Jackson’s Mother, Defiant and at Times Forgetful, Wraps Up Her Testimony

LOS ANGELES â€" Michael Jackson’s mother continued her testimony on Monday in the wrongful death lawsuit she brought against the promoter of Jackson’s planned comeback concerts, appearing emotional and at times confused and exhausted, but saying that she was determined to find out the truth about how her son died four years ago.

“I wanted to find out what really happened to my son,” said Katherine Jackson, 83.

In her suit, Mrs. Jackson says that the promoter, AEG Live, is liable for Jackson’s death because it failed to properly monitor Dr. Conrad Murray, his personal physician for the shows. She is seeking damages equivalent to what her son could have earned had he lived, a sum that one witness estimated at more than $1.5 billion.

AEG counters that Jackson hired the doctor and kept secret his use of propofol, the powerful anesthetic that killed him. Dr. Murray is serving a four-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter.

Witnesses in the trial so far, called by Mrs. Jackson’s lawyers, have included Jackson’s creative partners, his 16-year-old son Prince, and AEG executives, whose flurry of e-mails about Jackson’s condition in the days before his death have been repeatedly parsed in court.

Mrs. Jackson said it had been difficult for her to hear what she called falsehoods about her son. She said it was also hurtful to see e-mails from AEG executives mocking Jackson, including one in which he was called “the freak.”

But she struggled to add much information to the case. When Marvin S. Putnam, AEG’s lawyer, asked detailed questions about whether she knew about her son’s drug use, Mrs. Jackson said numerous times that she could not remember events or meetings, and some of her answers seemed to contradict statements she had made in earlier depositions.

Mrs. Jackson also frequently complained about the questioning by the defense, saying “I already answered that question” several times and, when asked about gifts she received from Jackson, countered, “What does this have to do with the death of my son?”

At one point on Friday, when she began her testimony, she stopped answering questions and instead stared straight ahead. The judge ended Friday’s session early, and Mrs. Jackson’s lawyer, Brian J. Panish, told reporters afterward that “she was getting confused and tired.”

Mrs. Jackson, the soft-voiced matriarch of the Jackson family, has been a near-constant presence during the 12-week civil trial, sitting in the front row of the small courtroom most days and waving to the gaggle of Jackson superfans who wait outside the court in T-shirts with slogans like, “We support you #team Katherine Jackson.”

On Monday, she testified that she was financially dependent on her son while he was alive.

“My son took care of me,” she said. “He paid for everything: food, shelter, clothing.”

Jackson was more than $400 million in debt when he died, but his estate has reportedly earned more than $600 million through various music and licensing deals, and Jackson’s mother and three children are the main beneficiaries. (The children are also plaintiffs in the AEG suit.)

Mrs. Jackson’s testimony ended on Monday afternoon, and AEG was expected to begin calling its witnesses this week to make its case.

On her way out of the courtroom, Mrs. Jackson was greeted by about a dozen fans, who cheered that they loved her.

“Thank you for being so strong today,” one said.

Jens Erik Gould contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

Advertising: Duracell Offers Praise, and Power, for Everyday Heroes

Duracell Offers Praise, and Power, for Everyday Heroes

WITH devices like digital cameras increasingly powered by built-in rechargeable batteries, and more consumers using smartphone alarms instead of battery-operated alarm clocks, the battery market itself lost some voltage between 2007 and 2012, with revenue declining 10 percent, according to Mintel, a market research firm.

But plenty of items still require batteries, like remote controls, smoke alarms and flashlights, and the market is showing positive signs. Alkaline batteries gained 1.5 percent in revenue in the 52 weeks ending June 16, according to IRI, a market data firm. The number of batteries sold declined by 5.8 percent over the last year, but revenue increased because makers charged more for improved batteries that promise longer-lasting power.

Now Duracell, the Procter & Gamble brand, is introducing a line of batteries, Quantum, that will be its most powerful, and which will come at a premium, with a suggested retail price 20 percent to 30 percent higher than the Copper Top. (Another premium battery line, Duracell Ultra, which is priced the same as Quantum, will be discontinued.)

Duracell batteries have had a copper-colored upper section and black lower section since 1972, but the new batteries are red below the copper band.

“Consumers associate red with more power, and we chose red to differentiate it and to highlight Quantum’s Hi-Density Core,” said Volker Kuhn, general manager of Duracell North America, using the brand’s trademarked term for the technology used by the new line.

A commercial that will be introduced on July 29 opens with a procession of fire engines and ambulances driving down a highway.

“Nobody knows where or when the next powerful storm is going to hit, but it will,” says a voice-over, the actor Jeff Bridges.

After lightning strikes on the horizon, and firefighters shine flashlight beams during a storm to discover someone in rubble, Mr. Bridges reveals a donation in conjunction with the new line’s introduction.

“The next storm is out there, but so are the heroes, so we’re giving a million Duracell Quantum to first responders everywhere,” says Mr. Bridges.

The campaign, which is by the Acme Idea Company in South Norwalk, Conn., also includes online advertising and videos featuring first responders describing heroic rescues. Duracell, which declined to reveal expenditures for the campaign, spent about $67.6 million on advertising in 2012, compared with $43.8 million by its rival Energizer, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

Duracell’s long association with emergency workers goes back to at least 2002, when a commercial featured the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group, a volunteer search and rescue squad for mountainous terrain, with the brand emphasizing that team members use Duracell batteries for their flashlights and headlamps. The commercial was also by Acme, which has been the brand’s agency of record since 2001, when Duracell was owned by the Gillette Company, a company that was acquired by P.& G. in 2005.

Along with featuring emergency workers in numerous commercials since then, in 2011 the brand introduced its Duracell Power Relief program, which dispatches trucks and trailers to disaster areas to distribute free batteries and provide charging stations for cellphones and laptops.

Since its inception, the program has deployed 11 times after disasters like hurricanes and blizzards, distributing more than 250,000 batteries. When the brand, which has more than 4.1 million followers on Facebook, posted a photo on Facebook on May 20 of one of its Power Forward trucks that was en route to Oklahoma City, which had been struck by deadly tornadoes, more than 15,450 Facebook users clicked the “like” button, and more than 1,340 shared the photo with their networks of friends.

Scott Kulok, the creative director at Acme, said that research by the agency indicated that consumers deeply admired first responders, and that actual emergency workers (who also were members of the Screen Actors Guild) were cast in the Quantum commercial.

“First responders are the heroes of our age,” Mr. Kulok said. “When the worst happens, they turn into superheroes.”

Gallup has polled about the honesty and ethical standards of a variety of professions annually since 1976, and asked about firefighters only once, in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, when 90 percent of Americans rated firefighters as having high or very high standards. (In Gallup’s 2012 poll, nurses topped the list, with 85 percent rating their honesty and ethics highly; only 11 percent gave the same high ratings to advertising practitioners and 22 percent to newspaper reporters.)

In the alkaline battery segment, which accounts for about 80 percent of the household battery market, Duracell has a 39.4 percent share of the market, followed by Energizer Holdings, which makes the Energizer and Eveready brands, with a 32 percent share, according to IRI.

Consumers are most likely to buy batteries for remote controls, followed by flashlights, smoke alarms, clocks and digital cameras, according to a 2012 survey by Mintel.

Joe Waters, co-author of “Cause Marketing for Dummies,” said that both Duracell’s Power Relief program and its new plan to donate batteries to first responders demonstrated how, in an era when brands reach consumers through social media like Facebook, companies strive to share values with consumers over just selling to them.

“Power Forward is brilliant, because every time you do something like that for a community, how much brand equity is that?” said Mr. Waters, who also publishes the Selfish Giving blog.

As for donating products to first responders, Mr. Waters added that along with being charitable, there was a real practical benefit to Duracell because first responders also buy batteries for professional and personal use.

“What brands are looking for is loyalists, and firefighters and other first responders are an incredible network of loyalists,” Mr. Waters said.

Jet Magazine Stays Compact, but With a New Design

Jet magazine is getting a makeover.

The Aug. 12 issue of Jet, which reflects its new design.

Historic covers of Jet magazine line the walls in the bathroom at Harlem Shake, a new restaurant in Harlem.

On Friday, the magazine’s owner, Johnson Publishing, announced a complete redesign for Jet in print and online â€" the first in the 62 years of the publication, long a staple in the black community. The new look for Jet includes brighter colors against a white background, more informational graphics, larger photos and new fonts.

Almost a year and a half ago, its sister publication, Ebony, unveiled an online redesign of its own, which was preceded by a print redesign. Since then, traffic to Ebony.com has increased substantially to more than 600,000 visitors in July from less than 100,000 visitors a year ago, said Desiree Rogers, the chief executive of Johnson Publishing, who is hoping for a similar bounce at Jet.

“People really did feel that it was time for a little bit of a makeover here,” said Desirée Rogers, the chief executive of Johnson Publishing. “These brands have been around for almost 70 years. You’ve got to change with the times.”

As part of the redesign, the Web sites Ebony.com and Jetmag.com will each link to the other’s Web site.

The Ebony redesign may also have helped the magazine’s advertising. The number of ad pages increased 4.2 percent from the second quarter in 2012 to the second quarter in 2013. Revenue from advertising also increased to $13.6 million in the second quarter of 2013 from $11.7 million in that quarter a year ago.

Ad revenue for Jet magazine increased a slight 2 percent in the second quarter in 2013, to $2.7 million, up from $2.62 million a year earlier, while the number of ad pages dipped 7.8 percent in the same time period.

While the redesigned Jet will keep some of its franchises â€" including its “Beauty of the Week” feature â€" it will also include condensed sections that focus on celebrity, news, entertainment and lifestyle.

The changes will also be felt in the editorial content, with Jet writers doing more original reporting and less aggregation, said Mitzi Miller, the magazine’s editor in chief. “Magazines in general are trying to figure out how we stay relevant,” Ms. Miller said. “We have a clearly defined voice again so when people come here they say ‘O.K. this is a Jet position.' ”

The Aug. 12 issue â€" which reflects the new design â€" has on the cover Octavia Spencer and Michael B. Jordan, the stars of the film “Fruitvale Station,” which is based on a 2009 incident when a black man was shot and killed by a police officer in an Oakland subway station. The film has gotten particular attention because its release coincided with the verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Ms. Miller said the magazine would also offer more service journalism for its readers. “It’s also about how can you get Beyoncé's look for less,” she said. “When you have her clothes, here are the top five detergents you need to get the stain out of that blouse.”

It will also offer short videos for users’ mobile phones. In the August issue, Ms. Miller added such a video to her editor’s letter.

One thing that won’t change, however, is the magazine’s unusual size â€" 5â…› inches by 7â…œ inches. Ms. Rogers said the magazine enlisted the opinions of focus groups around the country for ideas on the makeover. “The one thing we kept hearing was, ‘Don’t change my size,' ” she said.

Johnny Carson Clips Are Coming to iTunes

The popularity of Johnny Carson goes on, and so does the business of Johnny Carson, as new ways are introduced to access highlights from the late-night host’s 30-year career on “The Tonight Show.”

Starting Tuesday, for the first time, fans of the show can go to Apple’s iTunes store and for $1.99 pull up everything from specific shows to special compilations, like Mr. Carson interacting with animals or a full hour of the best stand-up comedy performances from the show.

At the same time, a collection of some of the best interviews Mr. Carson conducted during his tenure is available in a special series on the TCM cable channel, introduced by one of Mr. Carson’s many devoted late-night heirs, Conan O’Brien. The guests include the royalty of show business, from Fred Astaire to Robin Williams.

The new deal with iTunes was made possible by the decision several years ago to digitize more than 4,500 hours of “Tonight” editions, during the period 1972 to 1992. As television historians know, the first 10 years of Mr. Carson’s run were erased by an NBC engineer.

But Jeff Sotzing, the president of the Carson Entertainment Group (and Mr. Carson’s nephew), has found continuing ways to make the material available to fans and, increasingly he said, to people looking to find a family member’s moment of fame with Johnny.

Mr. Sotzing said the Apple deal sprang from such a request, when a man who appeared on the show as a boy doing bird calls was looking for his big television moment. The digitization of the material has made it possible to find segments based on certain key words, so Mr. Sotzing was easily able to help.

Then he received some help in return when the man suggested that his wife, who specialized in placing media on hand-held and other devices, might be of use. That woman, Kristin McDonnell, became Mr. Sotzing’s consultant and helped put together the Apple deal.

Beyond the highlights, the deal also includes alert tones for cellphones. You can get Johnny saying, “Call your mother,” or ‘Happy Birthday.”

The Carson material has also become easily searchable for all kinds of media requests, Mr. Sotzing said. He recalled that the David Letterman show had sought on several occasions to find a “Tonight” appearance by Al Franken to coincide with a guest shot with Mr. Letterman.

“I had a database at the time and there was no appearance by Al Franken,” Mr. Sotzing said. “I told them it was an urban myth.”

But after the material was fully digitized, Mr. Sotzing found the moment easily. Mr. Franken had appeared in the audience in a “Stump the Band” segment.

“And now he’s a U.S. senator,” Mr. Sotzing noted. “It’s amazing what you can find.”

Campaign Spotlight: Collective, a Marketing Agency, Showcases Itself

Collective, a Marketing Agency, Showcases Itself

A digital marketing services company has created a new branding campaign to promote itself using the same tactics it employs to promote its clients.

An ad from the new campaign by Collective, a digital marketing services company.

Developed in-house by Collective, a New York agency, with assistance from the Concept Farm in New York and Gale Martin Advertising in Woodmere, N.Y., the campaign is aimed at chief marketing officers of Fortune 100 companies, and at executives of advertising agencies and media-buying companies.

All of the ads, which began running this month, are aimed at promoting Collective’s ability to deliver coordinated media buys across television, mobile, tablet and computer screens, formats and devices. Not coincidentally, the campaign’s theme is “Life is but a screen.”

Co-founded in 2005 by Joe Apprendi, a former executive at MediaMind and 24/7 Real Media, Collective helps clients identify markets and the appropriate media to reach them. It also helps them place digital ads, and, on occasion, will create these. It works with Chase, American Express and KFC, among others, as well as with media-buying agencies like ZenithOptimedia, part of the Publicis Groupe, and OMD, part of the Omnicom Media Group unit of the Omnicom Group.

The campaign follows a study released by Collective in March, based on Nielsen data, that found that “advertising reach and frequency opportunities are no longer defined by TV and traditional TV” time categories, like prime time, “but instead are spread across multiple devices and are defined by the consumer’s preferences, even relationships, with each device.”

If advertisers want to reach prospective customers during rush hour, they should remember that customers’ usage of mobile devices peaks during morning commutes, said Ed Dandridge, Collective’s chief marketing officer. He said that from late morning until early afternoon, the screens that are most viewed are on desktop PCs, and this is when online video-viewing is at its peak. In the early evening, during commuting hours, mobile usage spikes again, while from 8 to 11 p.m., TV and tablet screens are both in use, as social media engagement occurs during television viewing.

The study also found that 71 percent of the media-using audience in the United States â€" a group Collective estimates exceeds 200 million people â€" consume media on multiple screens. Collective estimates multiscreen users exceed the 81.4 million TV-only users by approximately 2.5 to 1. The study also found that “the largest group of multiscreen users employ three screens, combining TV, online (computer) and smartphone.”

“The clear shift in consumer media behavior to multiscreen is a significant opportunity for brand marketers. Our campaign highlights precisely why consumers now expect marketers to deliver the right ad to them in the right format, on the right device at the right moment,” Mr. Apprendi said.

To illustrate this concept, a 30-second TV spot depicts screens in use at home, in an office and outdoors. The voice-over â€" singing an updated version of the 1950s doo-wop song “Sh-boom” (also known as, “Life Could Be a Dream”) â€" says, “Life is but a screen that takes you from the streets to paradise up above, connects you anywhere to anyone that you love.” The spot is running on cable channels in New York like CNN, ESPN, MSNBC and NY1.

A 15-second version of the TV spot also is running in the elevators of Manhattan office buildings where top ad agencies and advertisers are based.

Out-of-home advertising â€" running on bus shelters, telephone kiosks and subway entrances in Manhattan, as well as on digital and nondigital billboards at train stations in suburbs surrounding the city â€" illustrates the use of multiple screens by advertisers in different industries, like beverage, financial services and technology companies, car manufacturers and movie studios. One ad says, “Hollywood spends $3 billion each year on thrilling plot lines. Keep them on the edge of their seats with stunning, dynamic creative.”

The tagline here is, “Right screen. Right creative. Right moment. Collective’s Wherevertising.”

Digital versions of the out-of-home ads are also running on Web sites like ClickZ, Adweek and Business Insider.

The third component of the campaign is aimed specifically at political campaign managers and media strategists in Washington. It inserts modern devices into famous works of art and literature to illustrate how critical moments in history “could have been influenced by multiscreen,” said Mr. Dandridge.

Thus, in a 1570 painting by Giovanni Battista Moroni â€" “Portrait of a Man Holding a Letter” also known as “The Lawyer” â€" the man holds a smartphone in his right hand and a tablet in his left. Paraphrasing a quote from Shakespeare’s “Henry VI, Part 2,” the copy says, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the silos,” and concludes, “Mobilize voters across all screens.”

The political ads are running in media like Politico, The Hill and Huffington Post.

Mr. Dandridge said Collective’s goal was to “treat advertising decision-makers as consumers and to reach them as consumers, because advertising is the underlying currency of the industry they work in. If we can reach them with our brand that way, it demonstrates what we can do for their brand to engage consumers.”

The ads will run through late August and resume again in the fourth quarter of this year.

Mr. Dandridge said Collective would spend “in the mid-seven figures” on the campaign.

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New Leader for Al Jazeera America

Al Jazeera America, the forthcoming international news channel funded by the emir of Qatar, on Monday named an ABC News senior vice president, Kate O’Brian, to be its president.

Ms. O’Brian, a 30-year veteran of ABC, has overseen all news gathering for the network news division since 2007. An Al Jazeera spokesman said she would have full responsibility for the new channel’s strategy and operations.

The spokesman also said that the channel will debut on Aug. 20, confirming a date that had been known internally for some time.

The announcement of Ms. O’Brian’s appointment follows a personnel search that began shortly after Al Jazeera acquired Current TV, the low-rated channel co-founded by the former Vice President Al Gore, at an estimated cost of $500 million. That acquisition, announced last January, provided Al Jazeera with something it had been seeking for years: access to tens of millions of American viewers.

Now Al Jazeera has to persuade them to tune in. The channel also appointed three other television news veterans to key posts on Monday. David Doss, a CNN veteran known for his work on Anderson Cooper's prime time program, was named senior vice president for news programming; Marcy McGinnis was named senior vice president of news gathering, a role similar to the one she held at CBS News for years; and Shannon High-Bassalik, formerly of CNN and MSNBC, was named senior vice president for documentaries and programs.

Ehab Al Shihabi, the Al Jazeera executive director for international operations who has been overseeing its creation in the absence of a president or a leadership team, will be the interim chief executive officer, the organization said Monday. A news release said his appointment was effective “till further notice.”

Joseph Ripp Named New Head of Time Inc.

Joseph A. Ripp, a former senior Time Warner executive who had left the fold to become the chief executive of OneSource Information Services, will be the new chief executive of Time Inc.

His appointment comes as Time Inc., the publishing division of Time Warner with titles like Time, People, Sports Illustrated and InStyle, is being spun off into a separate company later this year.

Mr. Ripp worked at Time Warner for nearly 20 years before leaving in 2004 to pursue a career outside of the company. He had been with OneSource since only 2012, when the investment company he worked for acquired it. OneSource provides digitally focused marketing and information to businesses.

The chief executive job at Time Inc. has been difficult to fill in part because the challenges confronting the newly created publishing company are expected to be substantial. The magazine industry has been under intense financial pressure as advertisers have migrated to other media platforms.

Like other large media companies, including News Corporation and Tribune Company, Time Warner is choosing to separate its publishing components from its more lucrative film and television assets. Time Inc.'s first-quarter revenue dropped 5 percent, to $737 million, as circulation revenue fell 11 percent. In January the company laid off about 500 employees, or 6 percent of its total staff

But unlike the publishing division of News Corporation that was recently spun off, the new Time Inc. company is expected to be laden with heavy debt.

An earlier head of the division, Jack Griffin, was forced out of the job after less than six months in early 2011. He was replaced after a nine-month search by Laura Lang, whose background was in digital advertising. Time Inc.'s titles continued to struggle, however, and when Time Warner announced the publishing spinoff, Ms. Lang announced she would be stepping down. Mr. Ripp will replace her in September, the company said.

Another executive who was widely considered a leading candidate was Michael Klingensmith, chief executive of Star Tribune Media Company in Minneapolis.