Kung Fu web films promote street label PNB Nation

LONDON - A series of spoof Kung Fu webfilms called 'The 4 Deadly Artz' is being used to promote clothing label PNB Nation.

The campaign was devised by Toronto-based agency Urban DNA and uses four films made for the internet that celebrate MCing, breakdancing, graffiti and DJing.

The first film is set to a hip-hop soundtrack. A man wearing PNB Nation clothes, which sport the brand's trademark crown logo, defeats three others who are hanging around in an alley. The film ends with the victor spotting a potential new threat -- which will be revealed in the second film, released in September.

The agency said the campaign represented a move away from the traditional marketing route of using a celebrity to endorse the product and promoting it through traditional media.

Urban DNA said the film series would be marketed as if it were a movie, with PNB Nation benefiting from "product placement" in the films.

Read the article: www.brandrepublic.com

Video games find their political voice

The net has been an essential organising tool for political activists for some time. But video games with thought-provoking or political messages have emerged as a way of making those who play them a little more aware.

For activists who cannot take to the streets, the political activist group ChainWorkers has offered them the virtual equivalent.

There, they can take part in an online MayDay parade which allows people to add to the throng and stylise their own marching demonstrator in an avatar form.

In line with its radical politics, the aim of its games is to highlight what its creators believe is most unfair about global capitalism and the modern labour market.

Their online game, Tamatipico, gives players their very own employee whom they have to keep happy to maintain production.

Fail to give your worker enough sleep or time in front of the TV and he calls in sick or goes on strike. But ultimately the boss has the upper hand: if you are unhappy with your worker's performance, you can fire him on the spot.

"We don't think it's enough to simply change the graphics' look, or to change the characters in order to give a different message," games designer Paulo Pedercini explained. "The real meaning of a video, its ideology, is expressed mainly through the internal rules of the game, its structure and mechanisms."

Read the article: www.bbc.co.uk

A&M Records promotes new album in Sims game

A&M Records has struck a deal that will promote its platinum-selling music group The Black Eyed Peas on a new Sims console game from Electronic Arts.

The soundtrack of "The Urbz: Sims in the City" will feature exclusive versions of songs from the band's upcoming album "Monkey Business," due out this fall. The songs will appear in versions of the game that are playable on Sony's PlayStation2, Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube.

"The Black Eyed Peas music and band members themselves are a perfect fit for the attitude and feel of 'The Urbz: Sims in the City,'" said Sinjin Bain, executive producer and VP of EA. "The band's music embodies the same sense of fun and energy as the game and we look forward to giving players the opportunity to experience music remixed with gaming at its fullest."

Additionally, Black Eyed Peas' members will appear as characters in the game. Members Will.I.Am, Fergie, Taboo and Apl.de.Ap are depicted as musicians teaching players "hip social moves" and unlocking "reputation-enhancing" missions, according to EA.

Read the article: www.clickz.com

As video games encroach on TV...

Just as Madison Avenue begins taking the emerging medium of video games seriously as an ad medium, big changes are taking place within the sector, according to studies released this week by two of the industry's biggest players. A white paper released by video game trade magazine GamePro indicates that console-based video games are approaching a classic "transitional" phase between older and new generations of gaming systems. During such periods, the paper says consumers have traditionally stalled purchases of new software in anticipation of the new game platforms.

Meanwhile, another big industry publisher, Ziff Davis Media, has results of the 2004 edition of an annual industry study showing that console-based games have overtake PC-based games for the first time ever, and that video games are beginning to become a serious rival for other traditional media, especially TV.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Dr Martens kicks off global ad campaign

Dr Martens, the iconic British footwear brand, is launching its first advertising campaign in four years in the form of six short documentaries of "Dr Martens people".

"Veer, outside the ordinary" is the name of the campaign, which uses print, poster and grassroots advertisements to drive consumers to the company website, drmartens.com.

The five-minute documentaries about ordinary people the footwear company selected from thousands to be the subject of the films will be screened on the website.

The company chose to focus its first global marketing campaign around the documentaries rather than traditional advertising because it wanted to be "authentic and honest".

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Mr Sex's new soap saves lives

BBC soap-opera pioneer Matthew Robinson is wrestling with what he describes as his most comprehensive challenge yet - setting up a media campaign to persuade Cambodians to stop calling a condom a "hygienic bag". The profoundly unsexy term in the Khmer language presents a big barrier to tackling the country's HIV/Aids problem, which is now the worst in south-east Asia.

Robinson, former executive producer of EastEnders and Byker Grove and head of drama for BBC Wales, is creating a soap promoting a new name for the condom - "Mr Help", which in Khmer sounds like "Mr Sex". If the plan succeeds it could help prevent many of the country's annual 20,000 Aids deaths. His simmering hospital drama, Taste Of Life, will save even more lives if it educates Cambodia's poor that washing hands after defecating helps prevent diarrhoea. One-in-three children in the country die before the age of five from preventable diseases.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Porsche Rings Up New Line

Porsche North America is crafting its first integrated promotion around a Hollywood film with New Line Cinema's action-thriller "Cellular," in which its vehicles have top billing.

Porsche's 911 Cabriolet Turbo and its Cayenne V6 sports utility vehicle are featured prominently in the film, which stars Kim Basinger as a kidnapping victim whose call for help randomly reaches a young Los Angeles slacker.

Read the article: www.adage.com

UN creates game to tackle hunger

A forthcoming video game aims to teach children about global hunger.

Food Force is the brainchild of the World Food Programme (WFP), which last year fed more than 100 million people. The UN body seeks to capitalise on the popularity of video games to educate youngsters about hunger and the work of the aid agency.

The game is due to be released later this year for the PC and Mac, and will initially only be available in the US as a free CD or download from the net.

Read the article: www.news.bbc.co.uk

BBC tests downloads of TV programmes to viewers' PCs

LONDON – The BBC is testing technology that will enable viewers to download and watch programmes such as 'EastEnders' on their home computers.

The interactive media player (iMP) will allow users to record shows up to a week before they are aired and play them a week after they have been broadcast.

The BBC believes the software can avoid potential copyright and piracy issues because it gives users only a two-week window in which to view the downloaded programmes. The right to watch a show is activated once it is broadcast and is deactivated seven days later.

Read the article: www.brandrepublic.com

Newspaper CD giveaways attacked

Free CDs given away by newspapers have been attacked by some in the music industry who say they harm sales and give an impression that music is free.

Music managers and retailers have spoken out against the growing practice of putting CDs inside weekend papers. "The music industry is just helping the tabloids fight their war against each other," an HMV spokesman said. "But it's difficult to see how the industry is doing anything to protect its own interests in the long term."

The scale of the promotions has recently grown, with some papers now giving away double CDs including big hits by established artists. The record companies involved get paid for the songs - but critics say it makes fans less likely to buy that artist's albums, unless they are new to the music scene and need exposure.

It also sends a message that music is cheap and disposable, undermining an industry campaign that music should be paid for and not downloaded for free, critics say.

Read the article: www.bbc.co.uk

Nice little earners

Turn on commercial television these days and the chances are that the programme you watch will be sponsored. Ofcom's review of the communications market last week identified 2003 as the crossover point when, for the first time, subscription (dominated by BSkyB) pulled in more income for television than advertising. But it also showed that "ancillary" income is the fastest growing sector.

This is programme sponsorship, phone calls - ranging from Big Brother voting to premium line win-a-holiday style competitions - and teleshopping (earning a stunning £381m from direct sales).

Income from these streams, at £981m, rose 51% in 2003, outstripping the 11% rise for subscription, and 3% for advertising. It has quadrupled in value over five years. Ofcom says: "This could point, perhaps, to a structural change in the way programmes are funded."

In the past few months, there has been a steady stream of sponsorship announcements from the merged ITV, assisted by the big media buying agencies, which now have dedicated sponsorship teams.

Cadbury's drinking chocolate will be the first ever sponsor of the next series of Heartbeat, a breakthrough because the "retro" 60s show has been notoriously difficult to place until now, despite its loyal 9.8 million audience - advertisers want modernity. Michael Parkinson's new ITV chat show was snapped up by Prudential, who saw a natural fit with the company's "straight-talking nature". Mr Muscle is to sponsor Moving Day, a show about people moving home - following on from rival Cif's successful link with How Clean is Your House?. Nokia is to sponsor The X Factor, Simon Cowell's replacement for Pop Idol, including the award ceremony next March. Emmerdale, once a Daz show, is now backed by Heinz, and is featuring salad cream this summer, with tomato sauce lined up for the winter.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

And now a scene from our sponsor

SYDNEY - Product placement is about to enter a golden age. At least that's the view of one of the emerging players on the Australian scene.

Speaking at a session at the Screen Producers Association of Australia's conference on the Gold Coast on Monday, James Grant-Hay, who heads a new company called In Shot, waxed lyrical about the potential of "branded entertainment" and the benefits it can bring to film and television.

On the surface, product placement sounds straightforward enough. Your lead actor has to eat breakfast, so why not get a well-known brand to pay to have its cereal on display? Ditto if your action hero needs to get about in a zippy BMW, the car of choice for 007, who used to drive an Aston Martin.

Yet the reality is no longer so simple. One thing the SPAA panel was united on was that there is a lot more to product placement than getting big name stars to drive luxury cars or sip well-known soft drinks.

"Everybody is seeking to do it but not all are doing it well," argues John Gregory, chief executive of Freehand Group, whose company is producing the Australian version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for the Ten Network. Gregory says an estimated $120 million was spent on product placement in 2004, which may signal a new high growth area. But any deals done still had to be reconciled with the integrity of the program.

Read the article: www.theaustralian.news.com.au

Ad space invades 'Space Invaders'

When punk-popsters Green Day roll out their new single this month, it won't be on the radio or MTV. It will appear as part of the soundtrack on the "Madden NFL 2005" video game.

The move is just the latest example of how video games, more and more, are setting the pop-culture agenda. As sales of video games approach $14 billion - and push advertisers' coveted audience of young males to spend more time gaming rather than watching TV - the ailing music industry and the major advertisers of consumer products are both eyeing Joystick Nation for relief. It's a trend that is of concern to some parents and consumer watchdogs.

"You're interacting with fewer people [than with TV advertising], but in a much deeper way," says Aaron Carpenter, director of presence marketing and publicity at Levi, Strauss & Co., which has negotiated a deal to be featured in a new NASCAR video game. "These games live for so long; in some cases, four or five years in someone's house."

Read the article: www.csmonitor.com

BMW films go from screen to page

BMW of North America's wildly popular "The Hire" online film series takes a new turn today, when select retailers start selling the debut issue of a brand extension, "The Driver" comic book series, based on the same protagonist. The automaker is partnering with Dark Horse Comics, Milwaukie, Ore., for six issues and a bound paperback compilation of the series next year.

"We were approached by a few comic companies,' said Bruce Bildstein, creative director at BMW's agency, Publicis Groupe's Fallon, Minneapolis, one of the key architects of the online films. Dark Horse was tapped because of its cult-like following. Plus, he said, it had "a profile that was most BMW-film-like."

The marketer's celebrated 2001 online film series, still available for viewing on bmwusa.com, has become an archetype for entertainment marketing that generates buzz as well as—in this case—moves metal.

Just as BMW hired high-profile film directors for its short online films, it's letting Dark Horse line up some of the genre's leading talent for each story. Matt Wagner wrote and drew the first comic, dubbed "Scandal" in which the Driver is hired to sneak a rich man's spoiled daughter out of town.

BMW had been looking for new ways to promote and extend the online film series, which included talk of both a feature film as well as a video game.

Read the article: www. adage.com

Television 'a wallpaper medium'

Britons are not spending more time watching TV, surfing the internet and talking on their mobile phones - they are doing all three simultaneously and becoming increasingly inattentive to television.

Research experts at the Henley Centre say television is becoming a wallpaper medium - on in the background - and viewers are not giving their full concentration to it as they did in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, when families would gather round the box to watch shows such as The Generation Game, Blue Peter or even the news.

Figures released by Ofcom yesterday - which show that consumption of all media had risen and that our obsession with the internet had not reduced the amount of time we spend watching TV - hide underlying changes in the way we consume media, says the Henley Centre.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Old media survive shock of the new

The death of television at the hands of the internet, mobile phones and other gadgets has been greatly exaggerated according to new figures that show Britons are spending more time and money on entertainment and communications than ever before.

The received wisdom from analysts and investors at the height of the dotcom boom was that the shift to new technology would lead to people spending more time on the internet and mobile phones at the expense of "old media", such as television and radio.

But figures released today by the UK media regulator, Ofcom, show that, while the amount of time and money spent surfing the web and using mobiles has soared, it has not been at the expense of television viewing or radio listening.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Bonus points

Video game publishers are being careful about how they allow advertisers into their domain, even as the medium falls increasingly under the spotlight as a refuge of that most coveted and elusive marketing demographic: males between the ages of 18 and 34. 

But the emerging market of in-game advertising has more to worry about than jarring juxtapositions.

Now that advertisers know where to place their products, they need a way to gauge the power of their pitches. Television ad prices are based on ratings. Internet billings are based on clicks. Video games lack a third party auditor, who can guarantee a set number of eyeballs viewing the ads. A few companies, including a division of ratings giant Nielsen Entertainment, are moving in to fill the breach.

Just as Nielsen Entertainment puts recording devices in people’s homes to measure television viewing patterns, Nielsen Interactive Entertainment is working with video game publishers to craft a system that monitors video game use inside households.

They have ample playing ground. In 2003, market research firm JupiterResearch counted 40 million video game players in the United States. By 2006 that figure will be at 53 million, Jupiter Research predicts. Forrester Research estimates that one in four American households will play games online by 2007.

Last year, video games, both consoles and PC games, generated $12.4 billion in revenue according to Jupiter Research.

Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, California-based consumer research firm reported in April that video console games account for 6 percent of media use by men between the ages of 18 and 34. For teenage boys, that figure rose to 15 percent.

Read the article: www.redherring.com

O2 links with IPC and Warner for mobile ad channel

LONDON - Digital strategy consultancy Unanimis Consulting has helped O2 launch a free ad-funded video channel on a mobile network in a collaboration with Warner Brothers and IPC Media.

The channel will initially feature a Warner Brothers' commercial promoting the 'Fast and Furious'-style biker movie, 'Torque', now out on DVD and starring Ice Cube, streamed to mobiles immediately after a racy 'Motel Girls' video feature from IPC lads' mag Loaded throughout July and August.

According to Unanimis, unlike other video content available on the O2 Active portal, users of the new model will not pay a penny to view the video content. Ads will be refreshed eight times over the month-long campaign to heighten user migration and involvement.

Read the article: www.brandrepublic.com

Diesel's daydreams invite customer interactivity

Thursday 29 July saw the launch of Diesel Dreams, a campaign which, as well as promoting the Diesel label, also gives exposure to 30 international film-makers, animators, artists and illustrators.

The campaign features models with their eyes closed in unusual or surreal situations. Consumers are invited to escape into the dream by visiting Diesel's website (created by EHS Brann) at www.diesel. com. "Here the print campaign's dreams are realised in film format, exposing the reader to as many images and dreams as possible," Mark Savage, the worldwide marketing planner at Diesel, says.

A DVD of 30 short films is attached to the seasonal Diesel catalogue and to selected international publications including i-D, Creative Review and Raindance Film Festival magazines. The DVD will also be distributed in Diesel stores worldwide. The films comprise a bizarre blend of barking grandmothers, ticking shadows, huge carrots, giant ice-creams and people with animals living inside them.

Read the article: www.brandrepublic.com

Why Googleworld will beat Murdoch

Ten years ago, we lived in BBC-world - a closed broadcasting system, advertising monopolies, programme-making priesthoods, and captured audiences. Then we had Murdochworld in which the consumer was given a choice from among (relatively) high quality content providers corralled into a walled garden with high barriers to entry.

Now we have Googleworld, in which the consumer is given a genuinely free choice of hundreds of millions of content providers, including other people like them. Googleworld content will be saved to broadband-enabled Sky-plus boxes, PlayStation3s, X-box2s, and the next generation of DVD players.

For television, the near future will be a struggle between Murdochworld and Googleworld. But I would not bet on Murdochworld in the long run. The internet and Starbucks demonstrate that fundamentally we love choice more than anything else. Googleworld will give us access via the TV terminal to all the drama, news, music, games, public services, and arts we could possibly want, and content suppliers will struggle to get our attention. So why in the long run would we make do with a mere 200 channels for which we pay a subscription? No chance. And no chance of regulating most of it. The only signpost will be "google search".

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Branded content takes hold

The international Branded Content Marketing Association (BMCA) is to add an Australian chapter to its UK and US wings, as Australian media agencies lead the wave of increasing local interest in branded entertainment.

UK founder Claes Loberg, who set up Australian interactive agency Hyro before founding branded entertainment group Cocojambo in the UK and the US, said he had been surprised by the response he received from media agencies.

An Australian panel of the BCMA is expected to be formed within six weeks. Carat investment and development director James Parkinson and Network Ten group strategy manager Brian Gallagher are tipped to take leading roles in the group.

Read the article: www.bandt.com.au

TiVo Wins Nod for Users to Share Digital Shows

WASHINGTON - TiVo Inc., maker of popular digital television recording devices, on Wednesday received approval for technology that would permit users to send copies of digital broadcast shows over the Internet to a limited number of friends.

The Federal Communications Commission voted to certify digital protections on TiVoToGo, which is not yet available but would enable a user to record and send a digital broadcast television show to up to nine others who have been registered on that person's service and has been given a key to see it.

The approval came despite concerns by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the National Football League about the risks of unfettered distribution of copyrighted shows and airing regional games outside of their market.

Read the article: www.reuters.com


Cocojambo Comment:

The risks to television advertising, posed by TiVo and its ilk, have been widely discussed. Unfortunately this attention has deflected interest from the greater risks that are posed to television itself by filesharing and TV-over-IP.

PVR technologies are a huge development for the TV industry: the functionalities of content 'pausing', 'rewinding' and 'slicing' will completely change the way in which audiences view television. However this is only part of a larger evolution that TV is undergoing.

The scheduled broadcast is no longer the only means by which audiences and consumers are accessing television programming: TV-on-DVD has become both a significant revenue generator and a channel for TV content (albeit one that is unproven in launching new programming). More recently, TV-over-IP has grown into a feasible rival to broadcast: a significant minority of consumers are now choosing and accessing their TV programming via the Internet and filesharing networks - the same minority that started to download music files in 1999. In the past 5 years this minority grew sufficiently large to throw the music industry into crisis, in the next 5 we will see a new crisis in the TV broadcasting industry as advertisers go direct to consumers.

The future of television will feature an open network where shows are published and quickly shared: Enjoyed Friends last night? Send it to your friends this morning. Only discovered 24 on the 5th episode? Go online and download the rest.
Missed Monday's Big Brother? Request it by email.

The traditional watercooler discussions ("Last night, did you see...?") will instead occur online as consumers post shows and clips direct to friends. The TV preview publications will suffer in competition to online social networks (akin to the recommendations on Amazon.com today).

Advertisers will continue to fund TV content, but not by traditional means. Only where there are opportunities to integrate their brands into the content, will advertisers reach into their pockets.

Content owners and broadcasters are not unaware of this future (as their objections to TiVo's new technology show) but stopping it will be beyond them.

Online toys, the new sales ploy

BOSTON - As computer games go, Flip the Mix is one of the simplest. There are no bullets to dodge or aliens to blast. Just line up three colored dots in a row to score 100 points.

But the dots are stamped with the familiar logo of M&Ms, the popular candy-coated chocolates. The object of the game is to achieve a higher score than Red, one of the obnoxious candies that appears in M&Ms television commercials.

The entire game is a commercial, running 24 hours a day on the M&Ms Web site. Bored with that? There's always Coke.com, Nabiscoworld.com or Millsberry.com. Each of these sites is loaded with simple games that advertise as well as entertain.

It's called "advergaming," and more and more of the world's best-known consumer products companies are doing it. But some critics worry that the colorful and simple games are attracting children who are too young to properly evaluate the marketing messages.

Read the article: www.iht.com

Electrolux backs students with online ad competition

LONDON - Electrolux is encouraging student film-makers with a new initiative to develop short online films illustrating how Electrolux 'makes life easier'.
The films are to be shown online this week, with eight different takes on varying electrolux products.

In one, the freezer compartment of an electrolux fridge helps a woman use a frozen fish to ward off an intruder. In another, for a dishwasher, a child secretes his unwanted dinner in various toys until his plate is empty.

Ulrich Gartner, vice-president of public relations at electrolux, said: "The results offer a fresh perspective on the role of refrigerators, cookers, washing machines and dishwashers in our lives."

He added: "At electrolux, we spend thousands of hours every year talking to the people who buy and use our products about what they need, what they want and trying to understand how we can help them. But there's nothing like seeing those responses articulated with the immediacy of film."

Read the article: www.brandrepublic.com

Advergames provide big-time brand boosts for DaimlerChrysler

Last week, Jeff Bell, VP of marketing for Chrysler/Jeep, demonstrated the positive effect of custom advergaming initiatives on Chrysler brand awareness during his keynote address at the Jupiter Media Advertising Forum in New York City. In fact, Bell revealed that in some instances, demonstrated interest led to actual sales.

One of the games--called "Race The Pros"--generated a 27.6 percent lift in Dodge brand awareness, as well as a 19.6 percent purchase intent and a 24.7 percent rise in overall brand awareness for DaimlerChrysler brands among users who played and downloaded the game. It was promoted online at MSN and FoxSports.com, as well as during certain Fox broadcasts on TV. WildTangent, which created the game, has built several other games for blue chip companies, and is currently working on Nike's Speed campaign.

"Our fastest-growing area by far is in the Internet," said Chrysler's Bell. "The great thing about the Web is you can take a risk, learn from it quickly, and move on." He added that the positive results from the gaming initiatives will result in more online spending from the automaker.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Japanese have weirder fun with Rice Bowl and Curry House games

More evidence that the Japanese are having more fun, or at least weirder fun. Two popular Japanese restaurant chains, curry house CoCo Ichibanya and rice bowl chain Yoshinoya both have their own PS2 titles. Yoshinoya should be familiar to many Westerners - they were everywhere in Los Angeles, and I stoically recall their profoundly repulsive rice bowls. Ichibanya is probably unfamiliar, but as the review says, it is "the McDonalds of Curry Houses in Japan."

Read the article: www.watercoolergames.org

The Lost Boys

For broadcast television, Coke was it. The 50-year partnership of fizzy sugar water and network TV yielded some memorable moments, from the groovy "Things Go Better with Coke" spots of the '60s to the carefree "Can't Beat the Feeling" campaign of the '80s. But in recent years, the 19th-century elixir hit a rough patch in its relationship with TV. Since the big broadcast networks no longer deliver the mass audience the company needs, Coca-Cola cut its network ad spending last year by 10 percent. "Where are we going?" Coke's then-president, Steven Heyer, asked rhetorically at an Advertising Age conference in 2003. "Away from broadcast TV as the anchor medium." Acknowledging that many in the ad industry are afraid to follow, he added bluntly, "Fear will subside, or the fearful will lose their jobs. And if a new model isn't developed, the old one will simply collapse."

Heyer's speech was bold stuff when he made it, but lately this kind of television-bashing has become a staple of industry confabs. "There must be - and is - life beyond the 30-second TV spot," Procter & Gamble's global marketing officer declared last winter. "Used to be, TV was the answer," proclaimed the president of GM North America. "The only problem is that it stopped working sometime around 1987." The broadcast networks have been losing audience share for years, thanks to the remote control, TiVo, and all the new channels on cable and satellite. But when Nielsen Media Research announced last fall that young males - the hardest-to-reach and most intensely targeted subset of humans in North America - were watching 12 percent less prime-time network TV than the year before, Madison Avenue went on orange alert. True, the falloff was only 26 minutes a week - but in the ad business, a few lost minutes can add up to major trauma.

Read the article: www.wired.com

HSBC ad allows Sky interactive viewers to play golf

LONDON – A new HSBC ad will allow Sky viewers to play an interactive golf game with the potential to win VIP tickets to the World Match Play Championships at Wentworth in October.
HSBC's media buyer, PHD, and outgoing creative partner, Lowe, appointed digital experts Weapon 7 to develop the campaign as part of the ongoing 'World's Local Bank' drive. The ads will run in August across all Sky channels.

Read the article: www.brandrepublic.com

Young people 'no longer believe TV ads'

Young people do not believe television advertisements any more and are more likely to find an internet chat room credible, according to the woman who controls the largest marketing budget in the country.

A generation gap has opened up between parents, who still regard TV as the most important medium, and people under 25, said Roisin Donnelly, who as marketing director of Procter & Gamble spends more than £100m each year marketing products such as Pringles, Pantene and Crest.

"When TV was first introduced it was worshipped. It came into the home and it was the new medium. People would go to [other people's] houses to watch it," Ms Donnelly said.

"Today's generation has always had TV and is much more media savvy. Research shows that younger people are more likely to believe a stranger in an internet chat room than a TV advertisement," she said.

Another advertiser, Diageo, which owns Guinness and Smirnoff, is still investing heavily in massive TV campaigns but is not relying on it. A spokeswoman said: "We are looking more and more to other areas such as sponsorship."

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk