Ad Age Video

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When European adman and author Jonathan Cahill was researching his new book, "Igniting the Brand," he sifted through 27 years of Advertising Effectivess Award files. Studying the most successful campaigns from the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand the U.S. he was searching for patterns of what worked. But the only pattern that really stood out was the inherent unpredictability of advertising strategies themselves. His findings make him more wary of the industry's growing excitement about the new "science" of ad planning made possible by digital data.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In a move that seems to symbolically close a big loop of media convergence, CBS and Pepsi will run a video ad in the September print edition of Entertainment Weekly. See portions of the actual video and hear Ad Age media reporter Nat Ives and TV editor Brian Steinberg ponder the implications of what it all means.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In an era when marketing strategies seem more complicated than ever before, author Jonathan Cahill is selling simplicity. And he backs it up with 115 case studies. Prior to opening his own London firm, Spring Marketing Innovation and Research, Cahill spent 30 years as an ad man with major agencies in the UK and Italy. His recently published book is entitled "Igniting the Brand: Strategies That Have Shot Brands to Success." And one of his conclusions is that marketers and their agencies are trying so hard to devise strategies that they often look right past simple truths.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Despite their large numbers and executive positions throughout other parts of the business, females still lag behind in ad agency creative departments. Why? That was a hot issue for the twenty-four women honored at this year's Advertising Age "Women to Watch" luncheon. The most memorable answer was given by Tiffany Kosel, who actually is a creative director and vice president at Crispin Porter & Bogusky.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Putting ads in digital games or broadcasting standard video spots about major console games is nothing new. But broadcasting an ad made from the fully-interactive code of a major console game is. And that practice, which reached new heights with the release of "Kill Zone 2" earlier this year, signals the rise of a new genre of advertising creativity. This nine-minute program spotlights Loni Peristere, the co-founder of Zoic, the special effects studio that helped create the ground-breaking broadcast game-engine spot for Kill Zone entitled "Bullet Journey."

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Skeptics who are still not sure about the real potential for building large-scale mobile phone audiences for content and ads would do well to take a look at People.com. The mobile channel of that Time Inc. magazine site is now logging 18 million mobile page views a month. And that horde of on-the-go readers and viewers seeking celebrity news via their mobile phones is just the beginning, says Fran Hauser, president of the digital side of Time Inc.'s Style and Entertainment Group.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The "Big Idea" has long been the traditional core of ad campaign organization but does it really work that well in the new age of social marketing? That was the issue raised at the recent 4As' strategic planning session by Mark Earls. The author and marketing guru discussed new insights about the behavior of human communities and warned marketers and their agencies not to assume that a single creative concept will work effectively across a wildly diverse and unpredictably fluid social environment.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In 2008, as gasoline prices topped $4, sales of 75 mpg Vespa scooters spiked to record levels. But in the first two quarters of this year, sales have dropped just as dramatically for the Piaggio subsidiary. But Vespa marketing campaigns continue at full throttle. Last week, the parking lot of Central Park's Tavern on The Green was turned into a maze of test riding tracks for members of the media. And Piaggio Americas' CEO predicted that U.S. consumers would become serious scooter users over the next five years.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In our continuing look at how agencies are creating their social media capabilities and services, we talk with MediaCom North America CEO Doug Checkeris. Some agencies, like Edelman, have hired in-house social media teams. Others, like BBDO, are using young mentors to teach all their executives how to Facebook, blog, Twitter and otherwise function and think like authentic social media players. But MediaCom is taking a different route.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Despite the various problems that are inhibiting its growth, mobile advertising is experiencing increasing amounts of success. One of the latest examples of how cellphones can be effectively integrated into a major marketing campaign is that of Kmart's new "Protege" line of low-cost basketball shoes. At the recent Interactive Advertising Bureau conference, Mobext Mobile Marketing managing director Phuc Truong explained the campaign's strategy and tactics.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Fed up with bad press and wary of the Federal Trade Commission's intentions, a new organization of mommy bloggers is on the offensive. Their new initiative offers something like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for Mommy bloggers who operate with journalist-like standards. During the first 24 hours after the web campaign was launched, more than 200 bloggers had signed on. One of those behind the effort is blogger Liz Gumbinner who previously worked for 14 years as a creative director at the David & Goliath and Deutsch ad agencies.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The Interactive Advertising Bureau Marketplace conference on mobile advertising is designed as a pep rally of sorts. But no matter how positively its nuts-and-bolts panels start, their discussions inevitably drift toward that which still holds mobile back. In this video from this month's session, Michael Collins, CEO of GroupM network's mobile marketing agency Joule, ticks off a series of maddening problems that hamper the growth of the nascent industry.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In their mad rush to generate brand exposure across the blogosphere, many marketers and their agencies are actually aggravating and alienating the mommy bloggers they hope to partner with. That's according to Elisa Camahort Page, COO and co-founder of BlogHer.com.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- BlogHer.com, the online female community that logs 15 million unique visitors a month, holds its fifth annual convention this week in Chicago. And one of the things attendees will be buzzing about the corridors is the growing debate over blogola. In a pre-conference interview, BlogHer co-founder and COO Elisa Page said the mere disclosure that a blogger is accepting money to include product mentions in a post is not enough to solve the problem.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The digital chaos that has upended the music marketing business appears to be creating dramatic new opportunities for music publishers. In the past, those companies have been tightly focused on owning and licensing song rights, while record companies have controlled the recording and product distribution business. But no more. Los Angeles-based Bug Music, which owns more than 250,000 songs, spent the last three years reorganizing itself as recording studio and music marketer competing directly against those record companies.