A new startup has figured out how to put an ad in the space that appears on your cell phone screen when you swipe down to refresh it. Cell phone technology is getting better every day.

Do you know what yesterday was? September 9. Also, the start of the Christmas advertising season. Fuck you, Kmart.

If the school bell has finally sounded for the final time and the kids are gleefully preparing for several long, hot months of family road trips and spilled frozen dairy dessert substances, it can only mean one thing: time to start your back-to-school shopping now. Now. There is no respite in this world of gloom.

Harry Hurt III (pictured, with pal) used to write a column in the New York Times business section called "Executive Pursuits," in which Harry Hurt went off and did something wacky and upscale and wrote about it. It always struck me as a wholly unnecessary exercise in self-absorption, which had nothing to do with business at all, except for the fact that Harry Hurt is a rich guy. Now, he's back—pioneering the use of advertising and product placement in books. Oh. Good.

It's bad enough that these do-gooders hid their do-gooder message inside an innocent popcorn ad. But having an actor planted in the movie audience, to magically join the ad? We're never, ever learning first aid, just to protest this. [Copyranter]

Bad comedians are always like, "What's up with Christmas advertising starting earlier every year?" Those bad comedians, as usual, are absolutely right. The start of Christmas advertising this year was way earlier than last year. You already missed it!

Since the recession hit and print started dying in earnest, magazines have been...let's say, loosening their standards on the editorial-advertising divide. Now, in a bid to maintain relevance, the American Society of Magazine Editors has updated its ethical guidelines. HMMMM.

Since kids these days are already bombarded by advertising at school graduation speeches and on their school math tests, why not just go ahead and wrap their school lockers in ads, too? Good, let's do that.

Awesome new show on Nicktoons, kids: Zevo 3, where Kewl Breeze, Elastika and Z-Strap, battle Dr. Stankfoot! Why the shoe theme? Well, Zevo 3 started as a Skechers promotion. But uh, it's not now. Viacom swears.

Sure, there are ads on TV and at school and on subways and in the bathroom and in elevators and on stray cats. But once you reach the store, will you remember those eleventy billion ads? Enter: in-store teevee ads.

Now tattoo shops are advertising by sticking stickers on mirrors in public bathrooms so when you get really drunk you can go in the bar bathroom and confirm that, yes, that tattoo would look dumb. [Copyranter. Click to enlarge.]

Marketing whizzes for a movie called I Love You, Beth Cooper figured that a good idea to generate "buzz" would be to pay some valedictorian for a product placement in her high school graduation speech. They were wrong.

Elevators now show 30-second ads. With luck you'll never have to watch an entire one.

Are you enamored with the fast-forward capabilities of your futuristic 'Tivo' device—but sad that you're missing all those commercials? Tivo has figured out a way to implant ads over skipped ads. Technology is wonderful.

Oh boy, this has instantly become our new favorite trend in advertising: Catvertising. It's advertising, on "trained" cats. The catch: fools, you cannot train a cat!

Ad Creep installment #563: "Crotchvertising," to sell garish watches. The only shocking thing here is that Dov Charney is not involved somehow. [Trendhunter]

Ads: they're everywhere! How many times must we repeat that pithy, insightful line? But it's true! Ads are on set-top box menus and the outsides of subway cars and inside your computer and strapped onto girls who are following you around. And every month or so ads appear in some new place and we think, "This, I fear, is the absolute pinnacle of psycho ad creep into every inappropriate nook of our lives." Well that was before teachers started selling advertising on their tests:

Just this week, I saw an NYC subway train plastered with ads on the outside of the cars for the first time, up close. And you know what? It's not that bad! Kind of new and exciting and eye-catching, like graffiti used to be, except less so. That sentiment will wear off within a week or so, and the ads will recede into the category of tiring visual assaults on our collective serenity. Too bad, because more and more and more are on the way, everywhere!: What else could they possibly sell for ad space on subways? Well, how many flat surfaces are there? —Panels in trains. —Billboards in stations. —Total wraps of the exteriors of subway cars —Stairs. —Turnstile structures. —Turnstile arms. —"Digital screens inside stations." —Digital projection ads on interior station walls. —"A large display, almost the size of a movie screen, mounted above a passageway by the 7 train in Times Square." —L.E.D. displays on the interior walls of subway tunnels that make the "windows light up as if there were a television screen outside the window." Commuters willing to sell forehead ad space, please contact the MTA. [NYT]