Why do celebrities publicly endorse certain consumer products? Usually, it's because some company gives them a staggering amount of money to do so. But not Jay-Z—he does it because he really believes in the Duracell Powermat battery-charging device:

I don't know about you, but when I think "People who made the wrong career choice," I think "Albert Einstein." Talk about wasting your smarts! Instead of writing papers on math things that the average consumer doesn't even understand, he could have been writing slogans, for Kit Kats™. Missed opportunities.

Everyone knows the London Olympics are going to be an advertising shit-show. But a full understanding of the Olympics' all-enveloping corporate embrace requires a trip into the "Brand Exclusion Zone," a desolate region of London where only Official Olympic Sponsors can survive.

At about 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday night, while standing in the Roosevelt Rotunda at the American Museum of Natural History on 81st Street and Central Park West, my friend Sam and I stuff an eighth of psychedelic mushrooms into egg rolls and eat them. It is time for the 2012 Clio Awards, the advertising world's version of the Oscars.

Comedian Fahim Anwar — member of the comedy team that brought us this response to Ashton Kutcher's racist PopChips ad — noticed a new model on the Americal Apparel website.

TV networks are pissed about a new DVR that can automatically skip over all ads in recorded content, no fast-forwarding necessary. Ha, fuck them, right? Fuck TV ads, right? Okay, well. I hope you love product placement and want to marry it.

The real creative fireworks at Creative Week came at the end of this morning's "Creative Renegades" panel when Colleen Decourcy, a creative, said that she didn't really love creatives.

What do you think when you hear the word "Pepsi?" Chances are you think, "I guess if you're outta Coke, yeah that's fine. Do you have Diet Coke? No? Mr. Pibb? No? Forget it. Pepsi's fine." But what The Pepsi Corporation would prefer you to think is, "A kind of brown swill with amazing marketing!"

"Artisan." Remember the word "artisan?" Perfectly valid word. Described an actual type of thing. Until the ad world got ahold of it, put it on the street, and pimped it out until every last chemical food concoction assembled by robots out of petroleum byproducts was marketed as "artisan." Totally killed the word. "Bespoke?" You're next.

America's worst ambassador, Kermit the Frog, has come under fire for violating German law after he appeared on television hawking the theatrical release of his film The Muppets.

America: a land of improptu hoedowns. A land of beach sand sculpturemaking. A land of nonthreatening motorcycle gangs. A land of multicolored hats.

Google has been placing more and more crap around search results, which is very annoying, but it turns out this crapification may work out quite well for the giant internet company. That's reportedly because people can't really tell anymore what's a Google advertisement and what's a Google search result, turning the simple act of internet searching into a confusing profitable mess.

For millennia, media that comes on screens has operated on a very simple premise: they show you entertaining things like Three's Company for free, and in return, you sit there and watch the ads. Very simple. And guess who is now fucking up this wondrous model of passive infotainment? That's right: kids these days.

The "Google Glasses" video that swept the web yesterday — a point-of-view shot featuring all of the helpful little maps, messages and answers that Google Glasses will theoretically provide for you one day — was ridiculous for a couple reasons: one, who takes the 6 train one stop from 23rd Street to Union Square?? And two, if this is Google — where are the ads? Luckily, RebelliousPixels' Jonathan McIntosh remixed the video to provide a more realistic idea of what Google Glasses will be like. Annoying. [via The Atlantic]

A tipster forwarded us this voicemail with the note: "This has been going around quite a few agencies. Basically, this woman from Ohio leaves a voicemail for a crazy pitch for Chewy Granola bars. Listen to the voicemail when you have a sec!" We couldn't put it better ourselves. Qua qua qua Quaker Chewies/Are are are so delicious/Qua qua qua Quaker Chewies/Come on now, let's go get some.

Ah, Drew. A list of famous writers and artists who once worked in the advertising industry is not an argument in favor of the advertising industry. It's an argument in favor of getting the fuck out of the advertising industry. We recognize Salman Rushdie's name because he did not stay in the advertising industry. We can all take this as a lesson.

So our own Hamilton Nolan took time out today to explain why you should never work in advertising. He is wrong. Like, really fucking wrong. Would you like to see the list of very talented and successful creative people who have worked in the field of advertising? Here's a very small sampling:

Advertising is the industry that people who were not lucky enough to get actual "creative" jobs end up in. These people—creative people whose artistic or literary dreams did not work out, often due to economic forces far beyond their control—find themselves in a position in which they are obliged to use their creative talents for purely commercial ends. Selling soap, so to speak. This causes quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. These people therefore expend quite a bit of time and effort justifying the position they find themselves in, in life. (As do we all!) Having justified their position to themselves, they seek to bolster their justification by attracting others like themselves into their same field. The more creative artists who do advertising for a living, the more of a real, justifiable, creative career it must be. They therefore use their considerable creative talents to sell the field of advertising itself, to their peers.

Hey, non-white Americans: Are You Ready for Some Nascar™? You will be exclaiming ¡si! as soon as Nascar gets this big new multimillion-dollar ad campaign underway. The folks at Nascar have big plans to "attract a multicultural fan base (specifically among Hispanics)."

Heady development from the cutthroat world of slogan trademarking: Pepsi is officially not "The Choice of a New Generation" any more. Pepsi Co. poured countless millions into promoting the slogan, but stopped using it 20 years ago. Now, Ad Age reports that it has been scooped up by Malt-O-Meal! Which is called "MOM Brands" now, apparently. Don't act like yall don't eat that cheap-ass Malt-O-Meal cereal and shit! Shout out to Malt-O-Meal! You cheap bastards.