Cheddar's Kristen Scholer sits down with Pam Kaufman, Chief Marketing Officer at Nickelodeon, at the Ad Council's Annual Public Service Award dinner to discuss the network's strategy for its digital content. Kaufman talks about being equally focused on traditional TV and digital, as well as product. Nickelodeon is also targeting live content, and making it a huge priority in 2018.
Future Nickelodeon projects are also getting a warm reception from parent company Viacom after a year-long road of leadership changes. Nickelodeon just launched a 5-star family hotel in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, in hopes of catering to what Kaufman calls "velcro" families. Velcro families are families who like to spend a lot of time together as a group.
Kaufman also talks about the '90s nostalgia boom, and how Nickelodeon is capitalizing on the trend. She reveals the network will start teasing a reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in fall of 2018. Spongebob Square Pants is also making a comeback: the curtain goes up on a live Broadway production of the cartoon hit this December 4th.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
