As the season for summer blockbusters approaches, movie studios find themselves wedded to similar “blockbuster” marketing spends that rely heavily on TV advertising, the .

Despite a sharp decline in consumer spending and DVD sales that have long been the underpinning of the movie business, the studios are about to embark upon the costliest summer for movie marketing campaigns they have ever pursued. A dozen big-budget pictures are set to crowd into theaters over the short 16-week popcorn movie season, many with worldwide marketing budgets that will top $100 million each.

And much of that budget is going to pricey TV ads, say the executives. Jeff Blake, Sony’s worldwide marketing and distribution chief, told the paper: “Television is still the No. 1 medium to sell our product,” and added that although the Internet “is a rising medium,” it “doesn’t yet have the reach of TV.”

Might the PR industry have something to say?

The New York Times with drug makers, a consumer watchdog group, the FDA, and Google about how a lack of specified rules for Internet marketing conflicts with the print and TV rules that the FDA currently applies to new media.

Fourteen pharmaceutical companies were warned by the FDA earlier this month for failing to include risk information in search ads. The consensus among communications professionals who spoke with PRWeek is that the FDA needs to develop a clear policy for digital communications. Search ads are used, in part, by pharmaceutical companies as part of a reputation management strategy.

The same sentiment was echoed in today’s story.

Mary Ann Belliveau, health industry director at Google, told the NYT that “… the sense in the industry was ‘that the F.D.A. sent letters about ‘you shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that,’ as opposed to issuing clear digital guidelines that the companies should follow.’”

Now, companies will only use “generic-sounding Web addresses that redirect users to the brand’s site,” an allowance only made for pharmaceutical companies, and are questioning the FDA to evaluate the difference in online marketing techniques.

This week’s media analysis delves into ways the “church-and-state” divide between news and advertising will further erode as the industry faces economic realities. The two Los Angeles Times have accelerated the conversation surrounding “creative” or “innovative” advertising, but not everybody agrees with those terms. Among those not featured in this week’s analysis is Geneva Overholser, director of USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism. She calls advertorials “the oldest trick in the book” and adds:

This is not creative or innovative – it’s caving. Why do something that fundamentally trades on deception? If they didn’t believe it would be more credible to make [the ads] look like editorial content, then why did they do it? This was bad advertising. It was aesthetically ugly as can be – not creative and definitely not progressive. Editors have fought this for years, not because they are prissy but because they don’t want their readers fooled.

For more perspectives on advertorials, see the analysis.

Much has been made about how to communicate with women, especially those who are considered healthcare decision makers, but an April 8 story in The Boston Globe at a look at the way men communicate health news.

The story says: “Men are raised with inhibitions or ‘rules of manhood’ that may keep them out of the healthcare system, Zoske explains. He says that most health messages are expressed in a ‘feminine form.’ The basic public health theme, he says, is, ‘Notice your body, pay attention when something isn’t working well, and seek help when needed.’ But, Zoske says, this statement doesn’t really speak to guys. He points out that men may be deaf to their body’s symptoms because they are brought up to ignore factors such as vulnerability and pain.”

Other key points include engaging men in a dialogue by letting them know that other men have similar symptons or ailments; communicating health messages by framing them in terms of safety, strength, and performance; and using numbers, statistics, and metaphors because men respond to those communications tools.

Asked about blogger-payment programs conducted by what many believe to be a growing number of communications professionals, Don Bates, professor at George Washington University, told PRWeek via e-mail that such efforts aren’t controversial, or new. Said Bates: “A minority of PR firms has been using paid advertising and paid media for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been around the business for more than 35 years.”

“Paid media is a reasonable extension of PR services, and to my way of thinking, something that should be considered, especially in this era of digital communications when so much is moving to the Wild West of online,” he said.

However, Bates added, the practice “is not for the uninitiated.”

“It may look easy but it isn’t. The required research, art, copy, placement, billing, administration – all are different than their counterparts in PR,” he added. “Then there’s the potential impact on your media relations work. Once you start advertising, the media will start to treat you like an ad agency with potentially negative consequences for your client’s or employer’s press coverage.”

PepsiCo is scrapping a redesign of its Tropicana packaging because of consumer complaints, the company The New York Times.

The redesign, which kicked off in January, also included a new advertising campaign, which will continue as planned “although future elements of the campaign” will be updated.

The brand plans to contact the consumers who called or wrote to the company about the changes to explain what Tropicana is doing, going forward.

Other companies, like and Johnson & Johnson, have faced situations where consumer complaints, some fueled by the visibility that social media provides, have caused companies to make immediate changes, says the Times.

Sensis, an interactive marketing agency, is working pro bono for The Trevor Project, which operates a crisis and suicide prevention line for LGBTQ youth, re-tooling the nonprofit’s online presence. Sensis reached out to Trevor Project as part of its Innovation Project, which brings together the different divisions to help nonprofits that need digital support.

“The online world is huge for us in [targeting] youth,” said Jacque Wing, communications manager for The Trevor Project. “Sensis developed a strategic plan and will implement more digital communications strategies.” This includes re-designing Trevor Project’s Web site, increasing outreach via social networks like and MySpace, and using its own social network, Trevor Space, to better communicate with youth.

Sensis is expected to offer more than $100,000 in pro bono services over the next year, and will equip the Trevor Project’s staff with skills and tools to keep the online communications going, Wing said.

It is not a good time for endorsements involving famous young men. While Michael Phelps is being dropped from his endorsements over suspicions of marijuana use, Wrigley is its advertisements with R&B artist Chris Brown pending an investigation of domestic violence.

Brown, 19, is known for hits like Kiss Kiss and Forever, which was an extended version of a jingle for Wrigley’s Doublemint gum. He was charged with making criminal threats after an altercation early Sunday morning. The victim is reportedly Brown’s girlfriend and well-known signer Rihanna. Brown turned himself into the LAPD on Sunday evening and neither he nor Rihanna attended last night’s Grammy Awards.

If you didn’t catch the full-page Wells Fargo ad in Sunday’s New York Times, the paper takes a closer look at it today.

“O.K., time out. Something doesn’t feel right,” writes John Stumpf, the chief executive of Wells Fargo, in a full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times and Washington Post. In a long letter, he blames misleading news articles that create the impression that “every employee recognition event is a junket, a boondoggle, a waste, or that it’s for highly paid executives. Nonsense!”
Its annual “recognition events,” Mr. Stumpf added, were paid for by profits, not the government.

Stumpf goes on in the ad, though, to say the company has canceled its “recognition events” for the rest of the year due to just this perception.

Wells Fargo was just in time for the new rules the White House is pushing that place greater restrictions on not only CEO pay from those companies seeking government and TARP help, but also on entertainment, holiday parties, and oh yes, . Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to announce additional plans for the bank bailout tomorrow. The TARP news was delayed a day as the Obama administration continued to focus on the stimulus package.

Lionsgate is trying to figure out how to market its much-discussed Sundance acquisition, Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, which includes some controversial material. The movie is about an illiterate young woman, played by Gabourey Sidibe, who is pregnant with her father’s child (for the second time), and is being abused by her mother, played by Mo’Nique. More information after the jump.
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