Take That You Meddling American!
An ad campaign running in Russia for Russian Finance Magazine has been banned by the Moscow Committee for Advertising and Information which claims the ad depicts the Euro having sex with the dollar. News Outdoor, a poster company, had to tear down 100 poster immediately after receiving a letter from the committee.
Magazine publisher Igor Maltsev didn't see a problem with the poster claiming, "I thought the currencies were dancing on our poster." Obviously, Mr. Maltsev has not been exposed to enough Western media to quickly realize the "poke" at humor.
In the current Iraq/terrorist climate, perhaps the ad is indicative of the feelings many Europeans have towards Americans. Maybe it's illustrative of their apparent desire to fuck us up the ass for our so called meddling in foreign affairs.
Corporate Logos Coming Soon To A School Bus Near You
Following the questionable move of advertising on police cars, the Marion County School District in Florida is making an even more questionable move by considering the placement advertising on its school busses. The School Board will decide the issues on November 25 and will reportedly work with a Miami-based advertising firm to handle the placement. There is no word on what type of advertising will be allowed by the format will likely mirror posters similar to those on subways.
The County is considering this because they need the money. All school systems need money but using kid-focused advertising to generate much needed revenue is an iffy proposition. Ads on cop cars are one thing but to further inundate already ad-satiated children with more commercial messages is questionable.
Schools were once an innocent, commercial free zone but now with soft drink companies and others making deals with school districts, that innocence is over. Whether this is harmful to children will be debated for years to come. If I were to offer an opinion, it would be this. There should be a time of innocence in life where commercialism does not enter in with its powerfully persuasive messages selling things people don't really need or want. Young minds have enough trouble filtering through the information that is relevant to their daily lives. Throwing commercial messaging into that mix is likely to overload children's minds and interfere with learning. The age at which a kid becomes indoctrinated into commercial culture gets younger every year. Let's not get to the point where a newly delivered baby, eyes just cleared by the doctor, stares at the ceiling of the delivery room and sees a McDonald's logo.
Hilary Duff's Future: Hottie or Wholesome?
The WB's Hilary Duff Island Birthday Bash tonight at 8PM will celebrate the star's birthday in an hour long special. Duff turns 16 and already has a number one CD, has been in movies and stared in a television show. She's also making the rounds in the advertising world appearing in ads for Hasbro's VideoNow personal video player and has a promotional agreement with Visa for a pre-paid Visa card in her likeness. If that weren't enough, she also has her own clothing line called Stuff. Stuff by Duff. Cute.
Duff may gain a level of pop stardom similar to or bigger than Britney Spears has today. Watching how she achieves that stardom though will be interesting. Spears as well as Christina Aguilera both took turns down the dirty road as part of their trip to fame. As hot as it would surely be, it's difficult to picture Duff in a Chistina Aguilera-like 'Dirty' video. But she's still a kid and hasn't reached the point that all kids do when they have to make that "I'm an adult now" statement. What she does when she makes that statement will have a great affect on the future of her career branding her in a way that will be hard to change.
Hasbro and Visa have made smart choices in casting Duff for their tween-focused products cashing in on the hottie's stardom and aligning her appropriately with age-relevant products. In two or three years time though, one wonders if will be seen in sexed-up commercials like the Beyonce spot for Pepsi in which a mechanic can't even get a word out of his mouth because he is so taken with Beyonce's booty. At this point, Duff's sex appeal is too wholesome for that. A few years ago so was Britney Spears' sex appeal yet that dramatically changed and it's now common place to see Spears ripping her clothes off every time she's on stage. Duff will have to choose her road very carefully.
More stories on Duff here.
In the U.K., Mazda has launched two new viral movie clips promoting the new Mazda6 to thirtysomething men. Viewership of the videos are tracked using an embedded technology developed by Digital Media Communications which can report the number of downloads, the number of times the video is viewed and click rates out of the video to Mazda's web site. J. Walter Thompson London developed the spots.
