Ford is pursuing the Millennial generation these days like the rest of the global auto industry. But so far the carmakers' love largely has gone unrequited by a car-reluctant cohort.

Now, Ford hopes that a new Mustang can keep wooing Generation Y the way that its new Ford Fiesta did when it debuted a couple of years ago. Ford design chief J Mays has been telling folks for a while that the 2014 Mustang will comprise perhaps the nameplate's sharpest departure ever from the "pony car" that first excited the baby boomers a half-century ago under the guidance of then-Ford executive Lee Iacocca.

The company will have to be cautious. In the 1970s, after mistakenly believing that the appeal of the original, muscular, blockish Mustang design had run its course with the car market, Ford introduced a vastly diluted design and called it Mustang II.Continue reading...

The first thing you need to know about the third annual BroCon Summit (Oct. 28 in New York) is that it was hosted by the GuyRilla Marketing (get it?) Group.

Moderated by ESPN, BroCon 2012 featured marketing executives from Nike, the NBA, NHL, NFL, Microsoft, EA, and Maxim magazine discussing the latest trends in "Marketing to Men."

The after-party was held at The Russian Tea Room. Did we say Russian Tea Room? We meant Hooters. The after-party was held at Hooters.Continue reading...

One of the hardest-hit industries during this current recession: the magazine business. Many magazine brands suffered even more than their old-media cousins, newspapers.
And one of the main reasons was that another battered business, the U.S. auto industry, slashed the national advertising that used to sustain many magazines.

Well, happy days are here again for many magazine publishers — or at least better days than the last two years — because car companies are coming back to the fold, so to speak. Automotive advertising pages and related revenue both shot up by 40% during the third quarter, leading to a 3.6% gain in overall magazine ad pages during the period.

That development illustrates the fact that, seemingly against all odds, the auto business has emerged as one of the few relative bright spots as the U.S. economy struggles to recover. Overall auto sales should be about 10% ahead of a year ago, giving automakers emerging confidence to advertise more.Continue reading...

A new digital turf war is being waged between traditional ad agencies and media companies.

Conde Nast is now offering its creative services unit, CND Studios, as an agency for Conde Nast clients and/or any client, no matter where the ad buy is being made. In fact, Conde recently created content for Kenneth Cole’s website, Facebook page and YouTube channel (such as the spot above).

Hearst Corp. is reportedly closing a deal to buy the digital marketing firm iCrossing, one of the last remaining independent agencies with search expertise.

The reason, reports AdAge: publishers are increasingly being asked by advertisers to build and tailor digital ads that don’t conform to traditional display ad standards. But do advertisers want one-stop shopping?Continue reading...

Cyber Monday is being pronounced a success, with shopping up 13.7% and Amazon reportedly edging Wal-Mart.

The folks at the US Federal Trade Commission had their heads screwed on straight for once, by deciding to wait until the day after Cyber Monday to launch new rules requiring bloggers and celebrities to disclose when they promote a product online for pay, or in exchange for free stuff. (I know: as if anyone there even made the connection.) Well, we kind of joked about who might get caught up in these rules -- and questioned whether celebrities who tweet for pay will test the trust of their audience -- but, we suddenly notice (just in time!), we are included.

The FTC has been under fire from bloggers for issuing strict rules without sufficient guidelines or consumer education, considering that fines can range up to $11,000. It has promised to target advertisers, not bloggers, or maybe just big fish, or maybe not heavily fine the little fish -- which has raised concerns of selective prosecution. In a "heated but civil" interview between blogger Edward Champion and the FTC's Richard Cleland, it's noted that partner marketing links such as Amazon Associates are included in the disclosure requirements.

Well, as brandchannel readers have likely noticed, we use Amazon Associates. This is a well-known program that pays participants for referring business to Amazon, via links which are easily seen (because the URL string includes "brandchannelcom") and which will bring a fairly small amount of revenue to the site if you follow that link and make a purchase. We've included them for many years when we link to media (books that are reviewed, or films in our brandcameo section), and have been using them on this blog when referring to certain products Amazon sells. (Those references being there because they belong in the story, not so as to send business to Amazon.)Continue reading...

Maxim magazine is in the news, but not for anything it published. Investor Andrew Fox has taken to the press to complain that the publishing brand won't sell itself to him, and announced a $40 million hostile takeover bid. He says that without his plan to save it, the magazine will be dead in months. The magazine responded by calling Fox a "self-aggrandizing gossip" and insists his forecast has no merit. The question is, which part has no merit?

Founded by UK publishing magnate Felix Dennis in the '90s, Maxim changed the entire men's magazine publishing industry. The vortex created by the Maxim was so strong it literally changed the brands of all the magazines that competed with it. Before Maxim, magazines like GQ, Details and Esquire rarely featured half-naked women on their covers; lowest-common-denominator "listicles" were not a foundation block of their content, as they are today.

But Maxim became the Icarus of lad mags, and flew too high. It overindulged on questionable brand extensions likehair dye (see above) and a Maxim Living line that included duvets (though Maxim's poster child Tyler Durden insists a duvet is "just a blanket").Continue reading...

With sponsored iPhone apps flooding the marketplace, a brand needs make a big splash to stand out. Enter PepsiCo's "Amp Up Before You Score" iPhone app, released on Friday.

Proving that there's no such thing as bad publicity, the app has created a firestorm of controversy -- even if it's really just a tempest in an iPhone. The male-targeted application offers dating and "pick up" advice guaranteed to assist in "scoring" with members of the opposite sex.

The hetero-normative app allows men to choose from 24 "types" of women, ranging from "athlete" to "cougar" to "trouble," with pick-up lines, background information and restaurant listings for "suitors" to take their potential "conquests." You get the picture.Continue reading...