« Jun-03 | This archive, pg:  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10  |  11  | Aug-03 »

Buy.com's BuyMusic Spoof Ad

You've surely seen the new TV ads for BuyMusic.com promoting the new service. What you may not have seen yet is this spoof featuring Nick Nolte. It's just a visual. Not an actual commercial.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-30-03    




Summer Reality Show Winners and Losers

For Love of Money has emerged as this Summer's biggest reality hit drawing the highest 18-49 rating. In this MediaLife's roundup of Summer reality series, America's Next Top Model was pegged as the most unexpected hit; American Juniors as the biggest disappointment; Fame as the biggest flame out; Last Comic Standing as the low key hit; Cupid as the most overhyped; Boarding House as the dullest; and Big Brother as most likely to return.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-30-03    




Buy Those Third Cover Entertainment Weekly Ad Positions Now!

The hottest page in Entertainmant Weekly just might become the last page, opposite that ad position that always gets the bad wrap, the third cover. Horror writer, Stephen King is taking over that last page of editorial from Joel Stein who wrote a snarky column there for 6 months. King, who will receive a low four figure per week salary says he'll focus on humor for the weekly column. King's first column will appear at the end of this week.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-30-03    




Brad Pitt Appears in Another Japanese ATM Ad

Brad Pitt, as well as many other Hollywood stars, appear in ads in Japan. Too much exposure in a America is always a concern so they are available to the rest of the world as spokespeople.

This spot is another is a series for ATM.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-30-03    




Breast Ad For U.K.'s Easyjet Gets Stamp of Approval

A UK airline ad featuring a woman's breasts with the phrase 'discover weapons of mass distraction' was not offensive, ruled the country's Advertising Standards Authority.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-29-03    




Hummer Gets The Spoof Treatment From Sierra Club

In the continuing saga of SUV bashing, the Sierra club has launched Hummdinger.com, a web site that parodies G.M.'s Hummer. The site was created by Experiment in St. Louis. and includes a "Hummer Hunk" quiz and a link to send a nasty note to G.M.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-29-03    




Jason Kottke Rants About Ad Creep

Jason Kottke of Kottke.org refers to an article on the weblog, stating the obvious about potential future uses for Apple's iPod, including advertising, and laments the continual creep of advertising into his life.

Great idea and pretty much inevitable, but the suggestion of it makes me want to hop on a plane to SF and strangle the responsible party. I see ads when I pee. I pay to watch ads at the movie theatre. Most television programming is filler for advertising (which explains why most of TV sucks). Many magazines are mostly advertising. MTV is 100% advertising. The Post-It Notes on my desk are from Barclay's Capital. Clothing without prominent advertising printed on it is getting difficult to find. I am marketed to and advertised to everywhere I go. So now I'm supposed to sit through promotions -- while draining my battery, BTW -- each time I turn on my iPod?"

Jason does make a very valid point that advertising knows no limits. The current system of advertising is set up so that those of us in the business are mostly forced to do this sort of thing. So much so that we really begin to piss people off. At some point, everyone will just rebel and tune out.

Seth Godin has always talked about Permission Marketing in which the consumer gives permission to be marketed to but that model has not taken foot yet. It has not because there is no compelling reason for a consumer to actually want to be marketed to. Sure, there are a few advertisers out there who have the ability to be entertaining enough for consumers to opt in but mostly, advertising is crap. Until advertisers can hold an audience like a well crafted movie or at least have a compelling offer, permission marketing will not catch on and current mode of beating consumers over the head with a marketing sledgehammer will, unfortunately, continue.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-29-03    




Annika Sorentam KFC Commercial Rated Highest in Brand Recall by IAG

Even though the ad was skewered by Ad Age's Bob Garfield who said KFC is "the perfect bucket of death-on-a-wishbone for a luscious, cardiovascularly incorrect food orgy", the spot is number one on IAG's Brand Recall Index for the week ending July 20.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-29-03    




WNBA Star Cancels Spanking Wager With Radio Host

Sue Bird, 22 year old WNBA player, made a bet with radio host, Mitch Levy, that called for her to get spanked on air while yelling, "Harder, Daddy, harder" if her assist-to-turnover ration was higher than 2-1 by season end.

Well, she chickened out and cancelled her bet.

"She did it in fun and she did it with the best of intentions," said Bird's agent, Jimmy Gould. "She's terribly upset about it. She regrets it. She hopes people understand. She didn't stop to think about the impact she has on younger people and that she's expected to be more clear and thoughtful when making a statement like that, even though it was done in fun."

Seems everybody got all PC about the bet.

"It helps feed into the images of violence against women and stereotyping," Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle told Seattle Times sports columnist Steve Kelley. "I don't condemn her. I appreciate that she doesn't have the experience in life that other women have had. But this could be very hurtful. Not just to the WNBA, but to other women and girls."

So maybe spanking isn't good but this was a joke. It's humor. It's a stunt to get guys to go to WNBA games. Is that really so bad? And besides, she's hot.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-29-03    




Adrants Site Feature Update

There have been a lot of changes on Adrants lately so a summary is in order.

Navigation

Most site navigation links are at the top under the Adrants logo. These include links to an About page with information on the site, a Contact page to contact Adrants, a newsletter page to subscribe to the Adrants newsletter, an Archives page to view past articles, an RSS page to feed Adrants directly into your newsreader, and a Search page to perform searches on the site.


The Right Hand Column

This area is filled with advertising related news and events. These include Advertising Headlines containing hand-picked news stories and links. This section also has its own rss feed and archive. The Online Advertising Headlines section contains stories pulled from Up2Speed, a web site focused on Internet marketing. The Sponsored Links section has text ads for site sponsors. Please check them out if you are interested. Sponsored links are also on the top of the page as well. The Advertising Events section contains related industry event listings. The Advertising Sites section has links to advertising news web sites. The Advertising Weblogs section has links to weblogs that discuss various aspects of advertising. The Advertising Resources section contains links to myriad websites full of advertising related facts, figures, and other data.

The Google Advertising News section links to predefined Google news searches. For example, click on "advertising" and you will be linked to advertising stories on Google's news page. The Feedster Advertising Feeds section, similar to the Google Ad News section, provides pre-selected search terms for weblog entries. For example, click on "ads" and you will be taken to a search results page with listings of weblogs that cover the topic of "ads". The Worthy Weblogs section contains links to other weblogs you might find of interest. They are not necessarily focused on advertising. The Adrants Buttons section contain graphics you can use if you would like to link to Adrants from your site.


Information Under Articles

Under each article, you will see a date stamp showing when the article was published, a Permanent Link which is a URL to the specific article, a Newsletter link to subscribe to the newsletter, and a Comment Here link to enter your comments about the article.

Please feel free to offer any comments or suggestions via the Comment here link below or the Contact link at the top of the page.
--------

by Steve Hall    Jul-28-03    




« Jun-03 | This archive, pg:  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10  |  11  | Aug-03 »