The TV Watch: At Final Debate, Parrying at the Top, And Lunging Below

At Final Debate, Parrying at the Top, and Lunging From Below

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern did almost all the talking.

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PAC Backed by Billionaire to Broadcast Ads for Lhota

A political action committee backed by the billionaire industrialist David H. Koch will begin broadcasting television commercials this week that promote Joseph J. Lhota, a Republican candidate for mayor.

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Advertising: An Old Campaign Learns a New Song

An Old Campaign Learns a New Song

A BRAND once lovingly mocked for commercials proclaiming it as “the freshmaker” is refreshing its approach to marketing.

The brand is Mentos, sold by Perfetti Van Melle, which became famous â€" or notorious, depending on your perspective â€" for a series of commercials from the 1990s. The cheesy spots for the Mentos flagship product, chewy mints that come in rolls, were criticized and celebrated for their ham-handed selling style, straight from the 1950s; the corny Mentos slogan, “The freshmaker”; their hokey story lines, mostly centered on mix-ups andyouthful mischief; and the silly Mentos jingle, with lyrics that seemed to have been written by someone for whom English was a second language (“It doesn’t matter what comes, fresh goes better in life”).

This week, Mentos is introducing a campaign for the chewy mint rolls that is meant to evoke the upbeat mood and cheerful tone of the original work while, executives hope, slicing off chunks of the cheese. The campaign is the first from a new creative agency for the Mentos brand, the New York office of McKinney, part of Cheil Worldwide, which is taking over from the Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

The centerpiece of the new campaign, which carries the theme “Roll with it,” is a commercial that is the return to American television advertising for Mentos. The spot is to run on cable channels that are watched by the target audience of teenagers and 20-somethings, which include the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network, BET, Comedy Central, FX, MTV, the Nick at Nite block on Nickelodeon and VH1.

The new commercial, like its predecessors, features a fresh-faced, mint-mad youth who gives strangers the “thumbs-up” sign that symbolizes optimism â€" while also serving as a device to remind consumers they can use their thumbs to pop a Mentos chewy mint into their mouths.

This time, however, the oddball jingle is replaced with a song, written for the commercial by Beacon Street Studios, and the story line is less hokey: the youth skateboards past a colorful collection of characters at Venice Beach before falling, figuratively and literally, for a similarly fresh-faced young woman.

Another way the cheese quotient is reduced is that the 2013 spot is 15 seconds long, compared with 30 seconds for the original commercials.

Perfetti Van Melle plans to spend more than $30 million in the next 12 months to advertise Mentos brand products, which include new breath mints in addition to the chewy mints, as well as pellet gums like Mentos Pure Fresh. (A stick gum, Mentos UP2U, was introduced in 2011, but has been discontinued.) According to Kantar Media, a unit of WPP that tracks ad spending, Perfetti Van Melle spent $24.3 million last year to advertise Mentos products in major media, compared with $19.7 million in 2011 and $14.1 million in 2010.

The Mentos campaign is another example of a trend on Madison Avenue known as comfort marketing, which has gained popularity in the five years since the financial crisis of 2008. Advertisers are rummaging through their attics for vintage pitches, hoping that invoking fond memories of the past may help shoppers feel better about buying products now. And to counter perceptions that brands ladling out heaping helpings of nostalgia are too outdated, the ads are updated and refreshed for contemporary sensibilities.

“We wanted to do what was right for the brand today,” said Maurice Herrera, vice president and head of marketing for Mentos and Perfetti Van Melle USA.

“The freshmaker” generated “positive, quirky attributes” for the brand, he added, and it cast “a halo onto the brand, a positive one, that allowed us to go into gum.”

“But it also posed a challenge for the brand because it suggested the benefit was ‘We make things better,’ ” Mr. Herrera said, which was widely perceived as “an overpromise.”

Another challenge came when research among consumers in their teens and 20s showed that “more than half the millennials don’t associate ‘The freshmaker’ with the brand,” he added.

Replacing that theme with “Roll with it” speaks to the millennial generation’s “positivity,” Mr. Herrera said, and to “the point of view of the brand.”

Alex Van Gestel, managing director for McKinney New York, said the new campaign includes “some of the DNA from where the brand was in the past” including its “European sensibility,” reflecting how Mentos, and the original commercials, came from Europe.

“But as students of advertising, there’s also something new we want to create,” Mr. Van Gestel said, centered on “fun and youthful optimism,” adding: “You can’t over-intellectualize in this category. It’s a mint, a joyous experience.”

In another instance of comfort marketing, New World Pasta plans this week to start running a commercial, by Millennium Communications in Syosset, N.Y., that is based on a familiar spot from the 1960s and 1970s declaring Wednesday to be “Prince spaghetti day.” The new commercial will interweave material from the original with new material, bringing back Anthony Martignetti, who appeared at age 12 in the original spot, filmed in Boston by Venet Advertising.

Other agencies will also work on the new Mentos campaign, on tasks like print and digital ads and social media. They include Mongo Industries; R/GA, part of Interpublic; and TracyLocke, part of the Omnicom Group.

A version of this article appears in print on September 4, 2013, on page B7 of the New York edition with the headline: An Old Campaign Learns a New Song.

News Corporation Sells Group of Local Publications

In one of its first moves since a corporate spinoff in June, News Corporation said on Tuesday that it had sold 33 local publications to a private equity and hedge fund firm.

The collection of small newspapers and niche publications, known as the Dow Jones Local Media Group, will be owned by an affiliate of the Fortress Investment Group, News Corporation said in a news release. The publications will be managed by GateHouse Media, the newspaper publisher based outside Rochester.

The details of the transaction were not released, but the money involved was evidently relatively small, because if it had been bigger (or, in financial terms, material to the company) News Corporation would have had to disclose more financial information.

The company’s interest in selling the local publications was reported in April by The Wall Street Journal. The Journal and the collection of local publications were both included in the 2007 deal in which News Corporation acquired Dow Jones. Shortly afterward, News Corporation tried for the first time to sell the local media assets, but pulled back in 2008 because of unfavorable market conditions.

The same logic guided the decision to sell now: the community papers â€" like The Cape Cod Times, The Herald in Portsmouth, N.H., and The Daily Tidings in Ashland, Ore. â€" and the small magazines don’t fit into the company’s larger framework.

“We are confident that the papers will prosper under the new owners, but they were not strategically consistent with the emerging portfolio of the new News,” Robert Thomson, the News Corporation chief executive, said in a statement.

In June most of News Corporation’s television and film units were split off into a separate company called 21st Century Fox, leaving News Corporation as the publishing arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

Webdenda: Accounts and People of Note in the Advertising Industry

Accounts and People of Note in the Advertising Industry

American Express is teaming with Vanity Fair magazine and Condé Nast Entertainment for “The Decades Series,” a collection of video clips that will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Vanity Fair, which Condé Nast has published from 1913 to 1936 and again from 1983 onward. Each video will be devoted to a decade of the last 100 years and be created by filmmakers who include Judd Apatow (the 1990s), Don Cheadle (the 1980s), Bryce Dallas Howard (the 1960s) and Barbara Kopple (the 1930s). The video series will be available for viewing on a Vanity Fair Web site, the Vanity Fair YouTube channel and on a new American Express interactive brand channel, Amex Now.

The Big Ad Gig, a contest that awards 30-day paid internships to young would-be copywriters and art directors, is changing its format for its fifth annual competition, to be held on Sept. 25 during Advertising Week in New York. The changes involve simulating the time pressures of the advertising business by asking those who would like to be selected as contestants to submit entries in the form of videos within 60 minutes. There will be eight finalist contestants competing on Sept. 25 for six internships. More information can be found on a Web site.

Thomas Butta joined AppNexus, New York, in a new post, chief marketing officer. He had most recently been chief executive of a business-to-business consultancy that he founded, 21Weeks, and before that worked as chief marketing officer at companies that included Red Hat.

Colle & McVoy, Minneapolis, part of MDC Partners, hired four employees for its digital creative department. They are: Liz Holzemer, senior interactive producer; Michelle Moore, interactive producer; Marc Stephens, digital creative director; and Nate Warfield, senior creative developer.

Pierre Conte joined GroupM France, part of the GroupM unit of WPP, as chief executive. He assumes duties from Bruno Kemoun and Eryck Rebbouh, who are to become consultants to GroupM. Mr. Conte had most recently been chief executive at Figaro Media and Figaro Classifieds and director for Madame Figaro, responsible for advertising sales at Groupe Figaro, part of Groupe Dassault.

DFS Group, Hong Kong, the luxury travel retail chain that is part of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, named Profero, New York, as its global digital agency of record, a new assignment. Billings were not disclosed.

Doug Dome joined All Terrain, Chicago, in a new post, president. He had most recently been president of Dome Consulting and has also worked for agencies like Dome Communications, Dome HK, Carmichael Lynch Spong and Foote Cone & Belding.

Toto Ellis joined the new London office of Droga5 as head of strategy. He had most recently been head of strategy at TBWA London, part of the TBWA Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group.

Espalhe, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which specializes in digital and social media marketing, sold a majority stake to the Publicis Groupe, Paris. Financial terms were not disclosed. Espalhe will operate under its current management and be renamed the Espalhe MSLGroup, becoming part of the MSLGroup division of the Publicis Groupe.

Neil James joined Solve, Minneapolis, as a digital strategist. He had been a digital strategist at Russell Herder, Minneapolis.

Scott Kronick, president at Ogilvy Public Relations, North Asia, part of the Ogilvy Public Relations unit of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, was named president and chief executive at Ogilvy Public Relations, Asia-Pacific. He succeeds Steve Dahllof, who will retire, the agency said, at the end of the year. Mr. Kronick, who will continue to be based in Beijing, is to assume Mr. Dahllof’s duties on Jan. 1, 2014.

Jack Link’s beef jerky, sold by Link Snacks, Minong, Wis., named Space150, Minneapolis, its digital agency of record, handling online, mobile, social media, content creation and e-mail marketing. Billings were not disclosed. The account had been handled by Atomic Playpen, Minneapolis.

Martin/Williams Advertising, Minneapolis, part of the Martin/Williams division of the Omnicom Group, hired five employees. They are: Kathleen Heist, engagement analyst; Carmen Nesenson, interaction planner; Michael Smith, media analyst; Bryce Wandling, motion design editor; and Laura Wiering, account manager.

McDonald’s Boston Region restaurants awarded their local marketing account to H&L Partners, San Francisco, formerly Hoffman Lewis, which will open an office in Boston to handle the assignment. Billings were not disclosed. The account â€" for almost 600 stores from Maine to Connecticut and also the Albany area -- had previously been handled by Arnold Worldwide, Boston, part of the Havas Creative division of Havas. H&L Partners also creates campaigns for McDonald’s restaurants in Northern California and St. Louis.

Courtney Mullen joined LevLane, Philadelphia, in a new post, digital media supervisor. She had been a search manager at the Philadelphia office of Razorfish, part of the Publicis Groupe.

Q. and A. With Stuart Elliott

Stuart Elliott, the advertising columnist, answers questions from readers each week. Questions can be sent to stuarte@nytimes.com.

Q. I saw an Old Navy commercial for jeans for fall that ends with the Old Navy logo on screen and the words “San Francisco, California” under the logo. Is this something new, or has it been done for a while, and what’s the reason behind it? It reminded me of those Apple ads that say “Designed by Apple in California.”

A. “Gap Inc. is proud of its heritage as an iconic American company that is headquartered in San Francisco,” Edie Kissko, a spokeswoman for Gap Inc., says in an e-mail, “and our brands, from time to time, highlight that legacy in their marketing campaigns.”

My belief, dear reader, is that being associated with San Francisco and Northern California is a badge of honor nowadays, thanks to the image that Silicon Valley has among consumers as a source of innovation. It is a far cry from 1984, when the phrase “San Francisco Democrats” was used as an insult.

Q. Good story on the new ad campaign for the high-priced Tumi brand. I always thought it stood for “Tell u my income.”

A. Thanks, dear reader, for the smile. I wonder if anyone has ever compiled a list of brand epithets that are derived from brand names, among them “Whole Paycheck,” for Whole Foods; “Fix it again Tony,” for Fiat; and “Fix or repair daily” and “Fast only rolling downhill,” for Ford.