This weekend’s Saturday Night Live featured a parody ad for Safelite AutoGlass — the company that heavily markets its ability to fix your broken windshield wherever your car is parked. And the folks at Safelite say they weren’t too amused at SNL’s portrayal of one of their techs as a creepy stalker. [More]
advertising
Big Tobacco Will Admit In New Ads That All Cigarettes Are Bad For You, Intentionally Addictive
By 10.4.17
Eleven years after a federal court ordered the country’s biggest cigarette producers to produce a series of warning ads informing people about the dangers of their products, Big Tobacco is finally preparing to publish those “corrective statements” in TV ads, newspapers, online, and in cigarette packaging. [More]
Bob’s Discount Furniture Accused Of Falsely Claiming Its Mattress Is Same As Serta But Cheaper
By 9.28.17
If you live in any of the 15 states where Bob’s Discount Furniture operates, you’re probably familiar with the retailer’s “Dare to Compare” ads that pit expensive brand-name furniture against Bob’s more affordable versions. But one major mattress maker claims some of these comparisons are misleading and illegal. [More]
Why Does Sonic Drive-In Air Ads In Places Where No Sonic Exists?
By 9.26.17
If you’ve ever been vegging on the couch and found yourself wondering why you’re watching a commercial for Sonic Drive-In — starring those two vaguely familiar actors — when there’s no Sonic restaurants nearby, you’re not alone. The chain purposely airs nationwide ads even in markets where the nearest Sonic is an hour away. [More]
L.L. Bean Runs Full-Page Ad You Can Only Read In Sunlight
By 9.22.17
In a move that simultaneously evokes awww-neat childhood memories of “invisible ink” while also marketing an outdoor lifestyle brand, L.L. Bean has taken out a full-page newspaper ad that can only be read in the sunlight. [More]
Facebook Now Helps Advertisers Target People Who Visited Their Real-World Stores
By 8.11.17
Most of us are no longer surprised to see that our online ads are sometimes directly related to websites we’ve recently visited. An even more invasive practice would be for you to go online and be bombarded with ads for a bricks-and-mortar store you just shopped at. Nevertheless, Facebook is now letting online advertisers target users based on their offline movements. [More]
Google’s Tracking Of Offline Spending Sparks Call For Federal Investigation
By 7.31.17
Google recently announced a suite of new tools for advertisers, allowing them to link a customer’s offline credit card purchases with the things they look at online. Shockingly, some privacy advocates think this sort of tracking goes too far and have called on the federal government to investigate. [More]
Report: Instagram Influencers Continue To Ignore Warnings About Stealth Ads
By 6.26.17
Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission issued dozens of friendly reminders to brands that they were potentially breaking advertising/endorsement rules by compensating Instagram “influencers” without being transparent about this sponsorship. According to a new report, this message apparently didn’t influence the influencers, many of whom continue to stealth-advertise to their followers. [More]
Spotify Now Testing “Sponsored” Songs For Its Free Tier
By 6.20.17
As the way we get our entertainment changes, advertisers continue to find ways to target the audiences who are tuned in. Spotify, for example, is apparently not content with playing the occasional ad between songs on its free tier. The streaming service is now testing “sponsored” songs that labels pay to run on the platform. [More]
Instagram Makes It Easier For ‘Influencers’ To Tag Sponsored Posts
By 6.14.17
Consumer watchdogs and the federal government have been cracking down on undisclosed “stealth” advertising on social media — particularly Instagram, where celebrities of all stripes have been caught shilling for products without disclosing they were compensated. In an effort to make it easier for these “influencers” to be more transparent about sponsored posts, Instagram has launched a new “paid partnership” label. [More]
‘Most Interesting Man’ In The World Gives Up Beer For Tequila
By 6.14.17
When the night reaches that point when you move on from drinking beer to doing shots of tequila, it usually doesn’t bode well for how you’ll feel in the morning. But then again, most of us aren’t the one-time “Most Interesting Man In the World.” [More]
NFL Will Allow Liquor Ads For The First Time
By 6.6.17
Move over, beer: In what the league is calling a one-season test, the National Football League will allow the liquor industry to run ads during games this year. There are rules to this advertising game, however. [More]
Google Rolling Out A Chrome Ad Blocker, Putting Web Publishers On Notice
By 6.2.17
You know that feeling of relief and serenity that comes with a web-browsing experience free of annoying popups, auto-play video ads, and screen-dominating interstitials? As predicted, Google is planning to launch a new ad blocker on Chrome next year in an effort to clean up the internet. [More]
Belgian King “Not Happy” With Burger King’s Effort To Unseat Him
By 5.30.17
Who is more deserving to be the Belgian monarch: A man who was — literally — born to do the job, or a fast food chain? However silly that question might sound, it’s one that the actual King of Belgium would rather Burger King didn’t ask. [More]
So How Real Are The People In Chevy’s “Real People” Ads?
By 5.23.17
If you watch TV at all, you’ve probably seen one of the many “focus group” ads from Chevy, where supposedly real people are consistently flabbergasted at the car company’s achievements. But just how authentic are the things we see in these commercials? [More]
Google Following Your Offline Credit Card Spending To Tell Advertisers If Their Ads Work
By 5.23.17 — Updated: 5.24.17
Google’s holding its annual conference for marketers today in San Francisco, and to kick it off they’re announcing some new tools advertisers can use. One of them promises to tie your offline credit card data together with all your online viewing to tell advertisers exactly what’s working as they try to target you and your wallet. [More]
Doctors Say ‘General Hospital’ Made Character Ill Just To Advertise Drug
By 5.19.17
With TV viewers increasingly turning to streaming services or fast-forwarding through commercials on their DVR, product placement is hotter than ever. Reality show contestants have to carry around a company’s mascot for an entire episode; there’s an entire show coming that’s just an ad for an app (it rhymes with “blazzam”). But did a classic soap opera cross the line when a character becomes sick with a rare disease and the show’s partner just happens to make a drug that can treat her ailment? [More]
Burger King Franchisee Made Employees Hand Out Coupons At Concentration Camp Site
By 5.19.17
Even in this age of nearly omnipresent advertising, there are still some places where it’s in very bad taste to force coupons on the public, like outside the site of a former concentration camp. [More]
