early Tuesday that in light of its unprecedented recall of over 2.3 million vehicles due to accelerator pedal problems, the Torrance-based automaker has pulled its planned “Step on the Gas” campaign, and will replace it with their new “We Give Up” creative message.  The campaign, scheduled to launch during the Super Bowl this Sunday, and features actual Toyota employees throwing their hands in the air in defeat, more accurately reflects the company’s new philosophy of manufacturing and selling cars, according to COO Jim Lentz.  ”With a recall of this size, we knew it would be critical to come out with a believable, credible message,” said Lentz.  ”And the concept of ‘We Give Up’ most was frankly the most accurate.  The ‘Trust Us, We’re Toyota’ and ‘Oops! Sorry About That!’ concepts just didn’t seem like they would resonate.”  Toyota plans to follow up the new campaign with a “Please Buy Our Cars Again” message sometime in late Q2.

San Francisco-based retailer The Gap took out a brand equity loan last week in order to revive sagging sales and brand awareness numbers, according to sources close to the San Leandro branch of Union Bank of California.  The loan, cashing in on decades of brand equity built with highly-acclaimed ad campaigns, is aimed at making the specialty clothier more relevant to the lucrative 13-34 target market after a multi-year slide in popularity and awareness.  ”I think it’s a great move,” said Janette Greeley of Retail Roundup.  ”Our latest studies show that only 12% of females 13-17 plan to make a purchase at The Gap in the next 30 days, and over 72% of males 18-34 didn’t even know that The Gap still exists.  Leveraging decades of amazing advertising to remind people that The Gap offers safe, conservative, and uninspired clothes to go unnoticed in is a great idea.  Because let’s face it, who can tell me the last time they bought something – for themselves – at The Gap?”