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Pepsi will reportedly be skipping its annual Super Bowl commercials, and will instead invest the money it would generally spend on those, in social media marketing. This would make the first time in 23 years that Pepsi will not have Super Bowl ads.

Larry D. Woodard, President and CEO of Manhattan ad agency Vigilante writes in an ABC News piece:

Pepsi represents one of the stalwarts, not just of the Super Bowl advertiser lineup, but of broadcast TV in general. In 2006, spending on brand, Pepsi was at about $150 million. Although brand spending has been decreasing in recent years, Pepsi has continued to spend tens of millions on TV. And the Super Bowl annually has the largest audience of any TV show.

As television viewership has gone down, Internet usage, particularly social media interaction, has increased. The 2009 Super Bowl attracted an impressive 95.4 million viewers (approximately 42.1 percent of U.S. TV homes) and many of those watch the commercials as attentively as the football game. By contrast, in the important 18-34 demographic, a whopping 85 percent use social media (texting, blogging or social networking), and the phenomenal growth of social media has the attention of every major company. This holiday season, Toys "R" Us developed a Facebook page that grew at the astounding rate of between 40,000 and 95,000 fans per day after its late November launch.

As the numbers Woodard mentions would indicate, the Super Bowl is always an advertiser’s dream. It costs big bucks, but there are so many eyeballs on those ads, and some people even watch the event just to see the commercials. Pepsi’s move really says something about how far social media has come in the advertising world in such a short time. The fact that the company is breaking such a long-standing tradition in favor of it says a lot.

Of course social media will play its role in the further viewing of the Super Bowl ads themselves. They will no doubt appear on various video sites, and will be shared by countless people on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.
 

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It could be said that the Google Books case is becoming the new Microsoft-Yahoo deal, having created all sorts of controversy and dragged on and on.  And on some more, as it turns out, since the involved parties are pushing a target date back again.

A revised proposal concerning how Google and its critics could settle their differences was originally supposed to be submitted to Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan federal court a little more than a month ago.  Obviously, that didn’t happen, and Chin picked today (Monday, November 9th) as an alternate goal.

Now, Motoko Rich has reported, "The parties to the Google book settlement, which would legalize the creation of a vast library of digital books, have asked the judge overseeing a revision of the agreement for an extension to this Friday, Nov. 13."

It sounds like the lines of communication are still very much open, though, as Rich also wrote, "[T]he group indicated that it had met with the Justice Department before and after the October status hearing and had met as recently as Friday, Nov. 6."  And (hopefully) Friday the 13th isn’t far enough away for this delay to signal serious trouble.

So as before, stay tuned, and maybe this whole thing will be resolved before the "early 2010" deadline Microsoft and Yahoo have set for their partnership.

Related Articles:

> November 9th Target Set In Google Books Case

> Google Books Gets A Little More Organized

> Google Books Opens Door To On-Demand Printing

Shoe retailer Steve Madden has filed a lawsuit against eBay over the alleged sale of counterfeit watches on the auction site.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan Tuesday, claimed eBay has failed to remove counterfeit watches from the site bearing the Steve Madden brand name. The suit accuses eBay of trademark infringement.

"The issue with such advertising and sales of such watches is the fact that neither Madden nor Madden subsidiaries has ever in the history of its business ever had for sale watches with any Madden name either through their own distribution (or) through licensing," the lawsuit said.

eBay’s Deputy General Counsel, Mary Huser said the company "leads the industry in innovative solutions to fight the sale of counterfeit items."

Huser pointed to a case last year in New York involving Tiffany and eBay in which the judge ruled, "Tiffany has failed to demonstrate that eBay knowingly encouraged others to dilute Tiffany’s trademarks." Tiffany is appealing that case.

"Over 99.85 percent of goods sold on eBay have no suspicion of counterfeit," Huser said and that the company works with owners to quickly remove counterfeit items.

A number of similar suits have been brought against eBay. Last year a French court ordered eBay to pay $61 million to luxury goods designer LVMH for allowing counterfeit merchandise to be sold on the site. eBay is appealing that case.