:: adgruntie :: Monday Minute

+ Coming Adtractions : a tasty competition over at Adland for a 20 pack Jewelboxing set. Sweet.

+ Advertising Week begins today with a parade starting at Times Square and ending at 50th and Madison where the results of favorite icon, slogan and celebrity endorser will be announced.

The NYTimes reports "the characters are: the M&M's talking candies, which received 22 percent of the vote; the Aflac duck, 14 percent; Mr. Peanut, for Planters, 10 percent; the Pillsbury Doughboy, 9 percent; and Tony the Tiger, for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, 6 percent. The slogans are: "Melts in your mouth, not in your hands," for M&M's, with 17 percent of the vote; "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't," for Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars, 9 percent; "Where's the beef?" for Wendy's, 9 percent; "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," for the United Negro College Fund, 8 percent; and "Can you hear me now?" for Verizon Wireless, 8 percent. The celebrity endorsers, who are to receive the first "Stars of Madison Avenue" awards at a luncheon sponsored by the Advertising Club of New York, are Derek Jeter, James Earl Jones, Brooke Shields and the team of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.

More info about Advertising Week can be found at their website.

+ The 56th Emmy Awards were last night. The Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Commerical went to "Outfit" for Citibank Identity Theft Card Protection by Fallon and Thomas Thomas Films. The other nominees were "Born A Donkey" for Budweiser by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Biscuit Filmworks, "Dominoes" for Miller by Young & Rubicam, Chicago and MJZ, "Door Music" for Saturn by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Anonymous Content, "Interview" for United Airlines by Fallon and ACME Filmworks, and "Rubberband Man" for Office Max by DDB Chicago and Anonymous Content.

+ WordIt over at Speak Up is pretty cool.

+ Will you be in NYC between September 10th and October 22nd? If so, head over to the ADC Gallery at 106 W. 29th Street, Manhattan (Trains 1/9 or N/R to 28 street.) and check out the biennial exhibition ADC Young Guns 4. For more info check out adcglobal.org. Oh yeah, and it's free too! (found via SpeakUp.)

+ Power of brands doesn't always matter when launching brand extensions, according to new research.

Helen Wing, director of marketing science at Research International said: "This decade has been about seeing just how far brands can reach. The result is a riot of new products but very few fresh brands. Only 2% of marketing directors think that new brands will be their main launch method in the next few years." She said companies were so keen on brand extensions that they would ignore research results.

"This recklessness reflects an increased confidence in the power of parent brands to influence consumers. But it also reflects financial reality," she said.

"Conventional wisdom has it that extension launches are cheaper and less risky than bringing a whole new brand to market. The bad news from our product and concept test databases is that extensions are actually more likely to fail than new products.

"Companies seem to launch extensions because they think the parent’s strength can overcome any weakness in the product. Extensions are born with silver spoons in their mouths, but the market is hard to fool."

Definitely makes sense to me. There are a number of brand extensions which have made no sense and really would have benefitted from being their own individual brand. (found via Agenda Inc.)