Last week’s announcement that the Interpublic Group acquired Reprise Media set off a round of self-congratulatory praise up and down Madison Avenue. It was as though they stopped hitting the snooze button and finally addressed the importance of search in any advertising campaign. But take a close look beyond the buzzwords like “integration” and “broad marcom mix,” because the acquisitions and partnerships merely put a pretty face on some of the deep, troubling issues at play.
Madison AdFed Presentation and Resources
Well, I just finished delivering a presentation for the Madison, Wisconsin Advertising Federation.
Madison Ave Spirals Out Free Music Downloads
The purists and pirate-pardoning, and by that I mean anybody outside the business, know that music wants to be free. The world’s largest music company, Universal Music Group, seems to be the first megalith to get that. Before the end of the year, expect your music to ride freely on the back of a SpiralFrog, courtesy of Madison Avenue.
Fear and Loathing on Madison Avenue
Madison Avenue is running scared. Its recent “upfront” – a glitzy annual ritual in which broadcasters give sneak peaks of their upcoming seasons to advertisers and book billions of dollars in advance bookings for these shows – was a dud whose $8.95 billion take represented the third successive year of decline.
SL Green Realty to Get One Madison Avenue from MetLife
SL Green Realty has entered into an agreement to acquire the fee interest in One Madison Avenue from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife) for $918 million.