ColemanMedia Report

A report issued late Tuesday by the Center for Shamelessly Bad Puns revealed that the “new frugality,” which may have permanently changed consumer purchase behavior, is negatively affecting sales for Rich Media firms, as marketers look to cut costs that may be perceived as frivolous or ostentatious. According to the report, the sector has lost nearly $400 million so far this year, prompting long-standing Rich Media provider Eyeblaster to re-brand itself as the more modest MediaMind, reportedly to distance itself from any profligate associations. “As budgets get cut, marketers start to more closely scrutinize their spend,” said MediaMind VP of Sales Rick Astbury. “We had clients who would get a bill for Rich Media serving fees and say ‘what do we look like to you, a luxury brand? Our customers are trading down to store brands, and you want us to pay a $2 premium for interactivity?’ So we had to look at repackaging our product to be more in line with the ‘thinking man.’”

A study by the Center for Overused Catch Phrases reported that the commonly used phrase “in this economy” was used for the 100 millionth time Friday afternoon by traffic coordinator Ricky Ullman, setting a new record for common catch phrases referencing news or popular culture. The utterance, which was in reference to Ullman’s pleasant surprise that his client’s budgets remained flat for the quarter, set a record for public or private occurances of the catch phrase, since the COCP started measuring it in December 2008. “Not since ‘that’s what she said’ have we seen a catch phrase become so annoyingly ubiquitous so quickly,” said leading linguist Gunter von Lunghofen. “It’s literally permeated so deep into society that children as young as four years old have been observed using it to lobby for larger allowances.” “In this economy” was not alone, however. The study revealed that the phrase “from Wall Street to Main Street” came in a close second with 89 million occurrences.

“Pirate” Joe, the homeless man often seen hanging outside the Chicago offices of Foot, Cone and Mr. Belding, revised his ad spend outlook down for the remainder of 2009 Monday afternoon, citing “downward economic pressures on budgets for online branding initiatives, especially in emerging and largely unproven segments like mobile and digital WOM.” Joe, widely respected as the most accurate barometer of the online advertising industry, still calls for growth in the sector, but predicts that growth will slow due to a longer recovery cycle of the macro economy. “We take Joe’s word as the truth,” said Kevin Longstocking, Executive VP of Media for FCB. “Sure, he’s usually drunk before 10:00 a.m., but he’s far more accurate than most of these holding companies and self-prescribed ‘experts’ with Mediapost who only release spending projections to secure their next consulting gig. Plus, you should hear his joke about the nun and the horse whisperer. Hilarious!”