Gillette goofs up promotion pack, loosing $1 million in razors that got confiscated at the DMC. Genious.

With all of the headlines and commotion about
strict security at this year's political conventions you would think that
someone would have thought twice about the decision to place boxes of
Gillette razors in each of the welcome bags handed out with credentials to
delegates and press types in Boston.

[via Fark]

Somewhere somehow people have realized that punters do like to watch ads on occasion - provided they're the funny ones. So we've had shows like Carrot's commercial breakdown and all of it's clones for years already - now for the next step - entire channels dedicated to adverts.

The advert channel.tv is a site that much like Carrot's, brings you the funniest and silliest ads from around the globe, pure advertainment. The presenters also take you behind the scenes in the making of adverts and broadcasts on the digital satellite platform Channel number 694 - all you need to do is tune in. You can advertise on the channel of course, and with this audience the viewers might even stick around to watch your ad. ;)

The group called "Project Billboard" booked their ad space way back in December of last year, on a Billboard at the Marriott Marquis Hotel at Broadway and 45th Street in NYC. Now Clear Channel Communications - one of the largest Media Companies in the US (and the world) - has nixed the ad and will not run it next month as previously planned. Morons.org has more. The Project Billboard group are accusing Clear Channel for breach of contract and are expected to file a suit today in Manhattan federal court. Read more to see the offending posters.

Hat tip to Michael modern times film @ adlist.

In a (succesful) bid to get a little extra attention around the film Stepford wives - a remake of Bryan Forbes 1975 film by the same title which is based on a book by Ira Levin - Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice have been added as extra spice to the trailer. Morphing from their usual selves to a harem lady and the perfect homemaker their images flash by in a snap, but it's enough to make people notice. Birdherder exclaimed "Wtf!?" upon seeing it - click here for news at ten video detail. Shocking for attentions sake? Probably - and I thought the oh-so-understated teaser with our current Miss Perfect Kidman doing her best porcelain doll look was so much better.

Sloggi's derriere fetish is getting tired. Recently a Sloggi spring-string ad has made appearances as a poster in the UK which was apparently located close to mosques. Did the bums do this to make sure someone complained so they could squeeze some free press out of it? Your guess is a good as mine, they got two complaints, and are now appearing all over the British press.

This isn't the first time Sloggi has gotten in the press for their
posteriors, remember when they teamed up with Daewoo to select the best bum where site visitors (females only) sent in pictures of their butts and the best behind could place their winning rump in the seat of a Daewoo car.

Remember the Polo Volkswagen (BMP DDB) campaign a few years back? The line said "surprisingly low prices" and the commercials were hilarious twist on this fact. In one a Dentist tries to get his patient to open wide, the patient tries but it really isn't wide enough, until the dentist shows him a Polo ad with the price listed and the patients jaw drops. Great ad.

In New Zealand an ad for Cool Charm deodorant takes place in a similar dentist office, where the dentist is having the same problem with his patient. (read more)

What a way to diss your main income - TV2 bossman let Politiken know what their real reason for dropping all their advertising slots during the live full day coverage of the Royal wedding this Friday in Copenhagen was.

»Når der kommer reklameblokke, er der tendenser til, at seerne zapper, og det vil vi ikke risikere«, siger Lasse Bjerre.

In English: When it comes to advertising slots, there's tendencies that the viewers will 'zap' [to other channels], and we don't want to risk that".

Amsterdam ad agency LaMarque has created a competition for their car client Daewoo that they hope will gain fame amoungst the younger market. Jeroen Oosterman, branddirector at LaMarque said: - "Daewoo noted that it's hard to reach the younger market on your own, this collaboration campaign together with Sloggy works as an icebreaker."

The idea is as simple as it is tasteless, at Kontest.nl women can send in images of their bums, and the one with the best "bodywork"-behind wins a Daewoo car. If you fail reaching the top ten, not to worry, there's pages of workouts and diet-tips to get into "Sloggy-shape".

A new campaign from Lejaby Lingerie stirred the French a little too much it seems, the Guardian smells an end of sexist advertising in France.

The campaign - which you can view in all its glory if you click read more - shows left lovers sniffing the lingerie from their former girls with the headline that reads "Remember me".

The Forest Service burned to get some good PR and hired a firm to create a misleading brochure for them. In the brochure 6 small B&W photos spanning 80 years are shown;

"The 1909 photo shows an open, parklike forest with large trees spaced widely apart. More trees and underbrush appear in each successive picture -- 1948, 1958, 1968, 1979 -- and finally a photo thick with trees in 1989.
'Today's forests, dense with green, may seem beautiful, but in fact are deadly,' the pamphlet reads. 'Our old-growth forests are choking with brush, tinder-dry debris, and dead trees which make the risk of catastrophic fire high.'

However, the 1909 photo picture does not show a forest natural conditions -- it was taken just after the forest had logged. Also, the forest pictured isn't in Sierra Nevada. It is in Montana.

Read more at Boston.com news. Hat tip to tlevitz.

Wigged out news of the week - Donald Trump wants to trademark the phrase "You're Fired".
No seriously. If you don't believe me check out the The Smoking Gun who has posted the papers filed at The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

That's right, if The Donald gets the nod from The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, he'll be able to exclusively slap the words "You're Fired" on clothing and "games and playthings," and use it in connection with "casino services." Along with peddling overpriced apartments, Trump runs some spectacularly underperforming Atlantic City gambling joints. Trump's two trademark applications, which you'll find below, were made after the January 8 debut of "The Apprentice," the NBC hit that has thrust Trump (and the alleged billionaire's swirling hairdo) back onto the front pages.

Money talks, and it wants you to buy stuff. Seems the old idea of stickers on money has a new lease on life, with even full fledged specialized media agencies opening in it's honor.

"The idea was born when I received a coin at a taverna in Greece which had a sticker with the name of the bar on it" said Thomas Ridell, founder and CEO of Moneymarketingmedia .

Several lawyers have looked into the legalities of stickers on Swedish
money and while it is clear that bills may not be 'stickered', there is
nothing stopping people from putting stickers on coins, as long as the size and the weight of the coin is not affected.
Åsa Syden, lawyer at Swedens National Bank (Riksbanken) is less enthusiastic: "This must be stopped, if we have to we'll take them to court." she stated to Dagens Industri before even the first coins hit the streets.

Every so often in adland reports about ads in Space pop up. Either they'll paint the moon or build a net high up, or as now when we revisited the subject, a mysterious 'device' will "paint ads on the sky" between satellites that are already in orbit (or soon will be). This time it's Alexander Lavrynov, a spacecraft designer, who has patented a device for putting advertising into space that would be seen from Earth, CNN
reports.

"Space commercials could embrace huge areas and a colossal number of consumers," he said. "This would literally be intercontinental coverage."

Too Sechsy for their ads? - hat tip to Claymore.

MSNBC puns that controversy brews over Sechs sexy beer ads, which dares to not show anything but be 'more cerebral' punning away on the name of the beer. The headlines read: "How you have Sechs is none of our business," "As long as you're 21, it's OK to pay for Sechs" and "It's OK to have Sechs by yourself." Don't miss the Sechs Beer site, check out their eCards to get a taste of the campaign.

Coke's Dasani launch in the uk isn't going well. As soon as the Sun and other tabloids knew that the "super pure" Dasani bottled water is purified British tap water they ridiculed the drink, the Sun labelled it "the real sting", it was also reported in the Herald and the Scotsman. Coke has now hired Lexis PR to start a recovery strategy before Dasani goes down the drain.

image from this article : Pissin' in the great outdoors for fun and profit.

Eminem is suing apple for using the song "Lose Yourself" without permission in a marketing campaign, the LA Times reports.

Apple approached Eminem for use of the song, but representatives for Mathers (Eminem) said that for the rapper to ink any such deal would require "a significant amount of money, possibly in excess of $10 million."

They then pulled "Lose Yourself" from consideration and another Eminem song was proposed instead, this prompted Steve Jobs himself to call up "the performer's management personally to ask Eminem to reconsider or Apple would scrap the campaign." The rapper ended the talks but a commercial featuring "Lose Yourself" appeared between July and October of 2003 on MTV as well as Apple's Internet website, now Eminem wants damages....

Peta have - yet again - had one of their ads refused by a network. This time it's not too sexy, nor is it using an impotent Santa Claus, nor are they scaring children at the nutcracker show, in their usual shocktactic style.
This time, they are showing the life of a chicken, and the horrible practice of debeaking them so that they won't hurt themselves or other chickens (it also forces finicky animals like turkeys to eat what we damn well feed them, as their beak is now only a scooper). View the Quicktime commercial here at PETA's page. The Television Bureau of Canada decided the commercial was "just too graphic" and would anger Canadian viewers.

"Its depiction of violence to animals has caused us to reject it," the bureau's president, Jim Patterson, said Tuesday.

Well, that's the point - the violence is so awful Peta suggest you go vegan instead. The chicken debeaking isn't the only shuddering scene, also in the ad, a pig farmer gloats as he smashes what appears to be a concrete block on the head of a downed pig. News from Cnews Canada.
When PETA sticks strictly to their message, using hidden camera and documentary footage, it's more shocking than any shocktactic they can think of. Now that is kind of scary.

A big mistake has happened with the Pepsi itunes bottlecaps. Apparantly the ink is not resistant to the sugar water. A massive number of complaints have already reached PepsiCo, as people were not able to read the code. Pepsi admits they made a mistake that causes the print to go blurry, they now offer this website to tell you what to do.
Youngamericas bottlecapform. You'll need to snailmail them your name, complete address, daytime phone number, email address and date of birth.

One wonders if the mistake was on purpose. If you think about How much your personal information is worth, you just gave Pepsi $17.50 in return for a 99-cent iTunes song. A Bargain!
hat tip to Gezellig

David Bedford said to the Guardian; "I am pleased Ofcom (the telecommunications regulator) has now vindicated my claim that The Number has 'ripped off' my image."
The number claimed that the runners were based on numerous runners from the 1970s, in particular Steve Prefontaine, see adland's previous post.

Ofcom said the television adverts "do caricature David Bedford by way of a comically exaggerated representation of him looking like he did in the 1970s, sporting a hairstyle and facial hair like his at the time, and wearing running kit almost identical to that distinctively worn by him at the time" in the Telegraph

left to right, Steve, The Number, Bedford

Starbucks have finally ended their dispute with HaidaBucks. HaidaBucks, a small Canadian coffee shop. is owned by three Haida men and one man married to a Haida woman - hence the name, as they are Haida-Bucks. Geddit?

Joseph Arvay, one of the lawyers acting for HaidaBucks, was also pleased with the outcome. "Starbucks has underestimated these proud young Haida men. Far from rolling over at Starbucks' command, they stood their ground, refusing to make any changes to their name or logo, and rightly so. They stared down the bully and the bully blinked."

For those who can't tell the difference between HaidaBucks and Starbucks HaidaBucks provides a handy chart.

Haida (pronounced Hi-Duh) is not the same as Star
Got that? Let's make sure. Haida -- Star -- Haida -- Star.
See how easy that was? The two words are completely different! How about that?

Somehow appropriate to add this Vietnam Starbucks Remix image found via BoingBoing.