IN INAPPROPRIATE CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT NEWS "Microsoft’s new $300 million advertising campaign has been kept tightly underwraps but word has spread that Jerry Seinfeld will be one of the key celebrity pitchmen. The Wall Street Journal reports that Seinfeld will appear with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in ads and receive about $10 million for the work. The new ad effort is expected to use some form of the slogan 'Windows, Not Walls,' several people familiar with the matter told the Journal. The campaign, said to debut Sept. 4, is one of the largest in the company's history."
What is the single most important issue to Mexicans illegally crossing the U.S. border? No, not finding food and water or an under the table job, or paying off their trafficker, but eating a hamburger that might've been made from the inhumane slaughter of a cow!
PETA, the animal rights group about as delirious as the Parents Television Council, is hoping to plaster the Mexico-U.S. border fence with ads that alert jumpers that "If the Border Patrol Doesn't Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will — Go Vegan."
Why the ridiculous marketing message?
Behold Christina Aguilera's new ad celebrating department store Macy's 150th birthday. We honestly can't come up with anything bad to say about the photo — it's stunning and doesn't involve any red lipstick. But, admittedly, our standards have been lowered quite a bit as of late.
Remember Gossip Girl’s tres provocative “OMFG” campaign from April, which kicked off the second part of the show’s first season amidst a round of buzz, especially when the Parents Television Council got in a huff over The CW’s marketing department insinuating the f-word?
Good news! More rebellious marketing materials for a show about teen sex, teen drinking, teen drug use and teen wealth. And conservative groups are really going to hate the ones below.
Well, it's only 2008 and the admen already think (know?) we're this lazy and programmed to conform, so how long until they completely abandon their games and just start saying, "Give us your money because other people have"?
Adman: We want two words to come to people's minds when they think of Auntie Anne's Pretzels: uncircumcised erection.
Aunt Annie's CEO: Brilliant!
Assuming that the average person has about 16 waking hours per day, researchers predict that in five years, almost a third of that time will be spent looking at video screens:
Consumption of video content is expected to rise 25% to five hours per day by 2013, compared with the four hours now watched in 2008, according to Forrester Research. The firm suggests the increase will be driven by consumers watching programming of all grades via computers, mobile phones, portable media players and even digital photo frames.
Yep, whereas we once had, "The revolution will not be televised," we're now stuck with, "The television will be revolutionized." What a great leap forward, huh? Excuse me for a second: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
OK, just got this e-mail from a – not joking – Ms Goon, asking if I'd like to cover an event in which women will be hawking hair dye made especially for pubes. "Let me know if you’re interested in attending, covering or need high res images, thanks!" she shouts. I, of course, am not interested, and I can't imagine what type of person would be after reading a description like this:
CONTINUED »
Heard about this movie Gangbang in the Gotham or Humping in the Apple or something? It comes out this week and the media can't seem to stop talking about either it or the advertising for it; a funny thing considering that talking about how crazy the advertising is for a movie is simply advertising for a movie in a crazy way. (Please, make the check out to "Cash," Sarah Jessica.)
Anyway, professional thieves in both New York and LA are already thinking of ways to swindle fans of Parker et al into paying exorbitant amounts of money to see this movie, which, though insane, seems to be working.
Among the most elaborate: sold-out "Sex and the City" tours throughout Gotham on Friday. The tours, starting at 10 minute intervals in mid-afternoon, stop off at the Pleasure Chest, where Charlotte purchased her Rabbit sex toy, and the bakery where Miranda devoured cupcakes, before a nosh, screening of the movie and afterparty at Guesthouse. Cosmos aren't included in the $130 pricetag…
Hey, if Carrie and the girls have taught us anything, it's spend indiscriminately and never worry about the consequences, because life is a fucking TV show. Have fun!
HOW BEST TO MARKET JESUS? "'From our experiences marketing to faith-based communities, we believe that moviegoers searching for appropriate entertainment don't exist independent from the mainstream,' says Adam Fogelson, Universal's president of marketing and distribution. 'In fact, they are the mainstream and depend on traditional marketing to inform decisions about which films seem right for themselves and their families.' Faith-based campaigns have failed to deliver big numbers even for such recent Christian-themed films as 'The Nativity Story' (2006, $38 million) or 'Facing the Giants' (2006, $10 million). For that reason, several marketing executives say they are shying away from faith-specific outreach."
An absurdly presumptuous Web site's been created to advertise sponsorship opportunities for Lindsay Lohan's 22nd birthday party. According to the site, the party will be a "unique branding opportunity" for companies looking to get in good with the cokey tart demographic.
Due to Lohan's checkered past, alcohol brands are not welcome sponsors. And drug dealers don't even advertise, so what company's going to be interested in this is anybody's guess.
That ridiculous and toxic "cool spotting" Web site we told you about earlier is already being made a mockery of using the very tools it provides. Though the site signed a deal giving exclusive sponsorship rights to Pepsi, Coca-Cola Classic is apparently the preferred soft drink of famous cool people. Ha!
Oh, for fuck's sake:
Coolspotters.com, a new Web site that presents what products celebrities are using, launched Wednesday in beta with Pepsi signed on as the exclusive launch sponsor.
The site … has pages for products … and connects them to actors, athletes, business icons, musicians and politicians.
For example, Jessica Alba's page features links to pictures of the actress wearing Timberland shoes or using a Sidekick 3. Pepsi's page has links to YouTube clips of Pepsi commercials featuring celebrities and candid photos of Lindsay Lohan and Alba with the soft drink.
Because it shouldn't taste good to you if it doesn't taste good to Jessica Alba.
SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY "NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co, plans to say next week that the entry price for a 2009 Super Bowl 30-second ad will be $3 million, the Wall Street Journal said on Tuesday. The $3 million mark has never been the starting price for a commercial at the Super Bowl, though individual slots have sold for that much before, the report said. Prices to buy a 30-second spot for the 2008 Super Bowl averaged $2.7 million …"
The American Beverage Institute, a lobbying group for alcoholics and their pushers, the liquor companies, took out a full-page ad in today's USA Today (timely!) to run what you see at left. According to the Copyranter, the Beverage Institute thinks it's bullshit that "activists" are trying to install breathalyzers ("ignition interlocks") into every car in America. Because apparently, as this ad clearly portrays, when laughing businesspeople pound beers until they're over the legal limit to drive, it's far better than when Lindsay Lohan does it.
Larger picture after the jump.
CONTINUED »
Alas, despite reports to the contrary, Jennifer Lopez's upcoming "reality program" is not a reality program at all, according to People magazine.
Instead, the show, airing on TLC, is going to be a very elaborate commercial for Lopez's upcoming fragrance. People shut off from the world enough to tune should not expect to get a glimpse into Lopez's life as a married mother of new twins, but rather to learn about the intricacies of "the creation, production and eventual launch" of a branded perfume. It's marketing and consumerism pawned off as entertainment and, unfortunately, it's reality.
HOW SOON UNTIL IT DEVOLVES INTO PORN? "In a deal with Nokia, Spike Lee will assess video, music, photos and text material created by consumers with their cellphones, then help assemble the various snippets into a three-part short film … The film will have three acts with the theme loosely based on the concept of humanity."
Editor
