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Wendy’s hired Latino advertising agency the Bravo Group to create a new series of Spanish-language television and radio commercials targeting the U.S. Spanish-speaking market.

In the new campaign, the Columbus-based hamburger chain uses the slogan ” Sabor de Verdad,” which loosely translates as “Real Taste,” to adapt its current “You know when it’s real” campaign to the Latino market, said Eric Hoyt, president the Miami-based ad agency.

The ads are designed to show the company’s commitment to the Latino market, he said.

“For Wendy’s, like other business, it represents a good opportunity to connect with that audience,” Hoyt said. “It’s good business.”

The ads depict a fictional couple, Cesar and Gabriela, who use a Wendy’s drive-through to order food from the chain’s expanded value menu.

The goal of the campaign is to “build faith” in Wendy’s food among the more than 45 million U.S.-based Latinos, said Bob Holtcamp, a senior vice president at Wendy’s.

The buying power of Latinos will rise from $1 trillion in 2010 to $1.5 trillion in 2015, accounting for nearly 11 percent of the nation’s total buying power, according to a report from the Selig Center for Economic Growth in the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

The report defines buying power as disposable income or money that is available for spending after taxes. The study said that the rate of growth in Latino buying power tops all other racial and ethnic groups’ as well as the rate of growth in overall buying power.

Hoyt said the Wendy’s campaign will run through the end of the year.

The ads will run on major Spanish language television and radio stations, including Univision, Telefutura, Galavision and Telemundo. Wendy’s didn’t say how much it spent on the ads.

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VAUGHAN, ON, Nov. 4 /CNW/ – The United Steelworkers is ramping up its campaign in support of workers locked out by Sears at its warehouse in Vaughan, Ontario.

To add to the over 40,000 ‘Don’t shop at Sears’ leaflets already handed out at Sears stores, union members and supporters will be leafleting at high-traffic Sears stores across the GTA on Saturday, November 6. 

Saturday, Nov. 6:
LEAFLETTING Sears stores across GTA, asking not to shop at Sears.

Monday, Nov. 8 at 1:00 p.m.:
RALLY of union & supporters at Sears Vaughan warehouse

Each Saturday & Sunday until Christmas
LEAFLETTING Sears stores

Thursday, Nov. 19-21:
800,000 AUTOMATED Calls across North America

On each successive Saturday and Sunday leading into the holiday shopping season, workers and supporters will leaflet an expanding list of Sears stores across Canada.

On Monday, November 8 at 1 p.m., the union will hold a picket line rally at the warehouse, featuring speakers from the locked-out workers and from supportive members of the Ontario Legislature and the Parliament of Canada.  The rally will be held at 9501 Hwy 50, north of Rutherford Road in Vaughan, Ontario.

Prior to the key U.S. shopping day of the year (November 26 is known in the U.S. as “Black Friday”) the union will send an automated “don’t shop at Sears” phone message to the households of well over 800,000 of its members and their families across North America.

The union will also use radio advertising in some key markets. It will also extend the boycott to include Sears Vacations and draw attention to the exorbitant 29.9% interest rate of the Sears Card.

On April 1 of this year about 500 USW Local 9537 members were locked out by Sears Canada.

Taking an aggressive stance, Sears is demanding that key working conditions in the collective agreement be gutted and placed simply at the unilateral discretion of management.

In a further provocative move, Sears has brought in “replacement workers,” or scabs, to take the jobs of the Steelworker members who are locked out. 

Sears has added to its confrontational stance by hiring a security company to ferry the replacement workers across the picket line at the warehouse.

“Sears has frozen out its own hard-working employees and their families,” said Wayne Fraser, USW Director (Ontario and Atlantic Region). “We’ve had great feedback about our publicity campaign and now we’re going to ramp it up.  Consumers deserve to know what is going on so they can choose where to shop – and where not to.”

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We see it every day: huge display ads with slashed prices or loud radio/television ads telling people that Retailer X has the lowest prices. While it has been the norm to advertise sales and lowered prices, one industry expert insists that leading with price can kill your campaign’s momentum – before it gets started. How?
by Kristina Knight

“Discounting, especially repeatedly, isn’t sustainable,” says Dan Hill, President of Sensory Logic. “One of the key advantages of a sale is the element of surprise [but surprise is] brief and followed by…a ‘wow’ or a ‘yikes’.”

The Yikes Effect is the effect that can kill campaigns, Hill says, and the reason that brands should lead with alternative openings.

“Price-leading advertising creates quality problems for the offer,” says Hill. “[A lower price] might help to shape perceptions that…the existing offer was never worth what people have been accustomed to paying.”

First, don’t focus on the number of the price, focus on the value. Sure, your brand’s car cleaning solution may undercut competitors by $3 or more, but does the value hold up? Rather than allowing ads to scream about cut rates, twist the ad copy to focus on the value of the product: it lasts twice as long, gives cars a deeper clean, adds in a wax element, etc.

“A brand on sale is a brand with an integrity problem,” says Hill. “With price-leading advertising a company’s identity becomes fuzzy. Suddenly, you’re either a discount brand or a are signaling a lack of confidence that…is never very attractive.” Hill went on to say that leading with price can hurt the loyalty of the existing and future customer base.

Second, show the versatility of the product. Rather than focusing on a low price and devaluing the brand, Hill suggests that advertisers focus on how versatile the product is. Can a cleaning product be used on cars and bathrooms? Does a vacuum work as well at home as at a busy hotel?

“Leading with price suggests you have nothing else to say or show,” says Hill. So, rather than focusing on price, focus on other aspects of your product.

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A QUIRKY advertising campaign has been launched in the Lothians to stop people needlessly turning up at accident and emergency.
Thousands of people every year go to casualty at the ERI with minor complaints that could be dealt with elsewhere, putting added pressure on waiting times.

The new campaign will see slogans on Lothians Buses reading “ooyah”, “owww” and “aaargh” in
ADVERTISEMENTa bid to catch people’s attention.

It will then be explained that in cases of less serious complaints, the minor injuries unit at the Western General is likely to be a quicker, more appropriate place for treatment. A radio advertising campaign is also being launched.

The clinic at the Western, which is open daily from 8am to 9pm, has been operating for 16 years.

Fiona Churchill, lead nurse practitioner for NHS Lothian, said: “The minor injuries clinic is a one-stop shop for patients.

“We perform a crucial role and treat scores of patients for a variety of injuries every day.

“We help to enhance the patients’ journey because they are seen in the right place, at the right time by the right people.

“The minor injuries clinic is open every day and these bus and radio adverts will make sure that many more people know about the expert service we provide.”

The move has also been prompted by a poor year for A&E targets.

A freezing winter and growing population was blamed for the performance of the ERI – the country’s busiest A&E.

And last year’s swine flu pandemic placed more strain on it, to the point where the health board had to actively tell people with flu-like symptoms – apart from those in at-risk groups – not to come to casualty.

One ERI source told the Evening News: “It is a real problem managing A&E when you have people there who have no need to be.

“People are often shocked at just how quick and efficient the minor injuries unit is, even for things some people would regard as fairly serious.

“It can often be as straightforward as walking straight in and seeing a medic.

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TV advertising continues strong at CBS — both at its networks and local TV stations.

CBS network scatter advertising cost-per-thousand viewer rates are now up more than 35% over the upfront pricing set last summer, according to Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corp. — a trend, he says, that looks to continue beyond the fourth quarter well into 2011.

For the third-quarter financial results, released on Thursday, overall company advertising was up 10% to $1.99 billion and affiliate and subscription fees climbed 15% to $828.2 million. The company said advertising sales at CBS Television Network grew 7% in the period.

Overall net earnings were up 133% to $441.2 million.

But CBS slipped 2% in overall revenues to $3.30 billion from $3.35 billion of a year ago. CBS says it had poor comparisons to the third quarter of 2009, where it gained from the big first-cycle syndication license fee sales of five TV shows: “Medium,” “Criminal Minds,” “Ghost Whisperer,” “Everybody Hates Chris” and “Numb3rs”. From this, its entertainment segment revenues declined 12% to $1.62 billion.

CBS also noted that local broadcasting was up 15% to $677.3 million with operating income climbing 49%; advertising sales climbed 25% from many key categories, automotive and financial services, and higher political advertising sales. Full-year advertising at its local stations is pacing up 20% over a year ago.

CBS Radio advertising revenues increased 9%.

Moonves noted that the big local broadcasting levels of political advertising that pushed out non-political advertising brands during the election period were not lost. Much of this non-political advertising will run in the fourth quarter of 2010 and beyond.

Many of CBS’ businesses — including TV — will continue to be strong, according to company officials, in the fourth quarter and in 2011. CBS notes TV upfront sales in the summer were up in high single-digit percent price increases, with scatter now at big 35% increases. One caveat: There is a little less TV ad inventory in the scatter market for CBS, says Moonves, since the network sold more inventory than usual in the upfront market.

The company says its network programming costs are less than a year ago — both in prime time and future sports costs, including the NCAA College Basketball Tournament.

CBS Interactive display advertising revenues grew 17% in the third quarter of 2010. Revenue at CBS cable networks, CBS College Sports Networks and Showtime Networks improved 12% to $370 million. Cable networks posted a 33% gain in operating income.

Publishing slipped some, down 6% to $217.7 million. But operating income gained 10% to $31.2 million. Its best-selling titles in the period included The Power by Rhonda Byrne and Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward.

Outdoor revenues gained 8% to $459.7 million from $424.9 million, and with operating income shot up 136%.

CBS continues to invest in its own company’s stock. Cash on hand will help push CBS to start a $1.5 billion share repurchase program.

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In anticipation of Guy Fawkes Day on 5 November, advertising agency Lowe Bull Cape Town has created a radio advertisement which appeals to the public to forego the fireworks for the sake of their pets. The ad asks listeners to “imagine if everything was ten times louder than it is now,” and then illustrates the effect of this by magnifying different sounds – such as a pin dropping and a candle burning. “Animals are incredibly sensitive to loud noises because their hearing is so much more acute than ours,” explains Kirk Gainsford, Executive Creative Director at Lowe Bull CT. “This ad is intended to make people aware of how terrifying and painful fireworks are for animals, and asks them to sacrifice a few thrills for the wellbeing of their pets.”

The ad was created in partnership with the Domestic Animal Rescue Group.

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Radio is enjoyed by 10 million households and 28 million people in South Africa due to it’s convenience and user friendliness. The PwC South African Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2010-2014 is keenly aware of the potential there and reports that FIFA World Cup spending and the economic recovery raised advertising revenues for the six months ending June 2010. The total reached R1.24 billion. This compares with R1.05 billion for 2009.
 

Two years ago, the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) was implemented to foster the use of radio as an advertising platform. RAB educates advertising agencies on the best use of radio as an advertising medium.
 

Last year, 82% of the radio market was accounted for in advertising spend even though that market suffered its first decline in five years.
 

However, the trend is expected to move in the other direction this year with 10% rises expected in 2011 and 2012. The numbers jump to 11.1% in 2013 and a 12.1% boost by 2014.

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The radio industry has seen 9% year-on-year growth in ad revenue for the month of October, according to Commercial Radio Australia (CRA).

In total, the industry generated $62.53 million in ad revenue last month. Each of the five metropolitan markets saw growth, with Brisbane reporting the strongest growth, up 12.62% year-on-year to $10.19 million.

Sydney grew 12.4% at $19.7 million, while Melbourne pulled in $19.09 million, recording growth of 6.89%. Perth grew by 6.42% to $7.95 million, while Adelaide grew 1.86% to $5.5 million.

CRA chief executive Joan Warner said: “The industry is continuing to work hard to promote the many strengths of radio as an advertising source and remains optimistic about the next twelve months.”

The figures follow solid first quarter growth for the 2011/2012 financial year, with ad revenue growth up 11.8% to $173.66 million.

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If you thought archaeology just involved hairy old men pulling bones out of mud, you may be surprised to discover that vintage 90s LiveJournals count as archaeology too – web archaeology.

Those beautiful flowerings of creativity on MySpace, LiveJournal – the GIFs and the text art are being collected to be preserved for future generations.

Speaker Jim Boulton gets all poetic talking about it..

“Developments were so fast that the hardware, software and groundbreaking creative work that sat on once new platforms disappeared almost as soon as they appeared, like Mayflies in spring doomed to die as the sunlight fades.”

“Mayflies” – beautiful…

The curator explains the purpose of the exhibition: “During and following the event, we will seek to identify the websites that inspired a generation of web designers and archive them for posterity. If we understand the past, we can make the future better.”

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If there’s one thing recent trends in Web design prove, it’s that users want less, not more.

Christopher Mims 11/04/2010
1 Comment
The homepage of MacWorld.com is almost confrontationally un-designed. Instead of the usual visual vocabulary of “good” Web design — variably-sized images, thumbnails, carefully apportioned white space, one-pixel lines, typefaces of various weights — the homepage is dominated by this:
That’s deliberate, MacWorld editor in chief Jason Snell told me via e-mail:

“When we bought the site MacCentral in 1999 its home page looked like that. It’s a legacy of that.”

His readers, he says, have been trained to expect a straight river of news — no embellishment, no frills, nothing but the text itself. Their preference was so strong that the audience was utterly immune to attempts at a more accessible redesign.

“When we moved that list to a lower-down news index, that became the biggest traffic page on the site instead of the home page. They didn’t even like it when we added thumbnails and summary blurbs.”

Snell says the page has looked more or less like that for a decade, which means it predates the widespread use of RSS readers and other sites with stripped-down designs, such as Reddit. Now that things like Readability and Instapaper are dissolving all the bells and whistles off of every other kind of content, as Dylan Tweney points out, it’s worth asking whether or not what we’ve come to accept as good Web design accomplishes anything genuinely useful for a website’s best customers — the ones who obsessively check it throughout the day, the ones who read every word of an article, the ones who are most engaged with a site’s content.

It could be a backlash against intrusive advertisements (think of the rise of ad blockers) and, just as importantly, the internal promotional widgets that function just like advertisements. It could also be that text, or language – unlike more visual media – must in the end be processed sequentially. Getting a user to move through a sequence of items in a particular order can be accomplished by scattering those items across a page and then catching the user’s eye, but also simply by putting them in the order the content creator intends.

Readers are apparently drawn to this level of simplicity; Snell reports that MacWorld’s homepage gets “massive traffic,” and a quick glance at its showing on Compete.com confirms it.

“Saying we designed it to be like a feed reader probably gets it backward. We trained our home-page-oriented readers to use it as their feed for Apple news before feed readers were even popular, and now it’s hard to train them to do anything else. They want what they want.”

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