Advertising: Eye on Emerging Markets, Firm Invests in Start-Up

Eye on Emerging Markets, Firm Invests in Start-Up

AS the world awaited the next pope in March, Peter Bale, the vice president and general manager for digital at CNN International in London, wanted to know how Africans would react if the pope were from their continent.

Jana rewards users with free mobile airtime if they take a survey or perform other tasks.

Maurice Lévy, the chief of Publicis, will join the Jana board. He plans to use data from Jana to help marketers reach buyers.

Instead of commissioning telephone pollsters or gleaning insights from social media, Mr. Bale used a mobile platform called Jana, which rewards users with free airtime if they take a survey. Within days, Mr. Bale said, he surveyed 20,000 Africans in 11 countries on questions like whether an African pope would increase support for Catholicism on the continent (86 percent said yes) and whether the world was ready for an African pope (61 percent said yes).

“The spread of the mobile economy in Africa is so far and so huge you can reach not only the high end of African people, but you can reach many, many people there,” Mr. Bale said. Because CNN International receives a “very significant amount” of its digital traffic from its African consumers through their mobile devices, using a mobile survey platform made sense, he said.

CNN, however, is not the only organization that wants to connect with a growing mobile-savvy market. On Monday, the Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest advertising holding companies, will announce a $15 million investment in Jana.

The investment is the first by the company in a mobile technology start-up. As part of the investment, Maurice Lévy, the chief executive of Publicis, which is based in Paris, will join the board of directors at Jana. (In 2012, Publicis united with France Télécom-Orange and Iris Capital Management to create venture capital funds to invest in European companies.)

“Everyone is fighting very hard and trying to find solutions to get these next billion consumers, and we all know the next billion consumers will come from emerging markets,” Mr. Lévy said in an interview by phone. With brands including Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Google having used Jana, gaining access to consumers in Africa and other emerging markets like India and Brazil is “not something which is just wishful thinking,” he said.

Nathan Eagle, the chief executive and a co-founder of Jana, said the majority of its clients were large global brands seeking to reach consumers in developing countries. Brands can reward consumers who register for Jana, which is based in Boston, with free mobile airtime after they view an ad or buy a product.

“We’re building up this massive profile of people who are eager to engage with different brands,” Mr. Eagle said. “Now we are presenting our clients with an alternative to billboards.”

Brands can also gain access to consumer data like age, sex and location, Mr. Eagle said. “We’re enabling them to be able to provide discounts off products in a nationwide campaign and for the first time get real insights into who is buying the products,” he said.

Mr. Eagle views the service as “economic empowerment” for consumers. Brands, Mr. Eagle said, “can either put more money into the pockets of people who own billboards or they can put that money into the pockets of people they are trying to reach.”

Mr. Lévy said he expected to focus his efforts on personal hygiene products, beverages and food, and detergent. Data from Jana will help marketers determine “how much toothpaste they are using, how much detergent they are using, the potential is the sky, there is no limit,” he said.

Todd Dagres, a partner and founder of Spark Capital, a venture capital firm that was an early investor in Jana and social media companies like Tumblr, Twitter and Foursquare, said the potential for growth in emerging markets piqued interest in the possibility of a Publicis investment.

“It became clear to us that it would be helpful to have a partner that had relationships to the advertisers and understood on a global basis advertising and research,” Mr. Dagres said.

Mobile phone penetration and advertising are expected to grow significantly in developing countries in the next few years. According to the research company eMarketer, 671 million people in the Middle East and Africa will use mobile phones by 2017, up from 526 million in 2013. Spending on digital advertising in the region is expected to reach $3.8 billion by 2017, up from $1.3 billion in 2013.

“It’s not surprising that companies are sensing tremendous opportunity in the Middle East and Africa,” said Clark Fredricksen, vice president for communications at eMarketer. “To get a foothold now in an early stage in a small market could mean a dramatic high growth for the next decade or more as that market becomes more mature.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 15, 2013, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Eye on Emerging Markets, Firm Invests in Start-Up.

With a Royal Baby Due, News Outlets Are on High Alert

Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press

Journalists waiting outside St. Mary’s Hospital in London to see Prince William’s first child.

Ask television news executives how long they have been planning for the royal baby’s arrival, and they’re liable to answer with a joke: nearly as long as Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge have been.

Details of an NBC sweepstakes outside the hospital where the British royal baby will be born.

Thanks to their plans, the birth, whenever it happens â€" any day now, if the tabloids are to be believed â€" will be a spectacle unlike any other in the modern media age, complete with sweeping helicopter shots of St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, and Buckingham Palace. “This is probably the most anticipated birth since the dawn of Twitter,” said Jon Williams, the foreign editor for ABC News.

When Prince William and his brother Harry were born in the 1980s, tweets were just sounds made by birds and 24-hour news channels were a novelty. In the 30 years since, media companies have become much better at preparing for big events â€" sports matches, murder trials, elections, even fashion shows â€" and capitalizing on them through wall-to-wall coverage on television, commemorative editions of newspapers and magazines, and advertiser-supported special sections on Web sites.

Now, with Prince William’s child on the way, scores of reporters and photographers are on standby in London. ABC News has a whole royal baby section of its site sponsored by Nestlé, plus an online guest book for visitors to sign. NBC News has a site called RoyalBabyGuess.com, asking for predictions about name, birth time and weight. To make it more fun, the people whose guesses come closest might be mentioned on the “Today” show. “We’re going to do our best not to intrude and to be respectful, but also to cover it for people who are really interested,” said Mark Lukasiewicz, the senior vice president for NBC News Specials.

While news organizations will undoubtedly be criticized for spending too much time covering a famous childbirth, executives say there is ample public interest in what will most likely be the quintessential “good news” story, a reprieve of sorts after weeks of stories about the George Zimmerman trial in the United States and uprisings overseas. Not only will the birth be historically consequential, Mr. Williams said, it will also be inherently relatable because “the birth of a baby is something that every family can identify with.”

Including the long wait.

“The big news is still that there is no news,” Tom Sykes of The Daily Beast wrote on the site’s “Royal Baby Watch” live blog on Sunday. For days now, Mr. Sykes and others have been swatting away rumors about the duchess, formerly known as Kate Middleton, checking into the hospital and being in labor.

News executives say they expect to be notified when she does actually arrive, most likely through a side entrance, at the hospital. The main vantage point for camera crews is along a narrow street outside the main entrance to the private wing where the duchess will be â€" “a typically charming, difficult London street” as Mr. Lukasiewicz described it. With so many foreign broadcasters, including those from throughout the Commonwealth, jockeying for positions there, each news outlet has only a couple of feet of space. “So we’re going to have a narrow correspondent at that spot,” he joked.

More rumors will surely zip across social networks once the duchess is in labor, and news organizations will have to exercise caution. “We will wait for the Palace to confirm,” said Paddy Feeny, a spokesman for BBC News. “This is one announcement where guessing won’t do.”

The birth’s confirmation process is rooted in tradition, but it will be televised in high-definition, which was something else that didn’t exist the last time there was a royal baby. The duchess’s doctors will sign a birth notice. The notice will be hand-carried to a car. The car will be driven to Buckingham Palace. Then the notice will be placed on an easel in the forecourt of the palace, informing the world of the baby’s birth and possibly his or her name.

All the while, a news helicopter belonging to the British broadcaster Sky News, whose pictures will be shared with every network, will be hovering overhead, almost as if covering a slow-speed car chase. But that’s assuming the helicopter, stationed south of the city, can get there in time. News executives expect to get five to 10 minutes notice, at most, before the car starts on its short journey. A Sky News spokeswoman, aware that the world’s news media are counting on its coverage, said she anticipates that the crew will have “enough time to get airborne.”

Sky News and the BBC will also have cameras at the palace to take close-ups of the birth notice. “We are praying for good visibility and no rain,” Mr. Feeny said.

News producers have been holding meetings with palace officials about the staging of the announcement for the last several months. “It’s gotten down to the level of detail that three minutes after the notice has been put on the easel, they’ll cut off the signal,” said one producer involved in the planning, who insisted on anonymity to protect important relationships with the palace.

That producer and several others said they had been assured that the baby’s birth would be announced only between 8 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. in London, or between 3 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. in New York. Sometime later, photographers will have their chance to see the family as they leave the hospital.

Some news organizations, of course, are almost shrugging off the baby drama. CBS News, which has sought a reputation as the most serious American network news division, will depend on its reporters already in London to cover the news, a spokeswoman said.

NBC and ABC, on the other hand, are sending over anchors â€" the “Today” news reader Natalie Morales, and the “Good Morning America” regular Amy Robach. Mr. Williams said Ms. Robach will board a plane bound for London “as soon as Kate goes into the hospital.”

With a Royal Baby Due, News Outlets Are on High Alert

Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press

Journalists waiting outside St. Mary’s Hospital in London to see Prince William’s first child.

Ask television news executives how long they have been planning for the royal baby’s arrival, and they’re liable to answer with a joke: nearly as long as Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge have been.

Details of an NBC sweepstakes outside the hospital where the British royal baby will be born.

Thanks to their plans, the birth, whenever it happens â€" any day now, if the tabloids are to be believed â€" will be a spectacle unlike any other in the modern media age, complete with sweeping helicopter shots of St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, and Buckingham Palace. “This is probably the most anticipated birth since the dawn of Twitter,” said Jon Williams, the foreign editor for ABC News.

When Prince William and his brother Harry were born in the 1980s, tweets were just sounds made by birds and 24-hour news channels were a novelty. In the 30 years since, media companies have become much better at preparing for big events â€" sports matches, murder trials, elections, even fashion shows â€" and capitalizing on them through wall-to-wall coverage on television, commemorative editions of newspapers and magazines, and advertiser-supported special sections on Web sites.

Now, with Prince William’s child on the way, scores of reporters and photographers are on standby in London. ABC News has a whole royal baby section of its site sponsored by Nestlé, plus an online guest book for visitors to sign. NBC News has a site called RoyalBabyGuess.com, asking for predictions about name, birth time and weight. To make it more fun, the people whose guesses come closest might be mentioned on the “Today” show. “We’re going to do our best not to intrude and to be respectful, but also to cover it for people who are really interested,” said Mark Lukasiewicz, the senior vice president for NBC News Specials.

While news organizations will undoubtedly be criticized for spending too much time covering a famous childbirth, executives say there is ample public interest in what will most likely be the quintessential “good news” story, a reprieve of sorts after weeks of stories about the George Zimmerman trial in the United States and uprisings overseas. Not only will the birth be historically consequential, Mr. Williams said, it will also be inherently relatable because “the birth of a baby is something that every family can identify with.”

Including the long wait.

“The big news is still that there is no news,” Tom Sykes of The Daily Beast wrote on the site’s “Royal Baby Watch” live blog on Sunday. For days now, Mr. Sykes and others have been swatting away rumors about the duchess, formerly known as Kate Middleton, checking into the hospital and being in labor.

News executives say they expect to be notified when she does actually arrive, most likely through a side entrance, at the hospital. The main vantage point for camera crews is along a narrow street outside the main entrance to the private wing where the duchess will be â€" “a typically charming, difficult London street” as Mr. Lukasiewicz described it. With so many foreign broadcasters, including those from throughout the Commonwealth, jockeying for positions there, each news outlet has only a couple of feet of space. “So we’re going to have a narrow correspondent at that spot,” he joked.

More rumors will surely zip across social networks once the duchess is in labor, and news organizations will have to exercise caution. “We will wait for the Palace to confirm,” said Paddy Feeny, a spokesman for BBC News. “This is one announcement where guessing won’t do.”

The birth’s confirmation process is rooted in tradition, but it will be televised in high-definition, which was something else that didn’t exist the last time there was a royal baby. The duchess’s doctors will sign a birth notice. The notice will be hand-carried to a car. The car will be driven to Buckingham Palace. Then the notice will be placed on an easel in the forecourt of the palace, informing the world of the baby’s birth and possibly his or her name.

All the while, a news helicopter belonging to the British broadcaster Sky News, whose pictures will be shared with every network, will be hovering overhead, almost as if covering a slow-speed car chase. But that’s assuming the helicopter, stationed south of the city, can get there in time. News executives expect to get five to 10 minutes notice, at most, before the car starts on its short journey. A Sky News spokeswoman, aware that the world’s news media are counting on its coverage, said she anticipates that the crew will have “enough time to get airborne.”

Sky News and the BBC will also have cameras at the palace to take close-ups of the birth notice. “We are praying for good visibility and no rain,” Mr. Feeny said.

News producers have been holding meetings with palace officials about the staging of the announcement for the last several months. “It’s gotten down to the level of detail that three minutes after the notice has been put on the easel, they’ll cut off the signal,” said one producer involved in the planning, who insisted on anonymity to protect important relationships with the palace.

That producer and several others said they had been assured that the baby’s birth would be announced only between 8 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. in London, or between 3 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. in New York. Sometime later, photographers will have their chance to see the family as they leave the hospital.

Some news organizations, of course, are almost shrugging off the baby drama. CBS News, which has sought a reputation as the most serious American network news division, will depend on its reporters already in London to cover the news, a spokeswoman said.

NBC and ABC, on the other hand, are sending over anchors â€" the “Today” news reader Natalie Morales, and the “Good Morning America” regular Amy Robach. Mr. Williams said Ms. Robach will board a plane bound for London “as soon as Kate goes into the hospital.”

The Media Equation: Why Barnes & Noble Is Good for Amazon

Why Barnes & Noble Is Good for Amazon

On Thursday night in Clifton, N.J., Barnes & Noble was a way station, a third place between work and home where people sought respite and diversion. With its high ceilings, wide aisles and a large Starbucks, it is the kind of retail outlet that gives big-box stores a good name.

A Barnes & Noble bookstore in Los Angeles. The company’s retail stores and Web site generated pretax earnings of $374.2 million in its most recent fiscal year.

In one aisle, a father and daughter were having a spirited generational discussion over the side-by-side covers of “The Great Gatsby,” one of which bore an image of Leonardo DiCaprio. For reasons I wasn’t quite clear about but nonetheless found charming, an older couple used a book on vegetarian cooking to cover up a copy of “The Art of Seduction” on the shelf. Nearby, two apparent siblings, one sporting pink hair and the other purple, traded loud opinions over the True Crime display.

Watching the readers lounge in chairs with a view of Route 3, it was hard to reconcile the pageantry of retailing with the brutal recent headlines about the book business.

At the beginning of the July, the Big Six publishers became the Big Five with the blending of Penguin and Random House. At the beginning of last week, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble left the company after a grim earnings report that highlighted a failed strategy to have the company’s Nook device compete in the crowded tablet space.

Then on Thursday, Judge Denise L. Cote of United States District Court in Manhattan issued a withering decision against Apple, writing that the company had conspired with the major publishers to fix the price of e-books in an effort to thwart Amazon’s momentum.

So far, what has been bad for the industry has not yet hit consumers directly. If they are among the many millions of people enthralled by CBS’s “Under the Dome,” and decide to read the giant Stephen King novel that inspired it, they can hop on Amazon and buy it with a click for $13.99. Or they could avoid its door-stopping heft and spend just $7.99 for the Kindle version.

No wonder that last year e-book sales boomed, including a 42 percent rise in sales of fiction. Net revenue for publishers also climbed more than $1 billion in 2012, to $15 billion, according to BookStats, an annual survey of the book business.

But while publishers revel in the robust margins provided by e-books â€" no manufacturing, no shipping and no remaindering â€" the growth of Amazon leaves them as secondary characters in a business they used to control.

Apple may be the one that was found guilty of setting prices, but Amazon has the kind of market power that allows it to set prices unilaterally. The company is already pulling back on discounts on scholarly and small-press books.

Barnes & Noble tried to keep up with the technological shift, but the company’s earnings were perforated by a $177 million loss from its Nook division, and that news took out William Lynch Jr., the chief executive, and threw a deep scare into publishers.

In my view, Barnes & Noble is a company that did the right thing, and got clobbered anyway. When most media companies get into the device business, what pops out is clunky and useless, but the Nook is an excellent reading device that drew critical praise and, initially, buyers. At a time when legacy media companies are derided for letting the future overtake them, Barnes & Noble aggressively innovated.

Amazon, however, not only had the Kindle, but consumer relationships, inventory and technical know-how that could not be overcome. And as consumers moved from e-readers to tablets to take advantage of multiple functions like video, the Nook ended up in a corner. During last Christmas season, Nook sales were down 12.6 percent compared with the period a year earlier.

But the current spate of bad news may mask underlying strengths. As Bloomberg News pointed out on Thursday, Leonard Riggio, the 72-year-old architect of Barnes & Noble’s national buildup, is still considering buying the physical stores and taking them private, in part because the fundamentals of that business are still solid, if not spectacular. In the fiscal year that ended in April, the retail stores and Web site generated earnings of $374.2 million before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a 16 percent increase, even as sales declined almost 6 percent.

One of the parties that might want to root for Barnes & Noble is Amazon. Sales of e-books fell immediately after Borders went under, leading some to suggest that reduced opportunity to browse the physical artifact resulted in less online buying.

Having a bookstore in your neighborhood, as opposed to one that is bookmarked on your browser, is an invitation. Not long ago, I was walking by an airport bookstore and thought, “What if this was the only place to buy books?” Similar to Hollywood, only the blockbusters would get shelf space.

After Borders called it quits two years ago this week, Barnes & Noble became the last big chain where publishers could get the exposure for their books that allows readers to discover them, and to sell all manner of books big and small that are still part of the foundation of the industry.

Morgan Entrekin, publisher at Grove/Atlantic, says everyone has skin in the retail game.

“We need to have a diversity of distribution channels to be healthy, and Amazon may want it all, but they are smart enough to know that,” he said. “People can’t live online all the time.”

Bookstores offer discoverability, not just the latest Dan Brown or Carl Hiaasen book on the front table, but sometimes treasures deep in the stacks, a long tail of midlist authors and specialty books. Even as the book business consolidates, the physical object displayed in an actual place will continue to be an important part of the ecosystem.

Let’s hope it survives. From the balcony of the Barnes & Noble, what looked like the buzz of literary commerce was less impressive on closer inspection. The checkout line was busy because there were only two people working the registers. And the coffee shop was not so much an amenity for consumers-on-the-go than a spot where people camped out and pawed over magazines they had not bought and probably never would.

On the way out of the store, I saw the father and daughter who were arguing over the “Gatsby” cover. They had bought neither, but they probably settled on which one they were going to buy on Amazon.

Media Decoder: Documentary Planned on Malala Yousafzai, Girl Shot by Taliban

Documentary Planned on Malala Yousafzai, Girl Shot by Taliban

LOS ANGELES â€" What comes after surviving being shot in the head, turning 16 and addressing the United Nations? Having a famous documentarian make a movie about it all.

Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani education advocate who addressed the United Nations General Assembly last Friday, her 16th birthday, is being filmed by Davis Guggenheim, who is known for projects like “Waiting for Superman” and “An Inconvenient Truth.”

But only if he can keep up with her.

Last October, Ms. Yousafzai was shot by Taliban gunmen for advocating education for girls and sharing her views with Western media outlets. She survived serious wounds to the head and neck. Much of the world cheered her on, and Gordon Brown, the U.N.’s special envoy for education, helped bring her to New York for her address. Mr. Guggenheim has aligned with two Hollywood producers, Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, and a substantial financier, Image Nation of Abu Dhabi, for a documentary about her life and work. Speaking by telephone last week, Mr. Parkes said he and Ms. MacDonald, his wife and business partner, had considered making a dramatic film based on a coming memoir by Ms. Yousafzai. But, after meeting her in Britain this year, they decided otherwise.

“It didn’t seem right; no one is ever going to be able to portray this extraordinary young girl,” Mr. Parkes said. The producers, who had made a film based on “The Kite Runner,” a novel by Khaled Hosseini about the Taliban in Afghanistan, quickly connected with Mr. Guggenheim, who has focused on education.

Financing came easily, Mr. Parkes said. His production company works closely with Image Nation. It sounds like the stuff of which Oscar contenders are made. Mr. Guggenheim, after all, won an Academy Award for “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2007.

But Ms. Yousafzai’s story will not be in the next Oscar race. The finished film is about 18 months away, Mr. Parkes said. And by then, Ms. Yousafzai, who has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, is likely to have provided a Hollywood ending.

Sold Back to Its Founder, Frommer’s to Publish Anew

When Google bought the Frommer’s brand of travel guides last August, it was an unlikely union of old and new, of paper and pixels.

Arthur Frommer, left, the founder of Frommer’s Travel Guides, and David Steinberger, the chief of Perseus Books Group.

It didn’t last long.

Arthur Frommer, the 83-year-old founder of the company, announced in April that he had bought the brand back from Google, which did not publish any Frommer’s guidebooks.

Now he is moving quickly to release his first batch of books in October under a new name, FrommerMedia.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Frommer said he had struck a deal with Publishers Group West, a member of the Perseus Books Group, to distribute and help market and promote the books, a major step in reviving the publishing machine of one of the most renowned brands in the travel industry.

“I feel like I’m starting all over again,” Mr. Frommer said. “I’m working hard to bring them back to what they were.”

Mr. Frommer, often considered the father of the travel-guide business, wrote and published his first guide, “The G.I.’s Guide to Traveling in Europe,” when he was a young Army corporal living in Berlin.

That guide, turned into a book called “Europe on $5 a Day,” became a huge success. Several years later, after a brief career practicing law, Mr. Frommer began publishing more travel books, building a business to be a leader in the industry. For many years, Mr. Frommer said, the Frommer’s books made up close to 25 percent of all the travel guides sold in the United States.

He has not had direct control over the Frommer’s guides for decades. In 1977, Frommer’s was sold to Simon & Schuster and later acquired by John Wiley & Sons. (Mr. Frommer remained involved as a consultant.) Last year, Google paid about $23 million for the brand, saying that it would incorporate the Frommer’s content from its books, mobile apps and Web site into local reviews. This year, it sold the brand back to Mr. Frommer for an undisclosed price. By the end of 2014, Mr. Frommer expects to release as many as 80 books. Mr. Frommer and his daughter, Pauline, will be co-presidents of the company. A new series, called EasyGuides, are an answer to the increasingly lengthy travel guides on the market that Mr. Frommer said were too long to be practical.

The Frommers are restarting the publication of the guides at a difficult time in the travel-book business. Sales of travel guides have been in decline for years, publishers said, under pressure from free Web sites like TripAdvisor, VirtualTourist and Yelp.

“There’s the availability of free information on the Internet, and there’s the fewer number of brick-and-mortar stores,” said David Steinberger, the chief executive of Perseus Books Group. “But you can still have a very successful business if you have the right brand and the right content.”

Travel guides have also failed to pick up the e-book sales that could compensate for print losses; reference books are still lagging far behind most other categories, especially fiction, in e-book sales.

Mr. Frommer said he believed that in a time in which user-generated content is pervasive, there is also a demand for carefully edited information by a trusted source.

“I think there’s been a reaction to the user generation source of travel information,” he said. Most of the newly issued Frommer’s guides will be written by freelancers who live in the cities they are reviewing â€" unlike online reviews elsewhere, which might be written by “people who have been to one hotel in Paris in their lives.”

News From the Advertising Industry

Accounts

â–  USA Swimming, Colorado Springs, Colo., the national governing body for the sport of swimming in the United States, named Colle & McVoy, Minneapolis, part of MDC Partners, as its first agency of record.

â–  Lake Louie Brewing, Arena, Wis., chose Shine United, Madison, Wis., as its first agency of record. Billings were not disclosed.

People

â–  Thomas Gensemer joined Burson-Marsteller, New York, part of the Young & Rubicam Group division of WPP, as United States chief strategy officer, a new post, reporting to Dave DenHerder, United States chief executive. Mr. Gensemer will be focused on tasks that include developing integrated campaigns for clients and new product offerings. Mr. Gensemer had been managing partner and chief executive at another WPP agency, Blue State Digital, known for its political and public-affairs work.

â–  Colin Kinsella joined Mindshare, New York, part of the GroupM division of WPP, as chief executive for North America, succeeding Antony Young, who will remain with Mindshare, the agency said, and take a job that is focused on global business development and projects. Mr. Kinsella had most recently been chief executive for North America at Digitas, part of the Publicis Groupe.

■ Pat Patregnani, president at Zimmerman Advertising, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., part of the Omnicom Group, was promoted to chief executive, a long-vacant post; Jordan Zimmerman continues as chairman. Succeeding Mr. Patregnani as president is Andrew Varga, who had most recently been chief marketing officer at Papa John’s International, a client of Zimmerman’s since 1998.

â–  Steven Millerman joined Prime Access, New York, part of the 9.8 Group of Companies, as chief executive, assuming duties from Givi Topchishvili, who had served as interim chief executive and will now return to his duties that include president at the 9.8 Group. Mr. Millerman had been director and head of cross-cultural marketing at the Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, part of Novartis International.

■ Paul Gunning, chief digital officer at DDB Worldwide, New York, who has also served as chief executive of the agency’s Tribal Worldwide division, was named chief executive of DDB Chicago, succeeding Peter McGuinness, who is becoming chief marketing and brand officer at Chobani.

■ David Norton joined the New York office of MDC Partners in a new post, executive vice president for analytics and consumer insight. He has been a consultant and also worked for companies that included Urban Outfitters and Harrah’s Entertainment.

â–  Nick Barham joined TBWA/Chiat/Day, part of the TBWA Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group, as chief strategy officer for TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles, a new post. He had most recently been global director of the W&K Tomorrow unit of Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore.

â–  Jeremy Villano joined Space150, Minneapolis, as managing director to lead its New York office, a new post. He had most recently been digital strategy director at the Interbrand New York unit of Interbrand, part of the Omnicom Group.

â–  Walt Connelly joined Havas Worldwide New York as global executive creative director on the Merck Consumer Care account, a new post. He had been chief marketing officer for a new brand of jeans called I Am Not a Virgin, and before that he worked for agencies that included McCann Erickson San Francisco, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and a previous iteration of Havas Worldwide New York, Euro RSCG New York. Havas Worldwide New York is part of the Havas Worldwide division of Havas Creative, which is owned by Havas.

â–  Debra L. Lee, chairwoman and chief executive at BET Networks, part of Viacom, was elected chairwoman of the Advertising Council, New York. She assumes duties from Marc Pritchard, chairman, who is global brand building officer at Procter & Gamble.

Miscellany

■ WNET, Channel 13, New York, is expanding a humorous campaign introduced in May that promotes its programming by taking pokes at reality television. The campaign, by the New York office of CHI & Partners, part of WPP, began with posters in subway stations that advertised make-believe reality series like “Bad Boy Bagboys” and “Knitting Wars”; the payoff came with these words: “The fact you thought this was a real show says a lot about the state of TV.” The next phase, called “TV Gone Wrong,” involves commercials styled like teasers for reality shows, all again fake: “Clam Kings,” “Long Island Landscapers” and “Meet the Tanners.” The same sentiment about the state of TV turns up at the end of each spot when the jest is revealed. The commercials will run on stations that include WNET, WLIW and New York 1.

â–  Widmeyer Communications, Washington and New York, was acquired by Finn Partners, New York, which also has an office in Washington. Financial terms were not disclosed. Scott Widmeyer will continue to lead Widmeyer Communications, which will be known as Widmeyer Communications, a Finn Partners company, and he also takes the post of managing partner at Finn Partners.

â–  Magazine advertising pages in the second quarter fell 4.5 percent from the period a year earlier, according to a report from the Publishers Information Bureau, New York. For the first half, ad pages were down 4.9 percent from the first half of 2012.

■ Vertic, Copenhagen and New York, opened offices in Seattle and Singapore. The Seattle office will serve as the agency’s West Coast headquarters in the United States.

â–  Two sibling agencies, the Racepoint Group, which specializes in public relations, and the Digital Influence Group, Boston, which specializes in digital marketing, are combining under the Racepoint Group name with the Digital Influence Group as a subsidiary brand.

Accounts and People of Note in the Advertising Industry

Adams & Knight, Hartford, hired two employees and named a longtime employee to a new post. The newcomers are Jill Memery, senior copywriter, and Ken St. Onge, financial services writer. Also, Karen Belletsky, who has worked at the agency for 16 years as an account executive and senior copywriter, was named to a new post, content marketing officer.

Adcraft Club of Detroit plans to induct 10 people into its Hall of Fame for 2013, including Ed Rossman, age 100, who was for many years advertising manager and creative director at Highland Appliance and began his career in 1929 selling ads for the Yellow Pages. The other inductees are Marcie Brogan, Brogan & Partners and Ignite Social Media; Michael Browner, General Motors; Peter Dow, Campbell Ewald; Richard Hartle, Hartle & Associates and Hartle & Heth; James Michelson, SMZ; Richard Monley, D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles; Ted Pearse, WDIV-TV; Ron Rose, Ron Rose Productions; and Jack Ryan, Leo Burnett. They are to be honored at an event in Detroit next Monday. )

Allure magazine, New York, part of the Condé Nast division of Advance Publications, promoted an executive and hired another. Stacy Bettman, advertising director, was promoted to associate publisher. And Stacy Nathan joined Allure as advertising director, succeeding Ms. Bettman. Ms. Nathan had been advertising director at Marie Claire magazine, New York, part of the Hearst Magazines division of the Hearst Corporation.

Colin Bettam joined Kobo, Toronto, in a new post, chief marketing officer. He had been vice president for marketing at LG Electronics Canada, part of the LG Corporation.

Tamara Bousquet joined Digitas, Boston, part of the Publicis Groupe, in a new post, senior vice president for media. She had most recently been managing director at Piston, San Diego.

Earthbound Farm, part of Earthbound Organic, San Juan Bautista, Calif., named Haberman, Minneapolis, as its agency for public relations and social engagement as well as digital agency of record. Billings were not disclosed. The assignments had previously been handled by Fresh Ideas, Boulder, Colo.

Lauryn Flynn joined Azione PR, New York, as vice president for public relations. She had been a consultant and designer, working on her own jewelry line, Knight$ of New York, and before that worked for companies that included Burberry and Calvin Klein.

Hearst Magazines Digital Media, New York, part of the Hearst Magazines unit of the Hearst Corporation, hired an executive and promoted another. Mike Smith joins in a new post, vice president for revenue platforms and operations; he had been chief digital officer at Forbes Media. And Mike Dushane, vice president of product development for caranddriver.com, was promoted to a new post, vice president of product development for Hearst Magazines Digital Media.

Robert HoSang joined the New York office of Latinum Network in a new post, director for business development. He had been a vice president and account director at Havas Media, part of Havas.

Nick Hunt and Jen Sokol joined Frank Unlimited, Seattle. Mr. Hunt becomes director for client services, succeeding Dave Abrass, who takes a new post, director for business development. Mr. Hunt had been client partner at the Seattle office of Razorfish, part of the Publicis Group. Ms. Sokol joins in a new post, senior project manager, as well as an account executive; she had been senior integrated project manager at the Seattle office of DraftFCB, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Evan Krauss joined GetGlue, New York, in a new post, president. He had most recently been executive vice president for global advertising sales at Shazam.

Iveliesse Malavé joined Univision Communications, Miami, in a new post, vice president for consumer and entertainment public relations. She had been senior vice president in the Miami office of FleishmanHillard, part of the Omnicom Group.

Bradley Matthews joined the MSLGroup, New York, part of the Publicis Groupe, as a vice president for consumer marketing, working on Procter & Gamble brands like Mr. Clean and Swiffer. He had been an account director at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, New York, part of the Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide division of WPP.

MobAff, Fort Myers, Fla., a mobile affiliate network, was acquired by the Matomy Media Group, New York and Tel Aviv. Financial terms were not disclosed. MobAff will become part of MediaWhiz, which Matomy acquired this year, and the MobAff staff members will relocate to the MediaWhiz headquarters in New York.

Nikki Muntz and Eileen O’Brien joined Rosetta, Princeton, N.J., part of the Publicis Groupe, in new posts that are part of the senior management of what the agency calls its health care vertical. Ms. Muntz becomes partner for health care business development; she had worked for companies that included Shaw Science and Cell Division. Ms. O’Brien becomes associate partner for paid, owned and earned media; she had been director for search and innovation at Siren Interactive, Philadelphia and Oak Park, Ill.

Prashanth Pappu and Chuck Parker joined Unicorn Media, Tempe, Ariz., in new posts. Mr. Pappu becomes senior vice president for product management; he had been head of product marketing at Conviva. Mr. Parker becomes chief revenue officer; he had been chairman of the 2nd Screen Society and before that spent 15 years in senior posts at Technicolor.

Shantanu Rana and Tim Scholler joined the New York office of Erwin Penland, part of the Hill Holliday division of the Interpublic Group of Companies, in new posts. Mr. Rana becomes senior vice president and group account director; he had most recently been a partner at Rosetta, part of the Publicis Groupe. Mr. Scholler becomes senior vice president and director for shopper experience; he had worked at agencies like R/GA, also part of Interpublic, as well as at Mercer Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Kim Smither joined the Wasserman Media Group, Los Angeles, in a new post, senior vice president for consulting. She had been senior vice president at the London office of Octagon, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Charles Wright joined Lippincott as a senior partner in the London office. He had most recently been managing director at Wolff Olins, part of the Omnicom Group, in the office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Lippincott is part of the Oliver Wyman division of the Marsh & McLennan Companies.

Dave Yoo joined PPC Associates, San Mateo, Calif., in a new post, chief operating officer. He had most recently been general manager and vice president for performance marketing at Sugar Inc.