The Big Fat Marketing Blog Online-Only Move Not So Kraft-y November 5, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentI was extremely disappointed last week when the latest issue of Kraft’s Food & Family magazine arrived in my mailbox.
No, not because I don’t like the publication. I love it. I was disappointed because a cover flap announced this would be the last print issue. Next issue, Food and Family becomes an online-only publication.
I can understand the why behind the move, but I don’t like it.
As a writer and editor who works at a publishing company that—shockers!—likes to make and save money, I completely get why Kraft is doing this. Going online saves paper and postage costs and allows them to get interactive with their audience.
Read The Rest—->The Big Fat Marketing Blog Online-Only Move Not So Kraft-y
Yahoo selects two new board members from Icahn's list August 28, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment Yahoo announced Thursday it has appointed two new directors from a dissident slate put together by Carl Icahn during his attempt to take control of the Internet giant through an aborted proxy battle. Yahoo said it selected Frank Biondi, former chief executive of Viacom and Universal Studios, and John Chapple, former chief executive of Nextel Partners, for their extensive experience in the media and telecommunication industries. Yahoo agreed to make the appointments in exchange for Icahn dropping his proxy challenge. Icahn himself was appointed to the board immediately following the annual meeting on Aug. 1. He replaced Robert Kotick, who resigned. Icahn tried but failed to get Yahoo to replace other board members in order to increase his leverage and try to sell the company to Microsoft. Instead, Yahoo agreed to expand the board from nine to 11 people. Biondi and Chapple are potential, but not certain, allies for Icahn. Biondi was Icahn’s candidate to replace Richard Parsons as chief executive of Time Warner during Icahn’s unsuccessful proxy fight with the media giant in 2006. At the time, Icahn said he had only met Biondi once before. Biondi is currently a senior managing director of WaterView Advisors, a private equity firm, and Chapple is president of Hawkeye Investments. Ryan Jacob, chief investment officer of Jacob Asset Management, said Icahn’s best bet may be to wait until next year, when the board is up for re-election again. “A year from now we will be talking about how much less share in search they have,” said Jacob, who still owns Yahoo but feels burned by the way its management bungled the bid from Microsoft. Jacob said he would not be surprised if Yahoo’s stock drops to the mid-teens if the company fails to make its financial targets. At that point, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is likely to bid again. “In his heart of hearts, he knows it makes strategic sense to bite the bullet,” Jacob said.
P&G Global Marketing Chief Stengel Steps Down July 15, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentBATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) — Procter & Gamble Co. Global Marketing Officer Jim Stengel is stepping down, the company announced, to be replaced by Marc Pritchard, 48, former head of P&G’s cosmetics business and who most recently oversaw a stepped-up global restructuring effort for the company.
Mr. Stengel, 53, has been P&G’s global marketing officer since 2001 and oversees the company’s $5.3 billion marketing budget. He will retire Oct. 31 after 25 years at the company. Until that time, effective Aug. 1, Mr. Stengel will work on special projects, continuing to report to Chief Operating Officer Robert McDonald.
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PointRoll Warns Clients: Yahoo Pulling Rich Media Ads February 20, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment| PointRoll Warns Clients: Yahoo Pulling Rich Media Ads |
| by Mark Walsh, Tuesday, Feb 20, 2007 6:00 AM ET |
| IN AN E-MAIL MESSAGE SENT to clients Friday, ad technology firm PointRoll warned advertisers that Yahoo in some instances had disabled rich media ads on the Web portal without prior notice. Through PointRoll’s “Included” program, Yahoo and about 30 other large Web publishers offer PointRoll’s rich media ads to marketers at no extra cost when threshold CPM prices are met. The rich media fees are covered by publishers who gain a competitive advantage by not making advertisers pay a separate fee for rich media. But Yahoo effectively pulled some rich media ads recently as a result of its shift back to a model requiring advertisers and agencies to pay for third-party rich media placements on Yahoo, according to the PointRoll memo. “The stated Yahoo policy is to continue to pay for rich media fees on qualifying placements through May 31, 2007,” states the Feb. 16 missive signed by PointRoll Senior Vice President for Sales Andy Ellenthal. “However, if you are planning a third-party rich media buy on Yahoo it is advised that you contact your Yahoo representative for clarity and cost expectations,” he wrote. In an interview on Monday, Ellenthal said Yahoo had informed PointRoll that it planned to leave the company’s “Included” program by June, ending its policy of offering advertisers free PointRoll rich media ads on Yahoo. The Internet giant is now pushing its own in-house rich media solutions as a free add-on to advertisers following its acquisition of rich media company AdInterax last October. Ellenthal said Yahoo should honor any agreements with advertisers to pick up the cost for qualifying PointRoll rich media units, at least until June. “What’s concerning, though, is when I hear about a handful of large advertisers’ [rich media] tags getting pulled down and replaced with standard ads,” he said. “That begs the question of ‘how many do I not know about?’” To that end, his memo regarding rich media campaigns on Yahoo went out to 5,000 advertisers and agencies on Friday. Ellenthal declined to name any of the advertisers who had been affected. But he emphasized that Yahoo has created confusion among advertisers lately over what CPM thresholds are required for rich media ads to be offered free under PointRoll’s Included program. He said the CPM floor had changed three or four times during the last year after being stable for the last couple of years. “It’s not clear to anybody today what the floor really is,” he said. Ellenthal said that PointRoll had maintained a “constant dialogue” with Yahoo over the issue, but that its transition to a paid model for rich media was still bumpy. Very rarely has he seen rich media ads pulled by sites during his 10 years in the online ad business, noted Ellenthal. “That’s a pretty drastic move,” he said. Among other publishers in PointRoll’s Included program are AOL, MSN, iVillage and MySpace. Yahoo said it hadn’t seen the message PointRoll sent to clients, and therefore would not comment on it. The dominant player in rich media advertising, Gannett-owned PointRoll, says it accounts for 70% of the market. Its flagship product is an expandable unit, dubbed “FatBoy,” but the company also offers a variety of rich media formats and ad tracking services. For its part, Yahoo’s move into rich media through its acquisition of AdInterax is part of a broader goal to wring more profit from its ad operations. Along with its 20% investment in online ad exchange Right Media and the launch of Panama, its upgraded search marketing platform, Yahoo aims to better compete with Google on the one hand and social networking upstarts such as MySpace and Facebook on the other. Ellenthal said that losing business from Yahoo wouldn’t severely impact the company’s finances. “They [Yahoo] garner a large percentage of media dollars out there, but we’ve seen an uptick on AOL, MSN and MySpace recently,” he said. “Yahoo is just one of many places where advertisers can place their media.” |
