Here's a "1979 ad for Pakistani Airlines promoting its flights to New York City." Can't you just picture a young, fresh-faced Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stumbling across this in a Baluchistan newspaper, some dim flicker of a terrible plan taking hold, just before he books his own flight to the US for his formative education? Yes, it really would explain a lot—if it weren't for the fact that we all know CHENEY DID 9/11. Still: eerie. [AdRants]
The FBI has made a deal with Clear Channel to put "most wanted" bulletins and "hot pursuit" alerts on digital billboards around the country. Predictable: The SiliconView digital billboard on the 101 was just the beginning. The future of outdoor advertising is digital billboards which can display different ads depending on time of day or current traffic conditions, for example. So it makes sense that public security would be just the latest use for these annoying monstrosities. A trial of the technology in Philadelphia led to the capture of three criminals, so the project is being expanded to 150 billboards in 20 cities across the U.S. But the real question is when Google will start brokering the ad space. (Photo by AP/Jim Mone)
Times-man David Carr has some suggestions for a writerless-Oscars: YouTube Oscars maybe? ("Imagine Cate Blanchett doing her LonelyGirl15 thing"!) And one of his commenters recalls the disaster that was the 1991 Clio awards—we can only hope the Oscars will be that fun. On that fateful night, the caterer served as master of ceremonies—and the winner's list went missing. Oh if ONLY.
American Apparel placed an ad in the New York Times on Friday, getting all political on us: "At American Apparel, we agreed with the President's call for immigration reform, so why has nothing been done for the last three years? ....It's time to give a voice to the voiceless. Businesses are afraid to speak to the media about immigration, frightened of reprisals by government agencies.... At what point are we going to recognize that the status quo amounts to an apartheid system? At what point will America stop living in a state of denial?" Wild! At what point will your billboards show some equal opportunity and start featuring fully-splayed half-naked men as well as women?
In his own, not-so-subtle way, Rupert Murdoch is screaming Face! at all of News Corp.'s competitors, detractors, and new Dow Jones employees. The form of his victory lap? Despite the fact that every major news outlet has covered Murdoch's $5 billion acquisition of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones since the first whispered rumors, the billionaire found it prudent to spent $2 million on a global ad campaign — a three-page advertisement that flaunts the history of News Corp.'s acquisitions. With Murdoch's oft-undermined slogan — "Free people, free markets, free thinking," except when he's doing business in China — the promo is running today in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. "We make the stuff that excites, entertains, informs, enriches and infuriates billions of imaginations." Indeed.
When Rupert Murdoch goes a-poaching to staff his Wall Street Journal newsroom, the New York Times won't be the first place he'll look, if you take at face value (not advisable) comments he made yesterday during an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto. "There are some very fine journalists there we would be happy to have, but, I mean, equally there are in other newspapers." Shut up, no way.
Nothing says "good job" like a heart attack, we always say. So we were thrilled to learn that "last week, students in Seminole County, Florida apparently received their report cards in envelopes adorned with Ronald McDonald promising a free Happy Meal to students with good grades, behavior or attendance." IS NOTHING SACRED?
Kristin Sloan, from the above iPhone commercial and The Winger, spanked former Apple spokeswoman Ellen Feiss in a recent Valleywag poll. Well, now you can put a price on that kind of celebrity. About $75, or the cost of a ticket to Glasshouse's networking event tonight in New York, where Sloan is rumored to show.
Walking westward on Prince St. between Mulberry and Mott Streets, I heard a woman's voice in my head whispering, "Who's there? Who's there?" Not like I "heard" a woman's voice like when I wear flared jeans with skinny shoes and I "hear" a woman's voice in my head say, "Wait, you've got to be kidding?" but like an actual woman's voice in my head. This usually means I've had a psychotic break.
Those few of you watching the commercials during Desperate Housewives last night might have been buoyed to spot Williamsburg hipster feeding trough Marlow and Sons, the home of the world's worst hipster date conversation ever. It was in a commercial for an SUV called Edge. So now it is confirmed that Marlow & Sons is where all the hipsters with $30K to drop on a SUV go for oysters and artisanal American cheese. Related: We hear that the creative director for J. Walter Thomspon, the ad firm that produced the spot, quit today!
Could it be true that advertising is nothing more than the tools of liars? That ads are designed to get you to purchase things that often you don't need and perhaps believe things you shouldn't? Advertising copywriter Copyranter brings you instances of advertising lies and the lying liars who sell them.
Borders Bookstores will each soon contain two 37-inch TVs to expand advertising opportunities within the stores—just like Jack-in-the-Box! BordersTV, as the platform is called, won't be showing reality programming or soft-core porn, but it sort of feels like that—can no one stay in business selling books without also providing with each purchase lattes, WiFi, pedicures, escalators, plush toys and a backrub? We suspect the phrase "entertainment experience" was used in the making of this concept, which means we hate it by default. [NYT]
The largest advertising company of Japan was involved into huge sexual scandal. The former creative director of its U.S. arm accused it of pressing him to visit a brothel and engaging in engage in other sexually explicit activities on company outings and said he was fired because of complaint.
At $2.7 million per 30-second spot, TV advertising is far from dead, or in need of help from Google. In fact, Fox is likely to bring in more than $160 million in ad revenues during the Super Bowl. That's more than Facebook is projected to make this entire year. AdAge reports that 90 percent of the 30-second ad slots for Super Bowl XLII are sold out. Normally, a few spots are still available for gullible dotcoms at the runup to the event, but not this year. Demand from automakers and movie studios has driven the buying spree. This year, Fox is showing the Super Bowl in the U.S. and is doing extensive cross-promotion with fellow News Corp. subsidiary MySpace. On-air promotions will "urge" viewers to log onto MySpace, and advertisers will tie special offers to users who also view the ads online.
You think advertisers are dropping print media for online? The latest Wired bulks up nearly as big as the 318-page October 2000 issue during the boom. (Disclosure: I'm procrastinating on a small Wired piece as I type.) The good ad spots up front are occupied by Hummer, Sprint, Claiborne, Canon, Jaguar, and Dillard's. Their glossy, photo-driven spreads are short on words, more image than message. Google is the best-targeted ad medium ever, but advanced inks on premium paper make these brands seem much, much swankier than any browser ad can. In ad-buyer-speak, it's "the place to be." You think anyone will ever buy a Hummer because they saw a cool update on Twitter?
Hey, Evian is back as our advertiser! After a little dust-up about what we (at editorial) thought was too intrusive a campaign, they've come back with something that we (at editorial!) think is kind of genius—an ad-free Gawker front page with Evian as the sole discreetly-named sponsor. We talk a lot of smack about advertising and what an evil industry it is, but how can we not find this totally winning?
Google keeps hoping it will cash in on its in-game advertising firm acquisition, Adscape. A Google product manager is heading to the U.K. to tout Google's plans for ads embedded in videogames at an industry conference. If anyone's going, please ask this question: Are these ads ever going to be anything more than glorified digital billboards?
A marketing firm just interviewed 926 of the gays and found out some things! 70% of them preferred their T.V. shows to have some gays on them. 51% of the gay dudes were single, while only a quarter of the lesbians were. Also the gay men spent more time in bars! They all love "Grey's Anatomy" and Toyotas and Bank of America and Calvin Klein and ads with people snuggling and with rainbow flags really appealed to them! (Blargh!) AND THEN they divided respondents into different types of gays and created the best graph ever in which we discover a new virulent class of SUPER GAYS.
