General Motors Corp. (GM) which has repeatedly featured as one of the top 3 ad spenders in the marketing world has slipped to the fourth position, this year. According to Ad Age's 22nd-annual Global Marketers report, for ad spending done in 2007, GM had to give way to L’Oreal and consistent leaders, Procter & Gamble and Unilever in the list. Procter & Gamble increased its global ad spending by 11.2 percent in 2007. It spent $9.4 billion on advertising, 77 % more than No. 2 advertiser and major P&G competitor Unilever, Ad Age reported. GM loitered around $3.3 billion in ad spending in 2007, a drop of almost 1% compared to the previous year. Additionally, GM reported losses of $15 billion in the last quarter, which has prompted the company to reduce its overall media spending next year, too.
Bewkes to Succeed Parsons as Chairman of AOL
Time Warner Inc. has elected Jeffrey Bewkes, chief executive, as the media company's chairman after Richard Parsons decided to step down at the end of the year. Bewkes also succeeded Parsons as CEO in January. The agreed contract terms include as much as $19 million in base salary and bonuses. Before becoming CEO, Bewkes had served as Time Warner’s president and operating chief since 2006. From 1995 until 2002, he was the head of Time Warner’s HBO network, which was flooded with hits, including ''The Sopranos'' and the comedy ''Sex and the City'' during that time. It is still not clear what Richard Parsons will do after leaving AOL. He is currently the on the board of Citigroup, and is an economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama.
Google Chrome Exits Beta with Gold 1.0 Release
Google’s Chrome web browser is out of its gestation period within a mere three-and-a-half months, with its new Chrome 1.0 release. Many analysts have termed Google’s move as ''surprising'' because Gmail which was launched in 2004 is still in the beta mode. Brian Rakowski, product manager for Google Chrome said in a phone interview that the engineering team has worked on a lot of bugs to making the product stable and is now available for use. The Mac and Linux versions are still in progress, and work is going on in tandem with respect to some minor bugs and issues. Google has rolled out only 14 updates in the space of 100 days of Chrome’s launch. According to figures released by Net Applications about the browser market share, Chrome’s market is still below 1% after three months and still a baby compared to other browsers.
