When families go on vacation, parents get to drive around a shiny and different vehicle, but what do kids get to drive? Nothing! It happened that toy-maker Mattel and car-renter Europcar are clients of the same ad agency, and they formed an interesting idea: what if there were a counter where children could rent cars, too? Pocket-sized cars, that is. Hot Wheels. [More]
advertising
Even Sarah McLachlan Changes The Channel When Her ASPCA Commercial Comes On
By 5.6.14
Anyone who was watched basic cable after midnight in the last seven years has probably come face to face with the 2-minute long heart-rending ASPCA commercial about animal cruelty featuring singer Sarah McLachlan and her oft-karaoked song “Angel.” While it’s been a huge fundraising success for ASPCA, it’s not an easy couple of minutes to watch, especially when you’re just trying to watch a 2 a.m. rerun of House Hunters International. Now the Canadian songstress has a comforting message for those of us who reach for the remote: We’re not alone. [More]
Get Through Your Friday With The Help Of This Laughably Bad Anti-Liquor-Privatization Ad
By 5.2.14
Here in Pennsylvania, there’s a heated debate going on about whether or not to ease the state’s byzantine laws on the sale of alcohol. Both sides of the issue have merit, but a new ad arguing against changing the law isn’t doing itself any favors. [More]
NBA To L.A. Clippers Sponsors: We’ve Banned Donald Sterling… Please Come Back
By 4.29.14
Yesterday, a number of high-profile sponsors cut ties with the NBA’s L.A. Clippers pending a decision from the league on how to handle the pretty awful things team owner Donald Sterling is accused of saying. Now that it’s issued a lifetime ban against Sterling’s involvement in the league, the NBA is asking those advertisers to return to the fold. [More]
Burger King Resurrects Creepy Subservient Chicken, Minus The Chicken
By 4.28.14
Ten years ago, Burger King launched what is still one of the more bizarre marketing ploys of the Internet era — the Subservient Chicken, a “webcam” featuring a person in a chicken suit doing the bidding of visitors to the site. Because there are now people old enough to drive cars and go to college who missed this exceedingly creepy campaign the first time around, BK has (sort of) brought it back… though not quite. [More]
Company Wants To Beam TV Ads To Mobile Devices So You’ll Be Forced To Pay Attention
By 4.22.14
Hey, you. Yeah, you, the one with the audacity to be playing Sugar Smashers or looking at the weather on your phone/tablet while the commercials are on. You need to be paying attention, and so ads on TV should be beamed directly to your phone and/or tablet to make sure you are. Well, that’s according to one company’s nightmarish vision of our TV-watching future, at least. [More]
Great Moments In Badvertising History: Save Wives From Working, Doc Loves His Camels & Babies Guzzle Soda
By 4.19.14
As we’ve told you before: Anyone looking through old magazine ads could only conclude that the past was pretty darn terrible… At least if that past includes a mission to save your wife from having a job outside the home, doctors that smoked like chimneys, and babies drinking soda like it’s the nectar of life itself. [More]
Startup Offers Free Printing On College Campuses In Exchange For Ads On Pages
By 4.15.14
Is there any service in your life that you wouldn’t mind getting for free if it were ad-supported? Even as we work in “paperless” offices, some things need to exist as hard copies. For college students, there are enough items in need of printing out that a student-run startup now offers free printing…in exchange for ads plastered on each page. [More]
Actress Wants Pharmacy To Pay Her $6M For Using Photo Of Her Outside The Store
By 4.10.14
Famous people! Isn’t it funny how they also get stuffy noses, use cotton swabs and sometimes just need a bag of fun-size candy bars, like other humans do? Sure, celebrities shop at the pharmacy. It’s where the toilet paper is when you need it. But Katherine Heigl, an actress from movies about too many bridesmaids dresses, doesn’t like that New York City chain Duane Reade is allegedly using a paparazzi pic of her shopping at the store as part of its advertising efforts. [More]
Facebook Ads Will Be Getting Bigger, But There Won’t Be As Many Of Them, So… Yay?
By 4.9.14
Facebook is rolling out new changes in the next few months that will probably catch your eye. Seeing as “changes” in this case means much larger Sponsored Ads along the right-hand side of the page. But there will be fewer of them than before, the company says, so you can plan your celebrations of that fact accordingly. [More]
Should Online Publishers Block Users Who Install Ad-Blockers?
By 4.4.14
The Interactive Advertising Bureau is a trade group for, well, interactive advertising. That’s to say clickable online banner and video ads. If you’re one of the smarmy people piping up right now to say, “there are ads on the Internet? I wouldn’t know, I use ad-blockers,” you’re part of the problem as far as the IAB is concerned. [More]
Honey Maid Is Okay With People Hating Its Ad Showing “Wholesome” Gay Parents
By 4.3.14
Next to Saltines, graham crackers — which were actually created with the intention of curbing one’s animal urges — are about as innocuous a food item as you could imagine. So it’s a bit odd that Honey Maid graham crackers are in the middle of a social media to-do over an ad featured interracial families and same-sex parents and state in no uncertain terms that “This is wholesome.” Some folks weren’t too happy about this ad and unleashed a torrent of nastiness at the company (which, again, makes graham crackers). Today, Honey Maid unveiled a new video showing these detractors what they can do with their complaints. [More]
Up To 36% Of All Internet Ad Views Are Actually Bots
By 3.25.14
Websites sell a lot of ad space, but who’s looking at those advertisements? Well, the good news is that most of them are human. Most. A recent analysis shows that about 36% of Web pageviews are fake, generated by shady entities in Eastern Europe, not humans who might be interested in buying cars or makeup. The big companies that make the largest ad buys are not pleased. [More]
Rejoice! The Talking E-Trade Baby Is Being Retired
By 3.21.14
TV viewers who can’t always fast-forward through commercial breaks have reason to smile this morning after the announcement that the long-running and ever-creepy E-Trade talking baby ads are finally coming to an end. [More]
Get Ready To Ignore Video Ads In Your Facebook Feed
By 3.13.14
After a few months of testing on a handful of unlucky souls, that hated scourge of Internet browsing — the dreaded video ad — will soon be making its debut in the news feeds of all Facebook users, the company announced today. [More]
Science Tries To Prove That Confident Consumers Are More Likely To Switch Brands
By 3.11.14
Say you’re faced with making a decision between multiple brands or change service providers. Your willingness to seek variety, or make a change — even if it requires additional effort — may be tied to how confident and empowered you feel at that moment. [More]
Frank Ocean’s Reply To Chipotle’s Lawsuit Over Undelivered Ad Song: F@&# Off, Here’s A Check
By 3.11.14
Things are heating up between Chipotle and musician Frank Ocean, after the Mexican food chain accused the singer in a lawsuit of failing to deliver a song for a commercial. Chipotle claims it paid him $212,500 in advance but then he failed to record the ad campaign’s song. His reply? Here’s your money back and oh yeah, f–k off. [More]
Microsoft Wants To Run More Political Campaign Ads On Xbox
By 3.10.14
You know those ads that you ignore on your Xbox dashboard? President Obama used them as part of his re-election campaign in 2012, and with midterm elections on the horizon, Microsoft is doing its best to try to convince more politicians that these spots are ideal places to run targeted campaign and other political ads. [More]
