An advert for Ann Summers chain of sex/lingerie shops, depicting the Queen reading a sex manual next to the line "Phwoar, must get one", has provoked a rare letter of complaint from Buckingham Palace.

Acme Idea Co just produced three new duracell ads that shall help consumers develop a personal connection to their batteries. Outrageously daring, one spot shows a boy reading by flashlight while the next scene shows the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group wearing Duracell-powered headlamps. What a twist!

Acme Idea co states: "Most consumers don't have an emotional connection to their batteries, and with this campaign we hope to change that."

You know why we don't have an emotional connection to our batteries - we have to throw them away when we're done*.

I thought i'd seen it all in the courtcases concerning ads.. [see: Ceasar sues McDonalds] - but of course not, pandoras box of lawsuits still has a few party tricks.

MARSEILLE, France, Aug 2 (AFP) - French wine-growers said Friday they had started a lawsuit against the government over a new anti-drink driving advertising campaign that shows a driver's view of the road obscured by a label from a wine bottle.

"By choosing a wine bottle label as the only product reference in its new campaign, the road safety department (a section of the transport ministry) is concentrating its attacks only on wine," the Wine and Society Association said.

It claims the ads go against a law prohibiting public messages from singling out just one product.
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Soon we won't need any ads! We'll just send out the court transcipts as direct mail. Awesome.

the Tri-Nations rugby match between New Zealand and Australia had to be halted due to streakers.

Two streakers bearing the Vodafone logo on their bodies invaded the pitch during the second half of the match in Sydney.

Grahame Maher, head of the Australian arm of the British-based Vodafone Group plc, admitted that he knew about the stunt before the event.

In Auckland a man posing for an advert managed to scare onlookers so good they called the fire brigade. He was hung from the side of the BNZ tower in central Auckland today, appearing to have fallen from his safety cage. The fire brigade came to the rescue, the wallclimber Nigel Lennox apologized, and some ad exec is really mad this made it all the way in to the New Zealand Herald, without one mention of [the brand] this high-flying ad shoot was for. hehe.

An obese New Yorker is suing four leading US fast food chains, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC who he accuses of being responsible for his 123kg frame and a series of heart attacks.

Caesar Barber is testing whether the food industry can be held responsible for health problems in the same way as tobacco firms.

The Hindu reports that an advertisement by an unknown outfit Muslim Mahaz carried the text:

"Do not drink Pepsi or Coca Cola as you would be unwittingly supporting Israel in its anti-Muslim actions the world over,''

the front page advertisement ran in local Urdu daily Srinagar Mail, today.

any comments?

Zippo revisits Ogilvy's hypnotist idea - with a twist .

The company said the results not only confirmed Zippo's image as the maker of a cool, hip and classic lighter, but insights that came out of the focus groups will likely shape the lighter maker's advertising campaign for the next year.

"At first we thought it was a strange idea," said Bradford-based Zippo spokesman Patrick Grandy. "But the more we talked, the more it made sense."

a job advert asking for a "friendly" employee has been deemed to be "not fair to unfriendly people".

"We were told we could not have that specification because it was discrimination against people who were unfriendly." says Mr Speakman who placed the ad.

Firms can be found liable for deceptive public statements, justices decide. Critics call the decision a blow to free speech.
The California Supreme Court ruled that Nike Inc. can
be sued by a man who claims the company broke advertising laws with an ad campaign that defended the wages, treatment and safety conditions of workers at overseas factories.

C|Net reports that 'Digital ads entangle "Spider-Man"' for digitally superimposing billboards in Time Square, thus eating into their revenue stream. But I thought the spider-man movie was fantasy, not a documentary....?

As computers make it easier to manipulate video images, the issue of who owns the space that appears on-screen is likely to heat up in a battle over digital advertising and product placement.
In its suit, Sherwood and Super Sign allege they've lost revenue because their Times Square billboard space becomes less desirable if the companies can't guarantee exclusive placement both on-screen and offscreen.

AT&T ADS' CONFUSED MESSAGE BOOSTS MET LIFE
Cryptic 'mLife' Theme Leave Viewers Thinking Health Insurance
February 25, 2002 By Rance Crain (Ad Age)
A column or two ago, I wrote about the great good fortune of Andersen Consulting being forced to change its name to Accenture -- just in time to avoid the Enron flap. Now, in a second stroke of luck, AT&T Wireless is giving Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. a load of free advertising.
AT&T Wireless is blanketing the media with ads for "mLife," which most people assume is another name for Met Life. Isn't it logical for the insurer's name to go from Metropolitan Life to Met Life to "mLife"?

All the big companies are doin' it: that is, sending glorified voyeurs into people's homes to analyze their interaction with various consumer products. Apparently, since traditional focus groups just aren't cutting it anymore, big brands have found the need to go a few steps further by invading the personal lives of willing guinea pig people.

Seems the online version of the new york times will soon start running commercials amoungst their news stories. See their sales pitch here.
Do you think this is a good thing? Or bad idea?
Do you think this will work?

Seems everywhere we look, massfirerings are happening. 10% of the danish advertising professionals have walked to their offices for the last time. W+K have slashed staff worldwide.
In Stockholm the freelancers gang is growing to critical mass. Large agencies in the u.s. calls staffers to the friday meeting ("we feel, it's better to fire on Fridays") as morality sinks to mimic the agencies golden cow account tagline, like a Rock.

Everybody wants to be a star, and in a newly reprised Freeman and Partners, MacKenzie-Cutlercampaign for Fox Sports' National Basketball Association, basketball wannabes Alan and Jerome live out a sport fan's dream thanks to Flame artist Johnnie Semerad and his teamat Quiet Man.

Though they're an e-biz flunk out, bankrupt ecampus.com wound up teaching former agency DeVito/Verdi a thing or two about dot commerce.

Dennis Publishing is suing the agency for $270,000 worth of unpaid ecampus.com ads that ran in Maxim magazine. For the agency's sake, the litigation hopefully ends here. God forbid ecampus.com should decide that a media plan that promoted its text book website in Maxim contributed to its demise.

Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom isn't allowed to play college football because he received a skiing endorsement from Nike. The NCAA doesn't like that sort of thing. Well, Bloom saw a big flaw in the NCAA's logic, so he took them to court. And you may or may not be surprised by the ammo he has in his pocket, or rather, on his pocket.

Clayton found this lovely article about some clever posters written in Braille with the theme of equal treatment for the blind.

Only problem - the posters had no other headline than the braille, so the seeing could not read them, also they were placed behind protective glass, so the blind could not read them. So the equal treatment message fell on deaf ears. *bada-bing-tssck!*

"Unfortunately, no one knows what it says because it has been put inside a display case with a glass front," the magazine noted in its feedback section, a regular feature about life's ironies and tidbits from around the world.

PETA want people to stop wearing fur trim, so they show this image of a woman with a rather thick area of pubes peeking out from underneath her lingerie. Oh, PETA, will you ever be able to make an ad that doesn't disrespect women as a springboard for your cause?

MS Magazine has a collection of readers reactions this this ad, well worth a read. My favorite: