Newsflash! Hearing Aids Are Cool!

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A long time a go in a place far, far away, a certain class of people were once not so affectionately known as retards. Now, far more affectionately, if a bit sterile-sounding, they're known as mentally-impaired/challenged/disabled. As well, there once was a class of people known as cripples. These very same people are now known as the handicapped.

In the 19th century, doctors coined the terms midget and dwarf to describe people whose height was other than normal or proportional. These height-challenged (oops, did we just make up a new one?) are now known as little people. Doctors even threw around the terms moron, imbecile and idiot to describe people of varying (and low) IQ levels. Now, not so much.

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Whales Get Honor Treatment from Contrite Japanese

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Leo Burnett made this pretty little GreenPeace video for Japan, which is currently undergoing some drama having to do with whaling and such.

Because whale meat was the main source of protein for the island after WWII, Japan feels it has the right to go on whaling, even if there's no demand for the meat (according to the Greenpeace pressie, considering we don't ourselves know how much or how little the island folk need whale meat today).

So Greenpeace goes, okay, let's restructure this historical conversation and turn the notion of man-to-whale relationships into one of reciprocal respect, instead of a Giving Tree situation (we hated that book, by the way) - where one side keeps giving until there's just nothing left.

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Allison Stokke Pole Vaulted to Internet Fame. Will Nike Bite?

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There are unconfirmed and likely false rumors floating about that Nike will sign a marketing deal with high school pole vaulting sensation Allison Stokke. A few weeks ago, Stokke became the subject of a leering Internet drool fest much to the chagrin of Stokke and her family who felt, first hand, what's it's like to be the object of Internet admiration. While images of Stokke are said to have been circulating for years, it wasn't until an image of her posing her her pole appeared on the sports blog With Leather that things broke loose.

Stokke, 18, is a senior at Newport Harbor high school in Newport Beach, California, set the freshman female pole vaulting record of 12' 8" and now jumps consistently over 13 feet. She's won titles, broken records and earned scholarships but now she's feeling the unfortunate fame of becoming an Internet celebrity. At first, she kept it a secret when friends tipped her her images were beginning to appear all over the Internet. Shortly after that she told her parents and has now considered consulting handlers to deal with all the sudden media attention.

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by Steve Hall    Jun- 4-07    
Topic: Online, Opinion, Social, Strange, Trends and Culture



AMC Brings Back Good Old Days of Advertising With 'Mad Men'

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Hey old timers, remember when there was this thing called the three martini lunch? When men ran the office without fear of women climbing the ladder? When advertising was unfettered by annoyances such as fees, unbundling, the Internet, agency consultants, sequential liability, TiVo, consumer-generated media, Donny Deutsch? Yes, there were once simpler times in the ad business. When men were men and a handshake was better than a 300 page contract.

Susannah Breslin tells us Cabler AMC plans to bring back those day with its Mad Men, a series about the New York ad business in 1960 from the executive producer of The Sopranos. The trailer promises the show will be every bit as sexist as it supposedly was back in the day. Of course, we're sure they'll be the required current day tweaks to make it all more palatable so as not to completely alienate the now overly sensitive society in which we now live.

by Steve Hall    Jun- 4-07    
Topic: Cable, Good, Trends and Culture



Luxury Marketing Gets Its Six Ps of Fame

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You have to pardon the Rovion-powered blather which greets you as you visit this page of Boston-based agency Winsper Inc. which promotes its latest white parer, The 6Ps of Luxury Marketing (yes, you have to fill out a form to get it but it's a really short one). While Winsper Inc. President Jeff Winsper might appear to sound like any other Rovion-powered wind bag usurping the peace and quiet of your website travels, the man is smart. And knowledge of this comes first hand having worked with the man for four years. So give the guy a break for his Rovion rambles.

Anyway, the agency has published this white paper which, like those 5Ps (or is it 4?) of marketing, examine people, product, passion, pleasure, purpose and price as they relate to marketing luxury products. It's insightful. It's informative and it does a nice job explaining the process of luxury marketing, something Winsper Inc. has been doing since it launched five years ago.

by Steve Hall    May-31-07    
Topic: Good, Publishing, Research, Trends and Culture



WK12 Student Finds Inspiration in 'Border Film Project'

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There is life after Wieden + Kennedy's 12 school. Though not necessarily in advertising. After Rudy Adler completed his stint at WK12, he set out to document life on the U.S./Mexico border and called his work The Border Film Project. He and those that worked with him provided cameras to undocumented migrants hoping to gain entry into America and to the American Minuteman trying to stop them.

Adler has launched a website that documents the project and shares the pictures taken during the project. There's also a recently released book, Border Film Project, which is being sold on Amazon, in bookstores and in American Apparel stores.

Of the project, Adler tells us, "As a writer, it definitely inspires my creative process and keeps things interesting." Indeed. Inside the walls of a creative conference room is, ironically, the last place from which inspiration usually unleashes itself.

by Steve Hall    May-31-07    
Topic: Agencies, Good, Publishing, Trends and Culture



Hey Dude, We're Not Dead Yet!

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Hey all you 20 and 30 somethings conquering the world from inside the creative conference room, the older set wants you to know they're still alive and they have a lot of money to spend on that product you should be marketing to them. Oh sure, it's much more fun to develop a campaign for the standard but utterly meaning 18-49 demo but if you want to make some real money, the action's squarely with the over 50 boomer set. Unliver's getting in on the action. You should be too.

Recent research from Unilever's Boomer Project finds 45 percent of households are boomers but they make 60 percent of all packaged goods purchases. That's found money my friend. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and pitch the Depends account!

by Steve Hall    May-29-07    
Topic: Research, Trends and Culture



Hillary Explores Theme Song Options, Almost Smiles Once or Twice

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Hillary, who for the 2008 presidential campaign is pushing viral in a big way, recently invited would-be voters to help her pick a campaign song.

Here she discusses the results and even sort of invites people to laugh at her, except with Hillary one never feels comfortable laughing about anything.

If we were Hillary we'd play the Darth Vader theme everywhere we went and act really pompous (think Xerxes, 300).

Hit the Hillary Clinton website to find out which song won. It probably wasn't the Darth Vader theme, but that would have cost way too much anyway. Sanjaya's looking for a gig, though.

by Angela Natividad    May-25-07    
Topic: Campaigns, Celebrity, Good, Trends and Culture



Beer Hunk Ad Results in Formation of Canexico, BJs For Every Man

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What? Wait a minute. This just isn't right. Have we finally realized women aren't the only objects that can be used to sell beer? Is it possible a hot guy could attract as much attention as a hot girl? Just what is going on here? Are we observing a new trend of sorts? What, pray tell, are all the leering, slobbering, Budweiser drinkers going to do now that they may be subjected to the trite objectification of men instead of the beer babeliciousness they have come to expect from most brewers' advertising?

We are stunned. Stunned! Have we reached a culturally significant watershed moment here? This just boggles the mind. This turns things upside down. Are the Coors Twins out of a job? What about the Miller Lite Cat Fight babes? The St. Pauli Girl? The Rolling Rock Beer Ape Babes? The Milwaukee's Best Automotive Girl? The Foster's Beer Boob? The Bavaria Beer grocery store stripper? Beer.com's Virtual Bartenders? The Troegs Beer burping and farting babe? The Labatt's Blue lesbians?

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by Steve Hall    May-23-07    
Topic: Opinion, Racy, Trends and Culture



The Lumberjack Returns, Pay Homage to Maddox

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Adpulp passes us another goodie via the Scotsman, who posits sweet-smelling metrosexuals are (finally!) bowing out for the retrosexual - or, as Maddox would say, the lumberjack.

While Adpulp ruminates over the presence of Burt's Bees in the market, we're going to take a shot in the dark and say the guy who gave us "9 things I learned about the world according to anonymous stock photo models" is also directly responsible for the return of the flannel-sporting burly man.

And if you don't believe us, you clearly haven't read The Alphabet of Manliness.

Maddox fucking rules, in great part because his homepage was bitchslapping society even before the post-post-modern hipsters snorting the Kool-Aid were old enough to chat on AOL.

by Angela Natividad    May-19-07    
Topic: Trends and Culture