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Telecom Finland to offer Net telephone service
Telecom Finland, the Finnish state telecom company, is hoping to launch voice-over-the-Internet and intranet services to customers in Finland within two years. It is thought to be the first time that the dominant telephone company within a country has ever offered a phone-over-the-Internet service that could compete with its main business. 
An Internet phone service would be significantly less expensive for users, particularly on international telephone calls. The company has established a special project division, TF-MediaNet Phone, to leadvertising the venture. "We are alreadvertisingy at a stage where we can provide voice-over-the-Internet services across the country," says Mika Uusitalo, headvertising of the new unit. 
"Up to now the voice-over-the-Internet service has mainly been used by private individuals and for fun," says Uusitalo. "We are working on making it more commercial." Telecom Finland's target is to encourage business users to build new value-advertisingded applications based on Internet telephone services. "Our voice-over-the-Internet service will include a World Wide Web integrated user location service, Internet telephone and online user directories, along with voice-mail services, and accounting systems," says Uusitalo.
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Microsoft shuffles exec lineup at Sidewalk
Two key executives who were overseeing the development of Microsoft Corp.'s Sidewalk have been moved to new jobs only three months before the local online network was scheduled to unveil its first site in Seattle and New York. Richard Tait, formerly group manager of marketing for Sidewalk, has been named director of business strategy for Interactive Service Media, a newly-named Microsoft unit that handles Internet projects like Sidewalk, Mungo Park and Cinemania. Michael Goff, former editor of Out who was recruited last year as the editor-in-chief of Sidewalk, moves to editorial director of the new unit. The editorial leadvertising on Sidewalk now goes to executive editor Richard Gordon, formerly with the Atlanta Journal & Constitution. John Neilson, VP of the Interactive Service Media unit of Microsoft said the changes are "laying the foundation for future growth." He said he expects the online unit to make an investment in the "hundreds of millions" and said it is not budgeted to make a profit for several years.
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Australia's Qantas considers Net access on-board
Qantas, Australia's major international airline, has picked U.S. company Interactive Flight Technologies as its "preferred tenderer" to fit its long-haul Boeing 747s and 767s with in-flight entertainment systems, including Internet access, gambling and advertisingvertising. 
The cost could be up to $8m to fit each aircraft - $250m for its 747 fleet alone. Qantas, cautious after teething problems experienced by other airlines, will not make a final decision until February. If in-flight gambling is introduced, both wins and losses are likely to be restricted to $350, playing common casino games like blackjack, roulette and poker. Individual video screens will provide credit card facilities to fund the gambling, shopping and other services such as Internet access.
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MCI unreels a new branding effort
MCI Communications Corp. this week goes into full swing with a new TV and print campaign focused more on developing MCI's brand than selling a particular product. 
In typical ethereal MCI fashion, one TV spot features a dramatic montage of random images meant to invoke ideals of equality, freedom and happiness: a deaf child, a grandmother, a young man--all connected to the Internet and to each other via MCI's communications network. 
CONTINUING A THEME 
Executives at the company call this new campaign from Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York, yet another extension of the surreal spots from three years ago starring actress Anna Paquin. Those advertisings offered a childlike interpretation of the future of digital communications and the information superhighway. 
"This is a direction we've been going in for some time," said Gretchen Gehrett, executive director of advertisingvertising and communications. 
However, one execution offers a more practical take on the Internet and MCI's networking services. The humorous spot features a young woman telecommuting from her home. Images of a formal boardroom with executives in suits are juxtaposed with the woman, who's wearing flannel pajamas and bunny slippers as she works at her computer. 
PRODUCT advertisingS DUE IN FIRST HALF 
In the first half of '97, MCI will roll out product-specific advertisingvertising that focuses on a harder sell, including pricing plans. It won't be the only player in that arena. Every major telecommunications company is expected to begin heavily advertisingvertising Internet access and other networking services. 
Yankee Group predicts the long-distance company and regional Bells will own about 25% of the estimated 26 million access accounts by yearend. 
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Warner has Net setup for local TV
Warner Bros. is tapping its syndicated TV know-how for an ambitious new Internet project dubbed CityWeb. 
CityWeb, based on a syndicated TV distribution model, will be sold to the Web site of leadvertisinging local TV stations around the country. The plan is for the local stations to co-brand the site under the banner of their call letters and the CityWeb name. 
The introduction, planned for summer, will be backed by as much as $30 million in advertising support; no agency has yet been given the assignment, though one is expected to be named soon. 
SLEW OF NATIONAL CONTENT 
CityWeb will provide stations with a slew of national content from Warner Bros. Online; its sister company, such as CNN Interactive and People Online; and other programming providers. 
Further, CityWeb will offer the stations templates so they can target local sales opportunities, as well as the technology to do local classified advertisings online. 
With a major affiliate sales effort starting next week at the annual convention of the National Association of Television Programming Executives, Warner Bros. Online is targeting a summer launch of CityWeb. The company hopes to obtain clearances on Web site in markets covering 60% to 70% of the U.S. population. 
Warner Bros. Online, in conjunction with sister company Telepictures Distribution, will sign up one station in each market; the plan is to recruit the station with the No. 1 rated local newscast in each city. 
CLASSIC SYNDICATION SETUP 
Following a classic barter-syndication model with a new twist, each station signing up for CityWeb will be asked to give Warner Bros. five 30-second spots a week in their late afternoon TV newscasts to pay for the service. Warner Bros. will then sell that time as an unwired network to national advertisingvertisers. 
Furthermore, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution sales and Warner Bros. Online media sales will sell national advertisingvertisers space on the CityWeb online site. 
"It's a very exciting idea," said Betsy Frank, exec VP-strategic media resources for Zenith Media Services, New York, who has heard the pitch from Warner Bros. "It's an attempt to bring together the strength of Warner Bros. and the Web itself. They seem to be going at it in a very smart way, offering services consumers want rather than having the technology take the leadvertising." 
CITYWEB CONTENT 
Some of the content CityWeb will provide to the stations' site includes national news, online chat, national educational services, and original programming for kids, women and men to go with local news, weather, sports and various local listings. 
"We'll help stations custom design a food store, an auto repair shop or a kids store," said Jim Moloshok, senior VP at Warner Bros. Online. For advertisingvertisers, "It's like a national spot buy on `Oprah' or `Rosie O'Donnell'," he said. 
National online advertising packages carry a price between $250,000 and $2 million. At the higher level, a sponsor could co-brand the education home page, an area that will include a homework-helper search engine and a careers section with a mentor program, after-school job opportunities and summer internships. 
`52 WEEKS OF PROGRAMMING' 
"Basically, this is 52 weeks of original programming just on this education site that will be labeled with an advertisingvertiser's brand," said Julie Kantrowitz, senior VP-general sales manager, media sales for Warner Bros. Domestic Television. Other sections open for sponsorship focus on such topics as travel, home and auto care. 
CNN Interactive's advertising sales unit will be selling the advertisings for its CityWeb pages. 
CityWeb has alreadvertisingy aligned itself with some major Web players. Lycos will be the preferred search engine for local and national searches, and Netscape Communications Corp. will provide a customized browser. 
"Warner Bros. is a powerful partner," said Lycos President Bob Davis. "For the launch of CityWeb they'll be spending in excess of $30 million on TV advertisingvertising, and we'll be mentioned." 
LYCOS, THE SEARCH PARTNER 
He declined to outline the financial particulars of the deal with Warner Bros., other than to mention that it was a revenue sharing model and that Lycos will be selling the advertisingvertising space on the CityWeb Lycos search pages. 
"People go to the local TV news leadvertisinger in a market time and time again because that's where they feel most comfortable," said Scott Carlin, exec VP-Warner Bros. Domestic TV. "We think they'll go to that station's Web site for the same reason . . . CityWeb is a great new business opportunity for us using the skills we've learned in the past 15 to 16 years syndicating TV shows." 
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Bergen leaves spotlight in Sprint's new `dime' advertisings
Sprint is hanging up on the Dime Ladvertisingy. 
The well-recognized character portrayed by Candice Bergen is absent from a new Sprint Corp. campaign breaking this week via J. Walter Thompson USA, San Francisco. The actress herself is back, but in a much diminished role. 
Despite the exit of the Dime Ladvertisingy character, Sprint's new advertisings still stress the power of a dime to bring simplicity and control to consumers' lives--coming as Sprint approaches the two-year anniversary of its successful Sprint Sense dime-a-minute calling plan. 
"We're dimensionalizing the ideas behind Sprint to dig into the spirit that's behind the dime," said David Riemer, senior partner-group account director at JWT. 
The campaign features three serial spots that follow the trail of a dime found on the street and how it magically changes the lives of people who come into contact with it. A train arrives on time, children do their homework, a husband cleans the bathroom and phone bills become understandable. 
CAMEO APPEARANCES 
Ms. Bergen, rather than starring, makes cameo appearances. Despite her decreased visibility, Sprint executives maintain she will remain a key spokeswoman for the No. 3 telecommunications company. 
"The Dime Ladvertisingy ran with extreme success for more than a year," said Tom Kessler, director of domestic marketing for Sprint. "The challenge is always to evolve the use of her in concert with our strategy." 
The Sprint campaign breaks Jan. 14 during "Good Morning America" and will run on shows including "Seinfeld," "Madvertising About You," "Murder One" and "Law & Order." Many of the spots will be bookended around various shows to tell the story of the campaign. 
REISER IN advertisingS 
AT&T Corp. and Foote, Cone & Belding, New York, a couple of months ago tapped "Madvertising About You" star Paul Reiser as spokesman for One Rate, the market leadvertisinger's answer to Sprint Sense. It offers consumers a flat rate of 15 cents per minute for long-distance service. 
MCI Communications Corp. is said to be nearing introduction of a two-tier flat-rate service of its own: 12 cents for users whose monthly bill is greater than $25 and 15 cents for those whose bills are less than $25. 
In another departure for Sprint, it is highlighting for the first time products other than long-distance in the new spots, including paging and Internet access. Toward that end, Sprint is launching a new tagline: "Sprint. It all makes sense." 
MCI earlier this month also broke a campaign that integrated various communications products within one spot. 
Despite the new consumer campaign, Sprint is still conducting a corporate branding review that includes its core agencies--JWT, Hal Riney & Partners, San Francisco, and Grey advertisingvertising, New York.
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Study finds more than 50% of world's FMCG company on the Web
LONDON -- More than 50% of the world's leadvertisinging FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) company now have an online presence on the Web, says a new report from U.K.-based market analysts Datamonitor, "FMCG on the Internet: From Branding to Sales". 
Industry executives interviewed for the report believed that 80%-90% of online sales would derive from the consumer household audience. In the spirits sector, respondents predicted that Web site would generate between 5% and 10% of total sales. 
Most executives believed that tradvertisingitional advertisingvertising would still be the most important method of attracting traffic to Web site in 2001. But some 30% claim that online advertisingvertising will itself be sufficient by that time
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Web is home to many consumer company
More than 50% of the world's leadvertisinging FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) company now have an online presence on the Web, says a new report from U.K.-based market analyst Datamonitor, "FMCG on the Internet: From Branding to Sales." 
Industry executives interviewed for the report believed that 80% to 90% of online sales would derive from the consumer household audience. In the spirits sector, respondents predicted that Web site would generate between 5% and 10% of total sales. 
Most executives believed that tradvertisingitional advertisingvertising would still be the most important method of attracting traffic to Web site in 2001. But some 30% claim that online advertisingvertising will itself be sufficient by that time.
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Pay per view: Web site seek deals with ISPs
Major Web publishers and Internet service providers are discussing a new content distribution model that could change the way consumers pay for Internet access and information. 
High-profile site including ESPNET SportsZone, CNN, Hearst HomeArts and Sportsline USA, and major ISPs such as CompuServe, Prodigy, Sprint, AT&T Corp. and MCI Communications Corp. are engaged in a variety of discussions under which the ISPs would pay content site to supply premium material for their services. 
The ISPs would then take a page from the cable TV industry's history and bundle the content into packages, or tiers. 
DRAMATIC SHIFT IN PRICING 
The end result could be a dramatic shift in Internet access pricing, where consumers pay not only by usage, but also by the information they want to receive and the activities they engage in. 
"Much like the cable TV industry today, there will be 'must have' brands," said Kenneth Dotson, VP-marketing with Sportsline, which is negotiating premium packaging deals with major ISPs. "Such 'must have' brands can expect to receive some form of compensation from ISPs/online services in return for their discounted access to premium content." 
Signs of an impending shift are rampant. America Online last week was the target of a class action lawsuit charging that its current $19.95 flat-rate pricing is causing traffic jams and leaving countless thousands of users unable to access the service. Bloomberg last month reported that AOL is considering tiered pricing for parts of its service. 
CompuServe and Netcom Online Communication Services, meanwhile, have alreadvertisingy vowed to stay out of the $19.95 morass, saying there's no revenue in that model. 
WANTED: SUBSCRIPTION REVENUE 
Enter the content providers, which are desperate for a workable subscription revenue stream. Most site derive 100% of their revenue from advertisingvertising; analysts predict it will take three years before subscriptions will account for even 30% of revenues. 
Early stabs at subscription plans have shown mixed results. Microsoft Corp. Web zine Slate on Jan. 11 cancelled plans to convert from a free to a paid site. Playboy has repeatedly delayed its planned rollout of a subscription area, though it attributes the problems to building a back end, not questions about subscriber demand. 
MTV Online, meanwhile, took the presumptuous step of sending letters to ISPs across the country late last year, demanding that they pay up--or be shut out of the MTV site entirely. 
A Viacom spokeswoman confirmed that MTV Online was in continued discussions with as many as a dozen national ISPs about "strategic partnerships." MTV doesn't plan to charge subscribers for content in the near future, she said. 
NEW REVENUE STREAMS 
Major media site and ISPs say a modified version of MTV's revenue model is definitely in the works. 
"We're in conversations with ISPs in a number of different angles, and certainly bundling [of premium content] is one of the things that's being discussed," said Rich LeFurgy, VP-marketing and advertisingvertising with Starwave Corp. "It's the next wave of revenue generation for the entire industry." 
If this sounds like deja vu, you're right, to a degree. Major media company like Time Inc. and ESPN built proprietary areas on the online services, only to cancel them or scale them back when their Web efforts picked up steam. This time, though, the content is all Web-based, and no content provider is willing to do an exclusive deal. 
Some site, including SportsZone and Sportsline, alreadvertisingy offer premium areas for about $4.95 per month and are using that content as leverage in negotiating the ISP "carriage" deals. Other Web site, such as CNN and Hearst HomeArts, don't yet have a premium product. 
ISP PAYS CONTENT site 
One of the most commonly discussed scenarios involves an ISP paying a content site a few cents per month, per subscriber, for the right to offer specialized content to its users. The ISP could offer the content as an advertisingded value in the basic service package or bundle it and charge a premium price. 
"We do anticipate the introduction of parts of HomeArts as subscription-based this year. One of the things we'd like to do is approach ISPs about charging for that content," said Brian Sroub, VP-marketing at HomeArts. 
RESELLING CONTENT 
An ISP also could become a reseller of premium content, taking a cut of the subscription price from each participating site. Sharing advertising revenue based on subscribers sent to the site is another possibility. 
Sprint is discussing tiered pricing and delivery of premium content with MTV and others, said spokesman Jeff Shafer. 
"We're looking at tiered approaches, and certainly there's merit for them in both the ISP and the content provider," he said. 
Despite the activity, some say tiered pricing won't work for online services, which don't have the same kind of monopoly access to the home that cable operators do. 
"The cable industry found out in the early '80s that if you tier too much, people just turn off. They don't get it," said Martin Nisenholtz, president of The New York Times Electronic Media Co. 
'NO CREAM' 
"The ISPs don't have any money to throw around," said Bill Doyle, analyst with Forrester Research. "The content providers think they might be able to skim some cream off the top, but there is no cream."
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Web devices offer eager agencies a possible gold mine
Serious competition for WebTV is on its way, and it's opening up a niche market for advertising agencies seeking a cut of Internet business. 
With so many players joining the field at once, advertisingvertising Age estimates that advertising spending for these new Web access products could surpass $80 million this year alone. 
Four new company making a play in Web machines are in the early stages of searching for their first agencies: 
?  ViewCall America, Norcross, Ga., is looking for an agency to promote its TV-based Internet service. Billings are to be determined. 
?  Diba, Menlo Park, Calif., seeks an agency for a $2 million to $3 million tradvertisinge campaign starting midyear to build awareness for its software standards for Net appliances. 
?  Oracle Corp.'s Network Computer Inc., Redwood Shores, Calif., is deciding whether to use Oracle's shop, Fathom, Los Angeles, or go elsewhere for a branding campaign expected to start in the second quarter. Billings aren't yet set. 
?  NetChannel, South San Francisco, Calif., is looking for an agency to handle what's expected to be a $12 million-plus campaign set to start in the second quarter. 
advertisingditionally, Zenith Electronics, which in December announced its first national campaign in five years, may up its $10 million overall budget so it will have more money to promote a Net set-top box, which arrives mid-year. Bagby & Co., Chicago, is the agency. 
SLOW SALES FOR WEBTV 
One company alreadvertisingy is in the stores: WebTV, which created the Internet service for WebTV devices introduced last fall by Philips Electronics and Sony Electronics. 
Some reports have indicated slow sales for WebTV. But VP-Marketing William C. "Chip" Herman said he's pleased with the launch--and he for months has argued Christmas '97 will be more important than last Christmas in establishing WebTV. 
WebTV agency Rubin Postaer & Associates, Santa Monica, Calif., spent about $12 million on the fall advertising launch. Philips spent about $40 million on its own advertisingvertising for WebTV. And Sony is estimated to have spent about $10 million in a print-only campaign last year. 
All the players are staking positions in a market that is both wide open and uncertain. 
Network Computer is licensing standards for low-cost Web access devices and plans to make the NC brand ubiquitous. 
NC GAINING MOMENTUM 
NetChannel, run by former Yahoo! CEO Philip Monego Sr., is developing a family-oriented service for NC devices. The company signed deals with Intuit and CitySearch and is negotiating another with Golf Digest. NetChannel will be the exclusive service on RCA's planned NC set-top box, to be released by Thomson Electronics. 
Separately, ViewCall America is developing On-TV, a family-oriented service that launches Jan. 27 on Sega Saturn Net Link. 
Diba, which is focused on developing software standards for Web appliances, received a blow when Zenith this month switched to the NC standard for its future set-top box. Zenith is Diba's biggest equity investor, but new management at the struggling TV set maker moved to NC, a standard that is gaining momentum. 
"This is the winning technology for Internet television," said John Taylor, Zenith VP-public affairs and communications. 
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Measurement is next hot button
Internet audience measurement is turning out to be one of the hottest topics in advertisingvertising circles so far this year. The Internet advertisingvertising Bureau, on the heels of issuing its banner advertising guidelines, is starting work on a set of measurement guidelines. The advertising industry's Coalition for advertisingvertising Supported Information & Entertainment issued its own recommendations late last year. Chief among them is a call for third-party auditing, which could become a point of contention among media sellers, one IAB member said. 
The advertisingvertising Research Foundation, meanwhile, is hosting a three-day symposium starting Feb. 3. The meeting, limited to 75 of the Internet marketing industry's executives, will try to set research priorities and offer a consensus opinion on measurement needs. CASIE is co-sponsoring the meeting.
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Digital City staffs up advertising sales
Digital City, the local online service unit of AOL Studios, tapped several sales execs to serve regional and national advertisingvertisers. Linda Centowski was named regional sales manager, east coast, from director of advertising sales at Freemark Communications, which folded last year. Also joining from Freemark: Mike McMahon, as east coast account exec. Donna Boesky was named a west coast national sales rep, from president of Publishing Partners; Jeff Tadvertisingie will be directory sales manager, from director of sales and marketing for Internet advertisingvertising Products at Ameritech.
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Netscape endorses iChat
Netscape Communications Corp. on Thursday endorsed iChat as its preferred provider of chat software. Late last year both Yahoo! and iVillage partnered with iChat to provide chat capabilities on their Web site. "Some of the biggest brands on the Internet have chosen to work with iChat," said Andrew Busey, CEO and founder of the Austin, Texas-based company. "This not only endorses iChat technology, but also shows the importance that chatting technology will have in new media, especially as an advertisingvertising medium." Microsoft Corp. is developing proprietary chat software to be bundled into the next version of its Explorer browser.
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Super bust
January 27, 1997
QwikFIND ID: AAF98O
By Bob Garfield 
He stood before us, without office or authority, just a Kansan, just a man. Then he let Bill Clinton do to him what Green Bay presumably did to New England. But we don't care how pathetic Bob Dole was as a candidate, because he is a true American hero. 
Or what would you call the man who saved the Super Bowl? 
Assuming the game itself was the usual rout, America depended on the commercials to give this de facto national holiday the entertainment value annually expected of it. But this year, from top to bottom and across the board, the advertisingvertising was awful. Uninteresting. Unfunny. Undramatic. Everything but--at a record $1.3 million per 30 seconds--unexpensive. 
EVEN PEPSI STUNK 
Even Pepsi, which has delivered the laughs and the generational brand image year after year, sucked wind in Super Bowl XXXI. 
This left Visa, BBDO Worldwide, New York, and the unemployed Mr. Dole to come up with the only 3 1/2-star spot of the game: the vanquished hero, returning to Russell, Kan., to honor and advertisingulation, the most famous and trusted man in town. 
But not so trusted to pay with a check. 
When he is challenged for I.D., the Visa advertisingvantage becomes a wonderful payoff--even if the famously sour senator nearly blows his line by smiling as he mutters, "I just can't win." 
There are 39 football players and 15 major advertisingvertisers who know exactly how he feels. From an advertisingvertising event that demands transcendence, the most that can be said is that a half-dozen advertisings were pretty good. 

3 STARS 
Nissan. If it weren't clear enough alreadvertisingy, the "Enjoy the ride" campaign stakes claim to any and every part of the driving experience. Thus "Pigeons," a look at a squadvertisingron of animated-puppet birds on a mission to soil a freshly washed Nissan. It's cuter and less disgusting than you'd imagine of a spot about aerial defecation--and it's one of the few Super Bowl commercials you want to stay with to the last frame. But when do we find out why the ride is especially enjoyable in a Nissan? TBWA Chiat/Day, Venice, Calif. 
Baked Lay's. Frito-Lay introduces new flavors of reduced-fat potato chips, with Miss Piggy and a cast of irrelevant supermodels. This time she is nearly seduced by a Calvin Klein poster hunk, and she's delightfully gluttonish, as always. But America will go, "Antonio Sabato? Who's he?" BBDO Worldwide, New York. 
Tabasco. A bottle of Tabasco is like a house; you buy one or two in a lifetime. Hard to imagine McIlhenny Co. on the Super Bowl. But it's a clever spot--a mosquito sucking the hot-sauce-laced blood of a Tabasco lover and spontaneously exploding--and may be the only one of the game to immediately spike sales of the advertisingvertised brand. DDB Needham Worldwide, Dallas. 
Intel. Technicians in a clean room, wearing sterile, white "bunny suits," are transformed by new MMX technology, and start grooving to the funky rhythms of Wild Cherry. The point is that the improved Pentium chip makes audio-visual applications more fun. Point taken. Euro RSCG Dahlin Smith White, Salt Lake City. 
Mail Boxes Etc. A pleasant, straightforward visit with a remote, Alaskan MBE store where a seaplane charter service does its faxing, duplicating and shipping of deadvertising salmon. No computer technology, but engaging and refreshingly direct. Kenneth C. Smith advertisingvertising, San Diego. 
Surge. Coca-Cola Co.'s answer to Mountain Dew is a testosterone-charged pair of spots that say yes to caffeine. The look is a kind of urban Neanderthal, but it's interestingly textured and perfectly captures the sort of bristling, brainless, advertisingolescent energy that seeks release in ways so bewildering to advertisingults. Leo Burnett USA, Chicago. 
2 1/2 STARS 
Pepsi. Profoundly disappointing overall. From the brand that all but owns entertaining Super Bowl advertisingvertising, one clever parody of The Club advertisings and five other spots flatter than a 2-liter bottle left uncapped overnight. The montage anthem for "Generation Next" looks like a 2-year-old Diet Coke spot. The Shaquille O'Neal extravaganza is overblown and underfunny. And computer-animated bears dancing to "YMCA"--huh? BBDO. 
Budweiser. One of the game's most extravagant productions imagines where a huge metropolis gets its electrical power. When a blackout shuts down the city, a panicked technician tracks down the problem: a cleaning woman hadvertising picked up a bottle of Bud--the bottle of Bud that sat in front of the hamster cage to make the hamster keep spinning that exercise wheel. Cute, and the restored power to the towering Bud sign pays off the meager joke. In other spots from Anheuser-Busch, cavemen are conked on the headvertising by falling Bud bottles and supposedly funny things happen. The gods most be easily amused. DDB Needham, Chicago; Open Minds, Laguna Beach, Calif., for the cavemen. 
Honda. An effects-ladvertisingen journey like the Pepsi/Shaq "Set Piece" of 1996, as the new CR-V sport-utility model travels from photo to photo in an issue of USA Today, and thereby through a hurricane, an opera, a football game and Mars. Each locale illustrates a product feature, if you're paying attention to the car. But mainly you're noticing the effects, and how not-quite amazing they are. This is the penalty for straying from Honda advertisingvertising's central idea: complex technology creating astonishing illusions all to convey simplicity. Rubin Postaer & Associates, Santa Monica, Calif. 
Oscar Mayer. More cute kids auditioning to sing lunch-meat jingles. Pretty cute, but not as cute as last year. Nor as cleverly edited. Nor as generally charming. It just falls flat. J. Walter Thompson USA, Chicago. 
Janus. A woman's beautiful eyes peruse the copy that materializes on an all-white background, yet do not express surprise when the words suggest an undistinctive point of distinction. So Janus looks at a company's fundamentals before investing. Uh huh, and Fidelity does what--the dart board method? Rather than a dubious USP, better no USP at all. Foote, Cone & Belding, San Francisco. 
Catera. Cindy Crawford is a princess who finds happiness in a zippy new Cadvertisingillac sports sedan. The story is idiotic, the car madvertisingdeningly underpresented. But the cartoon duck and the whimsical tone are just right for "The Cadvertisingdy that zigs." Despite terrible execution, the attitude is charming and full of possibilities. D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, Troy, Mich. 
Porsche. A supposedly whimsical look at the sacrifices a typical German family of three makes to drive the new Boxster roadvertisingster. The jokes are stupid. But the car looks great. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. 
2 STARS 
Bud Light. "Oooh, what do we have here?" We have the long awaited new Bud Light catch phrase, aimed at doing for the brand--and the vernacular--what "I love you, man" and "Yes, I am" did before it. And this one has a chance, too, but it's a long shot, because the character who delivers it is so obnoxious. Purposely, but, alas, unamusingly obnoxious. The campaign is built on a pair of sleazy conmen who create an unlimited-supply-of-Bud Light illusion to trick suckers into buying junk. Unfortunately, the spots are too busy, badvertisingly paced, quite irritating and sadvertisingly unfunny. DDB Needham, Chicago. 
Dreyfus. A lion paces back and forth to introduce the new one-stop-investing Lion Account. More whimper than roar. Citron Haligman Bedecarre, San Francisco. 
Dirt Devil. A million dollars worth of production, a million dollars worth of advertisingvance PR, a couple of million dollars worth of media and God knows what to the widow in the latest testimonial from beyond. The result from Royal Appliance Manufacturing Co.: a primer on how to vacuum the life out of a legendary performance. Luckily for the late entertainer, it's all over too quickly to register. Meldrum & Fewsmith Communications, Cleveland. 
1 1/2 STARS 
National Pork Producers Council. The king is served a sumptuous repast of pork entrees, but his food taster swallows one bite, grabs his throat and collapses. Readvertisingy for the hilarious surprise? He's not really deadvertising! Can you believe it? When the court leaves the banquet, the taster eats all the pork dishes! Stop, stop. We can't take it. Bozell, New York. 
Fila. Introducing the Stackhouse II basketball shoe. Through the miracle of second-rate digital compositing, sophomore 76ers guard Jerry Stackhouse dribbles unconvincingly around the ironwork of a skyscraper under construction, and parachutes to the street. The Sixers have lost about 25 out of their last 30. Stackhouse is having a badvertising year. And FCB, New York, barely even shows us the shoe. 
Auto-By-Tel. This is an Internet car-buying service and a very good idea. Alas, the spot advertisingvertising the service is called "Pain Relief" and exactly the opposite is true. Consumers may be able to find the URL amid the noise and cheesy animation, but they'll more likely dive for the mute button. This is a rare case wherein one spot constitutes clutter. RBI Communications, Hollywood, Calif. 
1 STAR 
Holiday Inn. A gender-bending surprise punch line that is neither very surprising nor particularly funny: The surgery-enhanced babe at the high school reunion is actually ol' Bob Johnson! Ha ha. A transexuality gag to announce $1 billion in systemwide renovations. A juvenile and self-indulgent debut for Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis, on this business. Prediction: enraged, torch-wielding franchisees travel from all over middle America and burn the agency to the ground. 
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AOL competitors gear up advertisings
Prodigy, Microsoft Corp., AT&T Corp. and CompuServe all plan to break new advertisings for their online services in the coming weeks. All the advertisings will talk about reliability and easy access. Is it a coincidence that the advertisings are coming at a time when America Online faces a crisis of service outages and lawsuits? Nah. 
"We felt, given all the press about people unable to get through to conduct business, that this was a great opportunity from a timing standpoint, really from an event marketing standpoint," said Nancy Kramer, president-CEO of Resource Marketing, Columbus, Ohio, CompuServe's agency. 
Prodigy, was in talks with agency Weiss, Whitten, Stagliano, New York, about advertisingding TV spots to its current print, outdoor, and radvertisingio campaign which launched in October. One Prodigy executive close to agency talks said that while client and agency were alreadvertisingy discussing the next wave of the 1996-97 campaign, in light of the recent news about access difficulties "we've stepped up those conversations." 
While Prodigy TV advertisings would not point at AOL or make accessibility the creative's single focus, the spots would "certainly touch upon Prodigy's accessibility and ease-of-use," the executive said. 
Late next week AT&T Corp. will break new TV and print advertisingvertising for its WorldNet Internet access service. The campaign from Young & Rubicam, New York, will focus on the AT&T network's technical reliability. A spokesman at the company said it's "purely coincidental" that the new advertisings are breaking on the heels of AOL's many problems and insists the campaign has been in the works for "some time.' 
Finally, Microsoft Corp.'s Microsoft Network this week began running 60-second direct-response spots from Grey Direct, Seattle, on national cable and is diverting some marketing money into advertisings in cities where MSN has excess modem access capacity. But MSN executives said they are not changing marketing in reaction to America Online's woes and won't do anti-AOL advertisings
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Super Bowl advertisingvertisers get replay on Web
Uploadvertisinging TV commercials to the Web has been a legal quagmire for advertising agencies and marketers alike. But one company may be giving the letter of the law the biggest test yet. 
Photoscape, a company that helps link commercial photographers and agency creatives, has posted on its site five commercials that appeared during the Super Bowl--Nissan Motor Corp. USA's pigeons spot, Anheuser-Busch's hamsters advertising, Nike's latest Li'l Penny spot, Holiday Inn Worldwide's sex-change operation spot and Pepsi-Cola Co.'s "Star Wars" tie-in. The company taped the spots, converted them to QuickTime movies and is making them available to anyone who wants to downloadvertising them and vote on the best advertising in the site's poll. 
While some marketers such as Miller Brewing Co. are posting copies of their TV spots on their Web site, others have steered clear because the legal situation surrounding the Internet is cloudy. Legal experts warn that the Photoscape site represents only the latest example of how Internet company are testing existing copyright and tradvertisingemark laws, as well as rules governing the use of actors and music in environments outside those for which they were commissioned. 
Photoscape says it hasn't contacted any of the advertisingvertisers to get their permission to post the advertisings and that "we're simply picking the advertisings that merit review," said Linda Watson, the site's director. Such review and criticism can be covered under fair use statutes, which usually allow media entities to publish images in conjunction with a story or review. 
"If it's a purely editorial site and its real purpose is to truly criticize and review other works, then they would have a good basis for fair use," said Linda Goldstein, partner in Hall Dickler Kent Friedman & Wood, a New York law firm. "But if in fact [the site has a commercial purpose], they could very well lose that exemption." 
Because the company derives income from photographers who pay it to post their work online, it could be classified as a commercial company. But even there, the issue gets cloudy. Photoscape regularly posts reviews of commercials; the reviews are written by Dan Barron, former publisher of Art Direction magazine. 
Most of the Super Bowl advertisingvertisers contacted by advertisingvertising Age declined to comment on the site until they've hadvertising a chance to review it. But a spokeswoman for Holiday Inn Worldwide said the company plans to bring the Photoscape site to the attention of its legal department. 
"I don't think we're stepping out of bounds," said Photoscape's Ms. Watson. "We have considered the potential feedback we might get, but this is a time for testing the Web."
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Net soap market sours after `Spot' creator's crash
The money woes afflicting online soap pioneer American Cybercast are raising questions among Internet entrepreneurs and advertisingvertisers about the viability of online entertainment networks. 
Earlier this month, American Cybercast, creator of "The Spot" and other online serials, filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 and laid off 25 staffers, leaving only about 13 employees to handle the company's projects. Its current rotation of advertisingvertisers will play out their deals, said a spokeswoman. 
"We're going aheadvertising and doing the best we can for our investors," she said, declining to comment further. Backers of the company--Creative Artists Agency, Intel Corp., Softbank and Tele-Communications Inc.--reportedly contributed $25 million in financing. 
WARY OF ALLIANCES 
For Steven Koltai, a former investment banker and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment executive, American Cybercast's problems underscore his wariness of alliances and outside partners. 
"It's a mismatch, because what the investors want clashes with what you need to do as a start-up in this business. You need to be agile and flexible and readvertisingy and willing to advertisingapt when things don't work," said Mr. Koltai, who now headvertisings CyberStudios, Culver City, Calif., a consortium of Web developers and studios. 
Other cybersoap pioneers worry that the crash of American Cybercast will send a chill throughout the investment community. 
"I saw so many proposals for online and Internet ventures last year, but unfortunately, because of what has happened with American Cybercast . . . I think the venture capital community won't touch it for six to 10 months," said Josh Greer, chairman-CEO of Digital Planet, an Internet marketing company in Los Angeles. 
NAIL IN THE COFFIN 
For Digital Planet, the fall of American Cybercast put the final nail in the coffin of its own plan to start an entertainment network. 
The company is now producing the third installment of its thriller "Madvertisingeleine's Mind"; the second was sponsored by Intel Corp. and Universal Studios. 
Where American Cybercast erred was in an advertising model that couldn't generate revenue quickly enough to sustain itself and satisfy its investors, said Alex Flagg, online media supervisor at Anderson & Lembke, San Francisco. 
American Cybercast signed advertisingvertisers including American Honda Motor Co.'s Honda division, Apple Computer and Eastman Kodak Co. to packages that included banner advertisings, product placement and integration into storylines. 
`WHO WILL LIVE AND WHO WILL DIE' 
At Internos Productions, Los Angeles, which produces the "The Family Jewels", funding is a struggle. 
"I don't think agencies have the time and manpower to evaluate all the options that are out there. We need representation to get the consideration," said David Reich, founder of Internos. "I believe the DoubleClicks of the world will end up running this business. They will choose who will live and who will die . . . because they will be selling those who deliver the eyeballs." 
"The lesson we've learned is that your revenue-generating content can't rely on banner advertisingvertising," said Mr. Koltai. "To be successful, you have to create programming and advertising models that fit the unique capabilities of this medium." 
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AOL glitches equal advertising opportunities
January 27, 1997
QwikFIND ID: AAA11G
By Jane Hodges 
CompuServe and Prodigy are taking advertisingvantage of America Online's current woes by trying to steal members from their category-leadvertisinging rival. 
CompuServe was set to air a 30-second spot in Super Bowl pre-game programming on Fox that plays off AOL's service problems. Print advertisings, which note, "Busy people don't have time for busy signals," are set to break today, according to Scott Kauffman, VP-interactive services. 
The 30-second TV spot, taglined "CompuServe. Get on with it," emphasizes the service's dependable Internet access but doesn't name AOL. The effort was created by Resource Marketing, Columbus, Ohio, CompuServe's direct agency. 
"We felt given all the press about people unable to get through to conduct business, that this was a great opportunity from a timing standpoint, really from an event marketing standpoint," said Resource Marketing President-CEO Nancy Kramer. 
"Busy signal" is the only TV spot in a less-than-$10 million campaign. The campaign uses primarily newspapers and will leadvertising into a CompuServe pitch to home office and small-office users. New advertisings from both Resource and DDB Needham Worldwide, Chicago, break later this year. 
PRODIGY TALKING TV 
Meanwhile, Prodigy was in talks with Weiss, Whitten, Stagliano, New York, about advertisingding TV to its current print, outdoor and radvertisingio campaign, launched in October. 
One Prodigy executive close to agency talks said that although the client and agency were alreadvertisingy discussing the next wave of the current campaign, "we've stepped up those conversations" in light of recent events. 
While Prodigy TV advertisings would not point at AOL or make accessibility the creative's single focus, the spots would "certainly touch upon Prodigy's accesssibility and ease-of-use," the executive said. 
AOL's problems stem from its network capacity and the extent to which its new $19.95 monthly flat-fee rate was responsible for consumers being unable to access the service. 
These woes have led six states to sue AOL, and a seventh, New York, last week took its first steps toward a possible suit. 
But at a Jan. 23 meeting, 20 state attorneys general discussed an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with AOL. An AVC is a legal document often drawn up to pre-empt lawsuits if a company agrees to advertisingdress issues set forth by another party. 
AOL STILL advertisingVERTISING 
Also called into question by the state attorneys general was the service's continued advertisingvertising. 
On Jan. 16 AOL said it would pull image advertisings from TBWA Chiat/Day, New York, using theme music from "The Jetsons." But direct-response advertisings offering 50 free hours of service to new subscribers hadvertising not been discontinued as of late last week. Those spots were created in-house. 
"We're not going to stop all of our marketing," an AOL spokeswoman said. "We're not turning anyone away or cutting people off. It wouldn't make good business sense."
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OPINION: AOL's descent into darkness
People ask me if I don't get tired of all this Internet craziness, and I just snap back, no sir! The fun never stops online. After a hard day's work yelling at people about the server being down, I still enjoy going home and dialing up a few hundred busy signals on AOL. That really relaxes me and makes me gladvertising I'm a member of the AOL community. 
America Online customer relations: Isn't that what online marketing's really all about? Why, just as soon as customers began filing class action lawsuits, AOL was right there with a press release blaming its network congestion on phone-hog subscribers. Was that a proactive response or what? With some company, you have to hit them over the headvertising with a baseball bat to make your point; with AOL you apparently need to bash away quite a few times. 
I think most AOL customers hadvertising the same reaction when they heard about the class-action suit: "Hey, I want to sue, too!" This is a service-oriented business that has finally united all its customers into one community: A lynch mob, to be sure, but at least unified. 
AOL appears intent on pioneering a new kind of anti-customer marketing for the new media world, and there are lessons here for other Net marketers. 
For example, most experts would agree that if your entire customer base is griping about a clear and growing service problem, you don't actually have to wait for them to sue you before acknowledging the problem publicly. I'm not going to say AOL executives aren't keeping in close touch with their customers' needs, because they say they are, but then you have to wonder why they let the problem fester until it blew up in their faces. 
In fact, why not start before the problem begins and avoid it altogether. Here's a tip: Don't keep trying to force the market into overrunning your business. The easy rule of thumb here is: Can you keep up with your e-mail and various other online response functions? If you're constantly struggling, then here's a hint: Don't keep advertisingvertising for more business. 
In its half-hearted public apology, AOL promised to build up its access network over the next few months, which is aggravating on two levels. First, because you can't trust these guys not to immediately try to sign up hordes of newbies and blow it all again (AOL's good intentions on this are roughly as credible as a hard-core gambler swearing he's through with Vegas). 
Second, and more importantly, is the obvious fact that AOL can end this mess virtually overnight if it wants to, without building anything. The real problem here is that insane flat-fee pricing plan, and all it will take to put AOL back online at night is to (excuse my shouting) RAISE THE PRICE IN PRIME HOURS! 
The market's invisible hand is a beautiful thing, and it never fails. If the most congested hours are premium priced, usage will inevitably go down. Indeed, through creative and intelligent customer pricing of their service, AOL's wizards can shift traffic however they want and give all its subscribers access again -- albeit at a market price reflecting the scarcity of the resource. 
AOL brought this fiasco on itself by ignoring basic supply-and-demand laws that any Econ 101 student could have explained. Every day that goes by without even the simplest fix takes the company ever deeper into the black hole of anti-marketing. 
David Klein is group editor of the advertising Age Group. This column appears in the January/February issue of NetMarketing, a supplement to advertisingvertising Age and advertisingvertising Age's Business Marketing.
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advertising advertisingvice for small business
TheAgency, Westlake Village, Calif., has formed a division called "Agency in a Wire." Effective in February, for an annual fee estimated at $5,500, Agency in a Wire will use the Internet to answer marketing, advertisingvertising and sales promotion questions in an effort to provide major agency expertise to company with a limited marketing budget. E-mail questions will be automatically directed to the appropriate expert whose response, based on company profiles developed upon subscription, will arrive within three business days.
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BPA, ABC tussle over Internet measurement
BPA International claims an imminent U.S. announcement about worldwide standards for World Wide Web audits could send the wrong message about a global consensus on auditing terms. 
According to BPA, the standards, developed by the International Federation of Audit Bureaux of Circulation and approved by the U.S. Audit Bureau of Circulations, were developed prematurely and don't accurately reflect the interests of the larger Web advertisingvertising community. BPA also expressed concerns about how these standards could give ABC an unfair competitive edge. 
COMPETING AUDIT SERVICES 
BPA audits primarily controlled-circulation magazines, and ABC audits consumer print titles. Each organization also has competing Web auditing services. 
BPA disagrees with the findings of a December meeting of a working group established last September by IFABC, the Europe-based organization of more than 30 print auditing organizations. That working group said, in an internal statement, that international standards for Web measurement should be based primarily on page impressions, with visits and sessions also acceptable. 
The work group also defined "users" and discussed how automated search engines and frames influence measurement. 
BPA executives noted that not all of the international audit bodies represented by the work group have completed their first Web audits. 
In advertisingdition, BPA is suspicious about ABC's approval, especially amid the strong U.S. debates over standards on everything from Web auditing to audience measurement. 
"We think ABC U.S. may be trying to license their product abroadvertising," said Glenn Hansen, BPA's senior VP-auditing, suggesting ABC's endorsement of the plans may be a hasty move to propel its services--including its right to license WebTrack's WebFacts auditing product--into new auditing relationships abroadvertising. 
"Our concern is really this--who's leadvertisinging the discussion?" he advertisingded. 
MINIMUM STANDARDS 
BPA President-CEO Mike Marchesano sent a letter to work-group members Jan. 24 stating his company's position. 
Richard Foan of ABC U.K., co-chairman of the working group, defended his group's action, saying it developed only a "minimum set of standards." He advertisingded that BPA, ABC North America and audit groups in Sweden, the U.K., Germany and Spain have completed or will soon finish Web audits--and thus are qualified to participate in this discussion. He also said the U.K.'s Incorporated Society of British advertisingvertisers and Institute of Practitioners of advertisingvertising both approved this first move towards global standards. 
Audit Bureau President-Managing Director Michael J. Lavery said no international relationships have been formed with audit bodies in other countries, but that most audit bureaus abroadvertising have been invited to consider forming partnerships with his organization. 
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GRETCHEN GEHRETT, MCI COMMUNICATIONS
Former Highway Safety Exec Keeps MCI on Right Roadvertising
Gretchen Gehrett started her career creating marketing plans for a highway safety company. 
The 45-year-old executive director of advertisingvertising and marketing communications now controls an estimated 
$365 million in advertisingvertising for all MCI Communications Corp. brands, including Friends & Family, networkMCI, internetMCI and MCI One. 
Since joining the telecommunications marketer in 1989, Ms. Gehrett has enjoyed five promotions in divisions such as customer retention, product development, international marketing and partner marketing at MCI, a cut-throat company infamous for its high employee churn rate. 
In advertisingdition to the marketing of all MCI brands, Ms. Gehrett is also heavily involved in direct-response marketing as well as the company's Web site (http://www.mci.com). 
With a proposed $20 billion acquisition by British Telecommunications likely to be finalized this year, MCI will have more dollars to fund efforts in establishing local phone service. MCI alreadvertisingy markets local service to businesses in 17 markets across the country. 
"We know that the local market-a $100 billion market-will be a very important part of our new thrust in '97," says Ms. Gehrett. "The MCI brand will come to represent local, Internet, paging, wireless and long distance." 
Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York, currently handles all of MCI's advertisingvertising. Although Ms. Gehrett says she has no plans to make any agency changes, she did advertisingmit she's often bombarded with phone calls from agencies pitching new ideas. 
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Softbank takes stake in Art Technology Group
Softbank Ventures acquired a minority stake in Art Technology Group, developer of Internet tools including the Dynamo suite of Internet commerce, advertisingvertising management and personalization tools. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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More cash spent on Web: IAB
The Internet advertisingvertising Bureau later this month is expected to report that barter deals and package deals with other media amounted to less than 10% of Internet advertising spending in 1996. The figure shows that many more marketers are paying cash for Internet advertisings than hadvertising been previously thought. 
Separately, IAB said the top 10 publishers accounted for 67%, or $105.4 million, of the total $157.4 million in Internet advertising spending for the first nine months of the year. The top five advertisingvertiser categories were computer products (35%), consumer-related (22%), new media (15%), telecommunications (9%) and business services (7%). IAB releases its full-year 1996 tally at the end of the month. 
The report, advertisingministered by Coopers & Lybrand, monitors advertising revenue for Web site, e-mail providers and offline services. IAB believes its methodology--which depends on site reporting data confidentially to Coopers & Lybrand--makes for a more accurate tally of Internet advertising activity.
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NBC to launch an online version of `Homicide' series
NBC this month makes its first foray into original online programming with a Web-based serial based on the "Homicide" TV series. 
The site, which launches in conjunction with the February sweeps ratings period, will be accessible from the main NBC site and will feature a separate cast of characters who work on cases that aren't dealt with during the TV version of the show. Users will be invited to participate in the crime-solving. 
"Our long-term goal is to have characters and storylines from a number of our shows move out to the interactive world," said Shawn Hardin, VP-executive producer of NBC Digital Productions. 
NBC is seeking advertisingvertisers to sponsor the content ventures. 
"We're looking for exclusive partners for these exclusive areas," said Patricia Karpas, NBC's VP-interactive advertisingvertising and client marketing. 
NBC'S EXPERIMENTS 
NBC owns a chunk of "Homicide: Life on the Street" and has used it for a number of online experiments. The show is part of the Intercast lineup, which gives subscribers advertisingded information about each episode as it airs. There's also a transactional element to the existing "Homicide" site, allowing users to order albums that contain songs played during the show. 
One potential stumbling block, however, is that NBC doesn't own all of its programming. For example, Viacom's Spelling Television is said to have turned down an NBC request to create an online storyline and character extension for Spelling's new daytime soap, "Sunset Beach." 
ABC, meanwhile, is designing a major expansion of its Web site for daytime soap operas and children's programming. One plan being discussed: cybersoap awards. 
The advertisingvantage ABC has is that it owns its soap operas--"All My Children," "One Life to Live," "General Hospital" and the upcoming spin-off of "General Hospital." One feature that might be highlighted in the network's upcoming cybersoap plans is a chat area so fans can compare notes. 
LOYAL FANS 
"Building something online around the soaps is an excellent idea," said one agency executive. "They get intensely loyal fans who would likely be strong repeat users." 
The networks' moves come after online serial pioneer American Cybercast disclosed financial problems. But ABC and NBC could have more success given their deep pockets and powerful brands.
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Softbank takes stake in Art Technology Group
Softbank Ventures acquired a minority stake in Art Technology Group, developer of Internet tools including the Dynamo suite of Internet commerce, advertisingvertising management and personalization tools. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Swedish newspaper launches Web product
Dagens Nyheter, the Swedish daily newspaper owned by the Marieberg publishing group, plans to invest $15m to develop what it claims will be Scandinavia's biggest Internet operation. "Our target is to break even after three years," says project leadvertisinger Thomas von Otter. 
One part of the advertisingvertising-financed service will cover coming events in Stockholm, ranging from restaurants and movies to art exhibits. Dagens Nyheter also plans to create a news service, modeled on the U.S. service, PointCast, which allows the readvertisinger to select the news they want to readvertising.
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Web site lash out at Petry's new advertising network
A stream of company, ranging from the powerful Petry rep firm to new-media company K2 Design, are hopping on the Web advertising network craze. 
Meanwhile, Commonwealth Network, one of the first advertising networks, is relaunching with a new advertising model and marketing campaign. 
It's been a rocky launch for Petry Interactive, however. The company spent last week making amends to dozens of angry Web site owners who hadvertising fired off e-mail messages and clogged online discussion groups assailing the rep firm's plans for a new Internet advertising network. The site called Petry's contract unfair because it forced participants to sign on exclusively with Petry for a full year. 
Petry said it would change the terms of its contract with Web site to allow them to sign on with more than one advertising network and cancel their contract with Petry with 120 days' notice. 
DAMAGE ALREadvertisingY DONE 
But the damage may have alreadvertisingy been done. Many Web site held up Petry's action as a sign of the company's inexperience with the Internet and its dependence on old-media revenue models. 
"Petry's treating [Internet advertisingvertising] in the old school of thought, which is that it's mass marketing," said Andy Bourland, VP-business development with Andover advertisingvanced Technologies, one of the Web site owners with whom Petry has hadvertising talks. "If I was repped by them, I would not have control over pricing or terms of sale." 
"Petry doesn't have much track record of sucess in this space," said an interactive agency executive. 
The issue came to a headvertising late last month with a series of posts to the Online advertisingvertising Discussion List questioning Petry's plans and warning site not to partner with Petry. 
Petry, which tried to build a business repping individual site over the past year and only recently decided to try the advertising network model, defends its actions and says it's changing to give the market what it wants. 
"Historically, the relationships we've hadvertising with television stations have dictated a certain amount of exclusivity," said David Moore, president of Petry Interactive. 
Petry's network currently consists of Pacific Bell At Hand and Ameritech's Yellow Pages Web site. 
The company says it has signed up 50 TV station Web site as well. Petry will split advertising revenues 50-50 with member site; advertisings range from a $20 cost per thousand for untargeted impressions to an $80 CPM for targeting. No advertisingvertisers have been signed. 
KATZ TO LAUNCH NETWORK 
Petry has licensed advertising server technology from Imgis, a Costa Mesa, Calif., startup. Imgis is also in talks with Katz Millenium Marketing to supply its technology for a Katz advertising network, which is expected to launch later this month. 
In related news, K2 Design spent the better part of last year forming its own advertising network called Cliqnow, which will be divided into nine different content networks. The first content network, Cliqgolf, launched late in 1996, boasts 30 site. 
TARGETING TECHNOLOGY 
K2 will be the exclusive rep partner of each affiliate site within the networks and will receive more than a 25% cut of revenue from the advertising sales they've handled. 
Meanwhile, Interactive Imaginations this April plans to introduce more sophisticated technology to the top 10% of its Commonwealth affiliate site. 
While Commonwealth will continue to serve banners on all its site, the most-trafficked site will use similar tactics that the company's Riddler site uses to get better data on users. Tactics include user registration, while incentivizing registrants with rewards.
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Mecklermedia readvertisingies `Internet Shopper'
Mecklermedia Corp.'s first consumer publication, the quarterly Internet Shopper, launches March 27 on newsstands. The magazine signed 20 advertisingvertisers for its issue including America Online, which bought the advertising before its recent halt to new advertisingvertising. AT&T WorldNet, FTD Direct, Wal-Mart Stores, Blockbuster Entertainment, Fashion Mall, Columbia House and Time Warner Dreamshop are also advertisingvertisers. The magazine will distribute 165,000 copies via newsstand. Color pages are $3,800, according to Mecklermedia Group Publisher Paul Bonington.
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Star Wars' setting pace for big toy sales in 1997
Toy sales are off to a roaring start this year, courtesy of "Star Wars" merchandise. 
Retail buyers at last week's American International Toy Fair in New York placed bigger "Star Wars" orders than expected as the film continues to sizzle in theaters. 
"The `Star Wars' phenomenon is huge--retailers are asking us how fast they can get the stuff," said Marc Rosenberg, VP-public relations and promotions for Tiger Electronics, which introduced an extensive line of "Star Wars" products including light sabers with sound effects and the Darth Vadvertisinger Voice Changer. 
A series of 30-second TV spots is planned for this fall from Posnick & Kolker, New York. 
Industry analysts say the pressure on buyers and toy manufacturers will be heavier than usual in the fall, when more expensive high-tech toys, dolls with complex features and CD-ROMs hit store shelves (AA, Feb. 10). 
NOW BARBIE TALKS 
Mattel Toys unveiled its Talk With Me Barbie doll, a $90 programmable version of its perennial hit fashion doll. It comes with a tiny computer that can be connected to a PC. 
The doll also comes packaged with a CD-ROM allowing children to program the doll to say 45 seconds of various phrases. Mattel insists the whole process is simple enough for kids under 12. 
The doll's introduction will be supported by a 30-second TV spot breaking in November, via Ogilvy & Mather, Los Angeles. 
Hasbro is betting on a diverse line of toys, including new large dolls such as Baby Did It, who wets her diaper after feeding, and Newborn Baby Diaper Surprise, who soils her diapers. The diapers are "magically" cleaned in a special accompanying canister. 
HASBRO'S FIRST DISABLED TOY 
Hasbro this year will offer its first disabled toy, tied to the upcoming Shaquille O'Neill film "Steel." The product line includes an action figure based on the character Lt. Sparks, who comes with a mobile-defense wheelchair. 
Upstart marketer Play by Play Toys introduced Talking Tots, a pair of dolls who "talk" to each another at a child's command, using infrared technology. The line is backed by a $2.5 million TV campaign coming from Ziccardi & Partners, New York. 
Playmates Toys reintroduces the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this year as Ninja Turtles, the Next Mutation, featuring a line of action figures tied to the new live-action program on Fox TV. A fifth turtle, the female Venus de Milo, has been advertisingded with the new villain called the Dragon Lord. 
Tyco Preschool, which scored last year's biggest hit with Tickle Me Elmo, is offering three new versions of talking Sesame Street characters, along with Elmo's Boom Box, Elmo's Radvertisingio Control Stunt Plane, Elmo's Radvertisingio Control Railroadvertising and the Sing & Snore Ernie. 
PARKER BROS. DOUBLES SPENDING 
Hasbro's Parker Bros. division plans to double its advertising spending this year to introduce new versions of classic board games, including the new Scrabble Up game, with advertisings handled by Grey advertisingvertising. 
Also, a sampling promotion for its classic Boggle will kick off this summer, starring Boggle Boy. 
Several new CD-ROMs derived from its classic board games also were unveiled including Pictionary, Boggle, Sorry!, Outburst and the Mr. Potato Headvertising Activity Pack. 
Last week, Hasbro Interactive announced a partnership with Microsoft Corp. that should enhance its Internet gaming options. 
Beginning in June, anyone who owns one of Hasbro's 20 CD-ROM games will be able to compete with players anywhere in the world through Microsoft's free Interactive Gaming Zone site. 
"People want to hook up from various locations on one universally accessible Web site to play these CD-ROM games, and with the growth of unlimited Internet access packages this will really take off," said Joe Gammal, a Hasbro Interactive product marketing manager. 
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What Pearlstine plans at Time Inc. New Media
In the first in-depth interview since being named interim president of Time Inc. New Media, Norm Pearlstine began to spell out plans for the closely scrutinized unit. 
While he clarified the unit's position on some fronts, it's clear other questions--particularly who will take over the president's title on a full-time basis--remain very much up in the air. 
The January announcement that Mr. Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Warner, would dip into daily operations at Time Inc. New Media got the interactive community buzzing. 
RENEWED COMMITMENT? 
Was it a sign of renewed commitment from the highest echelon of the company? Did it signal the start of a "bakeoff" between leadvertising managers vying for the top spot at the high-profile new-media unit? 
Was Mr. Pearlstine's role to oversee a blending with CNN Interactive, run by Time Inc. sibling Turner Broadvertisingcasting System? 
"Don Logan [Time Inc. president-CEO] makes life very simple around here. He wants us to do stuff that makes sense and makes money," Mr. Pearlstine said, by way of answering all those questions. 
Just how long Mr. Pearlstine will occupy the role of president of new media remains unclear. 
He said his duties represent only a slight extension beyond the involvement he alreadvertisingy hadvertising when Paul Sagan led the unit during the past two years and Walter Isaacson handled it the year before. 
But he declined to say whether--or when--he'll name a permanent successor. 
"Given the fluid relationship between Logan and me and people on the business side in new media, I think we're able to manage quite effectively," Mr. Pearlstine said. "For now, I think we're able to explore the opportunities available to us in the structure we have." 
ORGANIZING MANAGEMENT 
General Manager Bruce Judson; Linda McCutcheon, VP-sales and marketing; Oliver Knowlton, VP-technology and advertisingministration; and Craig Forman, newly named VP-worldwide development and editor at large, represent a formidable layer of management. 
"If we can organize the four of them . . . this enterprise as it continues will succeed," Mr. Pearlstine said. 
One thing that is definitely gone: the combination editor/business manager role held by Messrs. Isaacson and Sagan. Dan Okrent, editor of new media, will stay firmly in that position. 
Mr. Pearlstine is vague about the relationship between the Time Inc. and Turner Internet efforts. While he advertisingmitted that "there is overlap" between the two, he said, "we're in the process of working that out." 
But, he advertisingded, "matrix management doesn't make sense," confirming that the advertising sales staffs for Time Inc. and CNN Interactive will work autonomously, perhaps pairing up on joint ventures such as the AllPolitics site, which launched last year. 
While Mr. Pearlstine may be ambiguous about management issues, he isn't fuzzy about his expectations for the department. 
"We expect total revenues from advertisingvertising into Time Inc. New Media to more than double results from 1996," he said. "And we expect total expenses in 1997 for Pathfinder will remain flat with expenses for 1996." 
Pathfinder generated an estimated $4.4 million in advertising revenue through October 1996, according to Jupiter Communications' advertisingSpend report. 
Mr. Pearlstine declined to discuss the figure "because we can't consider this [medium] as a business yet," he said. Pathfinder currently boasts 130 advertisingvertisers. 
NEW advertising RATES 
The site will soon announce an advertising price increase effective March 15. It will package Time Inc. New Media properties, especially Path-finder, like TV buys, with different rates for buys of different demographic and behavioral audiences. 
Right now, Pathfinder charges a basic $29 cost per thousand impressions. 
The unit will continue to explore line extensions of its print and other entertainment properties, development of transaction-based services such as the paid version of Pathfinder Personal Edition launched last year, and joint ventures and new editorial products such as Thrive, developed with America Online. 
MAGAZINES IMPORTANT 
"So much of what new media can do here has to do with the magazines," Mr. Pearlstine said. "I feel we'd lost some of that" last year." Pathfinder, he said, is a "way to organize content, and also resources." 
Despite all the activity, Mr. Pearlstine doesn't believe new media will threaten Time Inc.'s core magazine business anytime soon. 
"We believe that the whole area of new media has extraordinary potential and is worth considerable investment," he said. But "in the next decadvertisinge, Time Inc. will be a print company known primarily for its magazines." 
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Free ISPs court marketers
Free, advertising-supported Internet access sounds like a great idea, but there are significant concerns about whether the business model will work. 
The concept is simple enough--free access for subscribers willing to tolerate a stream of advertisings delivered while they're online. But while marketers and agencies are intrigued by the prospect of tapping into an Internet service provider's user database, they wonder if these mostly regional players can lure a sufficient number of subscribers and enough advertisingvertising to cover costs. 
"I'm always concerned about things that are free," said Anthony Manson, group director of Y&R New Technologies, New York. company that provide free, advertising-supported e-mail or free Internet time in exchange for readvertisinging advertisings have yet to prove their business models work. 
"The next great battleground for advertisingvertisers will be the ISPs," said Taki Okamoto, assistant media director at Leo Burnett USA, Chicago. "The ISPs are sitting on huge databases that are important for targeted advertisingvertising." 
@BIGGER.NET'S SPLASH 
So far, few of these services have gotten much advertisingvertising support. 
@bigger.net, which last month launched with a splash suitable to its name, claims to have advertisingvertisers pounding on its door, but it won't say who. The service is "free" to the user after a one-time fee of $59.95 and a service charge of $10 per year thereafter. 
CEO Jeff Fortin said he expects to sign deals with local and national advertisingvertisers within weeks, but advertisingded that the company's business plan doesn't call for advertisingvertising to kick in until summer. 
Another player, Interactive Hyper Net (http://www.hyperusa.net), partnered with San Jose, Calif.-based ISP Cyber FreeWay (http://www.cyberfreeway.net) to launch a free access service in the San Francisco area in late December. The one-time registration fee is $29. 
While only a few local advertisingvertisers have signed onto Cyber FreeWay's service, Hyper Net does have a successful track record. Its Tokyo-based parent company partnered with Japanese ISP ASCii Corp.; that 8-month-old service has garnered 140,000 users and 314 advertisingvertisers to date, including blue-chip company PepsiCo, Toyota and Anheuser-Busch. 
SUBWAY SIGNS ON 
Smart World Communications, which launched its free access service in September, didn't close its first major sponsor deal, with Subway Sandwiches & Saladvertisings, until last month. Subway has placed advertisings on the ISP's start-up page and on interior pages. 
Consumers pay $69.95 for the software plus a one-time $19.95 registration fee. 
If ISPs are to win at the advertising-supported Internet access game, they must sign up enough users to make it worthwhile for advertisingvertisers. 
"An ISP would need at least one million users to be interesting to advertisingvertisers," said Kevin O'Connor, CEO of DoubleClick, an advertisingvertising network. 
Further, "to get advertising rates high enough to subsidize the entire cost of the ISP, [there need to be] effective personalization methods in place," said Ross Rubin, senior analyst at Jupiter Communications. 
PERSONALIZATION IS KEY 
Personalization is in fact the key to many of these services; Hyper Net, for example, maintains a user database that enables advertisingvertisers to reach targeted demographics and schedule delivery during key hours. 
Also key is the advertising delivery. @bigger.net and Hyper Net deliver advertisings in pop-up windows that reside on the desktop while a user is online. 
Smart World offers its users a choice of seeing advertisings in a separate window or watching full-screen advertisings for 5 to 10 seconds each time they click into a new page. 
The ISPs believe they can generate more revenues from advertisings alone than from the typical user-fee-based system. 
Hyper Net's official advertising rate is 15 cents per impression; based on current estimates that users spend an average of 15 hours online per month, VP-Marketing Aaron Shapiro believes the company' 60-second advertising views can generate $135 per month per user--far exceeding the standard monthly ISP charge of $19.95. 
An advertising rate for @bigger.net is not yet determined. However, Mr. Fortin projected that for the first year, subscriber fees would account for 25% of revenue, with advertisingvertising making up the rest. 
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PointCast expands to Japan
PointCast has formed an alliance with Trans Cosmos, a Japan-based technology company, to form PointCast Japan. The alliance will form a similar network that delivers news and information directly to a viewer's screen. The Japanese version of the PointCast Network will broadvertisingcast the latest news and information via the Internet and corporate intranets in Japanese with content from Japanese content providers. Both PointCast and Trans Cosmos will provide support to the joint venture, which will operate a local broadvertisingcast facility and manage content acquisition, advertisingvertising sales and marketing locally in Japan.
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Microsoft, PC Quote sponsor Final Bell
Microsoft Corp. and PC Quote signed on to sponsor Final Bell, a stock market simulation game produced by Sandbox Entertainment for USA Today. The two marketers join earlier sponsors e.Schwab, Intuit and NETworth. Sandbox specializes in out-of-the-box Internet advertisingvertising; to wit, the Microsoft sponsorship, centered on the Office '97 product, includes an opportunity to win Microsoft software for answering trivia questions, a search-and-win game in which users search the Microsoft site for hidden Final Bell icons, and a weekly drawing that awards 97 shares of imaginary Microsoft stock to the winner's simulated portfolio.
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Accipiter lands CNET contract
CET, The Computer Network will license Internet advertisingvertising management software from Accipiter, the company said on Wednesday. Accipiter's advertisingManager system enables targeting, scheduling, rotating and delivering of advertisings. The company competes with NetGravity, which last week was tapped by the New Century Network of newspaper Web site to serve advertisings to its more than 60 member site. 
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Pac Bell drops Ogilvy
Pacific Bell pulled its $30 million mobile services account from Ogilvy & Mather, Los Angeles, and assigned it to Ketchum advertisingvertising, San Francisco. The move is seen as fallout from O&M's Feb. 12 win of the $80 million GTE Corp. business. There was no review. Ketchum alreadvertisingy handles Pacific Bell's long distance, Internet service, Web site and media buying for print and out-of-home.
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BEST MAGAZINES: Key advertising category gains help `EW' turn a profit
Plato once said, "What is honored in a country will be cultivated there." So it's no surprise magazine readvertisingers and advertisingvertisers in America have taken to Entertainment Weekly, a magazine that chronicles the TV shows, movies, books and videos that titillate people ages 18 to 44. 
Celebrating its seventh anniversary this month--and despite enduring some harrowing times upon its debut--the Time Inc. title is widely regarded as the first successful mass-market weekly since People in the 1970s. 
COMPARED WITH TITANIC 
According to sources close to the magazine, the six-year roadvertising to profitability, culminating in its first full year of profit in 1996, cost its parent company roughly $120 million. That's a debilitating amount for most company, but not for Time Inc. 
For a magazine many predicted would never recover from a launch similar to the Titanic's maiden voyage, EW continues to excel. Its quick recovery madvertisinge EW advertisingvertising Age's Best Magazine of 1991. Now, a breakout '96 have earned it distinction as an advertising Age Best Magazine of 1996. 
Ranked No. 3 by Capell's Circulation Report's Best Performers in 1996, average paid circulation increased 6% for the period ending for the six months ending Dec. 31, to 1,275,625. advertising pages grew 18.8% to 1,847 last year. 
Making these achievements more laudable are the problems the title faced in its infancy. 
UGLY AT LAUNCH 
"When it initially launched," recalls Roberta Garfinkle, senior VP-director of print media at McCann-Erickson Worldwide, New York, "it was one of the ugliest magazines I've ever seen." 
Ms. Garfinkle believes the weekly still has some growth left before it hits its ceiling. She says staying on the magazine "hot list" is no small achievement, especially when you consider "just how far behind the eight-ball that magazine started out." 
"We definitely got off to a slow start," concedes Michael Klingensmith, president of EW, who's been with the title since its debut. 
FIRST PROFITABLE YEAR 
Yet Mr. Klingensmith confirmed that last year the weekly turned its first full year of profit. Hitting the black at just seven years of age, he advertisingds, is slightly sooner than the average at Time Inc. 
"What's notable about our success is that launching a weekly costs just about four times as much as [launching] a monthly," Mr. Klingensmith says. And though executives originally forecasted profitability by 1995, Mr. Klingensmith says he's very pleased with the magazine's history and performance through its past, and remains optimistic about continued successes. 
"We keep getting better with practice," he says. 
Some of the magazine's abundance has to do with being in the right place at the right time. With the increased interest in the Internet, satellite TV, compact discs and home computers, among other technologies, the time seemed right for someone to corral these media and present the package as forms of entertainment. 
"[EW executives] took the concept of People magazine and extended it every which way," says Martin Walker of consultancy Walker Communications. "The problem they hadvertising at the start was validating the concept, and that's certainly has happened." 
SEEN AS CONSISTENT 
Peter Stabler, associate media director at Hal Riney & Partners in San Francisco, notes the consistency of the magazine as one of its strongest features. 
"There seems to be a real consistency in [EW's] formula," he says. "They were a bit rocky in the beginning but it seems now they've got it right." 
According to Publisher Michael Kelly, a lot of categories of advertisingvertisers came EW's way in 1996. 
"There have been so many products released in the last 18 months directed at people 18-to-44 years old," says Mr. Kelly. 
Automotive advertisingvertising was up 36% last year to 308 pages, and apparel and footwear was up 41% to 125 pages. Publishing/media also jumped 34% in pages, according to the publisher, to 285 pages. 
"Look at how marketers are all using entertainment or entertainment figures to connect with pop culture," observes Mr. Kelly. "Pop culture's never hadvertising a bigger influence, and we have the magazine with size, scale, consistency, and authority on that topic." 
"We see them as the strongest in their field. It's a dual audience book, and I like the immediacy of a weekly," says Michael McCadvertisingden, VP-marketing at The Gap. 
While the numbers may make board members beam, EW's business executives point to Editor Jim Seymore's touch with the content as the real silver bullet of the weekly. 
"Jim knows what readvertisingers react to," says Mr. Klingensmith, "so the magazine's editorial gets better every year." 
OBSESSED WITH ENTERTAINMENT 
"We have tapped into the American psyche in a significant way, and the culture's obsession with entertainment," says Mr. Seymore, who credits a "brilliant" staff of journalists. "We take it seriously, but not too seriously." 
Among the noteworthy editorial achievements Mr. Seymore cited from last year was an issue devoted to gay TV. Also within that issue was a story entitled "Who killed the American Screenplay?"--a story in which "a serious subject [was] treated with humor and style." 
Mr. Seymore advertisingds that EW last month conducted its first readvertisinger focus group in four years to get feedback on some planned changes at the weekly. 
"We'll be updating the look of the magazine, pretty much through the book," says the editor. 
LEVERAGING NAME A PRIORITY 
Leveraging the franchise will take top billing in 1997. 
In the spring, executives say they will unveil a new Web site at http://ew.com. Michael Small, a former editor at HotWired, will serve as editor. 
"This will go a lot further than the magazine," says Mr. Klingensmith, advertisingding that aside from theater information and bulletin boards, the Web site will handle circulation business such as renewals and advertisingdress changes. 
As a nod to the importance of the college crowd to the title's readvertisingership, EW executives plan to unveil a new quarterly spinoff. 
In May, says Mr. Klingensmith, the magazine will launch Entertainment Weekly on Campus, under the direction of EW Senior Editor Doug Brod. The digest-sized title, which Mr. Klingensmith says will feature original editorial material focusing more on music, movies and video, will be inserted into college newspapers nationwide. 
CIRCULATION IN MILLIONS 
Distribution details haven't been finalized for the supplement, but the total circulation should be well into the millions at the "largest and best universities in the country," Mr. Klingensmith says. 
Executives at EW say Gap alreadvertisingy committed to take the most pages for the first three issues of the supplement but declined to state how many pages. 
Whether or not EW has peaked remains to be seen. But as today's entertainment-hungry teens grow into their early 20s, it's fair to say they will help sustain EW's readvertisingership. 
"There's an increasing number of movies, videos and multimedia coming into play," says Mr. Kelly. "And there's never been more competition to find the eyes that are interested in those developments." 
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Streams relaunches Lilypadvertising product
Streams Online Media Development, Chicago, next week relaunches Lilypadvertising, a tool developed for Internet marketers to measure response to online media buys and promotional efforts. The company first released Lilypadvertising in 1995, but has since upgradvertisinged the software and tailored the product more specifically for the marketing community. The tool is available for free downloadvertising and 60-day trial at Lilypadvertising's site. Streams has handled online projects for Citibank, Ameritech Corp., Subway Sandwiches & Saladvertisings and NetMarketing, a sister publication of advertisingvertising Age.
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Prodigy taps advertising sales exec
After a five-month search, Prodigy Services Corp. has named Dan Desmet, 40, to the post of VP-advertising sales responsible for overseeing interactive advertisingvertising sales into Prodigy Internet and Prodigy Classic. Mr. Desmet was formerly senior VP-advertising sales at Interactive Imaginations, New York, and replaces Scott Schiller, who left Prodigy in September to become VP-marketing and advertising sales at Sony Online. 
Mr. Desmet said he has two priorities at Prodigy. "I have to make some determinations about where we're going with our current sales representation," he said, referring to Prodigy's longstanding relationship with TeleRep, New York, which will be up for renewal at the end of March. Interactive Imaginations hadvertising worked in the past with Softbank Interactive Marketing, but ended that relationship last week. Mr. Desmet he said he will continue to consider repping as an option for Prodigy, but that no details of the TeleRep relationship hadvertising been ironed out beyond March at this point. 
"Another area that's important to me and will be to our advertisingvertisers has to do with the back office," he said. "We're looking at some advertising management systems right now." He said he will talk to company that license advertising software such as NetGravity in the coming weeks. 
At Interactive Imaginations, Mr. Desmet worked with other sales staffers to encourage advertisingvertisers to use full-screen creative on interactive game Riddler. The company will expand that concept to its other online properties in coming weeks. He also played a major role in cultivating online advertisingvertising efforts for a forthcoming "Name that Tune" game, for which an entertainment company is expected to sign a sponsorship deal.
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BEST MAGAZINES: `Salon' named Online Magazine of '96
While most online magazines are eking out an existence, Salon is basking in publicity and popularity. 
Salon has grown from an every-other-month literary 'zine into a highbrow, high-volume entertainment daily, with traffic at 2 million page views a month--more than eight times as many as when launched in November 1995. 
More astonishingly, Salon executives project advertising revenues to jump tenfold, to $3 million in 1997 from last year. 
Because of its growth and popularity, Salon is advertisingvertising Age's Online Magazine of the Year. 
"We've tried to point Salon to where the Internet is headvertisinged, and not where it's been," explains Salon Editor-CEO David Talbot, pointing out how Salon attracts more women and a slightly older readvertisingership than other Web publications. 
According to a recent survey, 43% of Salon readvertisingers are female, versus the Web average of 32%. In advertisingdition, its average readvertisinger age is 38, compared to 32 for the rest of the Web. 
Early 'zines, like HotWired, were successes because they aimed at first advertisingopters of the Net, Mr. Talbot explains. But with Salon's cultural and entertainment content, it's poised "to be capturing the new readvertisingers who are pouring onto the Internet this year." 
TOP AUTHORS 
Accoladvertisinges for its design and literary quality, with authors like Amy Tan and Camille Paglia, have fueled the word-of-mouth buzz, according to Publisher-President Michael O'Donnell. He and Mr. Talbot also credit the repeat traffic to Salon's "Table Talk" section, recently rated the third-most popular online forum on the World Wide Web by Forum One Communications, which catalogs Internet forums. 
Since the average stay on Salon is 17 minutes, Mr. Talbot says, people are "not just readvertisinging, they're talking and participating. That's part of our original concept. We wanted to make this a lively readvertisinger party; that's why we called it Salon." 
Mr. Talbot, a former features editor at the San Francisco Examiner, left along with some co-workers to co-found Salon in November 1995, concentrating on the editorial content for much of '96. 
Mr. O'Donnell, formerly VP-worldwide sales for entertainment software company Rocket Science Games, came on board in December to strengthen the magazines' financial infrastructure. 
PROMOTION UNDERWAY 
"We expect to become profitable in this next year," says Mr. O'Donnell, explaining that they've undertaken several initiatives for this year to promote the 'zine. One advertisingdition: recruiting VP-Marketing Marc Wernick, formerly of Ogilvy & Mather, Los Angeles. Mr. Wernick will oversee an in-house marketing blitz of roughly $500,000 in online and tradvertisingitional media. 
Salon's alliance with book retailer Borders Group has also been instrumental in getting the word out, Mr. Talbot says. 
Borders, which sponsors Salon's book review section, has expanded to back the music section. 
"It's provided another dimension for us to explore in our store," says Marilyn Slankard, VP-marketing for Borders, "and another way to provide information that's of interest to our customers." 
The magazine is aiming to beef up its advertisingvertising, Mr. O'Donnell says, advertisingding more commerce, or click-and-buy, buttons to make online purchases easier. 
advertisingvertisers include Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and advertisingobe Systems. 
LOOKING UPSCALE 
Michael Hirshoren, interactive media planner at Ogilvy & Mather Direct, New York, says placing IBM advertisings with Salon was an effort to reach an upscale audience. 
"They have a great sense of community and being able attract a loyal user," Mr. Hirshoren says. 
advertisingvertising alone can't support this venture, which is why Mr. O'Donnell says Salon will be planning a diversified business model. 
Within the next six months, Salon will be launching a loyalty program that offers perks, such as access to special areas of "Table Talk" or to a Borders book signing, for an annual fee expected to be between $29 and $49. 
When it comes down to it, though, Ms. Slankard believes it's the quality of Salon's content that's drawing people. She advertisingds, "As more and more people get online, they are taking notice." 
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Alarm over government move to curb Web
Marketers and the media are warning that the U.S. Department of Justice's broadvertising argument for reinstating a ban on "obscene" Internet content threatens advertisingvertisers' ability to use the Web and could have grave impact on all advertisingvertising. 
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court last week, the Association of National advertisingvertisers and the Media Institute charged that the Justice Department's defense of the Communications Decency Act as a necessary step "for the protection of children" would open the door to broadvertising regulation of advertisingvertising and marketing aimed at advertisingults. 
"Today, would-be regulators of speech routinely attempt to dress up censorship in the cloak of protection of children," the brief says. 
COURT TO CONSIDER APPEAL 
The ban on obscene Internet content was overturned in 1996 by a lower court, but an appeal is due to be considered this year by the Supreme Court. The Justice Department defends the obscenity restriction in part by suggesting the ban isn't censorship but merely an attempt to limit the harmful "secondary effect" on children. 
The advertisingvertiser brief warns that the "secondary" argument could be applied to a wide variety of advertisingvertising: 
"Many would argue that minors do not have First Amendment rights to receive advertisingvertising ... [for] guns, tobacco products, promotional sweepstakes, Indian casinos, alcohol beverages or many fee-based telephone services ... Under the government's reasoning, as long as a legislature claimed to be restricting such advertisingvertisements to protect minors, it would be able to deprive advertisingults of those messages." 
`UNDERVALUING RIGHTS' 
The brief advertisingds: "While there are certainly contexts in which government has a compelling interest in protecting children, the notion that First Amendment rights are somehow reduced whenever a government asserts that interest is troubling enough in the indecency [case]. Extension to truthful, non-misleadvertisinging commercial speech for lawful products and services reflects an impermissible undervaluing of the rights of advertisingvertisers and consumers." 
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Online buying moves toward a virtual market
Two new Internet company could revolutionize the way advertisingvertising is bought and sold. 
Or, more likely, they could just be high-tech peddlers of the Web equivalent of seconds, selling off unsold inventory at fire-sale prices. 
Flycast Communications Corp., a San Francisco startup, today unveils advertisingAgent, a software package that enables advertising agencies and Web content providers to conduct transactions in real time. At least seven advertising agencies and five Web site will test the service. 
Narrowline, another San Francisco startup, is testing a similar service, dubbed Brought to You By, with agencies and such content site as the Chicago Tribune. 
SIMPLIFYING ONLINE BUYING 
Both company hope to turn the difficult task of buying media on the Internet--trolling to find site for appropriate demographics, planning campaigns, measuring response with inadvertisingequate tools--into a simple, hands-off business of matching up the right advertising with the right site at the right time. 
While the systems share some similarities with advertising networks like DoubleClick and advertising management software like NetGravity advertisingServer, they can better be compared to financial tradvertisinging markets. 
"It's an Internet media transaction system," said Tara Lemmey, president of year-old Narrowline. "It's a lot like Sabre or an electronic marketplace like NASDAQ." 
In the case of Flycast, the system's vision and scope is extraordinary. 
USING SMART AGENTS 
Using the company's software, an agency will input information about the target audience, the site the advertising should appear on and the price the advertisingvertiser will pay. A Web publisher will, in turn, input information about its available advertising inventory and pricing. 
A smart agent will then serve up the advertising when a visitor who meets the advertisingvertiser's specifications appears at a content site. There's no haggling over price; the highest bid gets the advertising. 
Both Flycast and Narrowline tout their ability to reach precise target audiences and provide accurate measurement and reporting. 
"Everyone is talking about the Web being one-to-one marketing, but content providers are using a rate-card approach," said Larry Braitman, Flycast VP-marketing. With the Flycast system, agencies "are buying exactly what they want and what they need to reach their goal." 
Less is known about Narrowline, founded by Ms. Lemmey, a former advertising executive with Young & Rubicam and Goldberg Moser O'Neill, and Eric Theise, an acadvertisingemic with a Ph.D. in systems and management science. 
A Tribune executive confirmed the newspaper's plan to use the system, but declined to provide further details. Ms. Lemmey declined to discuss other agencies or content site testing the system. 
CUT-RATE PRICES 
Those who are testing the services--particularly Flycast--say they will most likely use them to unloadvertising banner advertising impressions at cut-rate prices. 
"They're positioning themselves as a sophisticated network buy," said Alex Flagg, online media supervisor at Anderson & Lembke, San Francisco, one of the agencies testing the Flycast service. "The real advertisingvantage, though, is that it is remnant space and you're getting it at a lower CPM than you would normally pay." 
Other agencies planning to work with Flycast include J. Walter Thompson USA, San Francisco; Western International Media, Los Angeles; Dahlin Smith White/Euro RSCG, Salt Lake City, Utah; Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis; and BBDO Worldwide and sitepecific, both New York, said Flycast President-CEO Rick Thompson. 
Content site see the Flycast system as a cheap, virtual sales force. 
"It's going to allow some [advertisingvertisers] to try out CD-Now," said Dave Brown, new business development sales director for the online music retailer, which will let Flycast sell about 500,000 impressions per month. 
CD-Now normally sells advertisings for 3 cents to 5 cents per impression but will offer its Flycast inventory for only 2 cents per impression, Mr. Brown said. 
PC World Online, Car-Smart, Hollywood Exchange and LoveSearch.com also plan to test the service, said Mr. Thompson. 
Analysts believe a system to sell off extra advertising space could be attractive for publishers. 
"There's a lot of excess inventory out there now that's going to existing advertisingvertisers who end up getting overserved," said Bill Doyle, analyst with Forrester Research. 
IMPLICATIONS OF EDI 
For marketers and agencies, the concept of virtual media buying has major implications both on and off the Web. 
Leo Burnett USA, Chicago, for example, is testing an electronic data interchange system to coordinate cable TV buys. It's easy to see how an EDI system that works on the Web could be expanded to other media. 
But getting the systems to work accurately and quickly could be the biggest challenge for Flycast and Narrowline. 
Flycast, for example, promises to match up an advertising with a user one at a time, a process that demands an efficient and sophisticated back- end system, Mr. Doyle said. 
Flycast said it will take a 20% cut of revenue from each transaction; Narrowline operates on a similar model. 
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PC Meter forms two units: Web media and technology
PC Meter is expanding its measurement reach. 
The company, which only last July became a separate subsidiary of parent NPD Group, has split into two divisions, one to provide comparative research on Web site and one to track consumer and business technology usage trends. 
advertisingditionally, PC Meter, whose main business is a monthly report on the most popular Internet site among consumer households, plans to begin metering out-of-home and business Internet users later this year. 
NIELSEN TO ENTER FRAY 
With nearly 70 clients, including 20 top advertising agencies and 25 media Web site, PC Meter's goal is to become the "leadvertisinger in measurement of new technologies and media," said President Mary Ann Packo. 
But the company could face significant competition, at least on the Internet measurement front, from Nielsen Media Research, which this year plans to unveil its own household panel. 
"We have every intention of measuring the Internet from a panelist perspective," said Dave Harkness, senior VP with Nielsen Interactive Services. 
Nielsen plans to unveil its package of services--including a consumer panel, a site-centric measurement service (alreadvertisingy in place via a marketing agreement with Internet Profiles Corp.) and a service to help agencies make Internet buying decisions--within two months, Mr. Harkness said. 
PC Meter hopes its headvertising start will help it succeed. 
The company last fall tapped Bruce Ryon, a former Dataquest analyst, as VP-general manager of the technology division. It's close to hiring an executive to run the media division. 
PC Meter separately brought on Mike Naples, former advertisingvertising Research Foundation president, as a senior advertisingviser. 
The company bases its business on a panel of 10,000 households that have agreed to attach metering devices to their home computers. The meters measure not only Web site activity but also what software applications a consumer uses, how long the applications are in use and what time of day the computer is on. 
TRACKING E-MAIL AND CHAT 
PC Meter plans to start tracking e-mail and chat usage as well as activity on online services such as America Online later this year. 
"What we're doing is recording everything that's going on on that PC on a daily basis," Mr. Ryon said. "It's a gold mine of data." 
And one that clients are willing to pay a sizeable sum for. A full subscription to PC Meter can cost as much as $125,000 annually. 
The company has been criticized for focusing only on home computer use, but perfecting the technology for business users has been difficult. There is significant concern about installing a metering device in an office environment, where sensitive data routinely passes through internal networks. 
MAC METERS 
Ms. Packo said the business meter--as well as a meter monitoring Apple Macintosh computers--will launch later this year. 
On the crowded technology research front, PC Meter will compete against market research veterans like Odyssey Research and Mr. Ryon's former employer, Data-quest. 
The company will soon issue a revised software usage report and also will take over parent NPD Group's National Survey of Computer Hardware Ownership.
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New group for local Internet advertisingvertisers
A new group is being formed to serve company that sell advertisings and conduct commerce on local Internet site. The group, the Internet Local advertisingvertising and Commerce Association, holds its organizational meeting on March 19 in St. Louis. Founding members include executives from BigBook, Pacific Bell Interactive Media, Times Mirror Co. and Digital City. Among the group's goals are to develop standards and measurement systems to ensure the success of local advertisingvertising on the Internet. The group also hopes to create a network or mechanism to allow advertisingvertisers to make advertising buys on a variety of local services. For more information
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More gains seen for Internet
New evidence of the rapid growth rate for Internet advertisingvertising comes in a Cahners Economics survey of executives at company engaged in business-to-business marketing. Of 400 respondents, 40% said Internet advertisingvertising will get the biggest percentage gain in their new spending. At smaller company (100 or fewer employees), 42.6% of respondents said the Net will get the biggest percentage boost in spending. Of company with 1,000 or more employees, 32.5% said the Internet is the biggest percentage gainer. Overall, more respondents (49.9%) said specialty business magazines will get the biggest percentage gain in spending compared with any other media category.
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TotalNews fights back
TotalNews, the tiny Internet company slapped with lawsuits by three major communications company for displaying copy from their Web site within a frame on the Total News site, is sniping back at the corporate giants. 
The company issued a statement on Monday claiming that the company--Time Warner, the Washington Post Co., Times Mirror and Dow Jones & Co.--"want to write the rules for the Net" by alleging that TotalNews' technology is a case of copyright infringement and tradvertisingemark dilution. 
The company provides links to more than 1,200 news sources from its site. But insteadvertising of linking directly to a news site, TotalNews uses frames technology to display the site as if it were framed by the TotalNews site. TotalNews doesn't change the contents of the site it delivers, but the frame does in some cases hide some of a news site's advertisingvertising banners. 
In its statement, TotalNews President Roman Godzich said, "it's amazing that the owners of Time, Newsweek and CNN feel threatened by a five-person company that started in a strip mall behind Lulu's Tacos in Gilbert, Arizona." The statement goes on to point out that the Washington Post and the Journal use frames technology to link to other site.
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AT&T brand revamp gets first support in new advertisings
AT&T has learned that all the money in the world can't buy a unified brand. 
After pumping an estimated $1 billion-plus into advertisingvertising last year, AT&T Corp. is revamping its brand strategy under Marilyn Laurie, who has been named exec VP-brand strategy and marketing communications. 
Toward that end, the telecommunications behemoth today breaks a long-awaited and much-delayed campaign from Y&R advertisingvertising, New York. Y&R last August beat out other AT&T roster agencies for the $100 million-plus account. 
MORE THAN CORPORATE EFFORT 
While the advertisingvertising was originally scheduled for last September and slated as a corporate campaign, the focus shifted and took on a more holistic importance under new President John Walter. 
"He wants to go to market as one company," said Ms. Laurie, who moves to her new AT&T post from exec VP-public relations. "Fragmentation has not been helpful to the trust between the brand and its customers." 
The campaign consists of four 60-second spots invoking poignant images of family, love, hope and trust as facilitated by AT&T's communication technologies. 
The most elaborate--and expensive--of the spots features vignettes of ordinary people and celebrities, including Christopher Reeve and NBA coach Pat Riley, all enjoying special moments in their lives thanks to various AT&T products. 
"Our objective is to make this the world's greatest brand," said Stephen Graham, VP-marketing communications. 
BRAND VALUES ARE CENTRAL 
The brand values portrayed in the new spots will become central to all AT&T advertisings in the future, Ms. Laurie said, whether produced by Y&R or roster shops McCann-Erickson Worldwide and Foote, Cone & Belding. 
"Fundamentally this is a great move for AT&T," said Charlie Taney, president of FCB's New York office, which is AT&T's leadvertising media planning agency and creative shop for the marketer's new products and services. "Focusing on the AT&T brand and what it means to customers is a move in the right direction." 
The advertising budget for AT&T, as well as other telecommunications marketers, is expected to almost double in size by yearend. The convergence of long-distance, local, wireless and Internet services offered by these company is expected to create a new industry estimated at $500 billion. 
"Product and service advertisings will meld seamlessly into the brand campaign," Ms. Laurie said. "This is about integration, not corporate umbrellas." 
All marketing activities for the company's dozens of divisions and business lines will now be centered under Ms. Laurie. Second-in-command Daniel Clark, director of the brand strategy group, will be charged with finding brand values usable in all marketing efforts.
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O&M's Elliott, Ross to take on IBM account
Ogilvy & Mather Senior Partners-Executive Group Directors Gary Elliott and Matt Ross will split the IBM Corp. business overseen by Peter R.V. Martin, who left to join Foote, Cone & Belding. Mr. Elliott, who oversees the Software Group, advertisingds the Internet Division. Mr. Ross, who oversees the Brand Group, picks up responsibility for network computing and services print advertisingvertising.
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Another senior executive departs from I/Pro
Another high-level defection hit I/Pro last week, as Bob Ivins, one of five founding staffers, resigned. 
Mr. Ivins, I/Pro's senior VP-marketing and sales, will join NetROI, a Chicago-based Internet market research company founded by George Garrick, former president-CEO of Information Resources Inc. North America. 
Mr. Ivins, 38, will stay on board until a successor is named. He will remain a shareholder. 
His departure comes at a sensitive time for I/Pro, which has been rocked by management turmoil and layoffs, the result of a series of shifts in direction and focus. 
I/Pro this month is expected to name a new CEO to succeed Mark Ashida, who was forced out late last year after a short tenure. 
FINALLY TURNING A CORNER 
"I've been here from the very beginning and have helped to develop and deliver our earliest ideas to market," Mr Ivins said. "At this point, however, I felt it's time for me to try something new." 
I/Pro at last seems to be turning a corner. The company has finally corrected technological problems that caused delays in the delivery of its Web site auditing reports. 
I/Pro's acting CEO, Woody Hobbs, said last month that the company hadvertising delivered all its January audit statements within 10 business days after the end of the month. In the past, statements took several months to arrive. 
Despite the turmoil, few auditing clients have left. 
"I/Pro holds the leadvertisingership position in the verification space with well over 100 customers, and despite some recent doubts in the press, I/Pro has experienced no significant customer defections," Mr. Ivins said. 
TOOLS TO TEST NET advertisingS 
At NetROI, Messrs. Ivins and Garrick will market services to help marketers test and evaluate Internet advertisingvertising. The men worked together at Nielsen Media Research earlier in their careers. 
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Microsoft pay scheme snags free downloadvertisings
Microsoft Corp., the biggest advertisingvertiser in cyberspace, is asking site to accept a pay-per-downloadvertising scheme for online banner advertisings. 
Under the plan, Microsoft, insteadvertising of using a cost-per-thousand model to pay for the online advertisings, or even a click-through model, will pay site a fee only when users click on the advertising for the latest version of the Internet Explorer browser and then downloadvertising the browser. 
STARTING WITHIN 2 WEEKS 
The online advertisings to offer downloadvertisings IE 4.0 will start in the next two weeks, said an executive with knowledge of the plan. It will be a "preview" or beta version of the browser, which is set to compete with Netscape Communications Corp.'s new Communicator, a product in beta testing set for a second-quarter launch. 
"This isn't Microsoft strong-arming site to accept this new plan," said another executive familiar with the scheme. "It's been presented as an option, as a way a site can make possibly more money than by Microsoft just paying a typical CPM." 
SPENT $11 MILLION 
Some site managers are worried about the precedent Microsoft is trying to set. Microsoft is the largest Web advertisingvertiser, spending $10.7 million in the first 11 months of '96, according to Jupiter Communications, a research company. 
Site managers that have been briefed said Microsoft plans to spend at least $2 million-to-$3 million initially in online advertisingvertising on the IE launch on about 75 site. The strategy reflects a software industry trend to do formal marketing of products that technically are still in test. IE 4.0's official launch is set for midsummer. 
Like previous versions, IE 4.0 will be free to users. One manager estimates the average price Microsoft would pay per downloadvertising was about $2.50. 
800-POUND GORILLA 
"Microsoft is an 800-pound gorilla, and if this gains a foothold it's a step toward killing real advertising revenue on the Web," said one site executive. 
The manager of one of the top 10 visited news and information site said he is seriously considering a trial of the pay-per-downloadvertising plan with banner slots that would ordinarily be sold for very little. "While we are a very popular site in total, some of our pages are not used as much. That's where I'd experiment with this." 
Jay Goldstein, a Microsoft product manager for online advertisingvertising who is point person on the pay-per-downloadvertising scheme, was on vacation and unavailable for comment. Microsoft's interactive agency, Anderson & Lembke, San Francisco, referred calls to Microsoft. The company declined to comment except to say it is seeking more "performance-based" approaches to Web advertisingvertising. 
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NEWS ANALYSIS: Big media fights back, and the Web could lose
When six major media company filed suit last week against a Web site, more than the issue of frames was at stake. 
The decision to single out TotalNews, a site that compiles links to news site and displays the information inside a frame, crystallizes a simple but nagging question for Web publishers: Who controls links and how they're presented? 
The media company--Time Inc., Cable News Network, Washington Post Co., Times Mirror Co., Reuters and Dow Jones & Co.--charge that TotalNews benefits financially by using frames to show the publishers' copyrighted material. TotalNews sells advertisingvertising on its site that could overshadvertisingow--or be competitive with--advertisings the publishers sold, the suit charges. 
A DIFFERENT KIND OF LINK 
TotalNews counters that frames help Web users get information quickly. They're just links presented in a different way. 
"The big boys want to control access to information on the Net," lamented Roman Godzich, president of TotalNews, in a statement. 
If the media company emerge victorious, the case could set a startling precedent. No one is denying publishers the right to police their links. But if TotalNews is wrong, other site that are jumping-off points for news could be as well. 
Consider Newslinx, a popular resource among Internet newshounds. 
Newslinx compiles a daily list of headvertisinglines from Internet-related articles on site such as The New York Times and CNET's News.com. The site doesn't use frames. 
But, like TotalNews, Newslinx has a flourishing advertising sales operation, placing banners for such advertisingvertisers as WebThreadvertisings and Gif Wizards on its home page. 
Newslinx also engages in one potentially problematic practice: It alters the headvertisinglines of articles. 
"It's our right to describe someone else's Web page and content," said Richard Ord, Newslinx publisher. site don't necessarily agree. 
`A REAL GRAY AREA' 
"Linking back to us via a headvertisingline is a great readvertisinger service," said Jai Singh, editor of News.com. "However, I would have a problem if my headvertisingline were changed or misconstrued. That's getting into a real gray area." 
Newshub, which isn't advertising-supported, also offers headvertisinglines from Web site, such as Wired News. 
"No one has given us a hard time for linking to their site," said c0-founder Tom McDonald. 
Should these company be in the same boat as TotalNews? Probably not. But the actions of CNN and its brethren leave anyone who compiles lists of links in danger. 
"Are [the media company] anti-linking? Clearly not," insisted Jeremy Feigelson, attorney with Debevoise & Plimpton, the New York law firm representing the plaintiffs. "They understand that that's how the Web works." 
With the TotalNews case as precedent, it's only a matter of time before these company declare that's not how they want the Web to work. 
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Sony buys mid-sized Japanese advertising agency
TOKYO -- Sony Corp., the consumer electronics giant, will take a 70% stake in Tokyu Agency International (TAI), Japan's 21st largest advertising agency and a sister company of Tokyu Agency, Japan's third largest advertisingvertising agency after Dentsu Inc. and Hakuhodo Inc. 
Currently, TAI is owned by Tokyu Group (51%), Sony and Honda (12.5% each) and the foreign advertisingvertising agency D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (24%). Tokyu Agency hadvertising 1995 billings of $1.8bn, while TAI hadvertising 1995 billings of $351m. 
Sony, which is TAI's biggest client, plans to change the name of agency in April or May. Sony will also install a new president and a number of senior executives to take charge of TAI. There are reports that Sony has approached a long-time Dentsu executive to headvertising TAI. 
One of major reasons why Sony has decided to acquire an advertisingvertising agency is to prepare it for advertisingvertising the Internet and on the coming era of digital multi-channel television. Sony also plans to be a major share holder in the Japanese satellite TV venture, JSkyB, which was established as a joint venture by News Corp and Softbank last December. JSkyB plans to start broadvertisingcasting a 150-channel service from April '98. Softbank and News Corp have recently agreed with Sony that each of the company will own a third of JSkyB. Sony alreadvertisingy owns the major U.S. movie studio, Sony Picture Entertainment. 
Other areas of Sony's operations which would benefit from an advertising agency with digital expertise include Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment, which markets the PlayStation video games console. Both those company also have a lot of content which can be utilized under digital multi-channel broadvertisingcasting business as well as hardware business under the Sony brand.
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ILAC attracts attention
More than 160 new media executives will participate in the first organizational meeting of the Internet Local advertisingvertising & Commerce Association, a not-for-profit group that focuses on promoting and growing local advertisingvertising and commerce between buyers and sellers on the Web. Representatives from company including Microsoft, BigBook, GTE Directories, Times Mirror, Digital City, the Kelsey Group and R.H. Donnelley will participate. The meeting will take place on March 19 at the Hyatt Regency, St. Louis, at 1:30 on March 19. Check the Kelsey Group's Web site for more info.
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AT&T presses right high-tech buttons
advertisingvertiser: AT&T Corp. Agency: Young & Rubicam, New York advertising Review rating: 3 stars Voice-mail. E-mail. Wireless. Teleconferencing. Call-forwarding. Paging. Fax. Downloadvertisinging from 30,000 feet. Tele-technology has certainly madvertisinge communications easier, so you can scarcely blame AT&T Corp., or Young & Rubicam, New York, for reminding us how grateful we should be. 
If they'd only take the main image spot and press 3 for delete, we'd be more grateful still. 
The nicest thing to say about the montage, called "Day in the Life," is that by some miracle there's no jingle to go with it. It shows a sampling of the Many Ways Our Friend Mr. Telecommunications Touches Our Lives: from the first phone in some remote Chinese village to the first Web page at Lloyd's Boots & Western Wear in Pinworm, Texas, to coach Pat Riley telescouting with a basketball under his arm (now there's a subtle bit of exposition) to Chris Reeve teleconferencing to a roomful of child quadvertisingriplegics, to the only banker in usury history who pauses reflectively as he wires a giant loan to an industrial customer. 
The guy sits back and takes a satisfied sip of java, pondering either the positive economic effect on a community of working people or how many basis points will funnel directly to his yearend bonus. It must be the former, because he's the only one in the entire spot who isn't grinning like a freakin' idiot. 
This anthem is something close to generic AT&T advertisingvertising--phony and mawkish and nauseating. Yet, its underlying principle is one that makes the campaign quite good: the idea of making tiny vignettes stand for the whole. 
In that way this campaign compares favorably to the networkMCI anthem from Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, which touched on very similar themes in essentially the opposite way. The idea was to dramatize the heroic egalitarianism of the Internet, and the roots of the commercial were inspiring individual anecdotes of digital democracy. But by the time they hadvertising been processed, digested and synthesized, their inherent drama and power were reduced to a string of dubious, pompous (albeit handsomely presented) platitudes. 
No platitudes here. In one of three vignettes, a traveling husband finds a novel way to use technology to arrange a private interlude with his wife. He faxes her from an airplane, telling her to be on the porch--under the stars, naturally--to take his call at 9 p.m. We, who have more regard for verisimilitude than sentimentality, can only hope that when she answers he hollers at her for packing the shirt with the missing collar button. 
In a similarly idealized but far more deft and poignant spot, a working mom blows off a client meeting to take her kids to the beach, deciding to conference call insteadvertising with her cellular phone. The verge of domestic chaos is perfectly realized, even if the plaintive line from the 4-year-old ("Mom, when can I be a client?") is a bit too heart-wrenchingly pat. 
In the best of the spots, a teen-age girl comes home from a date and gets immediately online with the new boyfriend. She is a charming and very believable young lover, brushing her teeth as she eyes the computer screen for a response. 
The drama is slight, the scale small, but the impact is powerful. Technology does, indeed, touch us in humanizing ways--a point more effectively madvertisinge when not didactically, grandiosely presented.
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Samsung to challenge with Pan-European product launches
LONDON -- South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co is to mount its first pan-European advertisingvertising this year to promote technological innovations that it hopes will pitch it into Europe's top league of consumer electronics company. 
Bozell Worldwide - appointed as agency of record for Europe in January - is working on the launch of Samsung's Digital Video Disc (DVD), scheduled for May or June, and the introduction this fall of a new premium-priced television range that is claimed to be technologically advertisingvanced. Samsung is keeping the TV's specific benefits under wraps for the time being. The combined budget is $10m-$15m. 
Samsung's DVD, which will launch initially into the leadvertising markets of Germany, France and the Benelux countries before rolling out across Europe, will be a flagship product for the European subsidiary. Its arrival at the same time as the first wave of DVDs will be important for the credibility of the Samsung brand, says European Marketing Communications Manager Keith Lucas. 
The aim is that the new TV range, for its part, will set Samsung headvertising to headvertising against industry leadvertisingers such as Philips, Panasonic and Sony, "rather than battling it out in the second division where Samsung has tradvertisingitionally found itself," Lucas says. 
"Samsung doesn't have the stature to sell at a premium price, but this television will leap-frog a lot of the competition. The company is very ambitious and wants to be in the top two or three electronics company (in Europe). This product will do it." 
The TV range will also launch in a few leadvertising markets, yet to be decided, before moving out into the rest of Europe. 
In another move to boost its profile as a technological innovator, Samsung will next week show at the Cebit high technology show in Hanover, Germany, its concept for an Internet TV, which could give viewers access to TV channels via a modem. 
A proposed $20m budget for a brand-building advertisingvertising push across Europe - also through Bozell - has still not been approved by Korean management. Meanwhile, Cheil Communications, the Korean agency used by Samsung as an in-house resource, and the New York-based Arnell Group issued a statement last week confirming their joint appointment at the end of last year to develop Samsung's global branding strategy. 
Their brief is to "unify Samsung's marketing communications messages throughout the world while advertisingapting local expressions in key regions." They began in January. Bozell's leadvertising office for Samsung in Europe is Delaney Fletcher Bozell London.
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Soaring stock market eager for interactive shop IPOs
The stock market's greeting of the New Age interactive communications company makes clear what the word "frothy" means. 
Five interactive company have gone public in the past 15 months, and at least two more are waiting in the wings. 
Despite the rise in the overall market, only one of these company, CKS Group, is selling significantly above its offering price. The others are down as much as 41%. 
While no one knows for sure how any one of them will fare, it's a safe bet that the inevitable shakeout will force some of the IPO company to consolidate or evaporate. 
The winners could grow to be the next Interpublic Group of Cos. or Omnicom Group, interactive style. The losers will burn up a lot of cash raised in the public market and disappoint their managers and investors. 
CKS FIRST 
In December 1995, CKS Group became the first significant initial public offering of an advertisingver-tising/communications agency in more than 20 years. 
CKS raised $42.5 million, followed by a secondary offering valued at $61.2 million. Today, its stock is double the offering price and sells at seven times revenues and 78 times earnings. 
CKS' market value is $447 million. True North Communications, a company many times larger, is valued at $473 million. 
Other company jumped on the IPO bandwagon, pushing their connection with the Internet to obtain the maximum valuation. In reality, many of these agencies were doing less--often far less--true interactive business than their hype would have you believe. 
Eagle River Interactive, for example, derived 75% of its 1995 revenues from selling outdoor advertisingvertising in ski areas. Yet its IPO in March 1996 valued the company at $170 million, 22 times prior year's revenues. 
17 TIMES REVENUE 
Leap Group was a two-year-old advertisingvertising boutique that also did Web site. At Leap's IPO last September, it was valued at $136 million, a stratospheric 17 times revenues. 
And the paradvertisinge didn't stop. Think New Ideas was formed from six totally different businesses combined for the purpose of going public last year. 
Two IPO hopefuls, meanwhile, are waiting in the wings. 
TN Technologies includes Modem Media and is the largest purely interactive company of them all. Poppe Tyson, owned by BJK&E, canceled its first attempt to go public, but is testing the waters again, eager to get on the boards. 
Behind the extraordinary valuations for these new company' stock is a business model vastly different from that of tradvertisingitional communications company. 
This model is typically based on project work, not an ongoing stream of revenues from creating and placing advertisingvertising. 
The good news is that client conflicts are far less of a problem. The badvertising news is that clients see the interactive agency as a vendor, and can experiment with several shops that bid for the job. 
Growth rates of 50% or more are inherent in the business plan for interactive shops, based on the exponential increase in Internet business. The tradvertisingitional advertising business grows only about 5% to 6% annually. 
GREATER PRODUCTIVITY 
Investments in technology make the new-wave agencies potentially more productive (and eventually more profitable) than most advertisingvertising agencies. 
Their public stock gives them currency to grow by acquiring other company, sometimes as large as or larger than they are. Last fal