NOVEMBER 2, 2009
U.S. $4.99, CANADA $4.99, U.K. £ 3.95
Where’s the shop?
Cliff Freeman slips
into history books
ADAGE.COM
POWER PLAYERS
Meet the marketers who are taking on the recession head-on. From P&G
to HP, these are the minds that are carving new paths in the new-media
wilderness with as much innovation as media clout. SEE P. 22
Agency behind Snapple
Lady and ‘Pizza, Pizza’
shutters after 22-year run
1.
MARC PRITCHARD
PROC TER & GAMBLE
2.
JOHN STRATTON
VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS
5.
BRIAN PERKINS
JOHNSON & JOHNSON
6.
STEPHEN QUINN
WALMART
By KUNUR PATEL
kpatel@adage.com
IN WHAT WAS left of an office on
W. 20th Street in New York, a
small group of casually dressed people were packing boxes amidst
empty file cabinets and unplugged
phones when a visitor arrived.
“Cliff Freeman is ceasing operations at this location,” said a woman
who asked not to have her name
printed and then asked the visitor to
leave. She bore a strong resemblance to online photos of Gail
Hoffman-Frusciante, the chief
financial officer and one of the few
remaining employees of Cliff
Freeman & Partners, a legendary ad
agency that could once brag about
being one of the most creative shops
in the land.
For a one-time creative hotbed
that ought to get a mention in any
history of TV advertising, the
demise of Cliff Freeman & Partners
will have sadly little effect on the
much-changed marketing business
of today—aside from the emotional
impact of many who say they owe
their careers to the place. A few
people, maybe even a dozen but
probably less, will need new jobs
and a precious few clients will need
new agencies.
The most significant client,
Baskin-Robbins, offered just the
stoic statement: “Baskin-Robbins is
aware that Cliff Freeman &
Partners has closed its doors. We
have a search under way for a new
agency partner.“
Several top executives who
spoke with Ad Age were unable to
point to any single reason for the
4.
CATHERINE
COUGHLIN
AT&T
See FREEMAN on Page 49
3. SIMON CLIFT UNILEVER
Latest ad scammers: faux agency execs
Gawker, NYT.com fall
prey to fake buyers who
harvest user identities
By MICHAEL LEARMONTH
Mlearmonth@adage.com
ADS HAVE LONG been a gateway for
spammers and hackers to distribute
malicious code, but now the crooks
are showing a new level of sophistication by posing as agency executives walking right into the front
doors of well-known publishers.
The scam goes something like
this: Someone posing as an agency
executive or marketer approaches a
publisher with a credible e-mail
domain like vonage-inc.com or
hyundai-inc.com and asks for a
quick turnaround campaign, often
over a weekend. The ads then install
malware or harvest user identities
and continue to do so until the publisher figures it out. Often they
don’t and the “advertiser”—
sometimes part of a European organized-crime syndicate—will even pay for
the campaign and run another.
MAL-ICIOUS: Scammers posing as execs
from Spark SMG placed this “ad” on
Gawker sites that actually installed
malware on visitors’ machines.
“They’re bold, and they have
budget,” said Michael Caruso, CEO
of ClickFacts, an online-security
firm that works with News Corp.
“These guys know internet advertising, and may have worked in the
industry, or at least they know
enough to convince a salesperson
they know the business.”
What do the scammers want?
Eyeballs, and installs, for the most
part. Some are paid by the number
of malware installs they can get;
others by the number of identities
See SCAM ADS on Page 49
New Pepsi ‘Dewmocracy’ push
threatens to crowd out shops
In latest crowd-source
move, Mtn Dew lets
public pick its ‘agency’
By NATALIE ZMUDA
nzmuda@adage.com
THE TREND OF MARKETERS relying on the wisdom of crowds to
create marketing campaigns is
escalating as PepsiCo turns over
the choice of agencies for three
product launches to the masses,
ramping up the potential threat to
ad shops bypassed or relegated to
a supporting role in implementing
the resulting efforts.
In a contest beginning this
month, Mtn Dew will hand off
marketing duties, at least temporarily, for a $100 million-plus
business to several potentially
unknown players selected by consumers. Via the contest, any
agency, independent film company
or individual can submit 12-second
clips via www.12seconds.tv outlining their ideas for marketing three
new Mtn Dew line extensions.
Those line extensions themselves were created by the crowd.
Distortion, Whiteout and
Typhoon are the latest results of
Dewmocracy, an initiative
designed to open up product devel-
See MTN DEW on Page 52
1 44
74470 01024
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