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 With pharmaceutical companies evaluating their advertising, it's becoming more and more difficult to get solid information on how to stay properly medicated. Good for Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields for picking up some of the slack. The celebrity spat over use of prescription drugs has reached the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, where Shields today goes all Oprah with the tale of her battle with post-partum depression (headline: "War of Words." Cruise wins, even under attack!). Such illnesses are no question a serious deal, but anyone who pays much attention to celebrities or advertising when dealing with them is a fool. That's especially important to remember with the holiday weekend upon us and the inevitable onslaught of "social anxiety disorder," a malady suffered by many but understood as something serious by few until advertising cleared up the picture. If picnics find you standing in a dark corner of the house, unable to join the festivities outside, see a doctor. Or at least your local bartender.
—Posted by Trevor Jensen
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Published on July 1, 2005 | Permalink
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 I’ll go ahead and admit something, and I’ll be no less of a man for doing so: I am scared of the Octodog. Not because of what it does, though; that’s actually kind of neat. According to the Octodog site, “the hotdog is among the top ten items found in many lists concerning … the method of slicing a hotdog linearly can reduce the chances of choking.” So this bizarre contraption cuts the hotdogs into the shape of an octopus, which is a creative, albeit creepy, thought. No, what scares me is the “How Does It Work?” diagram, which looks … well, let’s just say that male readers will immediately understand, and share, my unease with it. So go order your Octodog to protect your kids this Fourth of July, but please, be careful out there.
—Posted by David Kiefaber
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Published on July 1, 2005 | Permalink
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 As a service to our readers, we’ve been scouting around for something that could entertain poor folks like yourselves who are stuck in the office on the Friday before the Fourth of July. Thanks to Gothamist, we’ve found it. At noon today EST, at see-tom.com, a guy looking for a wife will reveal himself to those who care. His “teaser” campaign, pictured here, is apparently up right now at the Midtown Tunnel in Manhattan. Thankfully, we’re not there enough to be able to provide an eyewitness account, but we have to wonder: what kind of loser women are sitting at their computers at noon on the Friday before the Fourth of July? Oh, wait. That’s probably right where we’ll be. We stand corrected.
—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor
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Published on July 1, 2005 | Permalink
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 Ever eaten out of a toilet? If not, here's your chance. According to Reuters, the Martun (Chinese for toilet) restaurant in Kaohsiung, China has begun serving food “in bowls shaped like Western-style toilets or Asian-style ‘squat pots.’" Originally inspired by a toilet-shaped spaceship in a Japanese cartoon, the theme is a magnet for young people seeking a relaxed, casual environment in which to gross out their friends. Martun owner Hung Lin-wen, perhaps overly proud of his idea, said that he thinks, “the theme is special, and the food is tasty." Opinions of the former vary; Reuters noted that one diner loved the food, but could barely look at it. Lest you think that we Americans would never, uh, stoop to such a concept, keep in mind that we are not strangers to explicit restaurant gimmicks. Hooters restaurants are plentiful, and, particularly in Manhattan, restaurants have a penchant for creating bathrooms that confuse diners, just for the fun of it.
—Posted by David Kiefaber
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Published on July 1, 2005 | Permalink
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 Add another one to the list of global complaints about that most All-American of American brands, Coca-Cola. Already beleaguered by accusations of human rights violations in Colombia, environmental damage in India and contributing to obesity in Europe, Coke is facing a proposed ban in Russia. This time, the reason is caffeine. Although the drink does not exceed limits set by Russian law, lawmakers claim Coke can be hazardous if consumed in mass quantities. The bill, which also would ban Coke’s top competitor, Pepsi, was introduced by members of the ultra-nationalist Liberal-Democratic faction of the Duma. The good news for Coke is that sources within the government have been quoted in the Russian press claiming the law will never pass—apparently the politicians introducing the law mistook Coke and Pepsi for energy drinks, the sources said. Just a month ago, a communist organization in St. Petersburg tried to organize a boycott against Coke claiming it is trying to break the union in the city’s bottling plant. “The mighty corporation’s owners are trying to suppress the will of the St. Petersburg workers,” the organization behind the boycott said in a written statement. “They insolently ignore their employees’ protests.” Those communists never give up.
—Posted by Jim Lovel
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Published on July 1, 2005 | Permalink
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 If Steve Jobs has his way, podcasting is going mainstream. After Apple added a podcast directory to its iTunes Music Store earlier this week, Jobs said he expects podcasts will soon include advertising. “I do think we may start to see some advertising tagged onto them … in the coming months,” he told Jake Tapper in the ABC News Shuffle podcast. Even without Apple’s backing, podcasts have caught on, with a Pew survey finding 6 million Americans have already listened to one. While the ad potential remains to be seen, AdFreak wholeheartedly endorses any media innovation championed by former Headbanger’s Ball host Adam Curry, a podcast pioneer and host of his pretty cool podcast. (His weekly guide to podcasts, Podfinder, can be found on iTunes.)
—Posted by Brian Morrissey
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Published on July 1, 2005 | Permalink
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 We don't know what to make of AMC Theatres' new offer of "your money back" to film patrons who go to see Cinderella Man and end up not enjoying it. While such an offer seems a sincere show of support for the Universal Pictures effort directed by Ron Howard, we wonder if it doesn't diminish the cache of Russell Crowe. A money-back proposal like this seems more fitting for an indie film, not a big-budget, major motion picture starring an A-list leading man. Clearly, the tepid reviews have dampened enthusiasm for the film, but those didn't stop Titanic from being one of the top-grossing films of all-time. Maybe the reviews coupled with Crowe's outburst shortly after the film was released are what helped sink it. But as a marketing tool, this offer smacks of so much desperation we feel even less inclined to sit through Cinderella Man and aren't even sure we'd do so when it lands on cable.
—Posted by Kathleen Sampey
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Published on June 30, 2005 | Permalink
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 In Europe, folks take their ringtones seriously: a simple electronic beeping will not do—the more elaborate the song the better. Now, according to a Reuters report, one of the most popular ringtones, which actually made it to the top of the pop music charts, is being investigated. When tots (lured by the cartoon frog on TV ads) purchase the ringtone over the Web, it turns out, they’re actually signing up for an expensive subscription service. The company that markets the ringtone has received over 100 complaints that the ads are misleading. One more reason that everyone should keep their phone, in AdFreak’s opinion, on vibrate.
—Posted by Mae Anderson
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Published on June 30, 2005 | Permalink
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 Nerds have seen their stock rise dramatically in the Information Age. PBS even did that series called Triumph of the Nerds, exploring “how youthful amateurs, hippies and self-proclaimed ‘nerds’ accidentally changed the world.” But even as many a nerd makes peace with his painfully wedgied past via a six-figure IT salary, it’s helpful to remember that nerds are not completely rehabilitated, image-wise, by any means. As we speak, Vonage is stirring up some anti-nerd sentiment with its online banners to emphasize that its broadband phone service isn’t technologically baffling. “5 minute installation. No contracts. No nerds. No problem,” it says under the headline. We can feel the popular kids rushing to sign up.
—Posted by Tim Nudd
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Published on June 30, 2005 | Permalink
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 Last night, while preparing dinner for the family, I decided I’d tune into the NBC Nightly News as a backdrop to the sound of me dicing onions. By the end of the broadcast, I was pretty convinced that the positioning of the new Brian Williams-helmed broadcast is this: to scare the beJesus out of people; viewers will be so scared they’ll miss news of some life-endangering terrorist threat/chemical/food, they’ll be afraid not to tune in night after night. First, there was a report about how two Stanford eggheads have published, in minute detail, how terrorists could contaminate the nation’s milk supply. Then the broadcast moved onto stories about the second case of Mad Cow in the U.S., and an interminable discussion about how Teflon—which it turns out is used in much more than frying pans—is made using a chemical that is a likely carcinogen. But why stop with extensive coverage of the scariest headlines of the day? Then it was time to move onto how easy it is for hackers to figure out people’s passwords, in a story that featured a computer programmer who himself had been duped by a bogus email purporting to be from PayPal that asked for some personal information. After simmering chicken vindaloo in our one Teflon-free skillet, I had to resist the urge to shutter myself in a dark closet, preferably one not filled with Gore-Tex jackets, which, as you may have guessed, also contain the Teflon-linked carcinogen.
—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor
Credit: Kevin Mazur/NBC
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Published on June 30, 2005 | Permalink
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