San Diego Ad Club

Chuck Dunning has been named General Manager and Vice President of XETV/Channel 6, replacing Richard Doutre Jones, who had been with the station for the past nine years. Dunning, who has been at the station for 31 years, most recently was general sales manager. Previously, he managed the programming, promotion and research departments. Jones came to XETV from KBHK in San Francisco in 2001, and oversaw the 2008 network affiliate switch from Fox to CW.
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The San Diego Union-Tribune will convert its page width to 44 inches from the current broader page size. Mark Ficarra, vice president of sales and marketing, said in a recent letter to advertisers that the 44-inch size is rapidly becoming the industry standard for all newspapers, large and small.
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Also from the U-T:
-- After a 15-year hiatus from the paper, while he was editor of San Diego Magazine, Tom Blair has returned as a columnist. Blair’s column will appear on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Diane Bell, who became the paper’s columnist when Blair left, will continue her column on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
-- The weekly Spanish-language Enlace is expanding with Enlace Extra, a weekly publication to feature event listings and entertainment information for the San Diego region with distribution to 100,000 upscale households in Tijuana. Rita Jurczyk, director of major media sales, said market research found that people cross the border into San Diego for two major reasons – shopping and recreation.
-- Chris Reed’s “America’s Finest” blog “is on hold while the U-T determines its online strategy going forward for its opinion content,” Chris recently said in a post.
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Mires+Ball was recently featured in a San Diego Metropolitan article. Manny Cruz wrote the following:

When Taylor Guitars was about to launch its Thinline Five-Way (T5) electric guitar, its longtime brand design firm, Mires+Ball, faced a big challenge. How does a company synonymous with quality acoustic guitars move successfully into the electric market?

The answer, according to a case study performed by Mires+Ball, was to focus on Taylor’s history of technical innovation. “We positioned the T5 as an inevitable extension of the Taylor brand,” the study said. “Then, to attract a younger demographic, we gave the T5 a more electrified personality and devised a strategy to generate buzz.” That included product teasers and promotions and what the company called the “creative use of the Web.”

The end result was the most successful product launch in Taylor’s 31-year history and one of the most successful launches in the electric guitar industry.


Scott Mires, partner and creative director of the agency — a title he shares with co-owner John Ball — could be called a branding genius, judging from the success the agency has had with its many clients, including such top names as Black & Decker, LA Gear, Starbucks, Nike, Hewlett Packard and Qualcomm Inc.


Mires believes branding is much more than the definition offered by the dictionary. “To me,” he says, “branding is that thing that is the gut feeling you have inside about a product or a service or a company. And so as a consumer out there, it really brands it inside the consumer’s mind.”

Read the entire article: http://sandiegometro.com/2010/06/branding-by-design/
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Fox 5’s morning news anchor Arthel Neville has returned to the Fox News Channel. Arthel, the daughter of Art Neville of The Neville Brothers, is doing some substitute hosting, along with appearances on “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Fox & Friends.”
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Gary Kelley of The Kelley Co. (www.iDJSanDiego.com) recently emceed his first-ever charity fund-raising walk. He appeared at the Melisa’s Memorial’s 5k Walk and Fun Run, organized by San Diego Hospice and The Institute for Palliative Medicine (SDHIPM). The event drew more than 1,200 participants on 105 teams, and more than $165,000 was raised to support SDHIPM programs and services. Melisa’s Memorial was believed to be the largest first-year fund-raising walk ever held in San Diego County. Kelley is now in his 25th year of providing DJ services for special events. He also offers voiceover and on-camera services for commercial production. He also has been co-hosting “San Diego Living,” which airs from 9 to 10 a.m. on San Diego 6, and he appears in a new video seen on the USS Midway playing a Navy commander.
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Z90’s morning drive personality Tati helped emcee the first annual Musubi Map Poke Festival and Competition, recently held at the Bali Hai restaurant on Shelter Island. The event included food, live music, art and 30 San Diego restaurants competing for “Best Poke.” Patrons were able to sample Poke from 20 different chefs competing and fill up on food from 15 other restaurants and caterers. A portion of the money raised from ticket sales was donated to the Beacon of Hope Orphanage.
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MVS radio stations Exa 91.7 and La Mejor 99.3 have been recognized as Community Partner of the Year for their work with the Big Brothers Big Sisters Organization. The non-profit recently hosted its fifth annual volunteer recognition event at the new Gonzalez Sports Academy in Chula Vista. The event was named “The BIG Deal” to emphasize the enormous impact volunteers make in improving the lives of children through one-to-one mentoring. MVS Radio was recognized for providing significant assistance to Big Brothers Big Sisters in the promotion and support of the San Diego mentoring movement. The Big Brothers Big Sisters organization has been providing trusted mentors to San Diego’s children since 1961. The program has proven to increase children’s odds of succeeding in school, behaving nonviolently, avoiding drugs and alcohol, and breaking negative cycles. The MVS Radio stations have supported the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization for the past three 3 years, promoting events, presenting on-air campaigns with Bigs and Littles, helping to raise money and more. The mission, vision and goals to benefit the young San Diego Community are shared by both MVS Radio and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
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