Pupils to get anti-piracy lessons

Lessons on music piracy and copyright issues are to be taught to secondary school pupils in the UK.

The lessons, aimed at 11 to 14-year-olds, will introduce them to copyright infringement - including downloading from the internet and the illegal copying of CDs - and its role in protecting creativity.

Music piracy, including illegally swapping music online, costs the UK music industry millions every year and has been blamed for a decline in world-wide CD sales.

British Music Rights (BMR) - which was formed to represent the interests of songwriters and composers against the threat posed by the internet - worked with education experts to put together a learning pack.

Read the article: www.bbc.co.uk

Advertisers get in on the game

With reports of first-day sales of Halo 2, the latest version of Microsoft’s best-selling video game, exceeding $125m in North America, it is hardly surprising that an increasing number of companies are waking up to using games as an advertising medium.

Last year, sales of video games topped $20bn worldwide, and the market for branding and advertising through games is growing: in 2004 it was worth an estimated £5m in the UK, according to branded entertainment specialists Cocojambo. This UK market is forecast to be worth £9m in 2005; internationally, it is valued at more than $1bn a year, according to Forrester, the research company.

Malcolm Russell, business director at WPP media buying agency Mindshare, says games publishers and advertisers are starting to embrace games as a medium.

Mindshare’s own research confirms that consumers born in the 1990s are watching 25 per cent less TV than those born in the 1960s and 1970s. “This group is spending more time playing games which really involve them and this is providing some exciting opportunities for advertisers compared to TV which is relatively passive,” says Russell.

But the games market is very fragmented, and advertisers have found it difficult to discover which titles are being developed, when they are due for release and who they are targeted at. In response, Cocojambo will launch the first quarterly online and print guide next week where global games publishers can advertise details of their games, including the territories they will be released in and the target audience, to help brands match up with particular releases.

With marketers looking at the mix of budget allocations for 2005, Michael Wood, director of Cocojambo, says he has been answering queries from advertisers interested in getting involved in games.

”For media buyers and advertisers over 35, games have been a novelty. But for teenagers and consumers in their early 20s, Halo 2 is part of the media landscape as much as Wife Swap,” says Wood.

Read the article: www.ft.com

In-Game Advertising Gets Game

Hot Trend: The players in your virtual NFL game are wearing Nikes and at (virtual) half-time you see a digital product pitch. Meanwhile, your kid is dunking virtual Oreos in virtual milk in a Nabisco-created basketball game. "It's proof positive that video gaming has hit the big time," says Find/SVP technology consultant James Belcher.

Why: The growth of gaming and the decline of traditional media audiences have marketers looking for new ways to place their products before the public. According to one survey, a quarter of gamers recall an ad from a game they've played. "There's enough money being spent that it has caught the attention of advertisers," notes Belcher, "and people also spend a lot of time gaming, so advertisers want to catch them while they're doing it."

Read the article: www.forbes.com

When ads are the TV stars

In television's not-too-distant past, the sight of Jerry Seinfeld holding a bottle of Snapple was a surprising development.

That practice, known as "product-placement" advertising, is a thriving industry verging on $1 billion a year. It no longer surprises us. What raises eyebrows these days is the even more invasive trend called "branded entertainment" or "integrated" advertising, in which brands are not mere props within camera range but stars and plot motivators in today's popular entertainment.

In this configuration, the products are part of the concept from the creation.

Frank Zazza, chief executive of iTVX, a company that measures the value of product placement, predicts the practice will become a billion-dollar industry within the next year. The biggest product placement shows are "The Apprentice," "Survivor," "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and Fox's "American Idol," but even animators are drawn to the trend: Comedy Central's adult cartoon, "Shorties Watchin' Shorties," has sketched in Domino's Pizza, Red Bull energy drink and Vans sneakers.

Read the article: www.denverpost.com

In this police action series, it's ready, aim, hire

When duty calls, the LAPD responds," a voice booms over a pounding soundtrack. Cut to an emergency operator answering a call: "911 emergency." "My daughter is missing," a shaken-sounding man says.

The girl is seen getting into a car, the driver ominously obscured. Cut to a police station: "We have an Amber Alert," a commander tells a roll call of officers. "Be careful out there. I would be going nuts if it were my daughter," a male officer tells his female partner as they hurry to a cruiser and the start of their patrol shift.

Seconds later, they join a high-speed chase. This isn't the latest Harrison Ford movie. It isn't the West Coast version of "NYPD Blue."

It's the first of three new movie-trailer-style ads that the Los Angeles Police Department hopes will help it fill a looming void in its ranks next year. The ads will be seen on the big screen before blockbusters are shown at the Magic Johnson Theaters, and on the Internet at Join LAPD.com and at Monster.com.

Read the article: www.latimes.com

Rumours of advertising's death 'vastly exaggerated'

Oxford University's new professor of marketing has rubbished claims that product placement and advertiser-created entertainment programmes are the future of advertising.

The academic said brands became icons by telling stories that solved cultural contradictions and fitted the national mood and that despite vast changes to the media, the fundamental principles of creating iconic brands that struck a chord in the public imagination had not changed.

"There's not a lot of difference to how Marlboro was built in the US in the 1960s to how a great brand is built today, the fundamental principles are the same," he said.

"The 30-second advertisement on TV may well die but in five to 10 years from now sponsored film will be the dominant way to build iconic brands."

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

Inside Mercury's online films project

DETROIT -- Mercury is calling its first foray into online filmmaking a success, saying that traffic to the automaker's Web site hit record numbers in the two weeks since its first Web series, "Meet the Lucky Ones," debuted Nov. 1.

'Meet the Lucky Ones' is an ongoing series of Web videos that track events involving 10 different characters.


A spokeswoman said more than 825,000 unique visitors went to www.mercuryvehicles.com in the first two weeks of the five-week series. The marketer's Web site typically gets roughly 200,000 unique visitors per month.

25% of total budget The Ford Motor Co.-owned brand has been advertising the film series online and in limited print ads to drive people to the separate-branded site: www.meettheluckyones.com. Mercury is simultaneously advertising in traditional media for its long-awaited new models in a separate push themed "New Doors Opened." John Fitzpatrick, general marketing manager of Mercury, said he's spending nearly 25% of his total marketing communications budget on digital and customer events.

"Meet the Lucky Ones" follows the interrelated lives of 10 people, whose stories will evolve over five different weekly episodes. Visitors to the site can click on each person to watch a short video of what's happening in that person's life and learn more clues about his or her background.

Read the article: www.adage.com

Comparison Shopping

The merger of Kmart and Sears, Roebuck & Co. has enormous ramifications for television.

First, it marries two powerful TV retail advertisers into a single entity that will dwarf Wal-Mart, its nearest competitor in the home-retailing category, in ad spending. With a combined ad budget of more than $1 billion, the new company, destined to operate under the Sears corporate banner, already spends about three-quarters of its ad dollars on TV outlets, especially national ones.

Big ripples will be felt on Madison Avenue, although it is not immediately apparent what this means for each company’s respective ad agencies.

Sears has emerged as a leader in the arena dubbed “branded entertainment,” which consists of product-placement deals that tie advertisers and brands into the inception of TV programs.

One of the most visible examples is Sears’ successful partnership with ABC in the creation of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, in which the Sears brand has become an integral part of the series and the retailer’s off-air advertising is used to reinforce and promote it. The spots, featuring host Ty Pennington and carrying the “Good Life” tagline, have connected with viewers.

That effort, which spotlights Sears’ focus on both image and lifestyle, may serve as a blueprint for the future of the new company’s advertising.

Read the article: www.broadcastingcable.com

TV's turning point

If it is not the end of broadcasting, then it is the end of broadcasting as we know it. The last time the television industry encountered significant change was 15 years ago with the launch of satellite operators to take on the earthbound establishment. This time, there is no single event on which to pin the origin of the revolution, more a series of butterflies - or ugly moths depending on your view - beating their wings in various parts of the industry.

The news of the past seven days alone is a good indicator of the tectonic shifting which will lead to the earthquake. The BBC's imminent and, as yet, unquantified job cuts look like reducing the corporation to a Lilliputian version of the grandiose Dyke vision. ITV is contemplating the possibility of a sizeable refund to its advertisers - unless the tempting prospect of Janet Street-Porter and Brian Harvey digging a dunny together can achieve a 60% audience share in the latest I'm a Celebrity ... shenanigans which have just started. Channel 4 announced it was no longer interested in merging with Five, but would like £100m in subsidy to keep it out of jail, and Freeview estimated that within two years it would be overtaking BSkyB in the number of boxes it supplies to homes.

Of course, there are reckless optimists who think that this is just a bit of a hangover after the 10 years of bonkers advertising growth - but these are few in number. Take the BBC downsizing operation. Why would the new director general, Mark Thompson, risk making such sweeping cuts ahead of Charter Renewal? The previous strategy of the corporation was to feed the goose not only so that it laid golden eggs but in order that it produced foie gras, too. The new regime is taking a high-risk gamble that if it puts its house back in order, then it will escape more punitive cuts at the hands of the government.

The current industry woes are mere detail against the broader ongoing issues of imminent analogue switch-off, BBC Charter renewal and the droning cultural lament about the general depravity and worthlessness of current screen fodder. We know from experience that crises are a cyclical part of the business, but the changes in technology, audience behaviour and the expectation society has of its linear media mean that we are now at a turning point for our great broadcasting institutions, some of which, at least, will not survive the next decade.

Everything about British broadcasting at the moment points to too much television relying on the unsustainable business model of the 30-second ad slot. When you can watch 24 hours of 24 on back-to-back DVDs or just a minute of it on your mobile phone, the role of a traditional television station becomes uncertain.

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

Advertising: The latest marketing trend makes the consumer a player inside the commercial

During the summer of 2001, Mitsubishi's American dealerships were suddenly flooded with puzzling requests for the Lancer Evolution. Mitsubishi had never marketed this flashy compact sports car with a 271-horsepower engine in America. Where was all the interest coming from? The answer is exciting advertisers the world over: videogames. Sony PlayStation 2 had featured the Lancer Evolution in a new version of Gran Turismo, a top-selling racing-car game released that July. The result was a cultlike following for the car. "We were spammed by gamers," recalls Ian Beavis, senior vice president of marketing at Mitsubishi North America. Two years later the Lancer Evolution was released in America, and has been a big success. "It's a true testament to the power of that medium."

Threatened by declining TV ratings in some countries, advertisers have been looking for new ways to capture the wandering eye of the consumer, from producing short ads-cum-movies to increasingly aggressive product placement on popular shows. But the newest trend goes beyond trying to divert eyes to a strategically placed cereal box for a few brief seconds: instead companies are looking to place the customer inside an advertising game, or "advergame," almost indefinitely. "You are now in the world the advertiser has created for you," says advergame designer Dan Fergeson.

Several corporate giants have recently launched advergames. One from Nokia uses a snow-sledding game to promote text messaging. After each race your results are messaged to a phone that pops up on screen. Special, speedier sleds can be unlocked only by texting yourself a secret password. A new game from Lipton features an office worker winding through cubicles gobbling up Cup-a-Soups to "Beat the 3PM Slump." Kraft Foods draws more than 3 million visitors a month to its Web site of 80 different downloadable games—like mini-golf, bowling and puzzles—incorporating its brands. "Every ad today is a victim of multitasking," says Michael Wood, director of Cocojambo, a London-based branding-entertainment agency. "Gaming draws the most engaged, concentrated audience."

Read the article: www.newsweek.com

Madison Avenue: Video Games Not Yet Advertiser-Friendly

Video game publishers will not be able to keep up with escalating production costs unless marketers increase their sponsorship of games, a panel of media buyers recently told an audience of ad industry professionals at a New York American Marketing Association event.

Dave Madden, executive vice president of sales and marketing for interactive game marketing firm WildTanget, told the audience that rising development costs leave publishers in need of another revenue source. "The business has to get to a point where there's a dual revenue stream," he said.

Others who spoke at the event last Friday agreed with Madden. "Publishers are at a point where they need advertising," said Brandon Berger, of OgilvyOne Worldwide's Next Generation Interactive unit. Berger added that sequels are proliferating in the console video game world because it's cheaper to reuse old game engines than to build new ones.

Most video games cost between $5 million and $15 million to produce, according to the market research firm Yankee Group. What's more, most games lose money, with only 10 to 20 percent breaking even, according to the organization. Publishers are also feeling competitive pressure to slash prices, Madden said in a telephone interview. Electronic Arts, the most successful third-party video game publisher in terms of both ad revenue and revenues overall, cut consumer prices for several of its most successful sports franchises.

But, while the games might need ad sponsors, marketers see many reasons why games are simply not advertiser-friendly. For one thing, there is little opportunity to adequately assess return on investment. Another problem, said Berger, is that publishers can't guarantee to advertisers in advance how many units will be sold. And developing a video game can take many months--longer than most marketers are willing to wait to roll out an ad campaign.

Some of those problems might be solved when the next generation of consoles comes out, because they will have built-in Internet functionality, which brings with it the prospect of dynamic in-game ad serving. This capability, Madden said, could eventually lead to a more TV-like business model, where games are bought and sold on measurable cost-per-thousand impressions, without the hassle of months of planning. Madden said the industry is still four to six years from this becoming reality. The panelists agreed that in the short term, online gaming and advergaming remain the most cost- effective platforms for advertisers.

The largest buyer and the fastest-growing segment of online gaming is women over the age of 35. According to Madden, the "fast food gaming" sector, as he called it, consists of two and three- dimensional puzzle games, arcade classics, and mind teasers. Global market research firm IDC expects online gaming subscription and advertising revenues to surpass $1.5 billion in 2005. Dave Evans, strategy director, integration services for ad agency GSD&M, said that advergames, or sponsored/branded video games, leverage the viral nature of the Web; he noted that consumers pass along good experiences to their friends and family. Sam Huxley, chief strategy officer for Bounce Interactive Gaming, pointed out that advergaming will only be effective for established national or global brands; consumers won't play sponsored games for brands they've never heard of, he said.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Video Game Ads Contribute To 'Slow Death' Of :30

Aside from adding another pre-eulogy to the impending death of the 30-second commercial, a study by the Reed Elsevier research firm In-Stat/MDR says that the growing attraction of video games as ad vehicles is likely to grow more than most expect.

The report, "Television Advertising 2004-2009: The Slow Death of the 30-Second Commercial," looks at how TV advertising is changing in the face of increased competition from the Internet, video games, and prepackaged content, as well as new technologies such as personal video recorders. The report includes forecasts of new advertising methods such as video game advertising and product placement, as well as TV, cable, Internet, and radio advertising.

Among the report's findings is that the total U.S. electronic advertising market will see an average growth rate of 2.8 percent from 2005 through 2009 in the face of the reduced potency of broadcast advertising. The growth will largely be driven by Internet advertising, and to a lesser extent, cable TV and video game advertising.

The diminishing effectiveness of broadcast advertising can be attributed to two major irreversible trends, said Mike Wolf, principal analyst of In-Stat/MDR. The first is the continued fading away of the broadcast TV audience to other media, like cable television, DVDs, the Internet, and electronic gaming.

The second is an increasingly empowered consumer through new technologies like the personal video recorder (PVR) that allows users to skip ads. In addition, the consumer will continue to be empowered through new distribution channels for content, such as DVD by mail and downloadable premium content through services such as CinemaNow and MovieLink.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Row brewing over peer-to-peer ads

Music download networks are proving popular not just with an audience of youngsters keen to take advantage of free music but with advertisers equally keen to reach out to a captive audience.

The debate over the legitimacy of file-sharing networks rages on as the music industry continues its threats to close the services down for good.

Meanwhile the millions of downloaders are proving both an advertiser's dream come true and a branding nightmare.

Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit - a peer to peer service which provides paid-for music downloads - believes it is time advertisers stopped providing 'oxygen' for companies that support illegal downloading.

"You may be surprised to know that current advertisers on the most popular peer to peer service eDonkey who now steadfastly support copyright theft with real cash money include Nat West, Vodafone, O2, First Direct, NTL, and Renault," he said in an open letter to the British Phonographic Industry last month.

Read the article: www.bbc.co.uk

'Apprentice' Exposure Pays Off for TheKnot.com

Its use as a marketing tool in the Nov. 11 episode of NBC's "The Apprentice" reality TV show is paying off for TheKnot.com.

The weddings site not only gained 3,600 new registrations from brides-to-be right after the show's broadcast, it also generated interest from vendors in the $30 billion-a-year weddings industry.

"I've got e-mails from so many people," said David Liu, co-founder and CEO of The Knot Inc., New York. "I've got one from someone who's launched a new event-planning company in New York. Another's from wedding toast and vow writers. There's one for wedding vows software and another for personalized, custom-embroidered apparel for brides."

They all want to market through The Knot's lists -- just like team Mosaic did on "The Apprentice." The team spent $1,000 to create an e-mail sent June 9 and ended up selling 27 wedding gowns in four hours, netting a profit of nearly $12,800. By contrast, competing team Apex Corp. sold only two gowns for a profit of less than $1,100.

Read the article: www.dmnews.com

Box office in a box

For the past few years, Hollywood's weekend box-office tallies have come to represent a tidy bit of wisdom about American culture -- cold, bare numbers relayed around the world every Monday morning that tell us which stories and which celebrities are resonating with the moviegoing public. There is, however, another set of Hollywood statistics of enormous significance, and Tuesday is their day. How important are these numbers? Every Tuesday at lunchtime, Mike Dunn and Peter Staddon, the president and executive vice president, respectively, of 20th Century Fox's home-entertainment division, take the elevator from ther 25th-floor offices at Fox Plaza in Los Angeles down to their cars in the underground parking garage and from there drive out into the noontime traffic on their way to Best Buy, Target, Costco and Wal-Mart. Tuesday is the day new DVD's are released, the day Dunn gets a sense of whether the discs that his team has worked on for months -- or sometimes years -- will sell as well as planned. So the Fox executives wander the aisles of the big retailers. They eavesdrop. They size up the clientele. They take note of what's moving through the cash registers. Tuesday, not Monday, is their day of reckoning.

And in many ways, the same is true for their parent company as well. From about 2002 on, the larger stakes in Hollywood -- the revenue that enables studios to finance blockbusters and to pay Brad Pitt and to keep the lights on -- have come to ride mostly on those little silver discs that go on sale four or five months after a theatrical release. This year, for instance, 63 percent of studio feature-film revenues in the United States will come from movies sold to retail stores; actual box office will generate only 21 percent. According to Tom Adams, a well-regarded home-entertainment analyst whose firm, Adams Media Research, tracks DVD sales and trends, studios often get twice as much revenue from a big film's retail sales as they do from its theatrical release.

Read the article: www.nytimes.com

TV's New Brand of Stars

Each week, the cast of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" faces a tough task—completely rebuild and transform every room in a house in just seven days. An even tougher task, it seems, would be to make hardware and appliances a heart-tugging emotional sell. Yet this reality hit, which airs at 8 o'clock on Sunday and is watched by 14 million to 15 million viewers, manages to do just that for Sears, its main sponsor. The chain's Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools play front and center as the crew goes to work and designers go shopping. At the end of a recent episode, host Ty Pennington unveiled the completely rebuilt home of the Vardon family of Detroit (lucky families are sent on a vacation while the work is done). The emotional payoff for the family—the parents are both deaf, and one son is blind and autistic—is authentic and effective. And so is the marketing ploy for Sears, whose research shows that viewers are 25 percent more likely to shop at Sears after the show. The retailers' executives—who worked with ABC on the show before it existed and, in September alone, spent $3.2 million (a Nielsen estimate) on ads with ABC—refer to this kind of advertising as an "enhanced television media buy." But that's just jargon. Call it what it is: a pitch-perfect pitch.

And that's why shows like "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" are making Madison Avenue giddy. It's not just that the line separating programming and advertising has been blurred—it's been erased altogether, and marketers can't get enough of it. "Every advertiser is asking for it," says Mike Shaw, sales boss for ABC, which has dedicated a group to handle integration deals. And everybody who might be in a position to handle placements wants a piece of the action, and to set guidelines and prices in this new frontier: global ad agencies, reality TV producers, even Hollywood set decorators. Mediaedge:cia, an ad agency owned by WPP, estimates the fees paid for product placements in TV and movies totaled $3 billion in 2003. "All these people are trying to figure out what makes sense for what brand for what network," say Peter Gardiner, chief media buyer for Deutsch, which is working on placements for about 20 clients.

Read the article: www.newsweek.com

TiVo hacks flourish

Five years after TiVo introduced the rewind and fast-forward buttons to broadcast television, hackers are pushing its digital video recorder to new heights--and possibly giving the company some ideas about where to go next.

TiVo boxes are in many ways a perfect target for gadget hobbyists, providing both the means and motive to create some high-powered enhancements.

The devices use mostly off-the-shelf computer components and run the open-source Linux operating system, making it easy for curious tinkerers to try out their skills. In addition, TiVo has intentionally left many tantalizing features out of its boxes due to concerns over potential copyright violations.

That combination has fueled a high-stakes game of underground innovation for TiVo, which must tread carefully as it seeks to create new features to stay ahead of rivals without angering Hollywood and broadcasters such as partner DirecTV.

TiVo hacks available for download let those inclined to tinker do a range of things: add a Web interface to the TiVo unit, convert programs to DVD and other formats, alter TiVo native features, expand the unit's hard drive, transfer files back and forth from the unit to the PC, or archive shows at smaller file sizes.

"TiVo is missing some tremendous opportunities," said Riley Cassel, a programmer who last year released a popular, unauthorized extension called MFS_FTP. "There's no technical reason you couldn't watch TV across the Net...Of course, the problem is that the same software can be used to broadcast HBO or Discovery HD, so Hollywood would go nuts."

Read the article: www.cnet.com

Global branded entertainment trade group formed

LOS ANGELES - The branded entertainment business is about to get more organized.

The Branded Content Marketing Association has formed a chapter in the U.S. and has appointed Hollywood producer Peter Guber and Madison Avenue executive Cindy Gallop to serve as chairmen of the board.

A former head of Sony Pictures, Mr. Guber is currently chairman-CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, which produced the films Sleepy Hollow, Beyond Borders and MGM's upcoming action movie Into the Blue. Last year, the Los Angeles-based company formed Mandalay Branded Entertainment, but the unit was recently dissolved so that the company's other divisions, including Mandalay Pictures, Mandalay Television and Mandalay Sports Action Entertainment, could develop advertainment projects on their own.

Ms. Gallop is the chairman of advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty U.S. in New York, which is 49% owned by Publicis Groupe.

The BCMA describes itself as a global network of advertisers, agencies and entertainment producers who influence the growth of the branded content industry around the world, and is looking to promote and advance the advertainment business across all forms of media and events.

With the addition of the U.S., the new chapter is expected to provide the BMCA's membership with a greater link between production talent and brands around the world, said Claes Loberg, CEO of London-based branded entertainment shop Cocojambo and founding member of BCMA U.K. and BCMA Australia.

Read the article: www.adage.com

Special edition Nike Gran Turismo 4

In a surprise move, Sony Computer Entertainment and Polyphony Digital revealed today that Gran Turismo 4 will feature limited EyeToy support. By having the EyeToy camera scan a special shirt, you gain access to a special car in the game (we said it was limited -- don't get mad at us!).

Actually getting your hands on the shirt may be a bit tricky. This special feature is actually part of a new collaboration with Nike. Nike will be releasing a limited edition version of GT4 on 12/3. Known as the Nike/Gran Turismo Limited Edition, this package will include GT4, a special pair of shoes (more on that below) and the required t-shirt, all in an aluminum case. Only 1000 sets of this 33,600 yen package will be produced worldwide (pricing for the stateside and European versions has yet to be revealed).

The shirt apparently features a pattern which, when read by the Eye Toy, unlocks the Nike One '22, a futuristic, red, white and black car sporting the Nike logo. The '22 after the name means that the car is the year 2022 model (if Nike's actually making cars in 2022, we're gonna stop playing games). Designed by a Nike designer, the car was made to resemble an athlete in his ready pose prior to the start of a race. The driver actually leans forward in the car, which we have a feeling would be a bit uncomfortable after a while (what if you had to readjust?).

Read the article: www.ign.com

Amazon will book online promo shorts

Amazon.com is the latest consumer company to get into the film biz,
launching a series of short pics on its Web site to promote an array of
products that it sells and promising an upcoming "major short-film
initiative."

E-tailer is working with Ridley and Tony Scott's RSA USA to create five
shorts that it began running Tuesday and will update each week. Films are
directed by RSA helmers, including Tony Scott, and feature thesps including
Minnie Driver, Blair Underwood and Chris Noth.

Launch of "Amazon Theater" makes it the latest company to get into branded
entertainment, although Amazon is the first retailer to promote a variety of
different products. Previous players have been companies such as BMW,
American Express and Jaguar looking to market a single brand.

Films were created independently by RSA's helmers, after which Amazon worked
with the different brands it sells to integrate their products into the pic..

Each film includes a detailed list of all the products from the pic for sale
on Amazon in the credits and has clickable links to purchase them all on the
accompanying Web page.

Read the article: www.variety.com

File-sharing thrives under radar

LONDON - A file-sharing program called BitTorrent has become a behemoth, devouring more than a third of the internet's bandwidth, and Hollywood's copyright cops are taking notice.

For those who know where to look, there's a wealth of content, both legal -- such as hip-hop from the Beastie Boys and video game promos -- and illicit, including a wide range of TV shows, computer games and movies.

Average users are taking advantage of the software's ability to cheaply spread files around the internet. For example, when comedian Jon Stewart made an incendiary appearance on CNN's political talk show Crossfire, thousands used BitTorrent to share the much-discussed video segment.

Even as lawsuits from music companies have driven people away from peer-to-peer programs like KaZaa, BitTorrent has thus far avoided the ire of groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America. But as BitTorrent's popularity grows, the service could become a target for copyright lawsuits.

According to British web analysis firm CacheLogic, BitTorrent accounts for an astounding 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet -- more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined -- and dwarfs mainstream traffic like web pages.

"I don't think Hollywood is willing to let it slide, but whether they're able to (stop it) is another matter," Bram Cohen, the programmer who created BitTorrent, told Reuters.

Read the article: www.wired.com

Search for roots lifts Friends Reunited

The popularity of the Who Do You Think You Are? TV show about celebrity family trees has inspired a stellar performance at Friends Reunited, the online company that helps people find old schoolmates and track their family trees.

The company has seen pre-tax profits climb by more than 50% to £3.6m in the year to December 2003 on sales of £7.4m, according to accounts just filed at Companies House

“There has been a real growth in interest in genealogy, driven by programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are?,” said Michael Murphy, chief executive.

Read the article: www.timesonline.co.uk

MPAA launches legal offensive against online pirates

Movie pirates were warned Thursday that they are under surveillance as potential targets of copyright infringement lawsuits that the MPAA will begin filing Nov. 16.

The campaign has been quietly under way for months and will tentatively involve about 250 cases filed in courts around the United States.

The potential defendants are people who allow dozens if not hundreds of movies to be uploaded from their computers onto such peer-to-peer file-trading networks as Kazaa and eDonkey. Warner Bros., Sony Corp., the Walt Disney Co. and the other MPAA members hope to head off the problem before it gets out of hand, as happened with the record labels.

"If we don't act now, the consequences will be devastating to the entire film industry," MPAA president and CEO Dan Glickman told reporters at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. "This is about protecting some things that all Americans hold dear: consumer choice, artistic creativity and economic growth. They cannot happen if the creators' ability to come up with these works of art is impinged by the fact that they are being distributed for free around the world."

Read the article: www.hollywoodreporter.com

Hollywood raises its tie-in quotient

LOS ANGELES -- Filled with sci-fi, fantasy and sword-and-sandal epics, Hollywood's slate this year provided brands with fewer chances to connect their products to film properties.

But that will change in 2005, according to industry authorities. Studios are preparing to roll out a new slate of promo-friendly comedies, animated and live-action family fare, remakes and sequels, and less R-rated titles.

"Next year is absolutely a good year for brands," said Tom Meyer, senior vice president of Davie-Brown Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based product placement agency. "There's a lot of opportunity for brands to get involved in a variety of different genres of movies that might appeal to their particular audiences."

That's a shift from 2004, when films like Troy, King Arthur, The Alamo, Van Helsing, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Village and Alexander dominated the slate, forcing promotional partners to sit on the sidelines and spend their marketing dollars elsewhere, namely TV.

While marketing mavens are expecting Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Four, Batman Begins, War of the Worlds, The Pink Panther, The Legend of Zorro and Madagascar to be big draws at the box office next summer, the films are also expected to lure the majority of the marketing dollars, as well.

The overall pattern of marketers' 2005 buy-ins is also expected to change. Last year, multiple advertisers' frontloaded promotions to a handful of films like Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2 and The Incredibles. But brand reps say next year's tie-in deals will be spread out across a broader variety of films.

Read the article: www.adage.com

The Mercedes entertainment channel

Featuring music from new and established artists and the short film "The Porter" starring Bryan Ferry.

Read the article: www.mercedes-benz.com

Who's afraid of the PVR?

If your Spirito de Punto is flagging and you really Can Believe It's Not Butter, then a personal video recorder is probably your dream gadget.
By 2010, 30% of the population will have a PVR, allowing instant record and playback of TV programmes, and crucially, the ability to skip commercials.

The recorders, such as Sky Plus, present advertisers with a pressing dilemma - more people watch commercial TV when they have a PVR, with viewing up 17%, but 77% of them skip the ads. Even 17% of viewers watching "live" TV with a PVR jump the ads, according to new research from media agency Starcom, which has analysed the habits of 500 PVR users.

There are 420,000 PVRs in use in the UK now. The figure will rise to 5m in four years. By 2008, penetration will reach 21% of the population and by 2012 it will be 34%. People with PVRs watch more TV, are more attentive and enjoy it more. They are less distracted, being able to press pause whenever they like. But the increased quality of viewing is negated for advertisers. PVR users claim they didn't buy one in order to skip ads. But given the opportunity, they do.

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