Entries from September 2005 ↓

In a recent issue of Wired magazine, Hitachi has an ad with a real drink coaster insert.

You have to read the back of the coaster to discover the premise. Use the coaster as a drawing pad to design a new great invention using a Hitachi hard drive as part of it.

Does anyone remember the placemat ads for Compaq computers back in the day? Does anyone remember Compaq ™? Hint: they merged with Hewlett Packard.

There’s a new survey out, conducted for Doyle Dane Bernbach in London, that says most Brits have never heard of blogging.

The survey asked taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers — groups seen as followers of the latest trends — to identify common Internet terms. Seventy percent had never heard of blogging. (And a full 90% had never heard of podcasting.)*

How well does the Apple iPod ™ sell in the UK?

The results are seen as indicating that many people are not up with the latest web trends, and therefore pushing advertisers towards using the latest technology may be a mistake.

*Podcasting is downloading audio content — like a radio show — from the net to your portable music player — presumably an iPod ™ (from iPod and broadcasting) A blog is short for web log, an online journal.

In the why-didn’t-I-think-of this department is Alex Trew’s The Million Dollar Homepage ™. He made a blank webpage that’s divided into small squares like graph paper. All of it is for rent for Internet advertising space. It’s an online billboard.

Each 100-pixel parcel of his advertising landscape can be rented for $100. (I have read that it is “bought,” so the special appeal of the site may be its permanance. (In web time, I believe “permanent” is until the middle of next month.)

I just read the site’s own terms and conditions: he claims the pixel ads will be up a minimum of five years. Hmm, no links to offensive sites, no moving gifs: his whole money-making plan is sounding better and better.

The site ain’t pretty, but since its beginning on August 26th, it gets 50,000 unique visitors per day viewing the sometimes confettti-like banner bits. He claims his only advertising for the site itself has been emailing family and friends.

His ads are selling fast: there are about 190,000 pixels sold already with about 810,000 more to sell. By the way, he really did get a trademark for his Million Dollar name.

Maybe Nottingham University,where he is studying business management, should give him an honorary degree. He certainly seems to know an awful lot about conducting business on the internet already.

Now that Martha Stewart is out and free of house arrest, she is retaking the media.

I’m more of a pessimist: I really thought her conviction would put her down for the count.

But she has a new TV talk show and of course — who’s more Donald than Mr. Trump? — The Apprentice Martha Stewart. (I heard about the show before it started and I was certain it was a joke.)

I’m glad she’s back as the kitchen CEO, but maybe not so much in our face? Please?

The UK’s Advertising Producers’ Association has released its annual list of the 50 best commercials. See them at AdRants.

That fantasy flying diesel from Honda (by Weider & Kennedy UK) looks like a Disneyland dream. (Personal skepticism: ok, Honda’s diesel is clean and quiet, but is it fast?)

The Stella d’Artois spot from Lowe London is a major WWI epic. A “reassuringly expesive” spot to produce, I think.

Is that “big and agile” gymnast wearing a fat suit? (He’s selling a “big and agile” Skoda SUV.) You be the judge.

The Return of the Train spot by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y & R incorporates scenes from Hitchcock’s North by Northwest to sell a fast, new Virgin Train service. Using a terrific movie to sell a product without a big stretch of “borrowed interest” is seldom accomplished.

All in all, these are awfully intriguing commercials and easily worth the 2 Euro membership fee.

If the attorney general of California has his way, your “fries with that” may come with an unpleasant bit of copy: a cancer warning. That’s according to a New York Times article.

Bill Lockyer, the state’s AG, says that studies have proven that French fries and most fried potato products contain acrylamide, a known carcinogen. (Both chips and fries are already known for their saturated fat, trans fats and sodium levels.)

The chemical is not an additive, but forms when starches are subjected to high heat.

According to one survey firm, NPD Group, fries are the food most frequently eaten in restaurants. In fact, $7 billion a year are spent on fries and chips in the US. Therfore, the new California warning could change America’s eating habits.

Will there be scarey commercials urging kids to stop that nasty, smelly French fry habit. Will parents be urged to talk with their kids about the dangers of fried potatoes in any form?

Maybe not, but Lockyer has filed suit against McDonald’s, Burger King, Frito Lay anbd six other food companies to force them to include warning labels on their products. The label might say “This product contains a chemical known to the state of California to cause cancer.”

The FDA opposes the labeling law on the grounds that the no one knows what the dangerous levels of acrylamide in food are. More studies are needed, according to the agency.

A food industry research group says that California is singling out junk food unecessarily, as other foods such as whole wheat toast, and black olives contain the substance. (Lower levels are in bread, crackers, and peanut butter.) By the California attorney general’s office counters that fried potato products contain higher levels and constitute a larger portion of an average America’s diet.

General Electric has an engaging new TCV spot. It shows ecologically happy jungle elephants dancing in puddles to the tune of Singin’ in the Rain. It’s titled Singin’ in the Rain, too. What would Gene Kelly think?

Very engaging and original.

The Sunbed Associuation, a British tanning salon group, has been promoting the health benefits of tanning in leaflets distriViotamin D, a natural result of sun exposure, they say, helps “some cancers, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, multiple sclerosis and depression.”

They forget about the increased risk of skin cancer, including its most deadly form melanoma. In a current book Risk, authors Ropeik andGray of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, say that skin cancer is not figured into standard cancer risk charts, because it is so very common. In fact, they say, in the US each year, new cases of skin cancers approximately equal new cases of all other kinds of cancer combined. (See p. 346 of the current paperback edition.)

Anyway, the British ad watchdogs, the Advertising Standards Authority, made the sunbed people stop promoting the health benefits of increasing your exposure to UV rays in tanning salons.

According to Adweek, Crispin Porter + Bogusky has won the VW account from Arnold in Boson. The account bills $400 million. Amazingly, it will switch without a formal creative review.

There have been backchannel talks with the new agency for some time. US VW sales are slipping some 20 percent this year compared to the same period last year. Sales were down last year as well.

The agency had handled the $25 million BMW Mini Cooper account, but resigned it this morning. A key player at Cooper — marketing communications manager Kerri Martin — moved to VW in a similar capacity and that clinched the account switch. Evidently, the Mini Cooper people were very happy with CP+B’s handling of the account.

In a searching for news about the New Orleans disaster, the key words “New Orleans” produced a travel ad. “New Orleans Superbowl Cheaper Prices.” It takes a computer to do something this tasteless.

Apparently too, the Post Office and odirect mailer firms know not to ship DM offers into the disaster area, but keyword ads aren’t that smart.

Now maybe some human will step in and stop travel ads to the hurricane area?