Deja View

January

Diageo completed its sale of Burger King for $1.5 billion (almost a third off the original asking price, thanks to stiff market conditions for QSRs). The company is now focused on its all-alcohol portfolio of brewed and distilled liquor brands. Among the priorities on its to-do list: fending off charges that it and its competitors are inappropriately marketing to minors….Guerrilla marketing around Super Bowl XXXVII reached new heights: Miller, for example, fielded a “Super Party” campaign and signed deals directly with team franchises, rather than the league.

February

Continental, Delta and Northwest airlines got the green light for a marketing alliance, despite grief from the Department of Transportation. The U.S. Department of Justice allowed sharing of frequent-flier miles and airport lounges, and flight codesharing. But it insisted the airlines give up 13 gates in four hub airports, limit data sharing and limit three-party bids for corporate contracts….Campbell Soup Co., Camden, NJ, settled a $35-million class-action suit for “channel stuffing,” i.e., shipping excess inventory to retailers. The suit charged Campbell with misrepresenting its sales in the late 1990s in order to inflate its earnings, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. Campbell denied any wrongdoing; its insurance covered the settlement costs.

March

Icon brands including McDonald's, Philip Morris, Texaco, Gap, Starbucks, Nike and Disneyland became the target of Boycott Brand America, an anti-war demonstration by the activist Adbusters Media Foundation to protest the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq. The anti-campaign generated over 20,000 e-mail signatures. Vancouver, British Columbia-based Adbusters uses “culture jams” such as Buy Nothing Day (the Friday after Thanksgiving) to protest marketing and consumerism….In one of the largest U.S. coupon schemes ever, the feds arrested 16 people suspected of participating in a clip-out coupon fraud that generated more than $4 million. The 18-month long investigation involved 370 retailers in 15 states (although most of the coupons were clipped from newspapers in the New York area). Officials said some of the money was siphoned to Jordan and Israel's West Bank.

April

Sister agencies Lowe & Partners Worldwide and DraftWorldwide combined under the name Lowe + Draft.…General Motors began a program allowing prospective buyers to test drive vehicles overnight. Through July, customers could take any GM model overnight, with the exceptions of high-end vehicles such as the Chevrolet Corvette and the Hummer H1. Test drivers had up to 24 hours and 100 miles, and had to remain in the dealer's state….PROMO's Annual Industry Trends Report found the marketing scale tipped soundly over to promotions, as some 26.5% of all marketing spend in the U.S. in 2002 went to consumer promotions vs. 24% to consumer advertising (the other 49.5% went to trade marketing). Total promotional spending in the U.S. in 2002 reached $233.7 billion. Other findings: CEOs (with urging by their CFOs) back promotion as a key strategy; event marketing continues to grow.

May

Sony's Universal's Spider-Man took PROMO's top EMMA, thanks to partners such as Kellogg's and Cingular….The Pepsi Play for $1 Billion sweeps kicked off. Over two million folks combed packs of Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist for a chance to appear on the game's eponymous reality show in September and a shot at $1 billion. Pepsi and SCA Promotions teamed with insurer Berkshire Hathaway to underwrite the grand prize. Outcome: a high school teacher from Princeton, WV, missed by two digits, but went home with $1 million.

June

DVC was named PROMO's Agency of the Year for its revenue growth and work for such clients as Georgia-Pacific (the Do You Know a Brawny Man? campaign)….Toyota launched its new Scion sedans, relying on viral marketing to impress young male first-time buyers that it believed were the key demographic for the car. The car manufacturer ran no TV ads and dealers couldn't approach prospects. Instead, it began parking souped-up Scions outside nightspots in key markets.

July

Coca-Cola was nabbed for tampering with a promotion. It admitted that it had rigged a Frozen Coke promotion by hiring a man to take hundreds of children to Burger King to buy meals that featured the drink. The disarray at Coke may be due, in part, to the turnover in its CMO spot: In June, Daniel Palumbo was named Coke's third CMO in as many years….PROMO's annual Salary Survey showed top male brand execs did fine during the recession, while lower and mid-level managers — and all females — saw pay wither.

August

WPP Group's Sir Martin Sorrell arm-wrestled rival Publicis Groupe in a dramatic bidding war for Cordiant Communications. WPP paid $430 million; after sell-offs, outlay was only about $243 million. WPP has kept 141 Worldwide intact (it had 2002 net revenues of about $42 million across 91 offices in 57 countries) but broken up Bates, whose offices and clients got absorb-ed by WPP sibs.

September

President Bush authorized the Federal Communications Commission to enforce a national Do-Not-Call list. A similar list from the Federal Trade Commission exceeded 55 million phone numbers….The WUSA, America's women's soccer league, folded due to inadequate sponsor support….Snapple partnered with the City of New York to sell juice drinks and bottled water in the city's 1,200 schools and in all 6,000 of the city's public buildings. Snapple bid a total $166 million. But NYC Comptroller William Thompson cried foul in the weeks that followed, demanding an audit and cancellation of the deal.

October

Disney cut a 10-year partnership deal with HP to sponsor the Mission: SPACE attraction at DisneyWorld Epcot, as well as HP sponsorship of Disney online (including sites for the theme parks, the Disney Store, ESPN and Disney Channels and the site for the ABC TV network) and tech support to Disney's corporate parent….PROMO Expo featured a keynote address by ex-Wal-Mart CMO Paul Higham on the future of in-store promotion. Among his recommendations: Get ready for radio-frequency ID tags, which Wal-Mart insists must be placed in/on a large cadre of cases and pallets by 2005….Washington Mutual Bank wins Best Overall PRO Award for a campaign by OPTS Events, which bought out all seats on the Great White Way one matinee Saturday — for teachers nominated by bank customers.

November

Ten lawyers migrated from Hall Dickler Kent Goldstein & Wood to Manatt, Phelps & Phillips following failed merger talks between the firms. Led by Linda Goldstein and Jeffrey Edelstein, the legal eagles brought much of Hall Dickler's advertising, marketing and media practice with them. The staffers moving to Manatt handled work for ESPN, Toys ‘R’ Us, Yahoo, DreamWorks, Reader's Digest, Energizer Holdings, Schick, MasterCard and hundreds of advertising and promotion agencies. Manatt now has 280 lawyers.

December

Federal “Can Spam” legislation passes, and is sent to the White House for signing; the new law, sponsored by U.S. Sens. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), will include civil and criminal penalties against the senders of unlawful marketing e-mail, special warnings for pornographic messages and calls for the investigation of a do-not-spam list….ABC (a Disney subsidiary) signs a deal with WPP's MindShare for programming development.