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The number of presentations has continued to grow, with over 70 events held this year, according to the firm. The addition of the NewFronts, digital video's attempt to steal some ad dollars from TV budgets, has significantly crowded the calendar.

"Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on upfront events… What's interesting to see is just how useful they are and how much they affect marketers and buyers decisions," said Bob Flood, VP-media consultant at Advertiser Perceptions.

With the end approaching for this year's upfront talks, where networks secure commitments for ad time in the approaching TV season, research firm Advertiser Perceptions asked over 300 marketers, agency executives and media buyers about the dog-and-pony shows that kick off negotiations. More than half -- 61% -- said attending the presentations didn't affect their decisions about allocating ad dollars.

To help decide which celebrity is the best choice for a film role or product endorsement, entertainment and marketing executives can tap into a host of numbers to gauge public figures' star power. So many, in fact, that the numbers leave a dizzying portrait of who's hot and who's not. At least four companies regularly track opinion on public figures in entertainment and sports. The venerable Q Score, in its fifth decade, surveys consumers once or twice a year by mail. Three newer competitors rely on the Web, enlisting panel participants to weigh in more regularly. The numbers are marketed to advertisers and casting directors to help them identify celebrities for product pitches or starring roles. But the various ratings sometimes show sharply different results.

Last July, 65% of respondents to an E-Poll Market Research poll who were aware of Mr. Woods said they liked him, or liked him a lot. That proportion dropped to 26% in their latest rating, earlier this month. Some 31% found the golfer insincere, while only 2% found him trustworthy (compared with 1% and 28%, respectively, for Tom Hanks in the most recent poll, last April).

Davie Brown Entertainment, a unit of Omnicom Group, began polling in 2006, after talking to marketers and ad agencies about the attributes most important to them in celebrity endorsers. The company settled on seven attributes, including appeal, influence and trust. Respondents who recognize the celebrity are asked to rate him or her on each of those attributes on a six-point scale. Then their scores are averaged, and that attribute average is combined with awareness, which is weighted more heavily, to produce the Davie Brown Index. Assigning so much weight to name recognition can yield perplexing results. Mr. Woods's index dropped only modestly, to 80.9 just before his apology from 89.2 a year earlier, in part because slightly more people were aware of him. This helped overcome a plummet in trust, to 43.7 from 68.8. "The overall DBI number is very, very important, but we look at everything," says Jeff Chown, president of Davie Brown Entertainment's talent division. The newest entrant on the scene, Millward Brown, rates celebrities and brands on the same scale, to identify the best marketing fit. Like the Davie Brown Index, Millward Brown's Cebra scores also emphasize familiarity, which is averaged with likability and "buzz," or media attention. Mr. Woods's Cebra score dropped only slightly, to 67 this month from 70 last September. A crash in likability, to 46 from 69, was mitigated by a surge in buzz, to 85 from 74; and a small bump in familiarity, to 70.

ielsen's upcoming total audience measurement tool—which the company shared exclusively with Adweek on Tuesday—will finally show networks and advertisers how their content is viewed across all platforms. But as the company works with top industry execs to evolve video measurement, Nielsen says its new data will also help buyers optimize their media plans.

In March, Nielsen acquired data management platform Exelate to help with programmatic buying

"We're able to bring all our data assets together in one place and create a respondent-level database," said Clarken. Advertisers can carve out segments for audience buying, which Exelate will pull together and then make real-time programmatic buys.

Category: Best Use of Social ($2 million - $4 million) Few marketers, especially beauty brands, have made it their mission to improve their consumers' self-esteem. That's what Unilever brand Dove has done, making inroads since 2004 with its "Campaign for Real Beauty." But a lot can change in a decade. "In 2004 women were fundamentally benchmarking themselves against the images in a magazine," says Cindy Gustafson, managing director of the invention studio at Mindshare. "And in 10 years there's been an incredible seismic shift because of the advent of social media and technology. The fact is this is where women are now taking their self-esteem cues from." Mindshare analyzed 18 million tweets and found that a third of them contained negative beauty or body image content, and women were 50 percent more likely to tweet negatively about themselves. Dove decided to change the conversation and partnered with Twitter for the #SpeakBeautiful campaign, which encouraged women to use social media as a tool for body and beauty in a positive way. Given the image-conscious nature of awards shows, Dove launched #SpeakBeautiful during the Oscars' Red Carpet and published tweets every 30 minutes. It also sent 800 personalized messages to women during the event, hoping to inspire them to send positive messages. The results were impressive: The campaign scored almost 6 million tweets, over 800 million social impressions and reached a unique audience of 13 million. Compared to the Oscars in 2014 there were 30 percent fewer negative tweets and 69 percent more positive tweets about self-beauty. It helped Dove's brand perception, too. Among people who engaged with the campaign, 27 percent had a higher intent to purchase Dove products, according to Nielsen; brand sentiment also increased 17 percent, according to Twitter. —Kristina Monllos

Category: Best International Campaign ($1 million - $5 million) No one can dispute the success or ubiquity of Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign, which substituted the iconic Coke logo with people's names in a bid to personalize their carbonated experience. But how to keep it bubbly? Coke and MediaCom U.K. planted the flag for Year 2 of the campaign in England, giving viewers of Channel 4's 4oD digital catch-up TV platform (now called All 4) a chance to see their own names on bottles—a potential reach of 11 million. Led by Chris Binns, managing partner and head of engineering, MediaCom U.K. latched onto 4oD subscribers' sign-in names to create personalized ads for each viewer, ending the messages with the tagline "Share a Coke With …" followed by the viewer's name on the bottle. In total, the effort generated 4 million dynamically generated, highly personalized TV ads. And 4oD subscribers carried the effort one step further, with many taking to Twitter to register their happiness at seeing their names on the small screen. ("How did the 4oD Coke advert know my name and put in on a can? I'm so confused and happy!" tweeted @remzitomlin.) The effort, says Binns, "delivered that moment to millions of consumers in their own homes, in a natural way while they were doing something they loved [watching TV], rather than … hoping that they would find their bottles on store shelves." Furthermore, campaign awareness in the U.K. rose 17 percent, while ad recall jumped 71 percent and purchase intent gained 24 percent. —Michael Bürgi

Category: Best International Campaign (less than $1 million) To give fashion fans a sneak peek at the Alexander Wang x clothing collection at the department store H&M, media agency UM turned to Twitter as "the key to unlock the mysterious box of Wang." The IPG shop aimed to show fashionistas around the world that its client had the most exclusive apparel from a leading designer, and it built buzz (while downplaying competitors' campaigns) by focusing on bloggers and social media influencers in the high-fashion vertical. First, the client created a literal box that appeared in London's St. Christopher's Place. Curious fans could only view the fashion-forward contents of the box by tweeting the campaign's hashtag, and H&M followed by sending both personalized tweets and images/videos of the Wang items in question to these aficionados. Using this strategy, UM was able to create significant hype around the collection's release, despite having a smaller budget than previous campaigns. UM creative director Marcia Siebers says the campaign was "a direct consequence of our unique relationship with H&M," adding that the live personalization "built anticipation for everyone who got involved" and delivered a unique experience to both those who visited the physical site and those who watched online with "the speed that our fashionista customers demand." The campaign led to a 32 percent increase in positive mentions among influencers when compared to the client's preceding launch. It also facilitated a 179 percent monthly bump in Twitter mentions, with 80 percent of users tweeting about the collection more than once. Most significantly, all six London H&M stores sold out of the collection within 24 hours. —Patrick Coffee

By 2017, 85% of the world will be covered by 3G mobile internet and half will have 4G coverage, according to Sony Ericsson. Three billion smartphone users will contribute to data traffic that's 15 times heavier than today's. For more and more consumers, the most important screen will be the tiny one in their pocket.

To put it bluntly, there needs to be more ad spending on mobile, which now comprises only about 1% of budgets, according to a recent study from the consultancy Marketing Evolution. Based on ROI analyses of smartphone penetration, that figure will be about 7%. In five years' time, that number will need to be in excess of 10%.

USER EXPERIENCE IS THE NEW 30-SECOND SPOT User-experience design is too often thought of as a digital-marketing task, ensuring that website and app development meet and ideally exceed usability standards.

As befits a performer whose following is concentrated so much among young people, the campaign to promote Girlfriend, with a budget estimated at $20 million, is focusing on social media like Tumblr and Twitter. Mr. Bieber’s Twitter feed is followed by almost 22.9 million people, and he has close to 44 million “likes” on Facebook.

The new media aspects of the campaign will also touch on the ads appearing in traditional media. For instance, Mr. Bieber is going on Facebook and Viddy, a mobile video sharing service, this week to invite fans to enter a “sing-off” on Tumblr to help create a 60-second television commercial for Girlfriend.

The agency working on media planning for the Girlfriend campaign, Media Kitchen in New York, part of the Maxxcom Global Media division of MDC Partners, also handled those duties for the Someday campaign.

Comprised of five agencies – Toyota's agency of record, Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, plus Burrell Communications, Conill, InterTrend Communications and Zenith – Total Toyota unites the automaker's multicultural marketing initiatives under one umbrella. Toyota's Camry is the nation's best-selling car and the automaker claims Toyota is the No. 1 auto brand among Hispanics, African- and Asian-Americans.

A total of six spots will air over the course of the campaign, which also features print and radio elements, as well as some interactive and experiential programs designed to present the car to audiences that are much smaller and more specific than the mass viewership tuning in for Sunday night's game.

One includes sponsorship of the DramaFever Awards. DramaFever is a video-streaming site that specializes in international TV, including South Korean teenage dramas and Spanish-language telenovelas. In addition to sponsorship of the Awards themselves, Camry will sponsor a branded "Bold and Beautiful" award. Another planned facet of the campaign is a social media-oriented push in which a chef will visit restaurants and share recipes while getting fans to share their own.

If the phrase “an embarrassment of riches” can be applied to any advertising campaign, it can certainly be applied to the long running series of GEICO TV commercials. In the past 15 years, GEICO has made the pedestrian line “Fifteen minutes could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance” memorable through a shrewd combination of good, old-fashioned sheer repetition and one of the most prolific and varied advertising efforts in living memory. They’ve made advertising icons out of a Gecko and modern-day, still-living-among-us Cavemen, along with a veritable cavalcade of odd characters, near-celebrities, and even other consumer products. Here’s a brief sampling of some of the best GEICO TV work of the past decade, and then some. This is a completely unscientific sampling. And no googly-eyed “Kash” spots either. Just sit back and enjoy.1. Self-Licking DogThis is the proverbial “oldie but goodie.” Just the right amount of “eww” and a harbinger of things to come.2. Squirrel Hi-FiveWe always knew there was a great squirrel conspiracy. We just had no idea it went this far.3. Mrs. Butterworth“Someone’s placed a logo right over my face!” Simply classic.4. The First Gecko SpotIf not for the Screen Actors Guild strike of 1999, we may have never seen the birth of this endearing character voiced here by none other than Kelsey Grammer.5. Airport CavemanTo this day, perhaps the most enduring spot of the Caveman series. Sold lots of singles for the band Röyksopp, too.6. Into the wall"Listen, go-kart track, grocery store, those remote-controlled boats; when it comes to Mike Wallace, the story ends with me putting him in the wall."7. Butta and JamIt was this one or “Free Pie and Chips.” In the end, the Gecko’s “That’s a complete dramatization, of course, but you get my point,” puts this one over the top.8. Caveman Therapy OneTalia Shire! Brilliant casting, and who doesn’t love “My mother’s calling; I’ll put it on speaker”?9. Trust ExerciseTwo words: “Oh, dear.”10. Charlie DanielsBest of the new Robert Stack “Unsolved Mysteries” Parodies. “That’s how you do it, son.”

Once upon a time, Schwinn pretty much owned the American bicycle market and, with models like Varsity, Continental, and of course, the Paramount, defined American-made bicycling dominance. But that was back when a carbon frame was something you made with a pencil, and brands like Trek, Specialized, Cannondale and Giant had not climbed onto retail bike racks.

Schwinn is hoping to get its brand mojo in high gear with a new campaign aimed squarely at a vast consumer base of recreational riders:

The $5 million-plus marketing push -- Schwinn's largest in at least a decade -- includes TV, print, Internet banners, a new Web site (RideSchwinn.com), social media, and a major retail rethink for Schwinn's big-box and independent bike shop retailers, based on the idea that a forest of bicycles on store racks does not a brand make.

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