Get-Out-the-Vote Ad Campaign Focuses on Protecting the Right to Vote

By STUART ELLIOTT

In presidential election years, late September and early October usually bring a wave of conventional public service advertising campaigns that are intended to encourage Americans to vote in November. A campaign scheduled to begin on Monday, from the National Urban League, adds an element that is torn from today's headlines.

The campaign, created by the New York office of the DraftFCB advertising agency, which is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, carries the slogan “It's time to be heard.” It is the next phase of an initiative from the organization under the “Occupy the vote” umbrella theme.

The ads in the campaign include the usual appeal to stimulate turnout, in this instance celebrities â€" including Angela Bassett, Eric Benét, Kim Coles and Al Sharpton - who say: “Your vote is your voice. Stay silent, and your opinion is lost.”

But the stars in the ads go on to say: “Your right to vo te could be denied. Changes in state voting laws could affect you. Protect your right to vote.” They direct potential voters to a Web site, occupythevote12.org, as well as a toll-free phone number, 1-866- MYVOTE1 (1-866-698-6831).

The discussion of the right to vote by the campaign stems from actions in numerous states to tighten the requirements to vote that include adding stipulations to show photo identification. The changes, which critics charge amount to voter suppression, stem from a belief among some conservative groups that voter fraud is a growing problem, although only a handful of documented cases have been recently found.

At the same time, there have been efforts in states like Ohio to cut back or limit the hours polling places would be open or curtail the hours of early voting in the days and weeks before Election Day.

All that led the officials at the National Urban League to decide months ago “we have to do something,” Marc Morial, pres ident and chief executive, said in a phone interview, after “civil rights, human rights, social justice organizations began to fight these laws in the courts.”

Mr. Morial subsequently turned to DraftFCB New York to see “if the agency could take the concept of ‘Occupy the vote' and give it a media component,” he said. He said he was familiar with the agency from his work as the chairman of the 2010 Census Advisory Committee;  DraftFCB New York was the lead agency on a campaign to encourage Americans to participate in the census.

The idea behind the “It's time to be heard” campaign is that “when you lose your right to vote, you lose your voice,” said Rich Levy, executive vice president and chief creative officer at DraftFCB Healthcare. “As we were working on this, more and more stories came out” about efforts to scrutinize voters and regulate voting, he added.

Megan Williams, a creative director at DraftFCB New York who was the art dire ctor on the campaign, said: “From the beginning, this was exciting to us because it was an opportunity to effect real change through our work.”

More than a dozen celebrities appear in the campaign, which includes commercials, print and digital ads and a presence in social media. Others include the singer Ryan Leslie, the actresses Erica Campbell and Vanessa Bell Calloway and the television personality, Rocsi Diaz.

“When you have a cause like this, that affects every citizen, it's not difficult” to get participation, Mr. Levy said.

Mr. Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans, also appears amid the stars; in one commercial he says the phrase “Your right to vote could be denied.”

The National Urban League and DraftFCB New York are in discussions with media companies about running the campaign on television and in print outlets. (Public service ads depend on the kindness of media companies to see the light of day, as they do not have paid budget s.)

As part of the “Occupy the vote” initiative, Mr. Morial said, the National Urban League plans grass-roots efforts to encourage voting, like knocking on doors and operating phone banks, in 10 cities in five states: Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter.

In a Sponsored TV Show, \'H\' Is for Hispanic ... and Heineken

By STUART ELLIOTT

A cable channel devoted to Hispanic viewers is scheduled to present a special show on Saturday evening that offers another example â€" this time with a Spanish accent - of the popular marketing trend of branded entertainment.

Branded entertainment involves embedding products in program content to avoid the fate of traditional commercials, which can be zapped or zipped through by viewers as they try to avoid paid pitches. In the show on Saturday night, as is increasingly the case with branded entertainment projects, the selling is done discreetly rather than in your face.

The special, which will be shown on the Discovery en Español channel at 10 p.m. on Saturday, is the documentary-style “Gen H,” for “generation Hispanic.” The program looks at the lives of three young Hispanic people - a chef, a rock musician and a gallery owner - trying to achieve success in the United States.

The “H,” as it turns o ut, also alludes to the involvement of Heineken, the beer brand that is sponsoring the show. But the sponsorship is presented in a low-key way.

For instance, Heineken is acknowledged at the end of the program, with a title card, but not at the beginning; there will be commercials for Heineken during the show, but there will also be spots for other advertisers.

While Heineken bottles turn up in various scenes of the show - at the chef's restaurant; the rocker's concerts; and the gallery owner's art shows - the appearances are nowhere near as blatant as they were in earlier versions of branded entertainment efforts like “The Restaurant” on NBC.

“We as a brand don't want to be overly intrusive,” said Colin Westcott-Pitt, vice president of marketing for the Heineken brand at Heineken USA.

The program is “a showcase for the three subjects,” he said, rather than for Heineken.

Although Heineken has “done quit e a few things” in the realm of branded entertainment, Mr. Westcott-Pitt said, “this is the strongest and deepest” involvement that the brand has had in a program. “In the future, you will see us do a lot more in this space.”

More information about “Gen H” can be found on a section of the cable channel's Web site.  The show is being presented as part of the programming on Discovery en Español for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Making sure a branded entertainment program does not turn off viewers with overt placements is “hard, but not difficult,” said Enrique Montoya, vice president of Discovery Solutions at Discovery Networks Latin America and U.S. Hispanic in Miami, which is part of Discovery Communications.

“It requires a lot of energy to see one of these through,” Mr. Montoya said, but it is worth the effort because Discovery executives “want to do more” such shows, and “advertisers want to do more and agencies want to do more.†

“Gen H” was created for Heineken by Discovery en Español as part of efforts for advertisers that make “a certain level of investment” in the channel, Mr. Montoya said, meaning those that buy a certain level of commercial time. (He declined to discuss specific amounts.)

“They reach that level and we enter into content production,” he added, “either a new production or something that's already in the works.”

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter.

A Brief \'West Wing\' Reunion

September 21, 2012, 4:05 pm

By THE EDITORS

The campaign to elect Bridget Mary McCormack to the Michigan Supreme Court offered the occasion for a reunion of much of the cast of “The West Wing.” The video is mainly focused on explaining the state's ballot - with its partisan and nonpartisan sections, including for judicial elections - but it also promotes Ms. McCormack, an associate dean of Michigan Law School and the sister of Mary McCormack, who played Kate Harper, deputy national security adviser, on the show.

There are many familiar faces, including President Bartlet himself, Martin Sheen; The Washington Post noted that while the show's creator, Aaron Sorkin, was not involved, his character's mannerisms were well respected.

Weighing the Right Thing to Do

September 21, 2012, 2:03 pm

By BUCKS EDITORS

As Paul Sullivan recounts in his Wealth Matters column this week, anyone considering the financial rewards of becoming a whistle-blower should fully consider all the possible fallout. A lawyer who has represented whistle-blowers, John Phillips, explained it this way: “You may find yourself unemployable. Home foreclosures, divorce, suicide and depression all go with this territory.”

In other words, the decision to become a whistle-blower should not be made lightly.

Other lawyers who handle these cases also cautioned against thinking that the recent $104 million whistle-blower award from the Internal Revenue Service to Bradley C. Birkenfeld is typical. The payouts from most cases, if they ever r each that point, are usually far, far less.

What would you do if you knew about something, perhaps in your workplace or among your circle of friends, that amounted to defrauding the government? Would you report it, realizing that you might be putting your livelihood and, perhaps, your own reputation on the line?

Measuring the Achievements of Adults Who Don\'t Get Family Financial Help

September 21, 2012, 1:57 pm

By RON LIEBER

In this weekend's Your Money column, I take a look at a group of haves and have-nots we don't focus on very often: adults who get financial help from their parents and those who do not.

There are many gradations of help here. For some of you, it may be a bit of money or a spare bedroom when you're between jobs or have just finished graduate school. For others, it may come in the form of covering college costs, down payment assistance or paying for camp or private school for grandchildren.

After writing about the topic this week - and considering Mitt Romney's insistence that he has inherited nothing - I'll never look at a résumé or measure someone's career accomplishments in the same way.

So if you're someone who has made it with no help at all, do you make a point of saying so to job interviewers and others? And if you've had plenty of help along the way, do you think you deserve less credit for accomplishing whatever it is you have achieved?

Without Palin to Mock, Prime-Time \'S.N.L.\' Has Modest Ratings

By BILL CARTER

Political news did not help NBC Thursday night as the first edition of “Saturday Night Live” in prime time for the election year failed to ignite NBC's comedy lineup.

That lineup got off to a dismal start over all, with every show down significantly from last year's premieres.

That meant better news for Fox's “X Factor,” which showed a little growth from last week, though “Glee” still lost ground.

The “S.N.L.” special managed just a 1.6 rating in the 18-49 age group that determines much of prime-time ad sales. That audience was vastly down from the first prime-time edition four years ago, which scored what now looks like an astronomical 5.1 rating. The 2008 show was fueled by intense interest in Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin. This year, there is no comparable character driving interest.

But with that less-than-stellar number at the beginning of the night, the rest of NBC's comedy lineup performed limply. “Up All Night” could only manage a 1.3 rating, which was down from its 2.4 premiere a year ago. In a truly ominous sign for its last season, “The Office” tied its worst performance ever, with just a 2.1 rating. And the promising “Parks and Recreation,” with a special Washington-based episode, could only manage a 1.7 rating, down from a 2.1 premiere last year.

The “SNL” special (with a total audience of 5.1 million) and “The Office” (4.3 million) were the only NBC shows to draw over four million viewers.

NBC's comedies do tend to get sizable boosts from delayed viewing, but these initial numbers are not what the network hoped for - especially because they came against mostly repeat programming on ABC and CBS, which will throttle up next week with their big hits like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Grey's Anatomy.”

“The X Factor” did benefit a bit, rising to a 3.4 rating, 10 percent ov er its last Thursday rating. But “Glee” with a 2.9 rating, was down 6 percent.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.

Joaquín Almunia on Europe\'s Tough Terms for Approving Universal-EMI Deal

Music September 21, 2012, 10:49 am

By BEN SISARIO

The most important man in music at the moment is not a hit-spotting executive in New York or London, but, rather, a diminutive Spanish bureaucrat whose decisions about the breakup of EMI will largely determine the shape of the industry for years to come.

Joaquín Almunia, the European Commission's vice president for competition, has been the driving figure in the negotiations in Brussels over the future of EMI. In June, the commission approved a $2.2 billion sale of EMI's music publishing business to a group led by Sony, with a relatively small number of concessions.

On Friday, the commission signed off on the Universal Music Group's $1.9 billion bid for EMI's reco rd labels, but only after months of talks and an extensive divestment package that requires selling off the rights to some of EMI's most prominent labels and artists. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the deal.

On Thursday, while in New York for a conference at Fordham Law School, Mr. Almunia spoke with The Times about his efforts to preserve competition and cultural diversity in the music business.

Even with these disposals, Universal will be by far largest record company in the world. How can you preserve competition with one party so large as a result?

It's true that the position of Universal before the merger was quite strong, and that this merger, without remedies, would have created an unacceptable market position. Having considered the situation, we are ready to clear the decision with remedies. Those remedies will in our view avoid the materialization of the serious risks we observed in our statement of objections.

Broadly speaking, our remedies represent two-thirds of EMI's revenue in European Economic Area. In our analysis, this will not change substantially the competition environment in each national market. And at the European level, this huge package of remedies includes something like 90 percent of the Anglo repertoire of EMI.

The way we have asked Universal to draft the remedies package, we have obtained additional guarantees of noncompetitive risks. One is that rights that will be sold are worldwide, because in the negotiations with the big platforms in the digital music market the conditions are established worldwide, not only for E.E.A. [European Economic Area] users. The second thing - without being precise, because this question is subject to confidentiality protection - is that we will try to establish good conditions for the independents, and, if possible, to have no barriers for the creation of another operator in the market.

Early on, you rejected most of Universal's arguments in justification of the merger, like the idea that their market power is limited by piracy or by digital music services. What arguments did that leave in support of it?

The initial arguments that I received from Universal were not very convincing. All these arguments about piracy, and “We need to build a European champion … .” We are talking about the digital music market, which is mainly global. Don't create barriers where barriers cannot exist anymore.

On other hand, in the analysis of the E.E.A. market and of the markets in each country, will the competitive conditions change substantially because of the merger, after taking into account remedies, yes or no? This is what we looked at. The situation is not the same in the different markets throughout the world. Here in the U.S., the market power of Universal is not as big as it is in Europe.

It's very big, though.

Yes, but not as big as in E urope. And here there is no question of cultural diversity. This is important in Europe, because we deal not only with Anglo repertoire, but Spanish, French, German, Swedish - every country has its own culture, even if the Anglo repertoire is extremely important.

A number of people, including independent groups like Impala, were asking for this to be blocked outright. Was that a possibility?

We met with Impala several times. Yes, they would have liked a negative decision. But other independents understand that they can take advantage of the new conditions of the market, provided that size of the remedies package is substantial - as will be the case - and that some other additional conditions will keep barriers to entry as low as possible.

The situation of this market has changed very quickly in the last years. In some aspects the changes have created better conditions for the indies to survive, but in other ways they have not. So let's see if we cannot crea te additional difficulties with our decision, but try to improve as much as possible the conditions under which the digital music market can become an opportunity for new composers and new singers to flourish, and for the new big successes of indies promoting and selling new music.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

The Breakfast Meeting: Universal-EMI Deal Passes in Europe, and Relief at News Corp.

September 21, 2012, 9:35 am

By NOAM COHEN

Universal Music Group won Europe's approval on Friday for its $1.9 billion acquisition of the British-based EMI Music, Ben Sisario and James Kanter report. The approval came after Universal agreed to a series of concessions meant to foster competition even as the sale itself will reduce the number of major music labels to three from four. The concessions include the selling off about a third of EMI's assets including most of Parlophone, its flagship label in Europe, with acts like Coldplay, Pink Floyd and Kylie Minogue. A consolation for the newly enlarged Universal is that it will keep the Beatles.

• The deal has already been cleared in Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. It is being reviewed in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission, with a decision expected in the coming days.

The ruling on Thursday that BSkyB, whose largest shareholder is Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, was “fit and proper” to hold a broadcasting license, gave a palpable sense of relief to News Corporation headquarters, Amy Chozick and Ravi Somaiya reported. The ruling, which comes a year into investigations of the phone-hacking scandal in Britain, helps allay concerns of further scrutiny in the United States by the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission.

• While the report was stinging toward Rupert's son James Murdoch, it nonetheless made the company less restrained about giving him an expanded role; a Financial Times report that James Murdoch could oversee the Fox Networks Group, a Los Angeles-based unit that includes Fox Broadcasting and Fox's regional sports channels, was confirmed by a person close to News Corporation.

Wal-Mart on Thursday said it would stop carrying Amazon's Kindle e-book reader and tablet, in what was widely interpreted as a sign of how seriously Wal-Mart - the nation's largest retailer - takes Amazon as a competitor, Stephanie Clifford and Julie Bosman reported. Earlier black-and-white Kindles were good only for reading digital books, but the newer Kindle Fire, introduced in 2011, is a tablet that lets a user potentially access anything Amazon sells. “Every time you pick up your Kindle, they're trying to get you to buy patio furniture,” said Colin Gillis, a technology analyst for BGC Financial. “If I were Wal-Mart, I certainly would not be encouraging my customers to go down the path of owning a Kindle and buying things from Amazon.”

• Target took the same step in May, though other retail chains, including Staples and Best Buy would continue selling the Kindles. And Wal-Mart will continue to sell tablets from companies like Apple, Google, Barnes & Nobl e and Samsung.

While PBS has always done well at the Emmy Awards, this year could be special, Brian Stelter writes, because it has a chance of winning in arguably the most competitive category: best drama. Its British import, “Downton Abbey,” is nominated for that award, which will be handed out on Sunday in Los Angeles. The other nominees are “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” on AMC; “Boardwalk Empire” and “Game of Thrones” on HBO; “Homeland” on Showtime. The last time public broadcasting won for best drama was in 1977, for another British import - “Upstairs, Downstairs.”

Friday Reading: The High Cost of Out-of-Pocket Medicare Expenses

September 21, 2012, 9:18 am

By ANN CARRNS

A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.