It's bottled water—for kids! Fortified with vitamins, minerals, and especially good old H2O. Finally, no more arguing with your kids to hush up and drink their Evian. Yves Behar has designed this "Y Water," featuring bottles that are also toys. And Kanye West loves it! I think I heard of this "bottled water that kids love" idea back when it was called "Capri Sun." Anyhow, I'm sure this product is both necessary, and a great value. Not to mention the obvious benefits for the plastics industry. Two fun-loving pics of children enjoying this capitalist monstrosity, after the jump.

Did you know that the hit HBO television series Sex and the City, about a self-centered clotheshorse and the women who indulge her, has been made into a movie, to be released nationwide on May 30th? Well, yeah. It's happening. And in an effort to promote the film, little shoeboxes containing a bottle of Skyy vodka are being sent around to various bloggers, reporters, shut-ins, and ladydrunks. Jeff Houck, who writes a blog called The Stew, received the little press kit/care package recently, and took a moment to analyze its contents. It explains the "spirit" of the movie: drinking! "Get in the spirit with cocktails themed after the characters who defined cocktail culture for an entire generation," a card in the box says. Ohhh. For an entire generation! And, whee: themed cocktails! (They're going to be served at fun, sexy Houlihan's restaurants across the land.) I can't wait to get drunk and shuffle around with my shoebox like a real career lady. Where's my press kit, movie people? After the jump, find each lady's distinctive cocktail!

Actor-turned-entrepreneur Robert "I call him Bobby" Deniro is planning to open a "Nobu Hotel" in the Financial District. It will be the second one—he already has a Nobu Hotel in Israel (who knew?). The plan is to, you know, make it a nice hotel, and also have a Nobu restaurant in it. Branding a hotel with a restaurant's name, and not vice versa, is an interesting concept. If it becomes popular and widespread, it could help prominent chefs and restaurateurs to have greater leverage in their partnership deals, rather than being treated as ornaments for the hotel centerpiece. The brand drives the business, so it's a bit of a gamble on Nobu's international appeal. One partner says of the hotel, "Instead of a mint on the pillow, you could find a sushi roll." Well, that actually sounds disgusting. [NYP/ pic via Curbed]

Larry Winget: bald person, financial guru, Hyundai pitchman. He's one of several financial authors who appear incongruously in Hyundai's current ad campaign, which features some "normal" people who, upon seeing an anonymous man in a tie pop up behind them at a car dealership and offer advice, react by saying excitedly, "Hey! Aren't you [financial author] of [personal finance advice book]?!" Whereas a real person would probably kick them in the nuts. The funny thing is that bald financial guru and Hyundai pitchman Larry Winget now says he doesn't necessarily want people to buy Hyundais at all!

Are you the type of consumer who's always been interested in trying that "Starbucks" that you've heard so much about, but are intimidated by its mysterious ways? In other words, are you a half-bright mole person? Well the company has a new website just for you! "What the online experience does is mimic the experience [consumers] would have in the store, if they went to the barista and said, 'I want to try Starbucks, but I don't know where to start,'" says one exec [Ad Age]. With StarbucksCoffeeAtHome.com, all the frightening guesswork is taken out of the coffee-going experience. What's your "flavor profile?"

The high-end liquor market is crowded these days, so Belvedere came up with an idea so crazy that it just might work: an advertisement that implies that drinking their brand of vodka could get you a blowjob from an attractive woman. And they even got sexpert and James Frey collaborator Terry Richardson to do the photo! Might this radical notion of using an image to subconsciously connect their brand with the idea of sexual conquest in the minds of consumers actually serve to boost their sales and, consequently, their revenues? Stranger things have happened. [Copyranter at Animal NY]

There's now a Frida Kahlo brand of tequila, featuring a picture of the iconic Mexican artist on each bottle. What's next, Jerry Garcia ice cream? [via Jossip]

If just buying James Frey's new novel isn't enough for you, you can purchase the "companion volume" called Wives, Wheels, and Weapons for just $150, hardcover. But it has a bunch of Terry Richardson photos of MILFs, gangsters, and rad cars. The three things that symbolize L.A.! I don't really understand the market for any of this. Particularly for Frey's heavy metal/ Hell's Angels book promotional tour, which gets a prize for Most Apparent Conscious Contrivance Of Coolness:

As loud as the uproar over Miley Cyrus' too-racy photo shoot gets, she of course is not the first young star to be packaged as a sly sex symbol. The American print media, and its advertisers, have a history of getting into trouble for this sort of thing. The two common methods are to either portray an underage girl (or, less often, boy) in an overly sexualized light, or to use "barely legal" girls in a way that evokes underage taboos with a wink and a nod. It's really a standard form, at this point. After the jump, we've compiled some of the most famous ad campaigns and media spreads that play the slick jailbait game. Does this stuff work? Apparently so.

Wow! As a nerd on the PR and marketing beat I find this to be absolutely astounding and heartening: the UK is about to make it a crime for companies to misrepresent themselves as consumers in their online marketing. That means, for example, that a company setting up a fake blog to hype its own products could be prosecuted, fined, and jailed. Free speech? Whatever. This is an awesome development. And bloggers can be locked up, too!

Rick Haskins, a marketing exec for The CW was on CNN recently, talking about Gossip Girl's controversial "OMFG" sexy time marketing campaign. He claimed that it wasn't that racy because, while yes the images were a bit steamy, the initials could simply stand for "Oh My Freaking Goodness!" This is true! It could also, possibly, stand for "On Meth, Feeling Good," or "One More Fart Gun." Not quite satisfied with Haskins' answer, Brooke Anderson hit the streets, asking bemused people what they thought it meant. Only two ladies "in their sixties" didn't know that it stood for OH MY FUCKING GOD. Curse words and tepid teen dramas continue to threaten our youth. Whee! It's funny when both the outraged and the outrageous seem like idiots. Video of the important news story is here. [Videogum]

I have two major issues with this disquieting viral ad for Hot Tub meat snacks [via Adrants]. First, the name of the product. Disgusting (and real? evidence is spotty). Second, the fact that this faux-documentary by the ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi is an overlong, too smart by half, stereotyped riff on hillbillies who keep an apparently retarded freak girl tied up in the basement. Somehow it just doesn't make me run out and purchase Hot Tub snacks. It can't be helping them in the crucial hillbilly demographic, either. And if it's all an attempt to show off the cleverness of the agency, well, Kentucky has ad clients too! You can watch the strange ad-thing below. Prepare to be offended, Appalachian stereotypes!

The internets are ablaze with the controversial question that has come to define our era: Will Britney Spears be the next spokesperson for Bally's Fitness? The rumors started this month, with appropriate denials from the company, Ever since the LA Times broached the topic last week by noting all the time Britney's been spending at the gym with her two trainers, the celebroblogosphere has been on permanent Bally's watch. The company claims they're just helping her get into shape out of concern for her health. And let's hope so. Can you imagine the escape clauses that would have to go into a spokesperson contract with the mentally unstable pop tart?

Bruce Oldfield was once famed for designing glamorous outfits for Princess Diana. His latest project: McDonald's uniforms. All the jokes seem too obvious. While the brand will certainly get a bit of a positive halo effect for being associated with a high-fashion guy who would otherwise never set foot in the place, I can say confidently as a veteran of the McD's kitchen that Oldfield's expressed wish, "I hope they enjoy wearing the uniforms," will not come true. Sorry. And is it necessary to inflict a "jaunty neck scarf" on women working the register? The most important quality of a McDonald's uniform is that it's dark enough to hide grease spots. All this upscale designing is a waste of time, we're sorry to say. Click through for two more picture of Oldfield's highly paid work on behalf of the fast food proletariat:

"Who's the gay rapper?" It's been a parlor game in hip hop for years. A short and incomplete list of some of the most common names tossed around: Kanye West, Puffy, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Common, and, of course, lisping, yoga-master rap mogul Russell Simmons. While there are plenty of rumors for each one, most of those guys are suspected, honestly, because of their fashion sense (except Lil Wayne, who kissed a guy). Or because somebody's homeboy's cousin knows this cat who Puffy tried to do a three-way with. Innuendo is king. But now a formerly closeted gay MTV music executive named Terrance Dean is about to release a book—which has been anticipated for more than a year—that he says will out the gay rappers once and for all. Don't be mad, y'all! This could be the chance of a lifetime for one lucky closeted homosexual.

What's in Facebook's "Insider's Guide to Viral Marketing?" "Really nothing compelling," social media marketer Alisa Leonard tells us. "They basically expanded their online step by step business page sign up process and made understanding [Facebook] pages idiot proof (read: CMO-proof)." The reason why Facebook is pushing Facebook Pages: They're a key advertising feature whose launch was obscured by the privacy fracas over Beacon last fall. What would really have made it friendly to chief marketing officers: Trimming it down from 7,533 words. We've embedded the whole thing below, but first, read a 100-word version that could fit in your Facebook News Feed.

Ever since Mean Girls became a runaway success back in 2004, Tina Fey has been riding a wave of near universal acclaim. Her ability to ride that tasty wave of popularity for the last four years without succumbing to any nasty wipeouts has arguably turned her into the Laird Hamilton of the Writers-Turned-Performers circuit. But when Baby Mama hits theaters this weekend, all of that cred that she has built up will be put to the test. Not only has Variety's Todd McCarthy gone on record calling it "exceedingly predictable", but Videogum has been trumpeting the notion that "Tina Fey-Tigue" is about to set in for the last week and some change. Recognizing that this film doesn't exactly fit the mold of traditional studio comedies (namely, in that it stars two female protagonists), Universal has been throwing a bunch of dollars at Baby Mama television advertising over the last few weeks, alternately positioning the film as a Tina Fey Vehicle, a film In Which Amy Poehler Steals The Show and, gasp, as something that even sports-loving, beer guzzling men will dig (specifically, by scoring the spots with The Cars' dude-friendly power pop anthem "Just What I Needed").

While all three of these spots appear after the jump, we thought it would be fun to enlist Defamer's videographer par excellence Molly McAleer to cut a commercial for the film that would play to all the thrill-seeking teens who have made Prom Night one of this spring's surprise B.O. hits (above). Feel free to use our cut, Universal marketing team — all we ask for is a link in return. Enjoy!

American dogs, like American people, are turning into a bunch of dumpy, couch-ridden fatties. But the pharmaceutical industry is rushing to the rescue! Slentrol, a diet drug for dogs, recently launched a new ad campaign [NYS] to convince guilty dog owners that what their mutt needs is chemicals, not a stick thrown a long way, over and over. Furthermore, some stern doggie personal trainers are warning about the dangers of "the wrong kind of exercise"—specifically, "uncontrolled play." Give those dogs a structured exercise program and diet drugs at once, foolish yuppies!

This ad for Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo [via Adrants] is purportedly a riff on "The Head & Shoulders point of view." But it's plain as day for anyone to see that it's actually an excuse for the pervert ad agency to get a look at the Mona Lisa's boobs. Is nothing sacred? Click through for a close-up shot. We're just glad Da Vinci's not around to see this.

You'd think at some point, in a creative review meeting, some advertising exec would stand up and say, "Maybe the 9-11 picture's not such a good idea." Such a simple sentence. But no! The latest example of incorporating a nationally traumatic terrorist mass murder into an ad: this spot for SABC Radio [via AdScam], with the tagline "There's More To See On Radio." Such as the Twin Towers burning. So hey, listen to the radio! Click through for a larger image, and pictures of the five worst 9-11 ads we've covered in the past: