Tying Up Loose Ends With ‘Oprah,’ ‘Mad Men,’ Wine Clubs and More

It is time again to ask 20 questions about advertising, marketing, the media and popular culture.       Is there anything more annoying than commercials that pretend a made-up word or phrase — say, “holisaleabration,” heard in current spots for A.& P. and Waldbaum’s supermarkets — is so difficult to pronounce that the announcer is required to repeat it incessantly?

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College Students Spend 12 Hours/Day with Media, Gadgets

College students in America are expected to lay out an all-time high $6.5 billion this year on technology items and spend an average of 12 hours each day engaged with some type of media, according to (pdf) findings released today from Alloy Media + Marketing’s 9th annual College Explorer survey, conducted by Harris Interactive.

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Restaurant operators’ outlook improves

WASHINGTON (Nov. 30, 2009) While customer traffic remained sluggish during the month of October, restaurateurs tended to be more hopeful about their prospects for the future, according to the latest monthly operator survey from the National Restaurant Association.

The NRA’s Restaurant Performance Index, or RPI, posted its first gain in three months, registering 98.0 for the month, an increase of 0.5 percent over its September level of 97.5. Based on a 100-point scale, the RPI is a monthly composite that tracks the health and outlook of the U.S. foodservice industry by monitoring sales, traffic, labor and capital expenditure.

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Report: Gift Cards Are The New Fruitcake

The popularity of store gift cards is plummeting, according to research and advisory firm TowerGroup. The reduction in card spending is reflective of less confidence in retailer inventories and stability. TowerGroup expects store gift-card spending volume to fall by 7%, with a modest increase of 3% in general-purpose cards in 2009, according to “Gift Cards: Still Better to Give than Receive,” a report released today.

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8 Lessons From the Creativity and Technology Conference

LONDON (AdAge.com) — Some 300 attendees gathered at the Saatchi Gallery last week for Ad Age sibling Creativity’s technology conference, Creativity and Technology, were treated to musings on bleeding-edge digital communication from Europe’s top talent in advertising, technology and design. Speakers ranged from agency creatives and technologists to writers such as Adam Greenfield, author of “Everyware” and head of design direction at Nokia.

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Marketers Serve Super-Cheap Thanksgiving Fare

This Thanksgiving, it looks like many consumers will come to the table grateful for food bargains, as marketers turn the spotlight on cheap eats.

It’s noticeable at all food stores, even those targeting high-end shoppers: Whole Foods Market is trumpeting 10 great wines for the holiday, all at $15 or less.

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Online Ads Are Booming, if They’re Attached to a Video

News Web sites are starting to look a lot less like newspapers and a lot more like television.com and ESPN.com are featuring video much more prominently on their home pages, often prompting visitors to press play before they begin to read.  Even The Wall Street Journal has moved its video player front and center with a twice-a-day live newscast on WSJ.com.

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What Drives Women as Car Buyers

When women are in the market for a car, what’s the most important factor influencing their choice? Any men tempted to say “color” should sign up for a thought-rectification course. The correct answer, according to a newly released Ipsos Public Affairs survey of women conducted for CarMax, is “price.”

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Rupert Murdoch Wants to Boycott the Digital Newsstand

This week has been dominated by Rupert Murdoch’s interview with Sky News, wherein he unabashedly claims that he’s being robbed from Google, Microsoft, Ask.com (and AgencySpy, though he never names us specifically). Whether you link back to one of the Wall Street Journal’s stories or list it in your search results, you’re stealing. Murdoch’s pay wall system will reportedly fix all that, but in the mean time he’s OK with allowing Google et al to keep doing what they’re doing. There’s a logical reason for that; and we’ll debunk some of what he’s said.

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Coupon Use Continues Resurgence

Although economic recovery finally seems to be taking root in the U.S., consumers remain cautious when it comes to spending their money.  And many analysts believe that shopping behavior that has changed during the recession is permanent.  One factor backing up that premise is the continued upswing in coupon use after years of declines.

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