Hotlines II: Late-Breaking Industry News

Crispin Nabs Piece of Ogilvy's AmEx Creative AccountNEW YORK American Express has hired Crispin Porter + Bogusky to handle creative duties on Open, a division that targets small-business owners, AmEx confirmed last week, as first reported by Adweek.com. Longtime AmEx agency Ogilvy & Mather had handled the assignment back to its launch in 2002, according to an AmEx rep. The incumbent and MDC Partners' Crispin pitched ideas for the assignment, and the client selected Crispin, the rep said. Major media spending on Open has ranged from about $55 million in 2005 to more than $100 million in 2006, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Through April of this year, the figure was around $18 million, per Nielsen. WPP's Ogilvy here remains a "core agency partner" that handles brand image and consumer card duties on the main brand both in the U.S and abroad, the rep said.$80 Million Overture Films Taps PHD as Agency of RecordNEW YORK Overture Films has selected Omnicom's PHD as its media agency following a review, the client has confirmed. Other contenders included Horizon Media and Palisades Media, according to sources. The film studio is expected to spend an estimated $80 million over the next year on ads, sources said, although neither the client nor the agency would confirm that figure. The account will be serviced out of PHD's Los Angeles office, overseen by Susan Taylor, managing partner, PHD West. With offices in Los Angeles and New York, Overture, which opened its doors last fall, is an operating unit of Starz LLC, which in turn is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp. Viewing of Web Video Shows No Effect on TV Ratings, Study SaysNEW YORK An estimated 81 million people watch broadband video, but those numbers have not adversely affected TV ratings, according to a study released last week by The Nielsen Co. and the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing. The study said about 63 percent of the 129 million broadband users in the U.S. watched online video as of March, up 16 percent from September. Television viewing, however, has not been hurt by the increase. The study found that broadband video was largely "incremental new viewing" and not a substitute for TV usage. The report also found that 33 percent of those surveyed said watching broadband video actually increased their television viewing time, compared with 13 percent who said it decreased TV consumption. The Nielsen Co. is the parent company of Adweek.DraftFCB Cuts 50 Following Loss of Verizon BusinessCHICAGO IPG's DraftFCB in New York will cut 50 positions, or just over 3 percent of the office's staff, in the wake of losing direct marketing duties on Verizon, confirmed worldwide president and COO Laurence Boschetto. The layoffs are expected to occur over the next 30 days. Of the agency's 175 staffers that worked on the Verizon account, about 90 will be placed in open positions and another 35 will move to sibling company MRM, which picked up the business when Verizon reshuffled its roster in May, Boschetto said. Verizon in May consolidated duties on its communications, business and wireless divisions at units of McCann Worldgroup in a bid to save money and create a common look and feel for its ads. In the shuffle, McCann Erickson gained ad duties on the client's communications and business products that had been handled by independent mcgarrybowen and Havas' Euro RSCG. Amalgamated Wins Creative On $50 Mil. Big Lots Stores BOSTON Closeout retailer Big Lots has moved the creative portion of its estimated $50 million ad account to Amalgamated in New York following a review, according to Pile and Co., which managed the selection process. In the hunt along with Amalgamated was New York shop Merkley + Partners, as well as Bernstein-Rein in Kansas City and The Richards Group in Dallas. All are independents except Merkley, which is owned by Omnicom. The client and winning agency could not be reached. SBC Advertising in Westerville, Ohio, handled the account for nearly 20 years. The incumbent declined to participate.Omnicom Creates Umbrella Unit To Oversee Digital Media BuyingNEW YORK Omnicom has reorganized its digital media buying structure, creating an umbrella entity to complement the digital units of OMD and PHD. Sean Finnegan, formerly U.S. director of OMD Digital, will lead the unit, called OMG Digital. It also encompasses Next, the holding company's emerging-media practice. While OMG Digital will oversee about $2 billion in spending, the move is designed not only to increase the leverage Omnicom agencies have with digital media properties like Google, Yahoo and MSN but also to find ways to use shared behavioral insights to better target ad campaigns. Finnegan reports to Darly Simm, CEO of Omnicom Media Group. The new unit does not affect the day-to-day client service structure at either OMD Digital or PHDiq, the company said.New IPG Unit Will Create Mobile Campaigns for Its AgenciesNEW YORK IPG has formed a mobile marketing agency called Ansible, tasked with creating campaigns for clients at its shops. Ansible is a joint venture between IPG and Velti, a London-based mobile marketing technology provider. Vladimir Edelman, formerly chief executive at Soapbox Mobile, will lead the agency as CEO. Larry Harris, founder of FCBi and director of integrated marketing at DraftFCB, will move over to serve as president. The company launches with 17 employees. Ansible will offer strategy, creative and campaign management for mobile campaigns that use both text and multimedia elements. It is headquartered in New York, but will work in Europe and Asia in addition to North America.Google Newspaper Ad System Now Open to Entire BaseNEW YORK Google is broadening its effort to sell newspaper ads by opening its fledgling placement system to its entire advertising base and expanding the network's newspaper partners. The Internet giant in November began testing its print ad system with 50 newspapers, including The New York Times and Washington Post. Based on what it said were positive results, Google is now adding a print advertising tab to the accounts page of all its AdWords advertisers. The company has also expanded participating newspapers to 225, covering 50 percent of U.S. circulation, it said. Google has departed from its typical ad network approach to appease print advertisers. Rather than controlling inventory and determining which advertisers to place, Google has set up a bid-ask marketplace, where publishers decide whether to accept advertiser offers.MediaCom Grabs Michelin's $100 Mil. Buying, Planning BizNEW YORK Tire maker Michelin North America has selected WPP's MediaCom as its agency for media planning and buying for all product lines and brands, the client has confirmed. Annual spending on the account is estimated at $100 million. The other two contenders in the pitch were WPP's MindShare and Mediaedge:cia. MediaCom has been the client's incumbent media shop in Canada for nearly 20 years. In the U.S., media had been handled by a slew of full-service shops handling creative and media duties for individual brands. All of those shops will continue to handle creative chores on their brands while surrendering media duties to MediaCom, the client said.

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