Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will be the spokesman in a new ad campaign sponsored by Spike TV that will focus on men's health issues. In the ads that will run nationally, Giuliani tells men to get over the "macho thing" and take care of themselves. Toss that stoic attitude aside and go see your doctor for regular check ups and don't ignore that pain in your groin.
Giuliani went through a bout of prostate cancer himself and wants men to take the necessary precautions to fend off the disease as soon as possible. The campaign, whose goal is to get 100,000 men to get a physical, will air on Spike TV, MTV, VH1, CMT, Nickelodeon, Nick@Nite and TV Land.
Reps for Britney Spears are shopping an unscripted reality series idea to the networks. The series would follow Spears as she travels the European leg of her Onyx Hotel Tour with Spears narrating and filming some content on her own. Six episodes are planned and the series could air as soon as this Summer - that is if any networks bite.
Aside form the fact that some study a while back said the perception of advertising professionals rivals that of car dealers, a new study sponsored by Euro RSCG Worldwide and conducted by Market Probe International found advertising the top career choice among students and those already in the industry.
The study asked respondents to choose their top three out of 19 career paths and, overwhelmingly, advertising came out on top with 38 percent of students and 79 percent of industry professionals naming it their top choice. One wonders, though, if the other 18 choices were along the lines of garbage collector and septic truck operator.
The attributes of fun and creativity where ranked high as reasons for advertising being the top choice although if one were to compare the septic truck operator's job to that of the advertising professional's, pumping shit through a tube could be a good descriptor of both fields.
Bathroom humor aside, the study also found 38 percent of students would choose the creative aspect of advertising, 27 percent would choose media and even much maligned human resources brought in nine percent. In the no-brainer category, 80 percent of ad professionals stated clients are more powerful than agency management, 74 percent of ad professionals claim management will side with a client instead of standing up for the employee if it means losing the account and 64 percent of professionals say people leave the business because of "bad" clients.
Basically it all boils down to an industry of kids who can't play nice in the sandbox even though the sandbox is a really fun place to be.
Swiss beer maker Anfblute has been found guilty of promoting drugs because ads displayed marijuana leaves. Although no traces of actual marijuana were found in the beer by a team of experts, the beer, which carries the tag, "Beer with hemp leaves and hemp flowers," reportedly carries a strong aroma of marijuana.
Thanks to Adrants reader Charley Brough for the tip.
The annual MindShare Clutter Watch study measures how much non-programming activity occurs during an hour on television. It's now routinely over 15 minutes except for CBS has 14:18 per hour. That's up 58 percent from the good old days of the early 80's when per-hour clutter stood at a brief 9.5 minutes.
It's well known that increased clutter reduces ad recall and decreased clutter increases it but networks can't themselves from sniffing the line of ever diminishing ad dollars to keep themselves high on revenue. Networks are now in a pre-orgasmic state of urgency, fully aware the ride is almost over but equally unable to stop the incessant pummeling of viewers until their clutter violently explodes in the face of viewers leading to the inevitable post-coital recovery period where networks will have to re-tool and limp back to a workable business model.
