'WSJ' Tosses Cookies

What does The Wall Street Journal have against cookies? While interactive ad industry types try to circle the wagons around their beloved tracking cookies, the Journal has gone on an all-out, anti-cookie offensive. First Walt Mossberg, the Journal’s influential and curmudgeonly tech guy, fired off a diatribe against cookies two weeks ago, calling many a “Big Brother intrusion.” This elicited many indignant responses (here's another one), including one unlikely suggestion that the Journal has a grand conspiracy to halt the march of online advertising because it is eating into its own ad base. Today, the online version of the Journal devotes 1,479 words to Web users pissed off to find analytics firm Omniture’s cookies on their computers, with the admittedly sketchy file name 2o7.com. The story quotes concerned customers that worry Omniture might compromise their financial data since they track site behavior for clients like Ameritrade, even though cookies don’t collect that kind of data and only track Web browsers, not individual users. Anyone involved in advertising should be concerned about the backlash, whether deserved or not, against cookies, which are needed to show relevant ads and figure out what marketing works. But publishers and advertisers have never explained this to Web users, content with the idea that “people don’t care.” But there’s no doubt many consumers do care and are increasingly deleting cookies that track their behavior, which is bad news if the future of advertising is targeting customers with relevant messages.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Credit: Getty Images

Published on July 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (12)

It's all about the Georges

We’re kind of amazed we’ve never run into wheresgeorge.com before yesterday, because a quick swing by Wikipedia shows it’s been around since 1998. Still, get out your dollar bills, visit the site and indulge in a great Friday time-waster. What you do is input the serial number and year of individual dollar bills and, if other people have entered the bill’s information into the site earlier, you can see where it’s been before it got to you. We “heard” of the site because when we unfurled a crumpled bill in our pocket the other day we noticed one of its previous owners had scrawled a note on it imploring us to go to the site. (The guy—apparently goes by the name of Fishbone—is one of those people who views a dollar bill as an all-purpose communications device; also, written on the bill were “Remember 9-11-01” and “STERN RULES!!”) Anyway, turns out this dollar bill is not a great traveler. It started in the Parkchester section of the Bronx, and in 33 days made it only 4.9 miles to its current residence, but going to the site was an interesting diversion, nonetheless. As esoteric as this site is, we were surprised to see it actually has legitimate advertisers, including Excite and Vonage. (Oh, right, Vonage’ll advertise anywhere).

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Passionate about Pabst? Shoot an ad.

This from our comments box: a site called CoBrandIt asking if we could call to AdFreak readers’ attention that it is asking people to submit what it is calling “documentary advertising” in the following categories: beer, gear and cars. It will pay you $50 for participating. “We're interested in homemade advertising and the real-life experience of consumers and brands,” the site says; it then wants to interest advertisers in the results. (We’ll see about that.) Sure, this idea smacks of the Converse Gallery, where people submit short films that are odes to their Chuck Taylors, but what the hey. If you’ve got a passion for a product, spend your Saturday afternoon shooting a film about it. (The picture here, by the way, is from a short film about Schlitz that's currently on the site.)

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (4)

A refreshing blast of obscenity

Our vote for tagline of the year so far goes to the new documentary The Aristocrats: “No nudity. No violence. Unspeakable obscenity.” How could you pass that up? Penn Jillette, the talkative half of comedy/magic team Penn & Teller (and father of new baby girl Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette), came up with the line. He co-directed the movie with standup comic Paul Provenza. The film features various comedians telling their own versions of a filthy joke that’s been a kind of calling card for comedians backstage since the days of vaudeville. In this age of anti-obscenity, this movie sounds quite invigorating. Of course, as Jillette told Kurt Andersen on Studio 360 this week, “There’s no intention whatsoever of putting it on during the Super Bowl.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gap stepping in time to the music

Gap’s new interactive Web site might be a bit lame, but frankly, its upcoming ad campaign sounds cool. Called “Favorites,” it will star musicians like Alanis Morissette, Joss Stone, John Legend, Michelle Williams (Destiny’s Child), Jason Mraz, Keith Urban, Liz Phair and Brandon Boyd (Incubus) performing original remakes of their favorite songs. (Boyd, for example, will do “Alison,” by Elvis Costello.) There’s something about well-known musicians doing other people’s songs that’s compelling in a basic way. (Could they have gotten Will Ferrell to reprise his Neil Diamond character?) Also, from Aug. 8-31, each customer who tries on any pair of Gap jeans will receive one free iTunes download. As if that dressing-room area weren’t chaotic enough.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

All's fair in new Schwarzenegger ad

What with all his high-level hobnobbing, it was heartening to see that California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger can still find time to hang out with the cute, short and chubby set. In Sacramento-based independent Mering & Associates' new spot for the 2005 California State Fair—where "beach culture meets agriculture"—Arnold enjoys a relaxing day by the ocean, along with constituents including a sun-bathing pig, a volleyball-playing goat, a surfboard-toting cow and—well, in this case, short, chubby and famous—Twins co-star Danny DeVito. Word has yet to be heard from the gov's fitness-magazine friends, but we're relatively certain he'll make sure all cameras are off before hitting the fair's Magnificent Midway for an order of deep-fried Snickers-topped funnel cakes.

—Posted by Randi Schmelzer

Published on July 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdFreak goes advergaming

All in the name of entertaining you, AdFreak has recently been perusing the latest online advergames, the kind that brands offer consumers who wander into their sites. (We'll get to the one featuring the image shown here in a minute.) We've already mentioned Milwaukee's Best Light's games, but what are some other ones? And how good are they, really? A quick, unofficial, highly erratic search yielded some answers. The main way marketers seem to create online games is to take normal online games and plaster their logos all over them. Nabisco.com, for example, offers a ton of games. We didn't play them all, but Ping Pong and (the unfortunately named) CornHole—two of the newer games—both proved to be able time-wasters. Moving along to the Hershey's site, we discovered two games, "Hershey's Kisses Way to Go!," a puzzle maze, and "Step by Step Word Ladder," understandably juvenile. In the realm of juvenile—but for an entirely different reason—we decided to try mojomastergame.com, the online game for Axe Unlimited, allowing users to try to seduce women online, which promised to be trashily offensive (as pictured above). But unfortunately, we couldn't load it on our Mac, no matter which way we tried. What a waste! But the best game we found was a surprisingly hard Movie Star Matchup on budweiser.com, a trivia game that links the correct answer of the last question to the next question. (Hint to get to the game: once you've entered an age that will get you into the site, click on "Entertainment," not "Game Time.") AdFreak, a self-described movie buff, was stumped several times. We would continue this research, but our boss is beginning to give us dirty looks. If you have any tips, let us know!

—Posted by Mae Anderson

Published on July 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google wins war of the worlds

We’ve been hearing that the beta versions of Google Earth and MSN’s Virtual Earth, which feature aerial photos of just about every place on our beloved planet, are all the rage amongst land surveyors (and for all we know, stalkers). But what to write about them? Thanks to Gawker, we found our angle, when that blog helpfully pointed out that in the MSN product, the World Trade Center still lives. (See photo above, where, directly to the right of the blue box containing the numeral one, you can see the square footprint of the tower that included the huge antenna in the center of its roof. The other tower is diagonally down and to the right.) Clearly, it was time for a side-by-side product demonstration; we downloaded Google Earth and found that at Google, the World Trade Center is no more, replaced by the unmistakable image of what’s come to be known as Ground Zero. Score one for Google. While we’re at it, we’d also like to point people to Google Moon, which launched last week to commemorate the anniversary of the first manned space launch. Mostly, we’re doing this because when you go to the site and zoom in all the way, you’ll see a funny, Googly joke. Enjoy.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Huh? Blow dart gun mistaken for walking stick?

I appreciate the government’s concern for my welfare, to a point. I sometimes need help identifying poisonous things, dangerous products and scams by unscrupulous marketers. But is there no limit to it all? Witness the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall of an African blow dart gun sold by discount retailer Value City for about $5 each. It seems that some people who bought the gun think it is a walking stick and might hurt themselves when they find out it is really a gun. I’m serious. That’s what the CPSC said in a statement about the recall.  To be more specific, the statement reads, “Consumers may have mistakenly purchased the dart guns thinking it was a decorative walking stick, posing the risk of injury if someone used the gun for its intended purpose.”  I’ve been struggling with that concept for days. How could they hurt themselves if they don’t put the darts in the gun and blow through it? Blow dart guns don’t discharge accidentally. And, how could anybody not notice the pouch containing five darts mounted in the middle of the gun? Wouldn’t you at least be curious about the anomaly?  I think we have gone a step too far here. I’m not sure we should protect someone who can’t tell a walking stick from a gun. At some point, we have to let natural selection take its course.

—Posted by Jim Lovel

Published on July 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dove pitches in 'Mets Magazine'

We’ve seen the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” in lots of places, including the escalators leading down into the bowels of the Grand Central subway station, but here’s a media placement that really leaped out at us: a full-page buy in the current issue of Mets Magazine (better known to most folks at the ballpark as the scorecard). With the possible exception of an ad for General Mills cereals, it was the only ad targeted toward women in the entire publication, sharing space with marketers like York air conditioning and the Ramada Plaza Hotel LaGuardia (“Your place to stay … across from Shea!”) Anyway, here’s our theory as to why someone saw fit to place the ad there. Though we count ourselves among the group of longtime female baseball fans, women who are dragged to the game by their significant others make the ultimate captive audience, imprisoned for nine innings with nothing to do but take in the between innings entertainment and flip through Mets Magazine.( In other “Campaign for Real Beauty” news, one of our fellow ad blogs has a post about how some people don’t want reality, at least when it comes to looking at some women’s thighs.)

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)