'Blender' Rolls Out "Rock & Roll Hollywood" With Bash

Blender magazine and Cadillac will hosting an event, October 27th at a private Hollywood Hills mansion to celebrate Blender's inaugural "Rock & Roll Hollywood" November issue. Sponsored by Cadillac, Aldo, Absolut Vodka and St. Pauli Girl Beer, Blender's "Rock & Roll Hollywood" bash will combine entertainment's two most decadent lifestyles, music and film, into one memorable event.

Reportedly, 500 actors, musicians, entertainment insiders and tastemakers will attend to frolic in luxury suites, drink specialty cocktails, enjoy deluxe gift scwag bags and listen to a soundtrack provided by DJs Samantha Ronson and Brent Bolthouse. Live music will be supplied by The Shins, who, as the Rock & Roll Hollywood cover star Natalie Portman observed in Garden State will "change your life." We'll see. Also performing will be LA three-piece, The Like, recently covered in Blender's Almost Famous" feature.

Cadillac will have on hand its latest models including the Escalade ESV which will take guests from Sunset Boulevard to the secret party location, as well as be displayed outside whoever's fancy mansion the party is at. Guests will also be swarmed with advertising campaigns displayed by Absolut and Aldo while lowly St. Pauli Girl beer is served. Someone please invite us!

Mountain Dew Launches MDX Energy Drink

Mountain Dew has introduced a new energy drink, MDX, and will launch a BBDO created ad campaign called Be Nocturnal, consisting of two spots, "All Night Long" and "Sunglasses At Night," October 22 during the World Series to introduce the drink. Print and radio will accompany the television. Check it all out here.

Watchmaker Taps Claudia Schiffer for Ad Campaign

Watch company Ebel, which has featured Nicole kidman, Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, Uma Therman and Meg Ryan in its ads, has added supermodel Claudia Schiffer to the list. The black and white ads were shot in party capital Ibiza by photographer Patrick Demarchelier

Energy Drink Says No to Sugar

Here's an intriguing campaign for New Zealand-based energy drink V. In the ads, hot models (naturally) scold a cube of sugar as it tries to read Penthouse, electrocute itself by sticking a fork in an outlet and attempt to camcord a topless sunbather. It gets the idea across quite well. See all the ads here. And for the detail nudges out there, don't get all up in our boxers about whether these ads are new or not. We have no idea nor do we care. We just like them.

Study: Consumers Like Custom Publications

Fifty-eight percent of consumers are "very aware" or "somewhat aware" of custom publications and once they were presented with specific examples of custom publications, 93% of respondents were familiar with at least one type of custom publication, according to a new national poll conducted for the Custom Publishing Council by Roper Public Affairs this summer. The survey, "Americans' Relationship with Custom Publications and the Companies that Provide Them," found that 85% say that if they are going to get information from a company, they'd prefer to get it in an interesting collection of articles, rather than an ad.

Though only 58% immediately knew the term "custom publishing," once surveyers explained what custom publications were – e.g., a magazine from the manufacturer of an automobile that you drive – 80% said they often find interesting information in these magazines and 75% said that they felt better informed after reading these publications.

Tango Doubles Rate Base

Tango, a magazine about lofty issues such as love, life and the pursuit happiness, has doubled its rate base to 200,000 effective with its February 2006 issue. The magazine, which launched as a quarterly, will also shift to bi-monthly publication in 2006. Tango has also hooked up with P & G which most recently chose Tango as its media partner to promote the second annual "National Date Night": a "national initiative designed to motivate couples to spend that much needed time with their spouse."

Gay.com Leverages Big Feet in New Campaign

Coinciding with National Coming Out Day, Planet Out's Gay.com on Tuesday launched a new ad campaign with the tagline "More Than Meets the Eye" which fixates on the apparent relationship between foot size and...well...dong size. Along with a promotional online video in which a guy plays footsie with men of all different foot sizes until he finds foot-measure-breaking Mr. Bigfoot, print ads and outdoor ad to the campaign. Too bad there isn't an accompanying hetero campaign in which the relationship between booty size and breast size was explored.

Pointlessly, TV Guide Relaunches

Facing the proliferation of on screen guides, TV Guide, back in July announced it would revamp the magazine in a, some would say, pointless, effort to stay afloat. This week, the magazine launched its first redesigned issue which focuses more on features, stories and gossip than listings. TV Guide also announce a dramatic reduction in rate base from 9 million to 3.2 million and a cover price drop from $2.49 to $1.99. With Entertainment Weekly, TVgasm, TV Sqaud and countless other television news sources, who really needs TV Guide anymore? They should have just slapped JLH on the cover and called it good. We think people would snap that up quite quickly.

Maxim Living Helps Men Impress Women

Hoping to teach every guy how to turn his living space into a swanky love nest, Maxim has launched its Maxim Living microsite on which furniture and other lad-pad elements are featured. A house ad, created by Della Femina is currently running in the October issue of Maxim. Guys, check it out to improve your chances with the ladies. Ladies, check it out to see the lengths men will go to get into your..uh...show you a good time.

Brewer Corrects Meaning of BYOB

Austin-based advertising and branding agency, McGarrah/Jessee, has developed an ad campaign for the Spoetzl Brewery's Shiner brand for the launch of the brewer's Shiner 96, a new, limited-edition, commemorative beer created to celebrate the brewery's 96th anniversary. Spoetzl is Texas' oldest independent brewery and producer of Shiner beers, named for the town where the brewery began in 1909. Shiner 96, a Marzen-style ale, is the first of the company's annual series of commemorative beers which will lead up to the brewery's centennial celebration in 2009.

In the print ad, the headline reads, "In 1909, B.Y.O.B. meant build your own brewery." The ads feature an image of the beer and its label, along with an old photo of the Shiner Brewing Association, circa 1909. Out-of-home ads stick with the headline, a Shiner logo extension, and the new beer label.