The headline "You're Not Alone" coupled with a stark image of a woman covering her face, as if in despair, clearly parodies the usual PSA look. The subline "Millions of people love the Big Mac" and the toll-free number make it clear it's for McDonald's, and not some stress caused depression. These ads appeared all over Boston subway system last week, amused people were sharing photos of them on social media, and somewhere a creative team was likely high-fiving each other as this is the type of thing that does well in awards. But.... everyone I know has a big but... the ad was not approved of by McDonald's.. What what! Ghosts ads in the USA, say it ain't so?

The other day, Justin Bieber visited the Anne Frank house. This should not be news in and of itself, but here's why it is.
The Anne Frank House posted the above message on thier Facebook Page.

I love this. Absolutely love it. Not because it proves something about Bieber. No, I love it because it proves the people calling themselves Personal Brands™ are extolling the virtues of being shallow and fake.

Once upon a time, before the marketing charlatans* got their buzzword hands on our vernacular, there were well-established words and phrases used to define decent behavior. Words like common sense, civility, etiquette and the like.

There's been a lot of talk about the silly condiments spanking the people as revenge campaign all over the interwebz. No doubt you've seen it. We've posted about it, too. We've had questions for Milan advertising agency Alch1m1a.
Questions that no one else has asked. So we will be the first:

Question: did this shit even run, since it's nowhere to be found on your website?

Question: (which comes from a hat tip): Since Kami Tora is a very prominent manga/hentai artist, did it ever cross your mind to I don't know, maybe not make it so obvious you traced the image (minus nut sack) of the same dude gettin' his butt spanked?

Jonah Peretti founder of Buzzfeed has been riding the viral wave ever since his stunt email exchange with Nike in 2001. Buzzfeed is the viral headquarters if you will, where imgur gifs, tumblr jokes and reddit best photo threads are repackaged with smart headlines, cleaned up with snarkier comments and sent out into the world with big yellow "WTF" buttons on them. A machine of memes, with an editorial staff skilled at making them who will sell this ability to the highest bidder, like Virgin Mobile and other brands targeting the younger demographic.