McJob Followed By McMegaBurger

Following its recent "Not bad for a McJob" campaign, McDonald's UK, to coincide with this Summer's World Cup, will introduce, for a limited time, the new Bigger Big Mac which will be 40 percent bigger than the current Big Mac. The current Big Mac already has 560 calories and more fat than you'd ever want to consume. But hey, as we've always said, no one's forcing the food down anyone's throat so if a big ass burger works from a marketing angle, go for it.

Beetle Turbo Says 'Hold On Tight'

Here's an interesting way to promote the notion the you'd better hang on tight when driving the Volkswagen Turbo Beetle. This subway hanger also gives nod the the hanger's that used to (and maybe still do) hang from the ceiling of the original Beetle. They sure did come in handy when those 40 horses kicked in as Dad gunned it up the street on the way home from the hardware store in those heady days before that thing called Home Depot existed.

iTunes to Carry Graphic Ads

Ad Age is reporting iTunes will ad small graphic ads to iTunes in the lower left hand corner of the screen. The ads will appear when a person listens to a podcast using iTunes. It's unclear yet whether the ads will appear when people are viewing paid content such as ABC's $1.99 downloads. What is clear is the lower left hand area of iTunes will soon become ignored territory.

Oh, and by the way, Ad Age, that auto page reload thing is cheating and a sad attempt at increasing pageviews.

Behavioral Targeting Whoops Contextual's Ass

A recent behavioral targeting vs. contextual targeting study on an Internet advertising campaign for Panasonic found behavioral targeting identified and reached 50.3 percent more imminent buyers of Panasonic plasma TV's than contextual targeting. The study, by Next Century Media using Insight Express across 1,146 respondents, also found the cost to reach each potential buyer was 50 percent less than contextual targeting.

When considering a plasma TV purchase, people on the receiving end of the behavioral targeted ads showed a 67.6 percent higher preference for the Panasonic brand than those reached by contextual targeting. The study also showed a 168.9 percent advantage for behavioral targeting over run of network in terms of increasing the likelihood of buying the Panasonic brand.

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Lingerie Shopping Bag Sure to Cause Attention

We've seen all manner of tricked out shopping bags from bags that make it look like you are carrying a gun to bags that place your hand inside a mouth to bags that make it look like you're being hung from your hair. Now, we have a bag that, when properly carried, makes it look like you're walking down the street in your underwear. We're not sure who the advertiser is but we're sure the bag's visual is far too distracting for anyone to notice. OK, it's Blush.

Eva Longoria to Head Latin Ad Agency in Movie

Eva Longoria is slated to star in the yet to be filmed Touchstone movie, Deep in the Heart of Texas, in which she will play a snotty Beverly Hills diva who gets uprooted and moved to San Antonio to run her ad agency's new Latin division. Having perfected that role in Desperate Housewives she'll certainly do fine in this role. Unfortunately, the world of advertising will most certainly be portrayed as idiotically as it is in most every other movie and TV show including Desperate Housewives.

John Malkovich Excorcizes Naomi Campbell For Pirelli

As we mentioned back in January, Pirelli would be releasing a BMW Films-style long form commercial. Well, it's out. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring John Malkovich and Naomi Campbell, it's got everything you'd expect from a Hollywood-created long form commercial: pretentiousness, overly dark and moody lighting, slowly mounting tension, credits that roll almost as long as the film itself and even humor. In the film, Malkovich must excorcize demon Naomi Campbell out of a suffering car that has tires that won't stop squealing and just aren't up to the job of controlling the car's devilish powers.

If you can keep yourself from laughing while Malkovich throws water at the devil-car while screaming "the power of Christ compels you" Exorcist-style only to have the car nonchalantly cast the holy water off with its windshield wipers, you'll appreciate the final scene in which Malkovich solves the cars problems by...well...just watch it. The entire film, whether it sells any tires or not, supports and aligns perfectly with the Pirelli tagline, "Power is nothing without control." You can view the film here.

'American Dad' Fights 'Family Guy in Game For DVD Release

To promote the launch of the American Dad DVD, Fuel Industries, for Fox Home Video, has created an advergame that pits American Dad against Family Guy Kung Fu-style. Visitors can play as six characters (Peter, Lois and Stewie from Family Guy, Stan, Klaus and Roger from American Dad) with two more to be introduced soon. Special moves include Peter lighting his farts on fire and vomitting, Lois decaptitating people, and Roger bitch-slaps people. Also, there are nine different playing environments. The game boss is Ryu from Street Fighter 2. Soon he'll become one of the fighting characters as well. While we suck at gaming, we still like the tons of different ways you can play this game and the sheer weirdness of it.

Weinstein Company Uses YouTube to Promote Movies

This isn't really new but it's worth noting The Weinstein Company, formed last October by Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein, has embraced the whole social media/online video thing and is promoting its movies on YouTube. Deep Focus handles the account. Up now are two trailers for Lucky Number Slevin, a trailer for Clerks II and, just added, a clip that includes the first eight minutes of Lucky Number Slevin. There's no need to rely on a studio website or movie trailers in physical theaters when you can get your trailer hundreds of thousand of additional people as in the case of Clerks II which has, to date, been viewed 217,505 times. Of course just one showing of one trailer on one day across, say, 2000 theaters with 150 theater-goers gets 300,000 views but hey, they're getting 217,505 more views then they might have had they not posted the trailer on YouTube.

Nintendo Keeps Boomers Smart With 'Brain Age'

Eschewing the usual approach to marketing games and, perhaps heeding recent research boomers are the new black, Nintendo has introduced and is marketing a game called Brain Age and is positioning it as a means to exercise the mind and keep one sharp. Writing in MarketingProfs, Karl Long says, "Nintendo is essentially turning market perception on its head, positioning the video game as positive 'mental exercise,' as opposed to the common perception of it being a pointless, mind-numbing activity."