GenDigital

Will The Devil Fill Up The Seats This Holiday Weekend?

"The Devil Wears Prada," hits theaters today, just in time for the holiday weekend. Although for teens and college students, every summer weekend is a holiday, right? The question is, can the movie based on the book written by Lauren Weisberger, be hit among young women. The critics certainly think so. If you check out Yahoo's Movie section, critics give the film high marks. This could also be somewhat of a coming out for Anne Hathaway, a resident of my home state. Adrian Grenier, the star of HBO's breakout hit "Entourage" plays Hathaway's boyfriend in Devil. I am not really sure how the film will fare with the younger crowd though, to be perfectly honest. When the book was out and popular with twentysomething and thirtysomething women, the truth is that it didn't even show up on our radar for books college women were purchasing and reading. However, you can't always judge the success of a movie based on the way the book performed at the cash register, especially among this generation. So, what do you think? Is it going to be a hit, a miss, or something in the middle?

Bank of America Turns to America's Pastime

Bank of America, the number one bank used by college students for checking and savings accounts has a effort out that hooks up its new "keep the change" savings program with little league baseball. In case you aren't familiar with the "keep the change" program, here is how it works. Every time a BofA customer uses his/her debit card to make a purchase, the change for the purchase is rounded up to the next nearest dollar and automatically deposited into a savings account. BofA then matches the transfers for the first three months and then matches 5% from then on until the customer reaches a threshold of $250, pretty cool, heh? Leveraging the initiative BofA will run an integrated effort of point of purchase, online and some p.r. in 11 U.S. markets (all homes of Major League Baseball teams as well) to help raise money to clean up little league baseball fields. It's a "feel good" program that ultimately should end up doing some good for little leaguers, their parent's and coaches. 

Magazine Watch: Time Inc Moves Forward With SI Spin Off

Sports Illustrated is on the verge of launching a new spin-off called "SI Edge" that will go head to head with part of the Men's Health readership base and part of ESPN: The Magazine's readership base. A prototype cover features New England Patriots quarterback and all around nice guy Tom Brady with the copy "Brady's Top Ten 15-Minute Work Outs." I thought Youth Trends was the only one putting out Top Ten Lists. Whatever. Ok, so that was the pitch to Men's Health readers. The prototype and the direct mail piece that went out to SI subscribers also featured fitness advice from from former tennis phenom but still quite beautiful Anna Kournikova, popular American swimmer Amanda Beard, and former University of Texas star pitcher Jennie Finch, whose provocative photo calendar adorns thousands of guy's dorm rooms. Personally, I think this is a great move for Sports Illustrated. Although Sports Illustrated itself remains the most read magazine among teen and college men, the franchise has been slipping a bit in recent years, and about 15% off its highest readership levels. You have heard me talk before about the whole notion of Gen Y being into a healthy, active lifestyle...making a concerted effort to exercise, eat right, etc. This magazine title should fall right into that sweet spot: some good work out tips coupled with shots and advice from beautiful women--a college guy's exacta.

Army Turns To Chat Rooms To Stimulate Recruitment

PSFK reports the U.S. Army is stepping up its Internet marketing activities to stimulate recruitment of today's younger, more wired generation. As a point of reference, only 1.5% of this year's graduating class of college seniors plan to join the military, of that, the majority plan to be in the Army six months after graduation. The chat rooms allow potential interested parties to speak with a experienced Army recruiter in a medium assumed to be comfortable than dropping by the local recruiting depot. Check it out. 

Britney Sans Wardrobe Adorns Harper's Cover

Ok, I am not going to write a lot about this, other than I didn't realize Harper's Bazaar was read by, let alone appealing to Britney's target audience of 10 to 20-something females. I wonder if K-Fed can even spell B-a-z-a-a-r? May be they should call this issue Harper's Bizarre instead? Ok, that's enough.

IPG And Facebook Make It Official, So Now What?

Late yesterday, ad agency holding giant Interpublic and Facebook.com, the number one social networking site among college students officially announced their deal. I first posted about the rumored deal last week, and it looks like all of main elements have remained unchanged. IPG is making a sliver of an equity investment in the site (0.5%) and guaranteeing to spend $10 million  worth of advertising on the site. What remained unclear was the length of time the $10 million commitment is based on, I would assume it would have to be spread out over at least a year, if not two. I've already voiced my opinions on why this deal is really not that great in the long run, previously, but for those of you not with me last week, here is why: For starters, I imagine the advertising professionals that retain the services of IPG agencies read the trades. IPG is guaranteeing to spend its clients money, not its own, hence the term ad agency. I have first hand experience (being on the side a site like Facebook) in seeing how the deals work out. Typically what happens is that the deal itself is signed off by very senior level people, it then takes months for details to trickle down to a media planner/supervisor level at each of the agency networks. Not surprisingly, there ends up being some sort of "resentment" that no matter what you have to be in the plan because management said so. So, what does this do? For starters, it has the potential to alienate the media sellers at Facebook with some of the IPG agencies if they aren't careful and pull some sort of AOL-type attitude of '99. Secondly, if you were a competitor to IPG, like WPP or Omnicom, who certainly are following this deal, how great would you feel pouring extra dollars beyond what is already endemic to Facebook? Would you think twice and perhaps give more budget to a competitor, I sure as hell would. I may be making a bigger deal out of this that you think, but being on the media selling side on two deals of these nature, I can tell you, in today's market, for the amount of work and walking on egg shells these deals cost in the long run, the $10 million doesn't seem worth it to me, but something closer to $25 to $30 million (especially for a site who values itself at $2 billion supposedly) would make me a bit more upbeat, although not a heck of a lot.

Avatar Site Stardoll Raises Some Big Bucks To Play Dress Up

All I can say is yikes, I hope we are not on the verge of a second Internet bubble. As I look around the media and digital media landscape as it relates to all of the new companies introducing products and services appealing to Gen Y, this one struck me as odd, at best. A small, relatively unknown Scandinavian interactive outfit just raised some $6 million dollars to expand its business worldwide. Now, at first glance, the capital raised might not seem that significant, that is, until you hear about what the site offers its users, mainly young girls and teens. Stardoll.com, is a collection of virtual paper dolls and wardrobes that users can drag and drop to create their own custom avatars. The business model, at this point, is purely an advertising-supported model. The site hopes to partner with fashion brands and retailers to create branded, paid-for avatars, which makes sense, but the question really is, how big is the business? There are number of companies already out there doing essentially the same thing, I posted a couple of months ago about Meez.com, which seems to have a step or two up on Stardoll. Of course, I can be completely wrong and Stardoll could be the next eBay for teen girls. The CEO of the company points to the success of Habbo Hotel, another virtual goods purveyor that is expected to generate $75 million this year in sales. I must be missing something, but I don't think there can be five in ten players in such a niche category like this. Much like social networking, where a new site pops up each day, promising something different, but in reality serving up the same fare found on MySpace and Facebook, the avatar category aims to be the next new big thing.

Site Watch: AOL To Hang Ten With New Action Sports Site

Check out Lat34.com, AOL's new broadband action sports site named after the global coordinates of Los Angeles, the unofficial birthplace of action sports like skateboarding and surfing. AOL teamed up with action sports production company Fusion Entertainment to create the new site. What I like about the new site is that AOL gets how important the role of user generated content now plays in the interactive arena. That said, action sport enthusiasts, typically 13 to 24 year old men can post their own photos and videos as well as blog about their favorite action sports personalities. In addition to the user generated elements, Lat34 offers on-demand video of popular action sport events like the Dew Action Sports Tour.

Lookout MINI, Something Smaller Is On The Way

After a considerable amount of hoopla at the Detroit Auto Show back in 2005, DaimlerChrysler has been somewhat aloof when the subject of the Smart car hitting the U.S. market came up. Well, we finally have an update. Today's New York Times reports plans are underway for distribution networks, advertising development and more with the ultimate objective of hitting the U.S. market by early 2008. The ultra small Smart Fortwo is the smallest vehicle in the world, measuring less than 10 feet, making BMW's MINI Cooper's look like a limo. I figure the main target for this car will be commuters in the larger cities (although, I don't know how comfortable I would feel driving into New York City everyday if I was in a Smart Fortwo surrounded by Chevy Suburbans on both sides...especially going down the FDR...but that is a different story). However, rumor has it that another secondary target will be young adults, not unlike the secondary target for Toyota's new Yaris and Honda's Fit, both of which received high marks from our panelists for looks, perceived quality and price. It is also no secret that among college students specifically, Toyota and Honda, respectively, have been the top two selling vehicle brands over the past two years, well ahead of Ford and Chevy. To me, 2008 seems pretty far out there, so who knows what could happen to Gen Y's vehicle tastes (and the price of gas for that matter) so we will wait a year and a half to see if Daimler's Smart Car can carve out in a niche in fast growing micro vehicle category.

Warner Bros. Hooks Up With Guba

Warner Bros. has a new partnership with video sharing site Guba.com allowing users to rent or buy movies or television shows from the studio. Guba users can rent a movie for $1.79 a day or take the plunge and purchase and pay $9.99 to own the movie outright. Newer releases cost $19.99. Guba's CEO is quoted as saying kids in dorm rooms don't own televisions and instead use their computer as their main source of entertainment. Although that is not entirely true, since 73% of college students own a television, I do agree that the computer, specifically notebook computers that are portable around campus, are becoming more of an entertainment source. The real value of the Warner Bros. deal with Guba is that new releases from the studio will be available on Guba the same day the DVD hits the stores. Like some other similar online services, users who purchase television shows or movies can transfer them to a portable device like an iPod.