You can read Marie Claire...unless you're obese

Mike & Molly characters

Maura Kelly, contributor to popular women’s magazine Marie Claire, provoked 1200 angry comments, Twitter outrage and blogger fury after posting a controversial piece called Should “Fatties” Get A Room? (Even On TV?) earlier this week.

Kelly slammed CBS sitcom Mike & Molly, which follows two obese characters who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous group and fall in love. She unabashedly offered her opinion of the show (“implicitly promoting obesity”) and took what many called an insensitive tone. Without having watched the show, she wrote, “I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything.” She then compares obese people to drunks and heroine addicts.

Readers called the post “ignorant” and “hate-speech.” Many called for Kelly to be fired and were angered that she was given a platform on Marie Claire. “Dear Maura Kelly, I sincerely apologize for my disgusting body and all the various rolls of fat on my person,” writes one reader sarcastically, who was later applauded by women’s blog Jezebel.

Kelly apologized in update to the post, but the magazine’s editor in chief, Joanna Coles, offered an unapologetic response to Fashionista. “Maura Kelly is a very provocative blogger,” Coles said. “She was an anorexic herself and this is a subject she feels very strongly about.”

“Marie Claire” has been trending on Twitter today, and some women reported mixed feelings about the post. “The Marie Claire “Fattie” blog post was a slippery slope, yes, but obesity is an epidemic,” tweeted New York stylist @PalomaPatron. “Belligerent or Brilliant?” asked Cleveland blogger @MadMomMission, suggesting it was a PR ploy.

The controversy brings up some interesting questions. In an age of fast, provocative blogging, should Marie Claire admit fault for posting an insensitive piece? And are Kelly’s points about the show promoting obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle justified? Was she being unnecessarily insensitive or has she sparked debate that has previously been lost to political correctness?

Here we go again....good luck Economist Ad Network

The Economist has an audience of global elites that advertisers salivate over, but its print and online reach fall short of making it a mass-reach media vehicle.

Today, the British-based newsweekly is trying to remedy that situation, with the launch of an online network composed of sites that reach Economist-like readers, but on a bigger scale.

The Ideas People Channel is the umbrella name for the network, which comprises Economist.com plus about 30 niche sites like those of Christian Science Monitor and The Nation whose content spans politics, culture and ideas. Executives said the channel would launch with 11 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S., with a goal of reaching 21 million globally.

Such premium content ad networks were all the rage a few years ago, as media companies like MTV Networks, Forbes and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia put together networks of their own and similar sites to extend their online reach and better compete with online giants.

The Economist’s Paul Rossi, managing director, evp, Americas, said the Ideas People Channel is different, because its audience is defined not by demographic traits like age, income or education but by their mindset. “Ideas” people are intellectually curious, opinionated and influential, he contends.

“It builds around the Economist audience,” he said. “We call it the Ideas People, because when you put a group of Economist readers in a room, there’s very little that ties them together.”

The IE Business School based in Madrid, Spain is the first advertiser on board, and Rossi plans to pitch the network to corporate advertisers that he says are moving dollars online in their quest to build their brands or promote a positive image.

“I wouldn’t use this network to sell cheap tickets to London, but in building a brand, introducing a new product, introducing people to a new idea, this is an efficient way of doing it,” he said.

The effort comes as the core print publication’s growth has slowed. Year-over-year ad page growth is flat so far this year after falling 20 percent in 2009. Circulation grew 1.5 percent to 822,695 in the first half of 2010 after stronger growth of 3.3 percent and 8.5 percent in the previous two six-month periods.

It makes sense that The Economist would want to grow the reach of its online site, which currently reaches less than 1 million monthly uniques, per Compete.com, and to publishers like Jonathan Wells of the Christian Science Monitor.

“While we have a large number of people in our audience, we don’t always have the scale advertisers are looking for, especially those involved in corporate image and advertising campaigns,” Wells said. “In the aggregate, we can provide a useful audience for advertisers.”

But it will need to convince ad buyers that the network’s audience matches that of The Economist, whose sought-after readers command a premium from marketers, pointed out Scott Daly, evp, executive media director of Dentsu America, who handles print and online buying.

“I would be skeptical of their ability to do that,” he said.

CP+B = SO+L?

Miles Nadal likes to describe his MDC Partners as a place “where great talent lives.” These days, however, the CEO of the smallest of the major holding companies is grappling with talent leaving, principally Alex Bogusky, co-chairman and creative soul of MDC’s most valuable agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Bogusky, who also briefly held an MDC role, left abruptly in July, nine years after MDC took a stake in Crispin and after Nadal, a self-made businessman from Canada, reportedly offered him $15 million to stay. In many ways, Bogusky, an articulate and visible leader, personified the agency, which in turn raised the profile of MDC. His absence creates a void across both.

It’s against this void that Nadal seeks to put his imprint on his crown jewel agency, with the goal of turning the largely domestic Crispin into a bona fide global player. This summer, Nadal rechristened MDC’s Zig in Toronto as “CP+B Canada” -- a year after buying Swedish digital shop Daddy and rebranding it as “CP+B Europe” -- and he’s now searching for a global CEO, sources said. The shop is also said to be seeking a top strategic planner. In his CEO recruitment efforts, Nadal has said that current CEO Jeff Hicks, whose purview has been U.S. focused, may shift to another role, said sources.

Getting the leadership right at Crispin is no small matter: Nadal, in his pitch to potential CEOs, has said that the agency generates some $200 million in annual revenue, or more than a third of MDC’s 2009 total of $550 million, as reported by the company. More broadly, Nadal faces the challenge that confronts any company whose most valuable asset is talent.

Also, without Bogusky, Crispin has lost some of its “public sizzle,” said a source, who added:
“There’s no focal point at that agency right now.”

When contacted about his global plans for Crispin -- including talk of a CEO search -- Nadal was uncharacteristically mum. In response to e-mails sent to Nadal and Hicks, a representative for both MDC and Crispin denied that a search for a new top exec was under way and said of Hicks: “He’s the CEO and I believe he’s the CEO going forward,” adding that “there are going to be promotions at CP+B.”

Crispin calls itself an “advertising and design factory” and it’s likely that few of its notoriously workaholic staffers would disagree, with the agency churning out creative at breakneck speed. Bogusky’s influence can’t be understated: When he decided to move to Boulder, Colo., for lifestyle reasons in 2006, there was upheaval in the Miami agency’s creative department as its staffers and strategic planners followed him west. Now with Bogusky gone, some of the 600 in Boulder, who toil in a huge former cattle shed, are migrating back to Miami.

Bogusky, meanwhile, is holed up in his “FearLess” cottage in Boulder, where he blogs about issues like obesity levels and advertising to children, the kind of morality questions that weren’t quite so troubling while he awaited his final MDC payouts and worked on accounts like Burger King. It was those marketers, after all, who helped him retire as a multi-millionaire in flip-flops before the age of 50.

Nadal, who heaps praise in his approaches to potential hires, displays the indefatigable optimism of a college dropout who has the requisite badges of success, including a home in the Bahamas and an 80-foot yacht.

In tweets and blog posts, Nadal seems to have a driving need to share the pearls of wisdom that presumably helped him get to where he is today. In a tweet last week, Nadal offered a reminder he may well keep in mind as he seeks to set a future course for Crispin: “I use this Quote 1-5 times Daily!!!” he wrote. “‘You are what your record says you are’ -- Bill Parcells.”

How to Use Social Media to Unite Lonely Consumers, Build Brand Loyalty

The current burst in social-media use seems to address a fundamental human need: the need to interact with other people. While it may seem that sitting online leads to less human interaction, consumers actually feel they are more connected to people than they were before they joined social networks.

New data from the Harris Poll finds that 54 percent of consumers have had less face-to-face contact with friends recently, but 57 percent feel more connected than they did before. An amazing 60 percent of consumers on social networks say they know what's going in friends' lives, even though they do not personally interact with those friends.

One surprising revelation is that social media makes consumers -- especially those 18 to 34 years old -- feel "very connected" or "connected" to friends of friends or casual acquaintances. Amazingly, 59 percent of consumers in this age range prefer to interact with acquaintances via social media rather than face-to-face, showing how consumers are using social media to maintain these loose ties, rather than let these people slip away.

Given that, examine your own social network. Some of the people I'm connected with are people who share a common interest, and that's it. I'm loosely tied via Facebook to a guy in a Van Halen tribute band because we both love the band's music. I'm loosely tied to people on Twitter who have common interests like ATVing, marketing and home recording.

Now, what if those loose ties could be brought to bear on brands? Instead of connecting loosely over guitar heroics or shared occupations, can people come together because of a connection over a brand? Here are three brands that are strengthening consumer loyalty by connecting like-minded consumers in interactive communities and creating a strong sense of community, both online and off.

Starbucks
Coffee shops like Starbucks have a built-in offline community element and are gathering places for socializing, working, and dining. But Starbucks is also fostering a very unique online community, one that lets consumers collaborate on the brand they love. The brand's My Starbucks Idea website solicits consumer ideas and suggestions, both large and small, and lets the community discuss them, vote on its favorites, and see the ideas put into action.

The consumer-generated ideas range from thoughts on rewards cards, ways to foster community within the bricks-and-mortar Starbucks locations, and requests to revive drink flavors. The brand keeps the community in the loop with its Ideas In Action blog, where staffers write about new developments and announce community contest winners. One recent post announced the return of salted caramel hot chocolate after several members expressed disappointment at its discontinuation.

You don't step into a Starbucks location in the first place unless you like coffee, and the brand is finding a way to unite coffee fans online as well. The Harris study also found that more than half of the respondents value the opinions others share; Starbucks has created a platform for posting opinions and uniting like-minded coffee fans.

Dell
Like Starbucks, Dell's IdeaStorm website is built on serving a community of brand advocates. Consumers can post their ideas for Dell products, improvements, and feedback on new products. The community votes to promote or demote the ideas and, just like with Starbucks' platform, Dell responds to the ideas that generate the most interest from the community.

The website also includes "Storm Sessions," which are Dell-moderated discussions around a specific topic. Unlike the "ideas" part of the website, Storm Sessions run for a limited time before they are closed and reviewed by the brand. Dell's been running its service since 2007, and the community has contributed more than 14,000 ideas with 90,000 comments. IdeaStorm is already responsible for new computers that run on the Linux operating system, as well as Dell's use of bamboo to replace plastic wrap for packing its products.

Again, this taps into the idea of uniting fans with common interests. Linux is far from the most popular operating system in the world, but fans came together on Dell's website and voted the idea toward the top of the ladder, where Dell took notice. Social media did two jobs in this case: it brought Dell fans together in a branded environment where they could communicate with one another, and it also showed Dell that there was a very unique, passionate audience it was not serving.

Mountain Dew
The soft drink has done a great job in the past appealing to a consumer base looking for high-caffeine beverages -- namely video-game lovers and extreme sports enthusiasts. Yet the brand sought to unite all of its customers into one community with its Dewmocracy contests, which let consumers pick the newest flavor.

Several brands have used social networks like Facebook to help pick new flavors, but Mountain Dew added a new wrinkle to the formula. The brand spent more than a year on its latest Dewmocracy campaign, slowly expanding its scale from the most-dedicated fans to the public-at-large.

The first step involved sending seven flavors of soda to 50 Dew fanatics, who were also given cameras and told to debate and show their love for the brand on video. The cameras were a great idea because it made the social-media effort more personable. Rather than just looking at static images or Tweets, Dew fans could see like-minded fanatics in action. One young man proved his allegiance by brushing his teeth with the soda.

After narrowing the seven flavors to three, Mountain Dew turned to its Dew Labs Community, a 4,000-person group of passionate soda fans. Those fans then created nearly every element of the three sodas, including color, name, packaging, and marketing campaigns. After that process was complete, the three flavors were made available in stores for a limited time, with the general public electing a winner via online voting.

What Dew did was a little different from Starbucks and Dell. Where those two brands set up sites soliciting ideas from all consumers, Dew began its promotion by reaching out to its most dedicated, loyal consumers offline, and then gave that offline community a place to assemble its testimonials and feedback. The Dewmocracy campaign used Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube just like the other brands used these social networks to unite consumers through a common interest.

Building community, uniting fans
Consumers are using Facebook and Twitter to stay in touch with close friends, but also to keep tabs on casual acquaintances or people with common interests. As seen here, consumers are more than willing to come together when that shared interest is a brand, and marketers should be looking for ways to bring their fans together in a branded environment.

All three of these brands were able to successfully unite consumers via social media, connecting them to each other through a shared common interest. At the same time, the brands were able to use the communities to improve their offerings -- through reinstating products, developing new software, or new flavors of pop -- which strengthened the brand in consumers' eyes.

IPG/Universal McCann launch Rally

One of the world's largest media agencies is investing in social media marketing in a big way with Universal McCann's launch of Rally, a new social media division at the disposal of all UM's clients. Called Rally@UM in a nod to modern parlance, the social media division is headed up by Heidi Browning, a former MySpace executive, and is intended to help clients integrate social media into their long-term marketing and communications strategies, in part by helping them tackle communications planning and creative optimization.

In announcing the new launch, UM said Rally was created "to alleviate some of the confusion that exists about what social media means and how it can best be used," adding that Rally will demonstrate the viability and importance of social media with easily understood metrics for ROI.

Rally@UM's disciplines include "Listening, Insights & Measurement," consisting of social media monitoring, earned media reporting, and conversation mining; "Strategy & Ideation," covering content and communications planning, among other strategic services; "Community Activation and Consumer Relationship Management" (CRM), for community development and management for social media strategies; and Social Organizational Consulting, helping clients develop organizational models, processes, and best practices. With headquarters in New York, UM maintains offices in 130 countries, and employs about 3,600 people.

This news comes not long after Publicis Group's Vivaki digital group announced its intention to launch a social media consulting practice by the end of 2010. Meanwhile, social media ad spending is poised to boom, according to a number of independent forecasts. One recent report from Borrell, "The Social Networking Explosion: Ad Revenue Outlook" has social network ad spending increasing 68% from $4 billion in 2009 to $7.5 billion in 2010, then continuing to grow every year to about $38 billion in 2015.

Dell's New Product Push

Dell is about to launch a new global advertising campaign from Young & Rubicam that features new products that are designed to appeal to different consumer segments.

In a preview of the effort, Dell's Paul-Henri Ferrand today showed examples of new ads bearing the tagline, "You can tell it's a Dell." Each ad had a headline, a few lines of copy and an image of a product -- be it a laptop, tablet or some combination of both.

"Perfect day for a convertible," said the headline of one ad, which focused on a tablet that opens out into a small laptop with a keyboard. The head for another ad, featuring a laptop with a JBL sound system, read: "Turn it up to 11."

Ferrand described the new work as "more arresting" with "very crisp copy" and a dash of humor. Broadly, Dell is moving away from price-focused, transactional ads and toward ads that develop the company's global brand image. More specifically, the new campaign illustrates how Dell's range of products offers something for everyone.

"We believe there's a real space for us to become the most loved PC company in the industry," said Ferrand, global chief marketing officer for the consumer, small and medium business unit of Dell, during an hour-long presentation at the Soho Grand Hotel in New York. "[It's a] tall order, but this is what the marketing strategy is aiming at."

Ferrand did not disclose spending behind the campaign but said it was designed to run in local markets around the world. In the U.S alone last year, Dell spent around $135 million in major measured media, according to Nielsen.

"You can tell it's a Dell" marks the first significant effort from Y&R since the New York office of the WPP Group shop assumed lead creative duties on Dell in August 2009. Y&R succeeded Enfatico, the shop WPP built from scratch after the holding company won Dell's global marketing services account in December 2007.

The new ads arrive as Dell reviews global creative duties on advertising directed at consumers, small and medium-sized businesses and public institutions.

Dell, through search consultancy Select Resources International, has narrowed its focus to about a half-dozen shops for each customer segment, said sources.

Dell executives plan to visit each shop before narrowing each list to four finalists, according to the company's initial request for proposals. The primary incumbents are WPP's Wunderman in New York (ads for consumers, small and medium-sized businesses) and Y&R in San Francisco (public institutions).

The Plugged-In College Life

Looking back on their own college days through a haze of nostalgia, adults tend to view that phase of life as carefree. But this isn't necessarily how today's students experience it, according to an mtvU/Associated Press survey. And new technology is a mixed blessing for many of them.

When asked about "how things are going in your life in general," 40 percent said they're "very happy." But 41 percent gave their lives a more muted grade of "somewhat happy," while 8 percent are "neither happy nor unhappy," 6 percent "somewhat unhappy" and 5 percent "very unhappy." (The polling was fielded last month among undergraduates age 18-24 at four-year colleges.)

Though severe unhappiness is rare, stress is not. Sixty-three percent said there has been at least one time in the past three months when they were "so stressed that you couldn't get your school work done"; 62 percent said there has been at least one occasion during that period when they felt "so stressed that you didn't want to hang out with your friends or participate in social activities."

Of course, there are friends and there are "friends" for today's students. Ninety percent said they've visited a social-networking site in the past week. Among those who've ever used one, 70 percent report having at least 200 social-networking friends. And yet, 51 percent said they would feel comfortable sharing very personal details of their lives with "very few of them."

More broadly, 28 percent said increased use of technology "has made it harder to feel close to people," while 54 percent said this has "made it easier." (Most of the rest said it has had no impact.) It's partly their own fault, judging from the number of students who confessed they have used technology to avoid face-to-face conversation with others (see the chart below).

What about "unplugging from technology" altogether? Taking that drastic step would make 57 percent of respondents feel more stressed and 25 percent feel less so.

NBCU: Cable Soars, Broadcast Sinks

Another strong showing by NBC Universal’s cable networks wasn’t enough to offset declines at the broadcast network, as the media conglomerate’s operating profit dropped 15 percent in the third quarter.

NBCU’s Q3 profit added up to $625 million, down from $732 million in the year-ago period. Revenue was flat at $4.07 billion. Excluding impairment charges and adjusting for a $283 million gain from the deal that merged A&E and Lifetime, profit was up 5 percent.

During a Friday morning earnings call, GE vice chairman and chief financial officer Keith Sherin trumpeted the cable unit, which boosted revenue 8 percent to $1.2 billion and grew profit 22 percent. The group includes top-ranked USA Network, Bravo, Syfy and Oxygen.

Despite gains in NBC ad sales dollars, broadcast revenue dipped 2 percent to $1.4 billion, while profit dropped nearly $80 million as the network made significant investments in propping up its prime time programming lineup. Unfortunately, NBC has spent good money after bad, as new dramas like The Event and Chase have failed to catch on with viewers. Freshman legal drama Outlaw was canceled after four episodes, after flat-lining among the all-important 18-49 demo.

NBC’s biggest draw is also its most expensive program to produce -- although it also commands the network’s fattest CPM. Sunday Night Football is averaging 21.8 million viewers through the first five weeks of the 2010-11 NFL campaign, marking the biggest turnout for prime time football since 1996, when ABC had the rights to MNF.

Scatter dollars continued to roll in throughout Q3, as NBC and the cable nets commanded premiums of around 20 percent over upfront pricing. Fourth-quarter premiums are trending in the double-digits, Sherin said. Local advertising was up 18 percent year-over-year.

In a memo to staffers, NBCU president and CEO Jeff Zucker characterized the Q3 results as “excellent ... given that the economy, although improving, is still far from robust.” Zucker last month announced he would leave NBCU upon completion of the deal that would give Comcast a 51 percent stake in the business. He will be replaced by Comcast chief operating officer Steve Burke.

“We’re on track for a close of the transaction with Comcast, hopefully by the end of the year,” Zucker noted. “As I’m sure you know, the timing will ultimately be determined by the FCC and the Department of Justice. We’ll have a clearer idea about timing as we get into November.”

Bringing the Peacock back into the black will be one or the first orders of business for Burke and his Comcast crew. Last month, Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Harrigan rated USA Network as the most worthy piece of the NBCU puzzle, giving it a valuation of $11.7 billion. Harrigan priced the entire NBCU cable unit at $32.7 billion; in contrast, the analyst estimated the NBC broadcast network’s worth at negative $600 million.

Tracking Social Media

Tracking social media metrics: Is it worth it?

Social media measurement is far from an exact science. Watch as a handful of brand marketers discuss what tools they are using and how useful those metrics have proven to be.

How Ad Network Affiliates Shoot Themselves in the Foot

If you're not working for an ad agency that handles media planning and placement, pretend that you are for a second.

You send out Requests for Proposal for a new product campaign. The proposals come back. Some proposals are from content sites and some are from ad networks. In looking at several of the network proposals, you find that many of them look similar. That is, you see that several ad networks are recommending similar ad inventory on some of the same sites.

Now, pretend that you're a site owner or chief revenue officer at one of the sites that has been duplicated across multiple network proposals. Your site might be in that critical stage where it's not yet generating the revenue to support its own direct sales force, or it might have been a conscious decision to avoid employing sales reps (for whatever business reason).

Many content sites you might be competing with have direct sales forces, and they sell around a third of their inventory (typically, the contextual and sponsorship inventory considered "premium" by media buyers) through that sales force. The rest is farmed out to networks and exchanges. But your site doesn't have a direct sales force, and you're in a situation where a number of potential sellers can offer your inventory to ad agencies.

This can become problematic. Put yourself in the agency's shoes again. You've seen a single site show up on five network proposals. If you use media partners that execute on the exchanges, you might even be getting access to that site's inventory through an exchange buy, in addition to the inventory offered on any proposals you might accept. As an agency, you don't want your buys duplicating with one another. This is usually the case regardless of the goal (awareness, direct response, engagement).

So, as an agency media buyer, your approach to putting that site on a media plan will be to zero in on the lowest-cost proposal and buy the site through the network that is able to get you the inventory at the lowest price.

A site owner might think that using multiple networks and exchanges will expose their inventory to the widest possible range of potential buyers. And it will. The problem is that the inventory will almost always go to the lowest bidder, so your attempt to mitigate risk by using multiple sellers is undercutting your ability to sell at the highest possible CPM.

Media buyers scratch their heads when they see several ad networks pitching the same site. They understand the need to mitigate risk, but they don't understand why inventory is served up to them with different pricing. What's more, they don't understand the factors that would cause two networks to price the same inventory differently.

In this way, sites that use multiple ad networks can run into monetization issues if the ad networks aren't actively kept from cannibalizing one another's business.