Media Update - November - 2009

Star Tribune, CarSoup.com Target Auto Ad Dollars

The Minneapolis Star Tribune is partnering with CarSoup.com to power the stagnant car-selling portion of the publication’s website, StarTribune.com/cars. In exchange, the Star Tribune will become the local sales arm for CarSoup.com products and services in the Twin Cities metro area for both dealership and for-sale-by-owner advertising.

The partnership, which begins in December, will give visitors to the Tribune’s site access to CarSoup.com’s vehicle listings and products. Users can also access CarSoup’s listings via KMSP-TV’s MyFOX9.com.

The deal promises to prop up the Tribune’s faltering online auto sales listings with one of the strongest local-search verticals in the city, according to the Minneapolis Post. Right now startribune.com/cars doesn’t even show up among the six local auto classified sites listed in the March-April 2009 Media Audit. CarSoup is first, with 14.8% of a fractured market - nearly nine times as much as cars.com, and 10 percentage points ahead of Autotrader.com; Craigslist, has 9.9% of the Twin Cities, writes MarketingVOX.

CarSoup is also getting important cross-platform ad exposure out of the deal. “While CarSoup is winning the local search wars, owner Larry Cuneo knows there’s a lot more to get,” the Minneapolis Post said - such as the Tribune’s print component, an area in which CarSoup had no partner.

CarSoup gets about 250,000 uniques a month in the Twin Cities, Cuneo said. CarSoup is now in 80 of the nation’s 217 designated market areas.

The deal illustrates the lure of the growing market for online auto ads and sales activity, especially for publishers. Auto manufacturers are expected to increase their online ad spend by 14% in 2010, while new- and used-car dealers will increase their ad spend online by 8.6%, according to a new report from Borrell Associates. The increase in expected spending may be because the internet is - according to dealers - the leading media driver of walk-in traffic.

JetBlue and JWT Parting Ways

JetBlue Airways and its creative agency, WPP-owned JWT, are splitting up, despite a four-year run marked by the airline doubling its footprint to some 60 markets and earning a dedicated terminal at New York's JFK airport.

"On the eve of JetBlue's 10th anniversary, we have mutually agreed that it is time to part ways," said Rosemarie Ryan, JWT's president-North America, in a note today to agency employees. "In 2005, at the age of five, JetBlue hired JWT with two objectives: A) help JetBlue grow in the next 5 years B) help JetBlue grow in the right way and make sure their unique culture remains intact," she said. "In the past five years we have done exactly that."

Forest Hills, N.Y.-based JetBlue handed JWT its ad account in November 2005 after a pitch against a handful of smaller New York agencies. Other shops on its roster include WPP's Mediacom and PR agency MWW, which it appointed after a review last year.

A JWT spokeswoman declined to comment on the split and JetBlue did not respond by press time.

The split comes just as the domestic airline is expanding its footprint globally via a codeshare struck this month with German airline Lufthansa, and it also follows reports by industry insiders that JetBlue has been quietly shopping around for other agencies.

If JetBlue opts to call a pitch for its account, it's a safe bet that any number of shops will be clamoring to participate -- even though the popular brand isn't a big ad spender.

Because JetBlue's marketing strategy leans heavily on the web and social media, its measured media spending has remained at a conservative $25 million for the past several years, according to TNS Media Intelligence data.

The low-cost carrier has been hailed a progressive marketer -- especially for the embattled airline industry -- with its fun style of events and its use of social media as a marketing tool. Named to Ad Age's list of America's Hottest Brands earlier this month, JetBlue has close to 1.5 million followers on Twitter and is building a following on a new Twitter feed called JetBlue Cheeps, designed solely to tweet limited-time-offer airfare specials to consumers.

This summer, it built buzz for its new routes from New York's JFK and Boston's Logan International to LAX by hiring YouTube celebs to tweet and post videos about the experience while flying on planes equipped with wireless internet.

JWT is responsible for JetBlue's "Happy Jetting" campaign, for which it created humorous ads and a website targeted at bigwig CEO's that have been forced to downgrade to commercial travel amidst the recession.

For the first nine months of 2009, JetBlue posted earnings of $47 million despite an economy that's hit the travel sector hard.

Mike Parker in Tribal DDB Return

Tribal DDB is bringing former top executive Mike Parker back into the fold to serve as co-president of its U.S. operations.
Parker and Richard Guest will serve as co-presidents at Tribal. Parker will operate from San Francisco and Guest from New York, where he has been managing director of the office there for the past three years.
Parker spent the just eight months at Betawave, an ad network run by former Tribal DDB CEO Matt Freeman, as vp of strategic solutions. Prior to that, he was director of digital strategy at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for two years. He was CEO of Tribal DDB Canada and spent a decade with DDB prior to joining Goodby.
"As we're called more and more to the C suite and get charged with a brand's direction, I have more ammunition to go to battle with," said Tribal CEO Paul Gunning. "It'll free me up to put a little more attention on the global network. We're having a huge expansion in Asia."

"Right now there's still a lot of question about the right way to service digital, who own social media and how you do digital production," said Parker. "There's still a lot to be figured out and a lot of opportunity. What's exciting is clients are committed to digital now and it's really matured."

Parker and Guest will split overall U.S. responsibilities, without a geographic divide, for Tribal's offices in Chicago, Dallas, New York, San Francisco and Seattle and satellite offices in Los Angeles and Miami.

Gunning had taken over U.S. responsibilities from Liz Ross in March. At the time, he said Tribal needed to focus on operational efficiencies. In that time, Gunning has driven the shop's offices to share production for clients, rather than serving them all from the office that won the business. It has also further developed centers of excellence, like New York's social media focus.

Tribal's U.S. offices have had an up-and-down year. Along with fellow Omnicom Group shop Agency.com and Publicis Groupe's Digitas, Tribal was replaced as Wrigley's digital agency by a trio of smaller shops: Big Spaceship, Firstborn Interactive and EVB.

Gunning said there's little to the thought that so-called "traditional" digital agencies are losing ground to smaller, more nimble shops. Tribal, for instance, subsequently won the Pepsi AMP business and is handling the social media piece for OfficeMax's "Elf Yourself" holiday push.

"It's a little ridiculous," he said of what he characterizes as the "production versus full-service" debate. "It's a very competitive environment and our clients and ourselves are trying various mixes and models. We're right there along with them to get the most out of every penny they spend. You'll see hundreds of combos, but no one particular model will completely own how the advertising world operates."

Betawave, which Freeman joined in June 2008 when it was named GoFish, has been building up a network of mom- and kid-focused sites. It hopes to differentiate itself in the crowded ad network space by offering "attention" advertising opportunities on sites that have high engagement rates. It boasts reaching 32 million users through sites like MiniClip, Shutterfly and Meez.

According to financial filings, the company took in $2.3 million in the second quarter and recorded a net loss of $2.6 million.