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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).

Steven Levitt, president of Marketing Evaluations Inc., which produces Q Scores, responds that expecting people to fill out 46 attributes on 25 celebrities in one sitting, as E-Poll does, is unreasonable. His company's relatively simple rating—respondents can either indicate that they don't know a celebrity, or rate him or her on a scale of 1 to 5—allows him to ask respondents to rate 450 celebrities in one sitting, he says. But Q Scores are collected by mail, a time-consuming process that happens at most twice a year, unless a client makes a special request. As a result, the company's latest Woods numbers date from last summer, before he became gossip-page fodder. At the time the golfer had a positive Q score of 28—meaning he was named as a favorite by 28% of the 86% of respondents who recognized his name. His negative Q score—the percentage of those who knew him and rated him only fair or poor—was 19. These figures were little changed from six years earlier.

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.

Ms. Brown is the second female in the M&M’s cast, after Ms. Green, and like her colorful counterparts she will be imbued with a distinct personality. Ms. Brown is an intelligent woman with a sharp wit who finally decided to reveal herself after working for decades behind the scenes as “chief chocolate officer.”

Their devotion to the Super Bowl comes at no small cost. NBC is charging an average of $3.5 million for each 30 seconds of commercial time in the game, compared with an average of $3 million for each 30-second spot in Super Bowl XLV on Fox in February 2011. Even at that price, commercial time for Super Bowl XLVI has been sold out since Thanksgiving, NBC recently disclosed.

One way to ensure that a Super Bowl commercial is “not a splash, a flash in the pan,” Ms. Sandler said, is to make it the centerpiece of an elaborate campaign that takes place before, during and after the game. In fact, the spot will serve to “kick off a year of activity” to introduce Ms. Brown, she added.

The commercial also ushered in an era in Super Bowl advertising that we still inhabit: the ad as entertainment.

That we expect ads during the Super Bowl to be as entertaining as the game itself can largely be traced back to "1984."

In 1989, just a few years after "1984," the national newspaper introduced a revolutionary concept -- and a marketing masterstroke. Take a small panel of people, isolate them in a room with a meter and tell them to constantly turn a dial rating what they're seeing on a scale from one to 10.

Mr. Pray celebrates a later generation of mavericks who changed the business in the ’70s. His heroes are titans like Lee Clow, Dan Wieden, Hal Riney and George Lois

The film consists mostly of these men (and a few women, including the formidable Mary Wells) talking about how they work

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.

The YouGov BrandIndex, which tracks daily consumer perception, found that Volkswagen’s score in the U.S. as of Monday reached its lowest point since at least 2009, reported AdAge. The automaker’s “buzz” score had been hovering in the 10 to 11 range and now it is at -2 and “most likely to drop even further,” according to YouGov.

The scandal strikes an enormous blow to the corporation’s reputation.

A company that manufactures energy-efficient, or “green,” products like clean-diesel automobiles attains reputational benefits. Those benefits disappear with the loss of trust. The reputation of German manufacturing and the diesel engine product category have also suffered.

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.”

A campaign is under way in New York to promote a weeklong celebration of the Academy Awards — the film industry’s equivalent of New Year’s Eve in Times Square

The campaign is being sponsored by NYC & Company, the city’s official tourism, marketing and partnership organization, which is staging the week’s events in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The goal is to stimulate interest in the 82nd annual presentation of the Academy Awards, scheduled for Sunday, with activities in New York carrying the theme “Oscar and the City.”

The public events, which start on Monday, include screenings of Oscar-winning films with New York themes as well as exhibits of Academy Awards and film posters. The week is to culminate with an “Oscar Night and the City” viewing party on Sunday, at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, where paying guests can watch the ABC broadcast of the show.

Today, AdFreak celebrates seven years of CP+B and Burger King with a list of the 15 campaigns we're still talking about, for better or worse.