Not those iPods again

It's indisputable that Apple's iPod is the accessory of the moment. Even here at AdFreak we've felt compelled to write about it twice in two days. But what, you may be wondering, is this picture of little, colorful, woolen iPod-shaped things?

Why, they’re accessories for the accessory! Yes, folks, for a mere $29, you can outfit your iPod with any one of six vibrant color socks (green, purple, grey, blue, orange, and pink). That's right, socks!

Overenthusiastic copy on the MacConnection Web site introduces us to “the year's coziest and most vibrant iPod accessory.” It even offers instructions: “Just slide your iPod into the sock to keep it safe and warm.” Just like a cuddly little baby! The iPod, anthropomorphized!

Now, we know that Apple loyalists are a wee bit zealous. Hell, we are Apple loyalists. But even for those of us who appreciate the sleek design of the iMac and the uniqueness of a tangerine iBook, this is just too precious. It’s tantamount to dressing your dog, which is one of our pet peeves (no pun intended).

Don't put it in a sock. Put a sock in it!

—Posted by Ann M. Mack

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some ads with your TiVo?

It was inevitable. The commercial-skipping device has gone commercial.

First, TiVo started offering ads on its main menu. Now, the company is giving advertisers the chance to grab the attention of fans of the fast-forward function. Its latest software release—due in March—will feature a fast-forward billboard that will appear in the form of graphics as users zip through TV spots. As TiVo's Kimber Sterling described it to Adweek back in September, it will be "an opportunity for the advertiser to create a speed bump to get another chance to bring the person back into the commercial." 

Guess what? People generally don't like speed bumps. And indeed, some TiVo owners are crying foul, saying the ad "intrusion" crosses the line.

On this one, AdFreak sides with TiVo. Who can blame the unprofitable 7-year-old company for attempting to diversify its revenue base as it feels the heat from DVR-bundling cable operators? Not to mention, it is trying to make nice with the networks and advertisers.

We're not saying the fast-forward billboard is the solution. It's probably a stop-gap until something better comes along. In the meantime, TiVo owners should get used to the fact that their Monday Night Footall and Desperate Housewives come with a price—a commercial message—and no technology is going to change that. Nothing in life is free. Unless you switch to HBO and stay there. Oh wait, that costs money, doesn't it?

—Posted by Ann M. Mack

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this case, it DID just disappear

Nothing captures the spirit of Christmas like a gift that stops giving—in two days.

The independent film Noel, a seasonal tale starring Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams, came and went (swiftly) with a novel—and creepy— strategy. Noel was shown in a handful of theaters in early November, then on TNT once over the Thanksgiving weekend, and now, unfathomably, on DVDs that self-destruct within 48 hours.

DUM dah dum dum.

No need for coal. Just order up one of these babies for $4.99 a pop at Amazon.com, leave the suicidal thing in the stocking until Sunday, and it'll turn black and go belly up. And don't forget the card: "Happy holidays. I hate you."

However, this Grand Guignol idea is too good not to export. Here, therefore, are some things we would like to see evaporate in 48 hours:

• Desperate Housewives. They've already killed off one of them, not counting the wife who's already dead, so it's a start.

• The Miller/Anheuser-Busch advertising blood feud. A series of 30-second hissy fits. Listen, kids: Snap out of it, or we're all switching to scotch.

• Oliver Stone's Alexander—wait, that's already happening.

What else should burst into flames? How about:

• Five SUV ads in one pod.

• Jared Fogle.

• Dan Rather—wait, that already happened.

—Posted by Jack Feuer

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

All fun and games until someone gets hurt

Is there an award for most tasteless use of an anniversary in a marketing campaign?

A company called Traffic Management Ltd., based in Scotland of all places, has rolled out a truly bizarre videogame called JFK Reloaded that puts game players in the role of Lee Harvey Oswald and asks them to take aim at John F. Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas and try to off the president. To maximize exposure and/or nausea among consumers, the company rolled out the game last Monday, on the 41st anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

There’s been widespread disgust with the whole thing, obviously, and the company has come out with defensive PR guns blazing—which was no doubt also in the plan from the beginning. Its defense? It says the game is basically a history lesson, in that it supports the lone-gunman theory. The company is even offering a cool $100,000 to the player who most accurately re-creates the three shots Oswald fired from the Texas School Book Depository building on Nov. 22, 1963. 

Roll that one up and smoke it.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We'll get another chance

Sometimes AdFreak’s life seems to consist mostly of a never-ending succession of envelopes coming through the mail to us from Citibank, all with the words “LAST CHANCE” printed on them in big black letters, like it's our final hope to be cured of some unspeakable financial disease.

The fact is—and actually, we get these envelopes from AT&T Universal Card, too, since they are all part of the same big, happy credit-card family—that it’s another one of those low-interest-rate offers giving us just one more opportunity to trade in our egregiously high interest rate for a lower one. Except sometimes we get these offers at the rate of two or three a week.

Maybe, just possibly, with people who have short-term memory loss, this particular piece of direct mail actually works. But for those of us who can actually remember back to yesterday—or even the day before!—these offers are an annoyance, and a lie. As we’ve come to discover after years of study, none of the solicitations like the one we got yesterday is the “LAST CHANCE.” They are all just the last chance before the next chance.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wanted: sponge-nappers

Calling all cars: Be on the lookout for a 10-foot-tall inflatable sponge. Yellow. Last seen wearing square pants.

We imagine just such a call blazed across police radios in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., Gorham, Maine, Little Falls, Minn., and several other towns across America, where promotional characters hyping The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie were recently reported stolen from Burger King restaurants. Wunderman helped engineer the campaign, but the direct-meisters may have gotten more publicity than they bargained for.

According to police in one Minnesota town, a ransom note claimed, “We have SpongeBob,” and demanded “10 Crabby Patties, fries and milkshakes,” says an AP report.

—Posted by Lisa van der Pool

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Laziness is the new copywriting trick

Random musing of the day: Is the contruction "[x] is the new [y]" still fair game in advertising, or is it completely, ridiculously, mind-numbingly overused already?

It probably started, way back when, with "gray is the new black," or maybe "40 is the new 30." But somewhere along the way it became an all-purpose lazy-writing standard, as evidenced here, in a fun post on the Agoraphilia blog from earlier this year.

Now, marketing materials for the film Ocean's Twelve are going with the tagline: "Twelve is the new eleven." Which really is pretty meaningless when you think about it.

If you're going to go the meaninglessness route, why not have some fun? Maybe channel Spinal Tap with a line like, "This one goes to twelve."

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

McDonald's new special sauce

So Heidi Klum apparently likes Big Macs, and will be professing her love for them on a TV screen near you in the not-so-distant future.

Heidi Klum eats Big Macs. Yeah, like we believe that. Sure. OK. Right. What's next? Kate Moss pitching Krispy Kremes?

Here's a sentence that we chuckled at from the New York Daily News story: "Other celebrities who have been the face of McDonald's include Justin Timberlake, Ronald McDonald and the Hamburgler." Are the terms "mascot" and "celebrity" now interchangeable?

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

iPod, you Pod, we all Pod

It was only a matter of time before the iPod phenomenon gave birth to new words and phrases among the "pod people culture." We've already heard about the "iPod economy." Now, featured in the venerable New York Times on Sunday, we have "podjacking"—the practice of tapping into a friend's (or stranger's) iPod and absconding with their tunes. (There's event a whole Web site, Podjacking.com, devoted to it.)

What's next? Before you know it, iPod will be used as a verb. Trouble is, "iPodded" doesn't have the same ring as "Googled," "TiVoed" or any of the proper-noun-turned-verbs before it. And in what context would one use it?

We'll give it some thought as we listen to U2's new album, which we podjacked from our colleague's iPod mini.

—Posted by Alison Fahey

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Macy's thanksgiving ad parade

Now that we've finally attended our first ever Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (see photographic evidence at left), we thought we’d finally be able to knowledgeably answer the question of whether the parade is an endearing holiday tradition or the ghastly opening salvo to another hugely commercial Christmas season.
But our feelings were decidedly mixed. On the one hand, it's always unnerving to find that your offspring have an encyclopedic knowledge of characters from cartoons you never even knew they watched, but on the other hand the balloons, many of which are heavily bandaged after years of running into skyscrapers, bitter Thanksgiving winds and New York City lampposts, have this surprisingly homemade quality, like someone’s wacky uncle dreamt them up in his garage. They’re supersized and yet surprisingly fragile, which takes away some of their overtly commercial sting. Even the almighty Ronald McDonald looked just a little tentative about his buoyancy. Amazingly enough, there seemed to be little in terms of memorabilia for sale—at least at the corner of 43rd and Broadway. The only thing the kids Adfreak went with really wanted was one of those massive New York street pretzels, brand name unknown.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Taking the M&M train

M&M's Candies have finally done what might seem obvious to many New York subway riders—partnered with the MTA in a special promotion that marks the subway’s 100th anniversary with commemorative M&M mixes available at the New York City Transit Museum. Since the logos for each subway line are big, round and colorful, with the number or letter of the specific line in the middle (yes, folks, there’s even a brown M line that runs from Brooklyn Bridge to Middle Village, Queens), it makes a certain kind of sense in these days of highly-customized bags of M&M's. Adfreak first noticed the promotion while departing the Times Square Shuttle the other day, where some of the round columns had been painted to resemble rolls of M&M's. While it would have made a more powerful point if the entire sprawling station had been so adorned, it was still a nicely fanciful use of the subway as an advertising medium.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Knauss gets behind Levi's

Shock of shocks! The New York Post is reporting that professional Donald Trump fiancée Melania Knauss has been signed to an endorsement deal by the apparel-maker. The deal comes on the Manolo Blahniks of Ms. Knauss showing up in a roomful of Levi's execs on the Donald's show, The Apprentice, wearing a pair of the classic jeans, all the while leaving a gaggle of sweaty-palmed Apprentice-wannabes in her wake. Ms. Knauss announced her good fortune Tuesday on The View, per the Post, and began her good works as Levi’s resurrect-ress with a trip to a Levi's store in Soho.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 26, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sex and the wrong city

Sarah Jessica Parker, the indomitable pixie of Gap ads and more, can do no wrong here in America, but she’s ruffling feathers in Tel Aviv, showing too much skin in a billboard for Unilever Lux shower gel, at least according to the Orthodox community.

Parker was pictured wearing a spaghetti-strapped, sequined dress that fell well above the knee. Sounds pretty demure to AdFreak, but then again, we’re used to Calvin Klein boards like this one above Houston Street. But after an unidentified rabbi threatened Unilever with a boycott if it weren’t removed, Unilever did some fast and furious retouching of the board, reports the Jerusalem daily Haaretz.

The posters were removed and resurfaced with Parker in the same sequined dress, this time with long sleeves, a covered back and a longer hemline. The daily reports that a Unilever rep explained it as a wardrobe change for the season: “We dressed Sarah Jessica Parker for the winter.”

Couldn’t they come up with something more plausible? We’re sure Carrie Bradshaw would have been shocked and appalled by Parker’s outfit, too—maybe even more than the rabbi.

—Posted by Eleftheria Parpis

Photo: Junko Kimura

Published on November 24, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Parpis

Papi’s promotion commotion

Up here in Boston, we didn’t have our Wheaties this morning. But we wish we’d been out shopping at the Shaw’s supermarket in Dedham, Mass., on Tuesday, when Red Sox superstar David Ortiz (known to the Fenway faithful as “Big Papi”) made a surprise visit to promote the new Wheaties boxes featuring himself and his World Champ teammates.

The event was announced only moments before Ortiz’s arrival, in order to curb the crazy crowds that would have clogged the suburban store. The last baseball team to be featured on a Wheaties box was the New York Yankees in 1999. Memo to George Steinbrenner: Revenge is so sweeeet!

—Posted by Lisa van der Pool

Published on November 24, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Write your own damn stories!

Picture this. Tuesday-night TV. Flipping through the channels, we are once again turned off by the sea of slop. On the reality front, there are those pitiful fatties on The Biggest Loser and that egomaniac on The Rebel Billionaire. Frankly, AdFreak can’t stomach either one. So we’re relieved and comforted to come across a real, honest to goodness drama, Law & Order, familiar like an old friend.

We know we can count on the compelling writing, the unfolding drama of the investigation and then the trial, all the while assured that it will conclude with a verdict that will either satisfy or shock us. We’ll take either.

But oh no, not this time. After investing an entire hour in this episode of Law & Order: SVU (which is not so easy these days), we are left hanging as the trial comes down the wire on a sticky rape case. As the jury foreman reads the verdict, “We the jury find” ... fade to black. Yep, no verdict, no closure, no satisfaction. NBC cops out and asks viewers to log onto NBC.com to vote on the ending or select an ending, I don’t really know which, since I was busy hurling obscenities at the screen.

The verdict on Law & Order is like the punch line of a joke. Why would you leave us hanging? OK, we get the thinking behind this boneheaded move: “Let’s engage the viewer and make it interactive.” You know what? Some of us just want to be entertained, not interactive. How about the guys who get paid to write these shows actually finish the stinkin’ script?

NBC says this is meant to “empower” viewers. If, in network lingo, “empower” means “infuriate,” then they're spot on. 

—Posted by Alison Fahey

Published on November 24, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Talking turkey

As we are less than 24 hours away from the official start of the holiday season, AdFreak wishes to contemplate the following: Are women more sentimental than men during the holidays, or just more inclined to give socially correct answers to pollsters?

In a survey conducted for the Dole Nutrition Institute, people were asked to cite their favorite aspect of Thanksgiving. Both sexes gave majorities of their votes to “visiting with friends and family,” but women were much more likely than men to pick that answer (75 percent vs. 58 percent). Among the other choices, “turkey” got 9 percent of the vote, “side dishes such as stuffing, mashed potatoes or vegetables” got 5 percent, and “dessert” got 3 percent. Then there were the 7 percent (predominantly men) who picked “football” and the 2 percent who cited “shopping the day after.”

And let us tip our Pilgrim hats to the candid 1 percent who admitted their favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the “excuse to indulge.”

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Published on November 24, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a lather over Rather

We’ve never thought network news anchors spawned cottage industries—that seems more the role of precocious teen actresses/singers like Lindsey Lohan. But in the wake of the news that Dan Rather will step down from the anchor role at CBS Evening News, AdFreak realizes it’s actually true, especially around the Internet—even if the market for Dan Rather T-shirts on eBay isn’t exactly hot. Now, for those who’ve devoted countless late-night hours to his every word and hand gesture, the question is: What do we do now?

For one site, Ratherbiased.com, the answer seems to be to pat each other on the back and call it a day. In a statement prepared in the manner of all too many we’ve seen on network newscasts, the site’s brass said yesterday: “We will be moving on after Dan’s retirement. As of now, our plans are not finalized so we cannot give too much detail.” Danrathermustgo.com so far has been mute on the news, but the plucky folks at Rathergate.com have already found a new mission. Noting that Rather isn’t exactly retiring, since he will continue to report for the network, they have launched a fax campaign asking affiliates to press CBS to get Rather to entirely leave.

In visiting these sites, there’s no sign that any of them actually made money off their obsession with Rather. The real winners on that score were R.E.M., who, in 1994 released “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”—a song that referenced a 1986 incident in which Rather was mugged by an assailant purportedly blubbering “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” over and over.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 24, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In beer we trust

Will beer marketing stumble another few steps forward thanks to the United States Beer Drinking Team?

The USBDT describes itself as the multimedia-marketing arm of the Beer Radio Network. What’s the Beer Radio Network? According to the Web site, it’s a weekly radio show (Saturday from 3-6 p.m. on Sirius and other outlets) on which “special guest talk about BEER!” (Augie Busch has yet to trudge down for an interview, but Jim Koch and Dick Yeungling apparently have taken the plunge.)

The USBDTers seem like the kind of people who rush down for yet another pony keg at 3 in the morning to try to keep the party going. “There are over 90 million beer drinkers in the United States who spend over 67 billion dollars per year on beer!” the Web site blares. “The USBDT is the first and only official beer drinking team for all of us. We are a team of hard working men and women who enjoy the best things in life: fun, friendship, family, passion, good times and great beer!”

In its mission statement, the USBDT says its goal is nothing less than “to become the dominant beer lifestyle brand worldwide. This goal will be achieved by utilizing a visionary multimedia approach to gain the loyalty and trust of the world’s beer consumers.” It’s kind of sad that this “visionary multimedia approach” seems to consist of a combination of radio and interactive, but the group does have plans for Beer Television—though even that will be broadcast over the Web at first.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 24, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wash that e-mail message out with soap!

An innocent attempt to send, via e-mail, a portion of a magazine profile on WPP’s Martin Sorrell to HSBC’s Peter Stringham was greeted with an electronic body-slam last week. Why? “Bad language and/or profanity,” explained HSBC’s prissy e-mail server in London.

At first blush, the rejection seemed preposperous. The 3,000-plus-word Fortune piece (the link goes to an excerpt—you need a subscription to read the whole thing) largely applauded Sorrell’s success at grabbing market share, be it through pitches for global clients like HSBC or acquisitions like Cordiant and Grey. This was praise, not profanity.

Stringham was quoted twice in the piece but, as of last Thursday, had yet to see it. (He was in Shanghai when AdFreak caught up with him.) So, in the spirit of information-sharing, we e-mailed him. Then—ahem—all heck broke loose.

We think we know offensive language when we see it. But poring over the story again, we were at a loss to find any troublesome terms. Digging deeper, however, we wondered, could it be in one cheeky quote from Sir Martin? “Growing a big company by 5% to 10% consistently is a big job and difficult to do,” he says. “But if it were easy, my cocker spaniel could run the company.”

Sure enough, minus the word “cocker”—how bloody rude!—the article cleared HSBC’s e-censors and arrived in London. So much for timeliness, though. It didn’t land in Stringham’s basket until this week.

—Posted by Andrew McMains

Published on November 23, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We'd rather jettison than jet

This is a picture of the premier copy of jetrosexual, a new custom magazine for Virgin Atlantic Airways, taken at its current residence—in our trash can.

It was handed to AdFreak for free in a newsstand in Grand Central yesterday, and we haven’t been the same since. At first, seeing a warm freebie in our lap all nice and red, with a cute little white airplane on it, made us feel all tingly. Then we actually started to read it, and we wondered how such an absolutely preposterously silly idea could get from the desks of Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Virgin into the hands of thousands of innocent commuters.

As one of my colleagues put it, it makes you wonder if the whole trend toward out-of-the-box creative has jumped the shark.

The magazine is supposed to be devoted to the “new jet set,” or jetrosexuals, but it comes off as the ultimate vanity project—cool people talking to other cool people about why they’re so cool. As one Virgin traveler says, “The most interesting people I meet on planes aren’t rock stars (though I’ve met more than a few of them that way). They are people from completely different industries that I know nothing about who teach me all these amazing things I never knew I wanted to learn.”

How enlightened! Not slapping a few back with the Hives? Might as well chat with Bill Gates! Yeccch!

Other parts read like an episode of bird-watching gone horribly awry: “The jetrosexual expects to remain connected to the best culture and entertainment even at 37,000 ft. They demand parallel living conditions in the air: Stylishly-designed furnishings, a wide selection of on-demand digital entertainment and gourmet food. And if a massage is available, so much the better. ... Jetrosexuals will work as necessary on the plane, but they are no drones.” What’s next? In-depth pieces about their mating habits? An analysis of the sleep disorders they suffer from because of all those time changes?

We kept trying to find the joke, and then we found it, on the cover: We got this copy free, but it retails for $7.99.
 
—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 23, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Virgin Atlantic

Ron Artest, challenger brand

Ron Artest wasn’t the only bad boy involved in the Pistons-Pacers fracas. But he’s the only one signed to a three-year endorsement deal with LA Gear, which until Friday was all amped up about launching his “Tru Warier” line of shoes and athletic apparel early next year.

Poor davidandgoliath, the agency that won LA Gear’s hip $2-3 million account in September. Asked what his client might do, David Angelo coolly tells AdFreak, “We’ll just have to step back and assess.”

The indie shop’s first print ads with Artest are already running in Slam and Dime. In a statement yesterday, a sheepish LA Gear noted that its “use of [Artest] in our marketing plans was based on the best aspects of Ron’s performance on the basketball court” and that the print ads “sought to capture in a breakthrough way Ron’s ability to dominate the game.” The company added that it will review its plans “concerning [Artest’s] role with our company and our brand.”

Hmm. Good thing davidandgoliath also handles LA Gear’s line of women’s fashion sneakers, expected to launch in the spring.

Upon winning the account, Angelo said, “We understand the role of challenger brands.” Could he have been referring to Artest as well?

--Posted by Randi Schmelzer

Published on November 23, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a Ford in your ... TV show

NBC’s American Dreams, a ’60s drama that struck on a timely story line this season with a son MIA in Vietnam, came to us commercial-free Sunday night, but certainly not ad free, from Ford Motor Co.

Ford teased Mustang’s omnipresence during the episode with a pre-show spot that samples Steve McQueen’s turn in Bullitt. The car’s earlier incarnation appeared in vintage ads on TVs and on the side of a bus and was even scripted into the show. One character holds up a magazine ad and blurts out, “Nothing says ‘Merry Christmas’ like the new ’66.”

For a show that has already made clear its aspirations to be part of the pop-culture continuum—American Idol Kelly Clarkson has played Brenda Lee in several episodes, and Nick Warnock of last season's The Apprentice had a cameo—the placement seemed perfect. It was even tuned to the show’s climax, as a wounded JJ returns home to find a Mustang in his family’s garage—a gift from Dad.

If it seems inappropriate to put a product placement in a show about a soldier returning home—especially at a time when many families are missing loved ones fighting in the Middle East—Ford seems undeterred. (Let’s not forget that two seasons ago, Ford, in a similar deal, had one of its Thunderbirds driven by a suspected terrorist on Fox's 24.)

In fact, the company belabored the point in its American Dreams placement with a short film after the episode that showed a present-day GI home for the holidays, also rewarded with his own Mustang. Sure, the spot is capped with a message of gratitude from Ford to fighting Americans, but the commercial content was clear. Nothing says “Merry Christmas”—or, apparently, “Welcome home”—like a Mustang. 

—Posted By Deanna Zammit

Published on November 23, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Buy humbug

AdFreak knows how you like to reflect on what fun you’ve had during the annual “Buy Nothing Day” sponsored by those uplifting folks at Adbusters. So you’ll be happy to know that now Adbusters is touting the first-ever “Buy Nothing Christmas,” urging its followers not to spend a dime on the holidays. They’ve even developed a Zen Santa logo (called Zenta) who appears to be far too busy trying to unravel his legs to mount that sleigh and get on the job. And there are special carols on the site, too—including a nice little ditty called “Cheney the oil man.”

Now, it’s true that way too much flotsam and jetsam passes through the AdFreak domicile throughout December, but what a downer this group is. Christmas presents are, well, nice (especially if there’s an iPod under the tree, dear). And there’s no sign that Adbusters has ever given much thought to the real ramifications of a “Buy Nothing Christmas”—not just for really ticked off 6-year-olds who didn't get the latest Hot Wheels set but for millions of workers from cab drivers to busboys, for whom the holidays represent a large part of their annual earnings.

Time to fire up the Visa card!

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 23, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Have you seen this advertising star?

No, we're not looking for Gisele Bundchen. We're looking for her dog.

The teacup Yorkshire terrier, who goes by the name Vida and who has appeared in a Victoria’s Secret commercial with Bundchen, evidently went missing in Los Angeles a week ago, Page Six reports (see second item). “Gisele is devastated,” a friend tells the paper. “This is like losing a family member.”

We understand Victoria’s Secret may have its hands full battling anti-logging activists, but the least it could do is organize a search party.

--Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 23, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ron Artest and Madison Avenue

Harvey Araton has a very interesting take on the Pistons-Pacers brouhaha in this morning’s New York Times.

Araton sees the brawl as an ugly glimpse of the unease that has grown between players and fans in the years since the NBA’s reinvention through marketing. It’s evidence, he says, of a “racial conundrum” that David Stern has always faced in trading off the gifts of young, predominantly black men to generate a wildly profitable, advertiser-friendly product catered increasingly to wealthy, mostly white audiences in posh suburban stadiums.

In the post-Jordan era, in a time of increasingly “nonconformist” young players, Araton writes, the question that returns with a vengeance is this: “Has the sport become too edgy, too young and culturally black, for the predominantly corporate and well-heeled white audiences that have helped make Stern’s league a major Madison Avenue player over the last two decades?”

You have to register (for free) with the Times to read this story, but it’s worth it.

--Posted by Tim Nudd

Screen shot: ESPN

Published on November 23, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)