Eliot Spitzer's favorite call girl, Ashley Alexandra Dupre, has finally hired a PR firm. Why she waited so long, we have no idea. If she wanted help fending off media coverage, she would have done well to hire somebody as soon as the story broke; likewise, if she's planning on capitalizing on the scandal to build her own personal brand, she'll need to strike while the iron is hot. Which was about three weeks ago. The Daily News reported that she hired Susan Blond Inc., an entertainment-heavy NYC firm whose client list has included Ice Cube, Britney Spears, David Bowie, and Criss Angel, among many others. I smell a second-rate music career about to be launched! So who is Susan Blond? An Andy Warhol theory come to life.

The new "BrandZ" ranking of the world's most powerful brands is out, and it just helps to confirm that it's only a matter of time before China is running everything. China Mobile is the fifth most powerful brand in the world, ahead of names like IBM, Apple, and McDonald's. China's most powerful brands collectively gained more than 50% in value over the past year. And China and other emerging economies are the most powerful drivers of growth for all brands. Russia is also a fast riser. The takeaway: at least we are still killing all these foreigners through our strong American Marlboro brand (#10). Below, the top 25 brands in the world, and their added value to the company, so you can sound smart at your next branding party. Yes, Google is #1:

Hello, athletic young women: are you "weary of being separated from boys and men in sports?" And eager to prove yourself "on a larger stage?" Well you're not going to make the WNBA, that's for sure. So why not do what 2,507 of your wisest female peers did last year and join the Marines [NYT]? In this period of difficult recruiting, the Few, the Proud are even putting in some extra effort to make their ads seem good to chicks like you!

News from last week that we unfortunately stumbled onto today, in a blow to our own personal tranquility: Atlanta hip hop mogul Jermaine Dupri is teaming up with the off-brand adolescent frat boy soaking potion TAG, maker of shitty body spray, to launch a hip hop record label. Its artists "will merge their music with brand marketing for TAG." Rage, exasperation, disgust, etc. [via Multicult Classics]

Google is working with QVC on a REVOLUTIONARY advanced type of bar code that can be scanned with a mobile phone. Revolutionary in the sense of "Everything old is new again." These "QR codes" do face some obstacles, the most significant being the fact that less than 5% of people currently own phones compatible with the technology. A previous attempt at a similar product called CueCat was a big failure [Ad Age]. But Google, the company that's determined to scan all the world's books, is not giving up in its retro attachment to print-based technologies, even in the bar code sphere. Besides, these scannable QR codes have already proven their worth in trial campaigns by making the Case Western University campus "look like downtown Tokyo" and benefiting "the end user," say jargon-spouting engineers!

Do a high school kid a favor: make it clear that they will not be playing in the Army Band. The Army Band is one of those trite PR tools that Army recruiters trot out to prove that life in the military is more than just getting scared out of your wits by the possibility of improvised explosive devices around every corner. "You like music? Yea, did you know the Army has 34 different bands? Something for everybody!" The Army has lots of neat little jobs that are immaterial to you, potential recruits, because you will be toting an M-16 in Iraq. But that doesn't stop local TV stations that seemingly have no defenses against being used as military recruiting tools from cranking out news-free "reports" on how cool the Army Band is, like the one in the clip from Allentown, PA's WFMZ, below. "Giving new meaning to the phrase 'Guitar Hero,'" really? This band sucks.

We don't know what's more indicative of a total lack of taste: the fact that Rock Star Games is passing out a big foam hand in the shape of "The Shocker" to promote their new Grand Theft Auto release, or that this would cause College Humor co-founder Ricky Van Veen to publicly assert his very own personal patent on the big foam Shocker hand. Or, the lowbrow Julia Allison-related joke that we could (but won't) make to tie these disparate cultural phenomena together. [Ricky Van Veen]

A tipster in Hell's Kitchen writes in to say that marketers for allergy medicine Zyrtec have been tearing down fliers in her neighborhood and replacing them with fake guerilla-style advertisements for their product. The worst part? "Yesterday there was a flyer for a missing kitten here, apparently they took it down and put this ad up." They are endangering kittens in order to make money. Simply despicable. Below, a picture of the fiendish ad—do not be taken in by its similarity to a flier offering guitar lessons.

The Atlantic is a magazine about news and culture and stuff. It has been continually published for thousands of years—its founding editor was Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar. Now, though, the internet, which has made Americans forget how to read, is killing it. They struck back recently by putting on their cover a woman who is famous for being mentally disturbed, and now they've gone so far as to bring on brand consultants. Folio reports that Atlantic Media hired "an integrated marketing agency to handle its rebranding." They're redesigning the magazine and relaunching the website! Next fall they will "roll out of a full-scale marketing campaign to communicate the brand message." This is "something the Atlantic has never done" because it is a thing that was invented by marketing agencies ten years ago. [The Atlantic]

What exactly is Starbucks doing? They came out with their revolutionary, game-changing, not quite as burnt new house coffee last week, which pairs well with chocolate marble loaf. But along with the new $11,000 machines to make said coffee, the Death Star-like chain has introduced new coffee cups, and they're... brown? Was the design consultant who knows how to appeal to yuppies sick the day that decision was made? And now the company has bigger problems: McDonald's is determined to kick Starbucks' ass right where it lives. In Seattle!

Skyy Vodka belatedly saw a good opportunity for some free PR with this whole Absolut Mexico ad brouhaha, which really hit its zenith a week ago. But the second-rate liquor company came lumbering in today with a faux-cheeky press release about how they support the Treaty of Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848. Oh they don't want America to be Mexico. We get it! And Skyy has now reaped some added benefit by drawing the public support of the flag-waving xenophobe crowd at BoycottAbsolut.com! Full press release, with choice patriotic quotes opposing invasion of the US, after the jump.

Cosmo, the sassy, sexy source of sex secrets he's too scared to tell you, is going to an incredible amount of effort to promote its August issue: the magazine is trying to break the Guinness World Record for "most people photographed on a beach in a bikini." The old record? 1,010 girls on a beach in Australia, set last year by... Cosmo! Good to see they have a hobby. They need 1,200 "chicks 18-34" to show up on Miami's South Beach next Friday, so start hitchhiking now! You'll get a free Old Navy bikini, "style to depend on available quantity and selection." Unfortunately swimsuit photos appeal primarily to straight men, who don't buy Cosmo anyways, so this is all a big waste of time. After the jump, photos of the last record, which is still perfectly good and pointless if you ask us:

The Anti-Advertising Agency is a project led by artist Steve Lambert to FIGHT BACK against all the god damn ads. They're everywhere! The AAA does all types of clever little guerilla projects, but one of the most basic things they do is give out free stickers to you, the consumer. Stickers that FIGHT BACK. You put them next to annoying ads, in order to send the message: "You don't need it." It's true! After the jump, a few photos of the stickers in action [via AAA], and where to get your own. They also work as a duct tape replacement.

This is an admittedly very cool new ad for Audi, in which a whole bunch of "powerful Hungarian gymnasts" run through an impeccably choreographed routine of flips and, uh, other gymnastic moves that are meant to symbolize the inner workings of the Audi RS6's engine. The car costs over $150,000, so it better have some damn fine inner workings [Guardian UK]. Our only issue with the ad is that they could have gotten the break dance crew in Washington Square Park to do this entire routine for about $87, so if they paid the Hungarians more than that, they just got ripped off. Click to watch the automotive performance art.

Not to be a total pawn for the evil Fox marketing machine, but I really love that show "Hell's Kitchen." I don't care if Gordon Ramsay says "cunt," or kicks couples out of a restaurant during their romantic Valentine's day dinners. Last night, as I sat through the commercials to find out which team had selected a portion of halibut that weighed closest to six ounces, I realized that this must be a good show, because it had me waiting anxiously to watch a dramatic scene of fish fillets being placed on a scale.

Unlike the Good Old Days, when the only thing you had to fear from an advertisement was a scary photo of a possessed-looking child, marketers in this modern era have given into the temptation to cuss motherfuckers out. The New York Times uses a surprising amount of non-cuss words to get to the bottom of the trend that is advertisers who purposely put bleeped-out words into their ads. Sometimes they're real cuss words; other times, they're mundane things like product names, bleeped out in an attempt to be clever. Fuck that. After the jump, the true balls-to-the-wall prototype of ads that bleep real cuss words: "Swear Jar," a famous viral Budweiser commercial in which I honestly think the guy in the meeting room says "We're gonna fuck some ass!" and "We're gonna suck some big cock!" Still, don't drink Budweiser.

In this competitive publishing environment, you need book promotions that are really HOT. So to hype up Charles Bock's heralded new novel about the underbelly of Las Vegas, "Beautiful Children," his PR team is using fake, barely legal porn! They set up a site with a video (SFW) of a teenage girl auditioning for her first porn shoot—then, just before she gets naked, it redirects to a site for the book! This is truly forward-thinking strategic marketing. Either that, or Charles Bock is just a big perv. [SlinkyFoxVideo.com via AgencySpy]

The competitive high-fashion t-shirt market is divided into those who believe their clever t-shirts mean something and those who don't. And, of course, those who don't care, but cultivate an aura of meaning as a marketing tactic, and also those who act too cool to care, but really do. Australian label Goat Boy sells its Princess Di t-shirt with the slogan "SHE'S DEAD, So get over it" for $49.95, so you know it's special (somebody buy one for Tina Brown, quick!).But they market that t-shirt with the slogan "IT'S JUST A FUCKING T-SHIRT." And with this "very violent" video, after the jump [via AdScam], of a guy wearing the shirt getting beaten up by an old woman. Which is appropriate on so many levels.

Artist of our age Damien Hirst must have a busy schedule, what with all the shark embalming and gluing little diamonds onto skulls and bidding on white truffles. But he's determined to make sure that his art remains within reach of the common people, who wear jeans and patronize over-the-top art world events. So he teamed up with all-American brand Levis—and the Andy Warhol licensing machine—to design some jeans that anyone can buy, assuming they have $80,000 (really) to spend on psychedelic pants. After the jump, photos of Hirst's new clothing items from last weekend's opening in LA. The smart consumer will wait until these go on sale at Filene's.

We mentioned that the ad campaign for the revolutionary new backless bra came with a promise from the male ad execs to model the product themselves. But we didn't think that such a spectacle would ever come to pass. We were wrong. After the jump, three pictures [via Adrants] of the male VIA advertising team striking thoughtful poses in bras. Jesus Christ.