Wienermobile escapes after a close call

It’s no secret that they take their cheese pretty seriously up in Wisconsin, but sausage is probably a close second. That was proven once again this week when the city council in Madison was considering a bill to ban mobile advertising in the city. Sounded pretty good—until one alderman thought of hometown business Oscar Mayer. “Are we banning Little Oscar?” Tim Bruer asked, according to reports. The thought of banishing the Wienermobile from the city limits was enough to send the proposal to defeat by a 12-7 vote. Other than being chomped, an encased meat product hasn’t had such a close brush with danger in Wisconsin since the Italian Sausage was whacked by a Pittsburgh Pirate during a Milwaukee Brewers between-innings stunt a couple of years ago. The Madison council’s move was the second big victory for sausage lovers this week; earlier, two Chicago companies, Vienna Beef and Alpha Baking, agreed to finally produce packages containing equal numbers of hot dogs and buns. With Memorial Day approaching, all appears right for a successful summer of grilling in the Midwest.

—Posted by Trevor Jensen

Published on May 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Oscar Mayer

Care enough to (secretly) send the best

Until now, the best way to convey one’s feelings for “the other woman”—or the other man, or both, or whatever the case may be—has been to dedicate a song on the local lite-rock station’s “Pillow Talk” program. So AdFreak is delighted to discover a new line of greeting cards designed especially for one’s significant extramarital other. The new Secret Lover Collection, brought to you by ad-industry vet Cathy Gallagher (married, with children) and Jim Grove, includes holiday cards with heartfelt sentiments like “As we each celebrate with our families, I will be thinking of you” and, for that special colleague, “The weekend apart is finally over.” There are “We just can’t go on like this anymore” cards, too, perfect for leaving in the live-in nanny’s gym bag or beneath an office-mate’s wiper blade. The cards are a little harder to find than, say, a Shoebox Greeting. But at less than $3 a pop, we suspect those lite-rock dedication shows are about to feel some serious competition.

—Posted by Randi Schmelzer

Published on May 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

What’s with the sexist ‘Got milk?’ spot?

At first, “Milk to the Rescue,” the latest “Got milk?” spot from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, is pretty amusing. Men frantically buy gallon upon gallon of milk, one even strapping cartons to his dog, as a love song plays in the background. One guys sneaks in to his home, frightened, with a boatload of milk and a bouquet of flowers and says tentatively, “Honey, I’m home!” A voiceover then tells us that calcium helps reduce symptoms of PMS. Get it? Buy a ton of milk, and tame that bitch at home! Hey, clever! Great stuff! It’s from Goodby, so it can’t help but be great, right? But then it sinks in—how sexist is that? Is this just another example of men advertising to other men, with the underlying message that women are psycho and evil, isn’t it a pain in the ass to deal with them, blah, blah, blah? How about saving this stuff for beer, cars and razor ads?

—Posted by Celeste Ward

Published on May 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (39)

Don’t mess with space, says the FAA

God, it’s been a while since that little package of Beef Jerky was delivered to the International Space Station. Those were the good old days. Space marketing isn’t looking quite as promising this morning, with news that the Federal Aviation Administration is not especially hip to the idea of billboards in space, whatever their supposed redeeming qualities might be. (The FAA is actually seeking to amend its own rules, which currently do not allow it to regulate such advertising.) “Objects placed in orbit, if large enough, could be seen by people around the world for long periods of time,” the FAA says. Well, yes, that’s kind of the point. “Large advertisements could destroy the darkness of the night sky,” they add. Oh, right. Maybe not such a great idea after all.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lowest moments, caught on camera phone

The theme of the morning is embarrassing moments. Sony Ericsson in the U.K. has organized an embarrassing picture contest to promote its digital-camera phones. The site, called the Shame Academy, seems to have just gone up, so it’s pretty barren at this point (and some of the photos don’t look like they were taken by phones). But the categories of pictures to come are somewhat amusing: “One Too Many,” “It Must Be Love,” “Doh!,” “You Don’t Want to Do That,” “It’s a Set Up” and “What the Hell Is That?” “Yup,” says the site, “send us those shots you have of drinking hi-jinks or comedy shaped fruit antics and we’ll stick ’em on the site for everyone to laugh at.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Those embarrasing bathroom moments

Ever slip and fall into the tub while cleaning it? Drop your cell phone or keys in the toilet? Been caught in compromising situations in the bathroom? Sure, we all have, and it’s not something we usually share, especially not with strangers. Georgia-Pacific is trying to change that by offering $10,000 and a year’s supply of Angel Soft toilet paper to the person whose bathroom story is the most mortifying. GP has launched this Web site for people to submit video clips and to vote for their favorite ones. The winner of the “Hilarious Bathroom Blunder” contest will get the prize money. One lucky voter, selected at random, will get a $15,000 bathroom makeover from the company. The contest is supported with a survey of 1,119 mothers nationwide about their bathroom experiences. Their most common bathroom blunder? Falling into the toilet because the previous user, most assuredly a lunkheaded man, left the toilet seat up. About 85 percent of the women surveyed said that has happened to them.

—Posted by Jim Lovel

Published on May 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)

McDonald’s gets high on fruits and walnuts

Even stranger than McDonald’s introducing a Fruit & Walnut Salad are the ads touting it. Eating fruit because it tastes good and is good for you isn’t enough, apparently. These ads say it gives you a “fruit buzz.” “You know that ‘I can wear my skinny jeans’ feeling? It’s kinda like that,” copy on one reads. “A ‘Fruit Buzz’ is a change in attitude and an overall happy feeling you get after tasting the new Fruit & Walnut Premium Salad,” the press release explains earnestly. Yeah, we get that happy feeling, too—by avoiding McDonald’s altogether. Dave Letterman poked fun at the ads on Tuesday night, saying McDonald’s is also coming out with a deep-fried Fruit & Walnut Salad and a Sausage and Egg Fruit & Walnut Salad. Yum!

—Posted by Mae Anderson

Published on May 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2)

A Jedi mind trick that really works

Only the most foolish bounty hunter would dare to play 20 Questions with Darth Vader—until now. As part of the latest viral Burger King campaign, you too can interact with the Dark Lord formerly known as Anakin, in a game called The Sith Sense. You think of an animal, vegetable or mineral (or “unknown” or “other”), and Lord Vader tries to guess it by asking you questions, and also teasing you a little bit, as he is wont to do. The technology seems to be working fine—his evilness guessed what we were thinking after just 17 questions.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (9)

A word from the world’s finest club

Given the dire state of affairs at Manchester United, with Malcolm Glazer provoking anger, despair, outrage and thrown plates of fish ’n’ chips among actual and honorary Mancunians everywhere, we thought we’d reprise this nice civilized Man U ad, created by Creature in Seattle for the team’s tour of the U.S. a few years back. Whether Glazer’s takeover will disrupt the club’s proud legacy, or the bottom lines of its sponsors, is hard to say. At this point, we’re just hoping they beat Arsenal in Saturday’s F.A. Cup final.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Creature

Sublime (and ridiculous) mission statements

David Burn over at AdPulp is doing an amusing series on “outstanding mission statements”—those corporate credos that ride the fine line between glorious aspiration and utter hogwash. (Type “mission statements” into AdPulp’s search function to read the complete series.) Burn has found interesting statements of self from companies like Patagonia, American Apparel, the Billboard Liberation Front and Bruce Mau Design. The PETA-unfriendly stance taken by Wichita, Kan., ad agency Sullivan Higdon & Sink—the latest in the series—is our favorite. “We hate sheep,” it begins. “Not because they’re fat, lazy creatures that smell bad when it rains. No, we hate sheep because they remind us of marketing that’s content to follow instead of lead. Advertising that’s happy to be quiet, blend in with the flock and go completely unnoticed.” It concludes, “We believe sheep marketing slowly starves the brand that pays for it. Bottom line: Sheep kill brands dead. And that’s why we hate ’em.”

—Posted by Lisa van der Pool

Published on May 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)