The top 10 AdFreak stories of 2005

Who said bloggers don’t like lists? With a few hours left in the year, we are pleased to present the 10 most popular AdFreak stories of 2005, based on number of reader comments. We’re not quite sure how we became a second home for Gastineau Girls fans (or rather, foes). That post has drawn three times as many comments as any other story we’ve ever done. But we’re not complaining. We’d like to thank everyone who visited our site this year, and everyone who submitted a comment. Happy New Year, and we’ll see you in 2006.

No. 10: VW suicide-bomber viral spot a hoax

No. 9: Does this mean Ty-D-Bol makes a good baby name?

No. 8: What’s with the sexist ‘Got milk?’ spot?

No. 7: Exclusive photo from the Donny-brook!

No. 6: Ad space for a penny per pixel

No. 5: David Spade keeps just saying no

No. 4: Check out this Coca-Cola spec creative!

No. 3: Is Eminem/Apple ad something we've seen before?

No. 2: Why are cows planning to invade New York?

No. 1: Those ghastly Gastineau girls

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Photo: George DeSota/E! Networks

Published on December 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Philips having a ball with 2006 New Year’s

Chevy, Korbel champagne, Panasonic, MSN and Coke are all official sponsors of the Times Square Alliance’s New Year’s Eve party this year. But as usual, it’s Waterford who’ll take center stage at the zero hour with its massive New Year’s ball. And piggybacking on the huge crystal ball is Philips, which has been lighting the sphere for the past five years. This year is particularly special for Philips—it’s the last time it will be lighting the ball exclusively with incandescent lighting. By 2007, it’ll outfit the ball completely with LED lights, making it even brighter and more expensive-looking. Philips is celebrating with a special “Next year is brought to you by Philips” ad campaign. It’ll be auctioning off light bulbs from this year’s ball and has created a microsite where it’s asking you to post your New Year’s resolutions. Also in ball news, the New York Sun has a fun article today about the guys who are in the stressful position of being the “keepers of the ball.” Says one of them: “Our entire year truly boils down to this moment.” 

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Photo: Times Square Alliance

Published on December 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mac owners wary of Intel stickers, even redesigned ones

Intel has unveiled its new logo, doing away with the lowered “e” and adding an oval swirl. (Also, the “Intel inside” line is being ditched in favor of “Leap ahead.”) In looking for reactions to this news around the Web, we did stumble upon one group that's particularly passionate about Intel logos: Mac owners. They're worried that Intel stickers will start appearing on Apple products once the computer maker switches to Intel chips. A typical opinion: “I would not accept a sticker on the machine. I want the simple clean design and lines that Apple makes. People can stick their own stickers on if they want but no ads on mine. Apple does that and they're going to lose customers over style.” Kind of funny, coming from people who love to plaster Apple stickers everywhere.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Catholics fight back against episode of ‘South Park’

It hasn’t been a great month for the Virgin Mary. First, a Catholic magazine inadvertently ran an ad showing Mary wrapped in a condom. Then Comedy Central aired an episode of South Park titled “Bloody Mary,” in which a statue of the Virgin Mary is believed to be bleeding out of its rear end but is eventually determined to be menstruating and not worthy of special attention. (The Pope shows up in the episode and clarifies the situation by saying, “A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time.”) Obviously, Catholics are pissed, and this time their protests may be having some effect. E! Online reports that the Catholic League may have succeeded in getting “Bloody Mary” banned from future broadcast on Comedy Central or inclusion on DVD. A scheduled rebroadcast of the episode has disappeared from the Comedy Central schedule, as have screen shots of it from the network’s Web site.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (18)

Can’t drive 55? In this car, you don’t always have to

I remember reading somewhere that the average person spends six months of his life waiting for red lights to turn green. That may be a myth, but it’s certainly true that any company that could develop a popular and practical diversion for people sitting at red lights (besides radio listening) would stand to make a killing. Maybe Nissan has done it. The automaker said this week that it will unveil a concept car that comes loaded with a built-in Xbox 360 and the videogame Project Gotham Racing 3. Now that doesn't sound unsafe at all. Drivers will be able to use the steering wheel and gas and brake pedals to play PGR3 on a seven-inch screen that folds down from the roof. Nissan says the idea came from an Internet survey of 2,000 young people—many of whom it admitted were in junior high school. 

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Satire sends up Gladwell’s ‘Blink’

Malcolm Gladwell’s hugely successful Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking now has a worthy satirical companion, Blank: The Power of Not Actually Thinking at All, now out from HarperCollins. As others scramble to determine the real identity of Mr. Tall, we’ll reprint the humorous blurb from the publisher: “Stop! Don't think! You already know what this book is about. That is the power of Blank: The Power of Not Actually Thinking at All. Using what scientific researchers call ‘Extra-Lean Deli Slicing’ (or would if they actually bothered to research it), your brain has already decided whether you’re going to like Blank, whether its cover goes with your shirt, and whether it will make you look smart if somebody sees you reading it on the train. Chances are you and your shirt are both liking it a lot, you’re going to buy several copies, and you don’t even know why! That’s why you’ve absolutely got to read Blank: to find out why your brain keeps doing these wacky things without your permission.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

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

Paying for your fun on New Year’s

Planning on ringing in the New Year in style? It will cost you—or the average American, at least—around $172, according to a new survey. The “Shopping in America Holiday 2005” survey, conducted by real estate investment trust Macerich Co., found that those of us who live in the Northeast will outspend those elsewhere in the country. We’ll spend an average of $256 each. Midwesterners will be the most thrifty, spending an average of about $119 each. Americans in the West and the South will spend $169 and $159, respectively. The survey also polled consumers on their top New Year’s resolutions. No surprises among the top three: lose weight (Jared might help you there), save money and get a new job. Happy New Year!

—Posted by Mae Anderson

Published on December 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Anderson

GoDaddy’s Bob Parsons goes off on Pepsi

Bob Parsons is a piece of work. The president and founder of GoDaddy.com knows how to stir up controversy, and profit from it. He did it with GoDaddy's 2005 Super Bowl ad, and now he’s doing it again. On his blog (which in general is priceless), Parsons is stoking the fire by discussing just how hard a time he’s having in getting a new GoDaddy spot approved by ABC for the 2006 Super Bowl. “The challenge isn’t to simply get an advertisement approved. The challenge is to get an appropriate ‘GoDaddy-esque’ ad approved,” he writes. Actually, Parsons has been talking about the 2006 Super Bowl since July or so—and how boring the ads are going to be, and how great and “polarizing” a GoDaddy spot would be, and how “GoDaddy-esque” is just such a wonderful adjective. Now, in a new post, he really hunkers down. Responding to a recent Mediaweek article which suggested that Pepsi complained to Fox last year about the GoDaddy spot, Parsons writes: “Pepsi is no white knight when it comes to advertising. I found it more than a little interesting that a firm with a checkered history like Pepsi would hold GoDaddy accountable for its advertising.” He goes on to rip Pepsi for its supposed hypocrisy—citing its association with Ludacris, Britney Spears’ navel and Bob Dole. At the end of his admittedly good-humored diatribe, he tacks on this paragraph, which really sums up what Bob Parsons is all about: “Should I switch? When I drink pop (or soda depending upon which state you’re from), I like Coca-Cola for the real stuff, but when I drink diet pop, I’ve always liked Pepsi. I may just threaten to switch to Diet Coke—but I’ll probably stick with Diet Pepsi.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

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

What Donald Trump and penis patches have in common

Some say Donald Trump has jumped the shark, but he’s still on top, along with penis patches, in the world of spam. AOL has released its list of the top 10 global spam e-mail subject lines from 2005, as measured by its spam filters. They are: 1) Donald Trump Wants You—Please Respond; 2) Double Standards New Product—Penis Patch; 3) Body Wrap: Lose 6-20 inches in one hour; 4) Get an Apple iPod Nano, PS3 or Xbox 360 for Free; 5) It’s Lisa, I must have sent you to the wrong site; 6) (xx)Breaking Stock News(xx) Small Cap Issue Poised to Triple; 7) Thank you for your business. Shipment notification (77FD87); 8) (IMPORTANT) Your Mortgage Application is Ready; 9) Thank you: Your $199 Rolex Special Included; and 10) Online Prescriptions Made Easy. In 2004, the top spam subject line was, “We carry the most popular medications.” In 2003, it was simply, “Viagra online.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Photo: NewsCom

Published on December 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dunkin’s Fred the baker dead at 83

Michael Vale, aka Fred the baker from the old Dunkin’ Donuts commercials, has died at 83. Vale first uttered his sleepy refrain, "Time to make the doughnuts," in ads from Ally & Gargano in 1982, led by creative director Ron Berger. The chain figured that Vale played Fred in some 200 spots before switching to a PR role in 1997 as the “Dunkin’ Diplomat.” “The first time he said, ‘Time to make the doughnuts,’ we were hysterical,” Berger told the Boston Herald in 1997. “We knew the importance of the role. It was such that you want someone that people are going to like and definitely relate to. Michael was it.” A Dunkin’ rep told the Boston Globe around the same time: “Fred reflects that Dunkin’ Donuts is for everybody. That’s why you can look in one of our parking lots and see a Mercedes parked next to a Ford pickup truck. 

—Posted by Tim Nudd

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

‘Wow! Mint condition partridge in pear tree’

Banterist has a humorous satire posted called “The Twelve Days of eBay,” with each of the dozen presents being auctioned in eBay-speak. The listing for the partridge in a pear tree reads, “You are bidding on a partridge in a pear tree. The partridge is self-feeding as it lives on pears. Very low maintenance too because he fertilizes the tree. Just needs water on occasion. The pears are delicious if you can wrangle one from the partridge. I would keep it but my lease forbids more than one pet and I have a cat. Recommend insurance because I don’t know how well DHL ships birds.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

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

Inspiration for would-be Mr. Potters everywhere

Before all the leftover Christmas turkey is gone, there may still be time to have a look back at the classic Salon.com article from December 2001 concerning the central flaw in It’s a Wonderful Life—that Pottersville, the supposedly nightmarish town that would have sprung up had George Bailey not existed, actually looks a hell of a lot more fun than Bedford Falls, which it replaces in George’s Clarence-inspired hallucinations. Put more succinctly by the writer, Gary Kamiya: “There’s just one problem: Pottersville rocks!” After making a hilarious, point-by-point argument (weakened only when he mistakenly calls the taxi driver Bert—of course, the cabbie is Ernie; Bert is the cop), the writer concludes with this salient point: “In the real world, Potter won. We all live in Pottersville now. Bedford Falls is gone. The plucky little Savings and Loan closed down years ago, just like in George’s nightmare. Cleaned up, his evil eyebrows removed, armed with a good PR firm, Mr. Potter goes merrily about his business, ‘consolidating’ the George Baileys of the world. To cling to dreams of a bucolic America where the little guy defeats the forces of Big Business and the policeman and the taxi driver and the druggist and the banker all sing Auld Lang Syne together is just to ask for heartbreak and confusion when you turn off the TV and open your front door.” No doubt those forces of Big Business are very glad to hear it. 

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Same pig, new lipstick for CRN radio spots

Having already modified its original outrageous radio ad—dropping an “Emergency Broadcast System test”-style squawk at the start of the spot to suggest that it is a governmental “public announcement” (as if anything on radio is private)—the real-estate listings business Consumer Resource Network has changed tactics yet again. This time around, they warmed up the old “fake D.J.” chestnut in time for Christmas. The most recent ad starts with the bad radio-theatre ruse that an announcer otherwise engaged in a business unrelated to selling listings has interrupted his (30-second?) program, having stumbled across this interesting announcement of foreclosure listings. So, instead of a fake government announcement, CRN’s business is now a PSA discovered by a trusted announcer you’ve never heard before. Of course, the copy can’t sustain this act for even the length of the ad before it reverts to awkward standard pitch lines one would never hear on a talk show except during a commercial break. So even in the highly unlikely event that someone should be randomly tuning and be fooled by the announcer’s “show,” the illusion is maintained ineptly. Is a private company selling real-estate listings so disreputable that it has to be disguised? It’s as if CRN’s marketing department is foresworn to “anything but the truth.”

—Posted by Gregory Solman

Published on December 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (7)

Michelle Kwan gets everything but the gold

Olympic ice skater Michelle Kwan is one of the world’s top athletes, with a clean, wholesome image and no history of being photographed snorting cocaine or dangling babies out of high-rise windows. Shouldn’t that be enough to attract lots of marketers looking for celebrity endorsement of their products? Well, it turns out it is, although according to a New York Times story in Tuesday’s edition, in the rarefied world of Olympic competition, often it is not. One thing that eluded Kwan in the ’94, ’98 and ’02 Winter Games was a gold medal, which often limits endorsement opportunities for Olympians, according to the Times article. “It’s all about winning, and that’s what attracts advertisers,” Bob Dorfman, creative director at Pickett Advertising, says. But while Kwan has come up short with gold medals, Kwan has a pocketful of endorsement deals lined up as she gets ready for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, set to start on Feb. 10, including ones with Coca-Cola, Visa and East West Bank. Of course, a former darling in the sport, Nancy Kerrigan, also missed out on Olympic gold but managed to snare big-name sponsors like Disney. Then she blew it with her “This is so corny” comment at Disney World. The lesson for Kwan: Don’t get caught dissing the advertisers who are writing the paychecks. She probably shouldn’t drink Pepsi during practice either.

—Posted by Steve McClellan

Published on December 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (22)

Let us not praise stupid bowl-game names

Thanks to corporate sponsorships, the nomenclature of college-football bowl games now mostly ranges from the mildly silly to the extremely silly. For instance, just-plain Orange Bowl sounds better than FedEx Orange Bowl, but the new title manages not to sound ridiculous—unlike, say, the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl or the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. But we defy—defy!—our readers to find a bowl-game name that sounds more tongue-twistingly clumsy than the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl. Let us thank the football gods for the unadorned Rose Bowl, which certainly would not smell as sweet by any other name.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

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

NYC to beef up official online store

A few months from now, New York City will have a snazzy new Web site through which to market official NYC merchandise, the New York Post reports. The site, shop4nyc.com, currently has a handful of items (from Bleecker Street subway tiles to NYC manhole-cover floor mats), but it’s about to get a serious makeover. Some items may soon include the phrase “The world’s second home,” which the city is copywriting. The initiative is designed in part to crack down on counterfeiters.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 27, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bad Santa goes on the auction block

OK, this is the last time (probably) that we’ll run this image of Joel Krupnik’s Bad Santa. Now that Christmas is over, Krupnik and his partner, Mildred Castellanos, are auctioning off the blood-spattered, Barbie head-severing Santa to the highest bidder, with the proceeds going to charity. Krupnik says he’s gotten a bid of $200 already; there’s a box next to the Bad Santa where bids go. The bloody “decoration,” which was intended as a statement to protest the commercialization of Christmas, was apparently the idea of the couple’s 16-year-old daughter, based on a scene in the movie Silent Night, Deadly Night.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 27, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeff Bezos wants to be a rocket man

So, the Amazon package that I ordered on Dec. 8 did not arrive by Christmas, which was irritating. (Yes, it had a few items that I knew wouldn’t ship within 24 hours, and the NYC transit strike didn’t help, but still.) Now, this morning I come across a story about how Jeff Bezos is building a rocket-ship complex in suburban Seattle for his aerospace venture known as Blue Origin. Shouldn’t Bezos perfect terrestrial travel before he heads to outer space? It’s been reported that he wants to send a spaceship into orbit that launches and lands vertically, like a rocket, and eventually build spaceships that can orbit the Earth, possibly leading to permanent colonies in space. Which means that in a few years, people on Mars will get their Amazon packages before Christmas, but we on Earth still won’t.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 27, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Catholic magazine runs ad with Mary wrapped in condom

Ah, the old “unknowing eyes” defense. The editors of America magazine, a weekly U.S. Catholic magazine, are red in the face after running an advertisement selling the statue shown here, of the Virgin Mary wrapped in a condom. A London artist apparently placed the ad as a political statement; the editors claim not to have noticed the condom. (Nor, apparently, did they closely read the copy, which described the item as “a stunning ... statue of the Virgin Mary standing atop a serpent wearing a delicate veil of latex.”) In a statement of apology, the editors wrote, “We were embarrassed to have readers call our attention to the offensive advertisement that escaped our unknowing eyes and appeared in the December 5 issue.” The magazine’s associate editor put it more bluntly: “We’re Jesuits. I don’t think you could have found anyone in the editors’ room who has seen a condom.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 27, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Taking the pixel-ad idea for a spin

Here’s another Million Dollar Homepage ripoff, but with a twist. Some guy has started a Web site called Ferrari Billboard and is selling off one-inch squares of ad space on an actual real-life Ferrari for $25 each. Once the surface area is sold (or rather, if it gets sold), he’ll actually buy the car (that’s his main goal anyway), have it commercially wrapped and then take it on a road trip around the U.S. The ads will also show up in 5-by-5-pixel blocks on the Web site, with links leading to the advertisers. At least the guy is honest about being inspired by The Million Dollar Homepage. He writes, “It’s one of those moments when you see an idea and are silenced by its simple genius and overwhelmed with frustration for not thinking of it first.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 26, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Black activists target Howard Stern ad

This ad, promoting Howard Stern’s upcoming show on Sirius, has been out for a while. But black activists in Chicago are getting around to being upset about it, taking exception to the “Let freedom ring” line and the raised fist image. “To take this phrase made popular by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the fight for freedom and justice and trivialize it in such a way is both disrespectful and unacceptable,” the Rev. Michael Pfleger said. “As we prepare to celebrate Dr. King’s birthday, we will not tolerate this kind of brazen disrespect. Howard Stern may have managed to push his craziness on cable, but we should not have to tolerate it in our communities.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 26, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (21)

More Starbucks customers doing drive-bys

How much of the Starbucks brand is about the in-store experience? The coffee chain is finding out, as it opens more and more drive-through locations. Starbucks unveiled 354 new drive-throughs in the U.S. during its latest fiscal year, giving it 1,065 nationwide—nearly 15 percent of its roughly 7,300 domestic stores. Some critics say this trend will cement Starbucks reputation as the McDonald’s of coffee. But Starbucks president and CEO Jim Donald scoffs at that notion. “We are not the McDonald’s of anything,” he says. “The drive-through is another convenience for our customers as we want them to enjoy a great cup of coffee.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 26, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Where were the Segways last week?

Last week’s NYC transit strike seemed like the perfect time for the Segway scooter to make a comeback. We had visions of hundreds of commuters following Mayor Bloomberg in a parade of Segways over the Brooklyn Bridge as part of a truly forward-thinking contingency plan. Of course, it didn’t happen. It’s been four years since the Segway’s introduction, and its market failure has always seemed a bit of a mystery (although not to BusinessWeek, apparently). In any case, Segway inventor Dean Kamen has unveiled his latest toy, this one with perhaps even greater promise—an energy-efficient filtration system that can transform any water and convert it into drinkable H2O. Here’s a headline that sums up Kamen’s demonstration of the device: “Segway Inventor Drinks His Own Pee.” Ew.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on December 26, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Segway

The strike is over—no thanks to advertising

First thing Tuesday morning, I flipped on New York 1, the local 24-hour news channel, expecting to see word that the threatened “work action” had been averted. No dice. I decided to work from home, while keeping on top of developments via NY1. The first commercial break featured a Transit Workers Union spot with workers explaining their case for walking off the job and stranding 7 million commuters. I was impressed at the speed of the delivery, if not the production values, and the choice to use workers to speak directly to pissed-off New Yorkers. The next break, the ad was back. And the next. And the next. And so on. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority responded later in the week with a rush job of its own: a guy in a mustache and ill-fitting suit sitting behind a desk, urging workers to cross the picket lines. It turns out that Larry Reuter, some high-up stooge at the MTA, owns the mustache and suit. It’s pretty telling that the tone-deaf MTA didn’t use the commercial to address the 7 million New Yorkers stuck in the middle of their little power play. (The MTA had the message posted on its site; fittingly, the video didn’t work.) Oddly enough, neither side chose to advertise online. No ads on NYTimes.com, NYPost.com or Gothamist (which had the best strike coverage, by the way). Search for “New York transit strike” on Google, and the results had ads from The New York Times, ABC 6 and Traffic.com. Didn’t the TWU and MTA want to reach the many searching for strike info?

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Published on December 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Morrissey

Don't blame it on the TWU, blame it on the Krupniks

Here's a sobering statistic for all those retailers in the Big Apple who usually rely on the holiday shopping season to make whatever profit they're going to make for the year: the transit strike—which appears to be ending—caused $1 billion in lost revenue for city businesses through just these three days (through Thursday, Dec. 22 for those not paying close attention). That's according to the city's comptroller's office, as reported by Time Warner's New York 1 cable news channel. That doesn't include the millions in wasted marketing dollars that commercial enterprises spent trying to lure consumers to their stores to find the perfect gift for that special someone. A billion in lost revenue is a bad thing and when bad things happen, someone must be blamed. I nominate the Krupnik family of East 18th Street in Manhattan. They're the ones who dissed our lovely tradition of over-commercializing the holidays by putting a decapitating Santa in their front yard with a bloody cut-off doll head in one hand and a blade in the other. They put a jinx on the whole season, manifested by the transit strike. Now thousands of children may go without presents this year, especially transit workers' kids whose parents face up to $25,000 in fines for each day they’ve been off the job during the illegal strike. A couple of more days of this strike and they just might have ended up without presents next year as well. And maybe the year after. So way to go Krupniks—hope you're satisfied! Less spending and less joy for the holidays, just like you hoped for.

—Posted by Steve McClellan

Published on December 22, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)