Super Bowl 2014 ads: Budweiser puppy love, Kia's The Matrix, David Beckham

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/31/super-bowl-2014-ad-budweiser-puppy-kia-matrix-david-beckham

Super Bowl XLVIII is almost upon us and as America waits to see whether the Seahawks or the Broncos will emerge victorious, the TV audience also eagerly anticipates the festival of advertising that will accompany it.
 
A number of brands have tried to get ahead of the game – in every sense – by posting their new work online, and our offers a preview of some of the most notable commercials.

Shazam: the app that calls the tune

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/88df8fa6-893e-11e3-bb5f-00144feab7de.html#axzz2rzohw5KV

“TV advertising is worth about $300bn a year and digital music sales are incredibly small,” says Fisher. “The total music market is worth about $10bn now.”

During last year’s Super Bowl, advertisers enticed viewers to use Shazam to enter sweepstakes, unlock exclusive online content and participate in polls by pointing their phones and tablets – with the app open – at a Shazam logo on screen. Fast-food chain Jack in the Box integrated Shazam into its advert for a Hot Mess burger. After “Shazaming” it, viewers were able to watch a music video, complete with long-haired guitarists and Pat Benatar theme tune. At this year’s Super Bowl, all of the ads will be Shazam-enabled, and viewers will be able to replay their favourite spots and share them on their social networks. Fans will also be able to access other exclusive music features during the half-time show, which features Bruno Mars and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“Why would somebody want to Shazam a shampoo ad on TV? Because they can get styling tips,” says Fisher. “So, if you Shazam the ad, yes, you can get the voucher to buy the shampoo, but you can then watch videos of how to style your hair like the models in the TV ad.”

Emerging markets: Fear of contagion

Policy makers from Argentina to Turkey are scrambling to defend their currencies

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Viral Video Chart: Super Bowl, Scarlet Johansson and Taylor Swift

David Attenborough on wildlife in pubs and nightclubs, getting a kick out of the NFL – and danger at the Grammy Awards

1. Cassetteboy vs David Attenborough
Wild life at night

2. Sorry, Coke and Pepsi. (Uncensored)
Video streaming

3. Taylor Swift Attacked at Grammys
Swift biffed

4. "MORE NFL" — A Bad Lip Reading of The NFL
Read my lips

5. The NFL Season In 160 Seconds
It's been a ball

6. A Conference Call in Real Life
Tough call

7. Jubilee Line Ticket Barrier Sings Blur's Song 2
Just the ticket

8. Cruise Ship Cut in Half, Then Stretched 99 Feet 
Floating an idea

9. SnoreStop® keeping you together™ TV Commercial 2014
Sleep on it

10. Tongue On A Frozen Pole PRANK!!
Tasty treat

Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 14:00 on 30 January 2014. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Putin’s Russia - Sochi or bust

The conspicuous dazzle of the games masks a country, and a president, in deepening trouble


Disposable income grew twice as fast as the economy in the 2000s, and so did consumption. The increase in living standards was partly achieved at the cost of investment. Although investment in new factories and equipment increased from 15% of GDP in 2000 to the current 23%, it was well below the level of even Soviet investment in capital stock, not to mention China’s. And as Natalia Orlova of Alfa Bank notes, half of all new construction in the pre-recession years was of shopping centres, rather than the factories that could fill those shops with goods.

Brands are finding it hard to adapt to an age of scepticism

Schumpeter - We want to be your friend

In Western societies particularly, respect for traditional voices of authority—from priests to political leaders—has eroded. So has their faith in brands. Havas Media, a big marketing agency, says trust in them has been declining for three decades. Last August it published the latest in a series of worldwide surveys, in which 134,000 consumers in 23 countries were asked what they thought of 700 brands. A majority of those taking part would not care if 73% of them just vanished. In Europe and America 92% would not be missed. Only in places like Asia and Latin America, with lots of newish consumers, is there a bit more attachment to brands, though Havas Media reports that it is declining there too.

What’s your sponsorship worth? - McKinsey

5 metrics marketers need to value sports events

Cost per reach
Unaided awareness per reach
Sales/margin per dollar spent
Long-term brand attributes
Indirect benefits

How much is it worth to sponsor Tiger Woods or Lionel Messi or Rafael Nadal? What’s the payoff for being a sponsor of the Super Bowl, Olympic Games or the World Cup? Considering the huge amounts being spent on sponsorships, companies have surprising difficulty answering these questions.

Famous for six seconds: The celebrities of Vine

Twitter’s video app, Vine, only lets its users make the shortest of films. Still, that hasn’t stopped its stars from turning brief encounters into a high-profile career

Ian Padgham, considered to be one of the world's most talented Viners, left a high-flying role in Twitter's marketing team last August to use Kroll's "creative medium" to make selfies, comedy and stop-motion art for a living. By any standards, his artistic Vines are extraordinary, and over the last few months he has worked with Xbox, Sony, Nokia, Budweiser, Mercedes, Disney and Twitter.

Google sells Motorola business to Lenovo for $2.91bn

Agreement comes less than two years after Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5bn

Google has sold its Motorola handset business to Lenovo for $2.91bn, handing the Chinese technology giant a significant step up in mission to become “the next Apple”.

The agreement comes less than two years after Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5bn – a deal it struck primarily so that it could get its hands on Motorola’s artillery of 17,000 patents and 7,500 patents.

Google wanted the patents in order to help mobile manufacturers that use its Android operating system in the firm’s legal battles against Apple.

Google said on Wednesday it has held on to the “vast majority” of those patents, but will offload more than 2,000 of them to Lenovo as part of their deal. The Chinese company, which is headquartered in Beijing, will also buy the Motorola mobile brand, and the company’s portfolio of smartphones such as the Moto X and the Moto G.

Google had already sold Motorola Home, a TV set-top box business acquired as part of Motorola Mobility, for $2.6bn.

Google and Lenovo - The Economist

It's vital people keep 'liking' Facebook

At almost 10 years old Facebook is still growing, even in the saturated American market. And it’s evidently cracked the mobile phone conundrum that many investors thought could even kill the world’s biggest social network.

With new products keenly based on data, sentiment about adverts has improved. Even with more adverts, the percentage of those that are clicked on has remained steady. Crucially, this indicates that Facebook will be able to continue to monetise users on small screens. As it continues to grow in new markets, where mobiles are more important, that will become even more important. Facebook’s role in online shopping, influencing purchases and businesses, is only going to grow too, bolstered by the fact it has simplified its advertising products so that they are more accessible to smaller companies.

Facebook finally cracks how to make money from mobiles
Yahoo's shares slide 5% as fourth-quarter revenue declines
Facebook reels in advertising cash - FT

How Much Time Have You Wasted on Facebook?

Estimate the total amount of time you've spent on the site with this tool

Facebook will celebrate its 10th birthday next week. Created in a dorm room by Mark Zuckerberg and a few friends TheFacebook.com came to life on Feb. 4, 2004. In its decade of existence, the social network has attracted 1.1 billion users, and all their pokes, wall posts, baby photos and engagement announcements add up to a whole lot of time. Use TIME’s calculator to see just how many days of your life have been lost to this ten-year-old.

Why Russia Is No. 1 in Anti-Americanism

The survey indicated that 24 percent of respondents worldwide consider the U.S. the largest threat in the world, which is not a surprise and has been consistent with results over the past decade, but a much larger 54 percent of Russians felt the same way. This means that Russia exceeded the global average by more than two times.

The Russians outdid the Iranians, of whom only 16 percent see the U.S. as the top threat — even though “Death to America!” remains a popular political slogan.

Kremlin propagandists can rejoice as they reap the dividends from their anti-U.S. campaign that has relied heavily on state-controlled television. In ­recent years, Russian viewers have been bombarded with agitprop news reports and primitive pseudo-­documentaries with titles like “Who Rules the World?” and “Who Wants to Carve Up Russia?”

On the flip side, only 2 percent of Americans in the Gallup poll think Russia is a threat to global peace, which is consistent with the global average.

Video: A brief history of Super Bowl advertising

From Broadway Joe to "1984" to the Oreo moment

Sochi sponsor wants to share a Coke, but not with gay people

Coca-Cola's bid to downplay its sponsorship of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics took a blow this week, when it emerged that the word 'gay' is banned from its customisable 'share a Coke' function.

Writing the word 'gay' into the service returns the error message "Oops. Let's pretend you didn't just type that. Please try another name," however, no doubt to the annoyance of the literally thousands of people whose first or last name is Gay.

The company are to be the sponsors for this year's Sochi Winter Olympics, where coverage of the protests and boycotts regarding Putin's anti-gay laws is set to outnumber that of Olympic curling about 1000 to one.

Daily chart - The plunging currency club

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/01/daily-chart-16

Are millennials as bad as we think?

Compared with other generations, millennials' attitude to work and leisure might make them more complex to understand, but sweeping generalisations will only widen the divide

They have been called entitled, lazy, and "the most high-maintenance workforce in the history of the world" – but are millennials really that bad? How different are they from previous generations, and how consequential are these differences?

As it turns out, millennials are complex, which explains the wide variety of views about them. Indeed, the most interesting fact about millennials is the paradoxical nature of their character – a tension between opposites that must be reconciled. This tension presents a challenge, not only to millennials themselves, but to those trying to understand and manage them.

Popular Demand - US Media in Numbers

The top movie rentals in 2013 were mostly comedies aimed at adults, like “Identity Thief,” or dramas like “Flight,” which starred Denzel Washington. This ranking, from Rentrak, includes outlets like Redbox — and before it closed almost all of its retail locations, Blockbuster — but not Netflix.

Chinese consumers - Doing it their way

The market is growing furiously, but getting tougher for foreign firms

Nowhere is this wide-ranging urge to spend more obvious than in the market for luxury goods. Globally the Chinese are the biggest buyers of expensive items, accounting for some 29% of purchases last year (see chart 2). Some two-thirds of Chinese spending on luxury goods takes place outside the mainland; a fifth of it in Europe. (Harrods of London has seen sales to Chinese shoppers, its largest foreign contingent, increase by 50% a year since 2011.) Consistently favoured brands include Lancôme, Gucci, Audi, Rolex and Tiffany.

It is not only in luxury goods that Chinese shoppers are leading the way. China has become the world’s biggest e-commerce market, with spending forecast to reach $540 billion next year. On Singles Day, an annual online-marketing extravaganza held on November 11th, 400m Chinese spent $5.7 billion just on Tmall, an e-commerce platform run by Alibaba; Americans, on their Cyber Monday a few weeks later, spent only about $2 billion. China is the world’s biggest maker and consumer of smartphones, and will soon be the largest “mobile-commerce” market, too.

Putin’s Run for Gold - Vanity Fair

www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/02/sochi-olympics-russia-corruption

At $50 billion and counting, the 2014 Winter Olympics, in Sochi, will be the most expensive Olympic Games ever. Intended to showcase the power of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, they may instead highlight its problems: organized crime, state corruption, and the terrorist threat within its borders

Lunch with the FT: Nick D’Aloisio

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dca46ecc-835d-11e3-86c9-00144feab7de.html#axzz2rSHCPOfu

D’Aloisio believes summaries are a way to bring to new media one of the more satisfying attributes of the old. “It’s the ability to get to the end and then you’re done,” he says. This sense of “completion” has been lost in cyber space. “The problem with the internet is that you can never finish an infinite stream.”

People talk about the “fire-hose” of information that has been unleashed by the internet, and how it is changing reading habits. The tousle-haired 18-year-old has spent the past few years devising software that aims to let you sip from the flow without being drenched with information.

The economist’s guide to the future - By Simon Kuper

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5929ed26-83bf-11e3-86c9-00144feab7de.html#axzz2rSHCPOfu

What will the world look like in 100 years?” wondered Ignacio Palacios-Huerta. Being an economist at the London School of Economics, he put this question to other economists. Admittedly, the profession didn’t foresee the financial crisis but, still, he writes in the introduction to his new book, economists “know more about the laws of human interactions and have reflected more deeply and with better methods than any other human beings”. (Declaration of interest: I once tried to market Palacios-Huerta’s insights into penalty-kicks to football clubs. Nobody ever paid us.)

Football Wealth

http://www.economist.com/news/economic-indicators/21595025-football-wealth

Super Bowl 2014 ad teasers: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen Colbert, more

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/24/super-bowl-2014-ad-arnold-schwarzenegger-stephen-colbert

The Super Bowl isn't just the biggest event in US sport, it's also the most significant day of the year for American advertisers. With each ad slot costing millions of dollars, everyone wants to make sure that their specially-made commercial stands out from all the other specially-made commercials. 
 
So far this year, they've largely kept their powder dry by releasing teasers instead, and this week's Ad Break offers an overview of some of the most striking examples.

Hollywood has a new star studio with a different approach

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21595007-hollywood-has-new-star-studio-different-approach-film-business-fighting

Unlike the old Hollywood majors, it has no studio backlot: its offices are in a dull office block in Santa Monica. It licenses out most of the international rights to its films in advance, and thus it usually has no more than $15m at stake in films that may cost several times as much to shoot. This protects it against catastrophic losses like those that sank past challengers to the Hollywood majors (such as United Artists when “Heaven’s Gate” flopped in 1980). However, it also limits Lionsgate’s upside when its films do well abroad.

Lionsgate is lean, with only 550 or so employees compared with around 10,000 at Warner Bros. That means quicker decisions, and less chance that good ideas get stuck in “development hell”. The lemming-like majors all shove their blockbusters onto the market simultaneously in the summer holidays and at Christmas; Lionsgate slips out releases at times when punters are less overwhelmed with choice. It has been bolder than its rivals at releasing films for “on-demand” home viewing at the same time as they open in the cinemas: it did so with “Margin Call” and “Arbitrage”, two tales about dodgy financiers.

Viral Video Chart: One Direction, Lena Dunham and Arnold Schwarzenegger

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/24/digital-media-internet

1. One Direction - Story Of My Life (shred) by SamRick
Pitched out

2. Arnold Works at Gold's
Watch your back

3. Official Arnold Schwarzenegger Bud Light Super Bowl 2014 Ping Pong Commercial
Turning the tables

4. HBO's GIRLS Tour ft. Sasheer Zamata
Lena's lot

5. Benedict Cumberbatch - NTA Awards Winner Best TV Detective
Clued up

6. Mean Girls Parody - Mean Cats
Puss in cahoots

7. Oasis - DVD commentary highlights
The first Noel

8. How That Legendary 'Fight Club' Scene Would Look Without Tyler Durden
Action man

9. What if Google was a Guy?
Searching questions

10.This Guy Animated Classic Paintings And The Results Are Beautiful
Art warming

Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 14:00 on 23 January 2014. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook will lose 80% of users by 2017, say Princeton researchers

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/facebook-princeton-researchers-infectious-disease

"Ideas are spread through communicative contact between different people who share ideas with each other. Idea manifesters ultimately lose interest with the idea and no longer manifest the idea, which can be thought of as the gain of 'immunity' to the idea."

They tested various equations against the lifespan of Myspace, before applying them to Facebook. Myspace was founded in 2003 and reached its peak in 2007 with 300 million registered users, before falling out of use by 2011. Purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for $580m, Myspace signed a $900m deal with Google in 2006 to sell its advertising space and was at one point valued at $12bn. It was eventually sold by News Corp for just $35m.

Facebook Is About to Lose 80% of Its Users

Social media is like a disease that spreads, and then dies

Disease models can be used to understand the mass adoption and subsequent flight from online social networks, researchers at Princeton’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering say in a study released Jan. 17. The study has not been peer-reviewed. Updating traditional models on disease spread to assume that “recovery” requires contact with a nondiseased member — i.e., a nonuser of Facebook (“recovered” member of the population) — researchers predicted that Facebook would see a rapid decline, causing the site to lose 80% of its peak user base between 2015 and 2017.

Bill Gates debunks three myths

BILL GATES on why aid works, the poor are getting richer and growing wealth inequality doesn't matter

Microsoft Xbox One prompts outrage after YouTube stealth-marketing stunt

Undisclosed money paid to YouTubers featuring Xbox One in gaming videos prompts backlash

Described as the “easiest/best promo” Machinima had ever done by the Machinima's UK community manager, terms of the deal specifically blocked disclosure of the payments, according to a leaked copy of the legal agreement. That could breach the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) guidelines (PDF) for use of endorsements in advertising that require links between endorsers and sellers of the product be disclosed. It might also break Advertising Standards Authority rules on bloggers and paid promotions.

The greatest PR save of all time

When Benjamin Svetkey interviewed Hugh Grant 20 years ago, he had no idea that the actor would be arrested later that week – and that he’d still be writing Grant two decades on

In fact, come to think of it, the only one who didn’t hit the jackpot since the arrest was me. Nearly 20 years later, here I am, still writing about Hugh Grant.

Amazon to ship customers' packages before they order them

A patent filed by the e-commerce giant last December reveals the plan for 'anticipatory shipping' - using big data to predict what customers will buy

By analysing a wealth of user data including wish-lists, shopping cart contents, previous orders and even how long a mouse cursor pauses over an item, Amazon is confident it could figure out what you’re going to buy before you do.

Although the scheme sounds slightly far-fetched, it chimes with a growing trend amongst technology companies to leverage vast sets of user-data in predicting future action.

The e-friction index

Boston Consulting Group's e-friction index in full

Digital trade - The internet's rub

Popular Demand - US Media in Numbers

Album sales declined again this year. Total sales, a figure that includes CDs, cassettes, digital albums and LPs, fell 8 percent from 2012 to 2013, to 289 million.

The secret to Hollywood’s future?

A Harvard academic who shadows the stars says that the entertainment industry needs more blockbusters to survive

Audiences respond to big-name actors, special effects and in-your-face advertising, says Ms Elberse. She adds that while it might seem safer to spread money around a series of smaller bets, this is counterintuitive on average. “It is not foolproof. It is going to lead to failures and those failures are extremely painful,” she says.

Batteries - Out of juice

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21594330-disposable-batteries-are-costly-way-buy-power-their-days-are-numbered-out-juice


In the poorest countries the market for disposable batteries is being undermined before it gets going, as cheap wind-up, solar-powered and rechargeable devices proliferate. Producing power has never been easier. Making money from selling it in small tubes is getting a lot harder.

Peace in our time - By Simon Kuper

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/2177ebce-7e44-11e3-b409-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2qjPt6pmb

• The American deal with Iran will stick, and Israelis and Palestinians will keep moving towards peace. The public in all these countries probably prefers peace, and if they chose war, foreign allies and media would punish them.

• Global defence spending will keep falling. In 2012 it dropped slightly for the first time since 1998, says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The decline probably deepened in 2013.

• Armies will increasingly commit violence in secret, using drones or camera-free interrogation chambers. No US government will again allow a televised war like Vietnam.

• Tough guys will lose elections. Historically, Republicans in the US campaigned on promises to be tough on crime and tough in war. They will miss crime and war.

• International trade will keep growing. Last month the World Trade Organisation agreed its first ever deal on global trade.

• Politicians will continue to lose status, as they no longer pursue national glory but quibble over pocketbook issues they can’t even control. Napoleon is a grander figure than François Hollande, even though it’s better to live in a country ruled by Hollande.

Still, I’m not one of those pundits who can tell the future, so perhaps all this will change.

Interview: Carlo Ancelotti - By Simon Kuper

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/7e89c58e-7e45-11e3-b409-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2qjPt6pmb

● The Italian, says Forde, practises “servant leadership” – he gives people a say in designing the strategy and vision. That gives them a stake in the process and increases their commitment to him.

● Ancelotti can listen. He stays “in the moment” with people. Forde says: “No interruptions, no outbursts, just a very calm and considered guy. People enjoy talking with him and therefore feel comfortable volunteering personal information about themselves.” This helps him manage them with less conflict.

● Ancelotti takes the situation seriously but not himself, says Forde. By not showing the pressure he is under, he protects others from stress.

● Many leading coaches have well-tried operating models that have brought them success. They are accordingly reluctant to change methods. Ancelotti has remained humble and curious enough to keep adapting and learning.

Ad break: DirecTV hang gliding advert, Visa Winter Olympics, the Guardian

Watch an advert for the US satellite TV service that takes a witty swipe at cable and a Winter Olympics-themed credit card ad

This week's collection of new commercials opens with a very funny US ad for DirecTV which shows what happens when a man unwisely takes on a new hobby and ends with a Winter Olympics themed advert for Visa which compares a ski jumper with an aviation pioneer. In between are a trio of excellent UK ads for Guinness, Schwartz and the Guardian.

Super Bowl Ads Get Their Own Pregame Show

For the last couple of years, Super Bowl advertisers have been drastically changing their decades-old strategy of keeping mum about their commercials until the spots are broadcast during the game

Instead of trying to surprise viewers, many sponsors are filling social-media platforms with previews, teasers and coming attractions in hopes of stimulating additional interest.

In another sign of that strategy’s growing popularity, Google is adding for the first time a gallery of teaser video clips to the annual YouTube Ad Blitz channel devoted to Super Bowl commercials. The gallery, scheduled to go live early Friday morning, begins with preview videos from five advertisers planning to run commercials during Super Bowl XLVIII on Feb. 2:Butterfinger, Doritos, Intuit, Squarespace and Pepsi, teasing its sponsorship of the halftime show.

At least three other advertisers -- Axe, Jaguar and SodaStream – have joined the five appearing on the YouTube Ad Blitz channel in already releasing teasers for their 2014 Super Bowl commercials.

The Future of Work

Previous technological innovation has always delivered more long-run employment, not less. But things can change


The machines are not just cleverer, they also have access to far more data. The combination of big data and smart machines will take over some occupations wholesale; in others it will allow firms to do more with fewer workers. Text-mining programs will displace professional jobs in legal services. Biopsies will be analysed more efficiently by image-processing software than lab technicians. Accountants may follow travel agents and tellers into the unemployment line as tax software improves. Machines are already turning basic sports results and financial data into good-enough news stories.

Viral Video Chart: Game of Thrones, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie

The wild Westeros returns in our Season 4 preview, the Boss mocks the Governor -– and it's Cobblers for Ziggy Stardust

1. Game of Thrones Season 4: Trailer #1 (HBO)
Murder and mutiny

2. Bruce Springsteen & Jimmy Fallon: "Gov. Christie Traffic Jam" ("Born To Run" Parody)
Jam today

3. Melinda Messenger Ski Fail | The Jump (Training) | Channel 4
Blade runner

4. Winter Olympics 2014: Trailer - BBC Sport
Publicity avalanche

5. GoPro: Ski Flying With Anders Jacobsen
Snow fear

6. David Bowie - Cobbler Bob
Building a reputation

7. Devil Baby Attack
Such a scream

8. Peter Pan marriage proposal at SSE Hydro in Glasgow
Oh yes she will

9. CNN Reporter Gets Stoned During Story On Colorado Legalization
Reporter lives the high life

10. Trigger's Dodgy Briefcases - Only Fools and Horses - BBC
Roger Lloyd Pack remembered

Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 14:00 on 16 January 2014. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

The new GE: Google, everywhere

With a string of deals the internet giant has positioned itself to become a big inventor, and reinventor, of hardware

Other big technology firms are also joining the battle to dominate the connected home. This month Samsung announced a new smart-home computing platform that will let people control washing machines, televisions and other devices it makes from a single app. Microsoft, Apple and Amazon were also tipped to take a lead there, but Google was until now seen as something of a laggard. “I don’t think Google realised how fast the internet of things would develop,” says Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a consultancy.

Reality television and teenage pregnancy

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/01/reality-television-and-teenage-pregnancy

A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that "16 and Pregnant" helped reduce teenage births in America by 5.7% in the 18 months following its release. The two authors, Melissa Kearney of the University of Maryland and Phillip Levine of Wellesley College, tracked Google searches about the show and birth control, along with Tweets, all of which spiked when the show went out.

Later this year MTV will introduce a new show called "Virgin Territory", featuring youngsters who try to remain pure and chaste. Whether this will drive horrified viewers to do the opposite remains to be seen.

Playing Moneyball with TV

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/jan/14/moneyball-tv

Playing Moneyball with live TV in 2014 is a real possibility. The big data necessary to answer the questions that many TV networks may not want to ask is now available. With today's technology, it is possible to analyse, in real-time and down to the second, the number of people:

• In proximity of a TV turned on and to what channel

• Typing an unrelated email or related text of chat message

• Clicking a related behind-the-scenes fact or statistic

• Playing Angry Birds or on a social network

Big data reveals what TV viewers are searching for, purchasing, viewing on TV, talking about on Facebook, and downloading.

Your friends are richer, happier & more popular than you & social media is probably to blame

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/youre-not-just-insecure-study-reveals-how-your-friends-really-are-richer-happier-and-more-popular-than-you-9060922.html

Referring to previous studies which showed active Facebook users described themselves as less happy on average than others, Eom and Jo added: “This might be the reason why active online social networking service users are not happy – when it is much easier to compare to other people.”

Why 2014 will be the year of the buyer

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/jan/14/2014-buyer-marcoms-ma

The Western world is facing slower GDP growth, an aging population base and declining consumption, while many of the economies in the East and BRIC countries are surging ahead – and so are their marketing services groups. With economic activity on the rise after so many years of turmoil, and a plethora of UK and US agencies and tech firms looking for investment, don't be surprised to see buyers from the likes of China and Japan grabbing some of the headlines that were previously reserved for WPP, Publicis and Omnicom.

Google and the internet of things

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2014/01/google-and-internet-things


But the move also raises plenty of questions. For instance, does Google intend to profit solely from sales of Nest’s hardware or does it see other opportunities to make money from these gadgets, perhaps by placing ads on screens? And what will happen to all of the data generated by Nest’s gizmos? That is more than an academic question given Google’s chequered history on data-privacy issues. Nest says its existing privacy policy will not change for now, but has not ruled out modifications in future. Expect privacy activists to turn up the heat on Google at the first sign of any shift in position.

Городу Иваново грозит вымирание до 2100 года

http://www.rg.ru/2014/01/13/reg-cfo/ivanovo-anons.html

These projections are somewhat at variance with those offered by United Nation experts in 2012. The latter pointed to Nizhny Novgorod as the Russian city which is losing population most rapidly – a projected 12 percent by 2025 – followed by Novosibirsk, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Volgograd and Voronezh (unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=3387).

Is advertising through porn set to grow in 2014?

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/jan/11/media-porn-advertising-marketing

The company did some research and, according to its blog, found that the cost of advertising on a typical internet porn site came out at "roughly one-tenth" of what it cost to advertise with Twitter, Facebook or Google. With the vast majority of ads on porn sites being for other porn, Eat24 wondered if it had discovered an "untapped market".

The campaign ran for six months and has had seemingly impressive results. Banner ads have seen three times the number of impressions as on Twitter, Facebook and Google combined, and there has been a "huge spike" in sales, says Eisenstein.

Popular Demand - US Media in Numbers

Yahoo led all news and information sites in 2013 in visits.

The 100 Movies You Should See In 2014

http://www.empireonline.com/features/preview2014/

The World in 2014

http://www.economist.com/theworldin/2014

Fortune - The Future Issue

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2014/01/13/toc.html

Find out where the smart money is placing bets and what life-changing products are in the world

Big carmakers - Kings of the road

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21593468-size-not-everything-mass-market-carmakers-it-helps-kings-road

Max Warburton of Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, says that size also comes with risks. Producing vehicles for every region in every segment means manufacturing a vast array of cars that add cost and complexity without necessarily contributing much profit. The mass-market SEAT and Skoda brands bulk up VW’s sales but it makes most of its money from flashy Audis and Porsches.

However, the game that the biggest carmakers are in is to survive for the long term as the stragglers fall by the wayside. Every small SEAT that VW sells at a big discount is a sale denied to a struggling European rival, making it harder for it to stick around to compete.