Hollywood Spin: Madison & Vine

H. Mitchell Kanner (IEG), Irwin Gotlieb (Group M), Devery Holmes (Norm Marshall Group), Sandy Climan (Entertainment Media Ventures) and Michael Nyman (Bragman, Nyman, Cafarelli) recently got together at L.A. edition of Digital Hollywood (Sept. 29-Oct. 1) to discuss the evolving beast of film and TV brand integration campaigns.

Here is my weekly opinion column that resulted: Madison & Vine

You may not have heard of companies like Media Edge CIA and Integrated Entertainment Partners, but this elite group controls the future of film and TV related advertising.

By Richard Horgan

In advertising industry parlance, the increasingly invested relationship that New York agencies are pursuing with the major TV networks and Hollywood film studios is simply known as “Madison and Vine.”

Be it the sweeping acquisition of Hollywood PR agencies PMK/HBH, Rogers & Cowan and Bragman, Nyman, Cafarelli by Interpublic Group, one of three gargantuan consortiums along with WPP Group and Omnicom that owns most of the major ad agencies around the world, or the eclipse of product placement by much more sophisticated “brand integration” campaigns, the mythical intersection of Madison and Vine is where much of the convergence action is taking place these days.

Earlier this week, the opening panel discussion of Digital Hollywood, a three-day technology conference held at the Los Angeles headquarters of the Directors Guild of America, offered a rare chance to get a close-up look at the men who are responsible for the business of interfacing creatively with advertisers. At least two of the participants, Irwin Gotlieb and Mitchell Kanner, approach matters from the same instinctual corner once inhabited by the late David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy & Mather.

Whereas Ogilvy’s famous Rolls Royce campaign tag line suggested that the only sound heard when driving a Rolls at 60 miles per hour was that of a dashboard clock ticking, the pronouncements of the Digital Hollywood panelists provided a comforting and fairly impressive soundtrack to the speed of light at which things are changing.

To put it in perspective, as president and CEO of Group M, a WPP holding comprised of two firms by the names of Media Edge CIA and Mindshare, Gotlieb helps ad agencies oversee $32 billion in annual spending. That’s billion, with a b.

“Advertisers are facing two key issues,” explained Gotlieb. “One is the fragmentation of the audience. For example, the audience for The Matrix films is relatively small, representing 3 to 4% of the target group and accumulating when all is said and done to perhaps 15%. In other words, advertisers are not reaching 85% of intended viewers. So you have to diversify.”

“The other factor, and biggest mitigator to success, is the incredible clutter out there with all the 15 second ads, 30 second ads, promos, content integration and so on,” Gotlieb continued. “Whereas fifteen years ago a placement of an ad was adequate, today the quality of that placement becomes paramount.”

When moderator Michael Kassan, a media and entertainment consultant, asked the audience full of journalists and technophiles to raise their hands if they owned a TIVO or other digital video recording device (DVR), almost every hand in the room shot up. This is in marked contrast to the general populace.