This week, the media world becomes enamored with the most interesting man in the world, Google launches a new music search service, and Kellogg's sees their gamble into advertising pay off handsomely. 

Are you man enough?

Who do you get when you cross Ernest Hemingway, Bill Murray, and Burt Reynolds? The Most Interesting Man in The World, according to Mexican beer brand Dos Equis. Played by Jonathan Goldsmith and narrated by Frontline's Will Lyman, The Most Interesting Man in The World is Dos Equis’s ad campaign that is fronted by a man in his late-50s who embodies the mid-20th century spirit of a “man’s man” – a beer-loving, suave world-traveller with a penchant for bench-pressing women and taking on Grizzly Bears.

Developed by marketing firm Euro RSCG, the campaign includes a website that has such features like The Most Interesting Academy, which is "the world's premier institution for the education and dissemination of the study of Being Interesting". Also within the site is Behind Interesting, which features musical videos of men who wish they were as interesting as the Most Interesting Man in the World.

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Google: Now with music

Following the release of Wave and Social Search, Google continues on with its policy of “launch fast, think later” projects with Google music search. Announced to the public last week, the service would allow users to stream audio previews -- provided by music partners such as MySpace -- when they search for an artist, album, or song. In addition to that, users are also able to find tour info and buy concert tickets.

“When you click the result you’ll be able to listen to an audio preview of the song directly from one of those partners,” Google wrote on its company blog. “For example, if I search for ["21st-century breakdown"], the first results provide links to songs from Green Day’s new album. MySpace and Lala also provide links to purchase the full song.”

Google’s latest service, however, is nothing new in the search engine game, as rival Yahoo! has a similar service called Yahoo! Music for years now. So, how much of an advantage would this service be to Google over its competition? Not much, according to Adam Ostrow of tech-newsblog Mashable, who wrote that this new feature would benefit MySpace’s presence more than it would for Google. 

“The biggest winner here (or at least the company that needs this the most) would seem to be MySpace, who continues to work to reinvent itself as a content and entertainment destination where music plays a huge role,” Ostrow wrote. MySpace, the once-leader of the social networking world, has since fallen drastically behind to Facebook, and reported a massive 20% drop in US traffic since June this year. 

Breakfast of Champions

Pushing more dollars into advertising has paid off handsomely for food manufacturers Kellogg Co., which beat industry expectations with 3Q earnings, AdAge reported. The company’s earnings per share grew 5% during the quarter after boosting its advertising expenditure by 17% in the quarter, with another double-digit increase for ad expenditure on the way for the next quarter.

"Our commitment to investing in advertising continues to be a key to our business model and to achieving our goals," Kellogg Chief Financial Officer John Bryant said in an interview with AdAge. "Rather than take advantage of lower rates to reduce the cost of our advertising investment, we see this as a great opportunity to increase our investment and build even stronger brands in the future. Higher spend combined with media deflation and a push on efficiency is driving a significant increase in advertising pressure."

Besides spending more, Kellogg was also wiser in its ad strategies during the quarter by reducing the number of costly TV commercial shoots, and focused instead on more online campaigns, which provided better return of investment (ROI) than television advertising, in some cases by a factor of more than two.  

Looking forward, CEO David MacKay said the company would now be focusing on its eight best-performing cereals, including the Kashi organic brand, adding that this strategy has been integral to Kellogg's continued success. 

"During the quarter, these brands grew net sales at a strong 8%, with Special K, Rice Krispies brand and Kashi each delivering double-digit growth," MacKay said. "This strong growth from our top brands was driven by double-digit increase in our advertising investment, as well as successful promotions."