Another update to the Kieffe & Sons “Sit Down and Shut Up” ad fiasco: The quasi-apology issued by the California Ford dealer on Wednesday was mandated by Ford Headquarters. Kieffe & Sons remains unrepentant, so to speak, and blames the imbroglio on “Blog-lo-dites.”
advertising
CA Ford Dealership Apologizes For Ad Telling Non-Christians To "Sit Down And Shut Up"
By 5.28.08
On Monday, we wrote about Kieffe & Sons, the California Ford Dealership that ran a pointlessly offensive radio ad attacking non-Christians and supporters of secular government. Today, the owner of Kieffe and sons apologized for the ad.
UPDATE: Sears Changes Its Mind About The Definition Of "All"
By 5.28.08
If you read our story from this morning “Sears Kicks Off Holiday Weekend With False Advertising” you should remember Nazar who couldn’t get the advertised discount on his garage storage. He wrote to us with the following update:
Sears Kicks Off Holiday Weekend With False Advertising
By 5.28.08
Like many consumers, reader Nazar hoped to get in on some money saving deals over the holiday weekend. He spotted this advertisement (pictured above) in the Sunday paper for Sears, which clearly reads “ALL Garage storage on sale, 50% off – excludes closeouts.” Nazar headed down to Sears and picked out a garage storage unit, (not on closeout) but at checkout the Sears manager refused to give him 50% off citing that the sale was for the pictured unit only. Nazar’s letter and our advice, inside…
California Ford Dealership Radio Ad Tells Non-Christians To "Sit Down And Shut Up"
By 5.26.08
Kieffe and Sons, a California Ford dealership, decided for some reason to launch a radio ad attacking non-Christians and people who believe that prayer shouldn’t be in public schools. Audio and transcript of the ad, inside.
Subliminal Advertising: KFC Wants You To Think There's Money In Your Sandwich
By 5.23.08
Subliminal messages in advertising has been a controversial topic for years. Is it underhanded? Does it even work? Reader “umlaut75” sent us a video of a KFC Snacker television commercial that shows a mysterious tiny picture of a dollar bill mixed in with the lettuce. As far as intrigue is concerned, it’s not exactly the Zapruder film but it does make us wonder. The video, inside…
UPDATE: Charter Will Track Your Internet Activity Regardless Of Whether You Opt Out
By 5.20.08
Last week, we wrote about Charter’s decision to begin tracking its users internet activity and inserting targeted ads. One of our readers wrote in to let us know he discovered that Charter’s insecure opt-out solution—downloading a cookie that must be downloaded for each user and browser, and downloading it again whenever the cache is cleared—only blocks the ads from showing up; it doesn’t block Charter from monitoring users’ searches and web activity.
McDonald's: Drink What We Say Or No Free Southern Chicken Sandwich
By 5.16.08
Reader “Thunderpants” says that she was in McDonald’s yesterday during their free chicken sandwich promotion. The deal: Buy a medium or large drink and the sandwich itself is on the house. For some reason, however, this particular McDonald’s declared that only soft drink purchasers qualified for sandwiches. Nothing, not even a customer who claimed to have written the actual ad copy for the promotion, could convince them otherwise.
Fake, Funny Poncho Ad Causes Outrage, Laughter
By 5.13.08
One person’s joke is someone else’s insult it seems. Reader Nate sent in a photo of a fake poncho ad that ran in the LOLCats themed issue of the Boston-area free magazine Weekly Dig. He thinks the ad is hilarious, but we found at least one complaint from a Weekly Dig reader who thought the fake ad was “misogynist” and that the “potential hilarity was ruined by bad taste and poor judgment.” See the (fake) ad inside if NSFW language doesn’t bother you…
Charter To Begin Tracking Users' Searches And Inserting Targeted Ads
By 5.13.08
Charter Communications is sending letters to its customers informing them of an “enhanced online experience” that involves Charter monitoring its users’ searches and the websites they visit, and inserting targeted third-party ads based on their web activity. Charter, which serves nearly six million customers, is requiring users who want to keep their activity private to submit their personal information to Charter via an unencrypted form and download a privacy cookie that must be downloaded again each time a user clears his web cache or uses a different browser.
Waste Your Saturday With 50 Funny Commercial Parodies
By 5.10.08
Nerve.com has assembled a list of 50 fake commercials for everything from Tylenol BM (you’ll sleep right through your bodily functions!) to the Woomba (it cleans your noony!). There’s even some that don’t involve body parts, like Lily Tomlin’s increasingly agitated housewife hawking “G-r-r-r Detergent” in 1975. Our favorite recent commercial parody that didn’t make the list is probably the Jamie Lee Curtis commercial for Activia, because you can never get enough of women eating yogurt.
What Makes Vodka360 An "Eco-Luxury" Vodka?
By 5.1.08
My first thought when I saw spotted this ad for…
LA Has 4,000 Illegal Billboards, But City Looks On Helplessly
By 4.30.08
In 2002, LA banned any new billboards from going up in the city. Since then, an estimated four thousand have been put up by advertising companies who have ignored the law, which obviously the city’s billboard inspectors—”a tiny, and some say incredibly inept, group”—have never bothered to enforce.
Free "You Don't Need It" Stickers
By 4.23.08
Receive these beautiful stickers by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
By 4.18.08
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Is “plum” poised to supplant pink as the new black? This NYT article, full of quotes from people who shovel bullshit for a living, seems to think so. [NYT]
Should The Government Set Up A "Do-Not-Track" List?
By 4.18.08
One of the most popular sentiments expressed by readers on our blog is “be a smart consumer.” Now two privacy advocacy organizations are calling for the creation of a “do-not-track” list that would protect registered users from online data collection. They argue that a list is needed because too many consumers won’t or can’t understand the methods behind online tracking. To illustrate, one of the organizations “pointed to a 2005 University of Pennsylvania survey in which only 25 percent of respondents knew that a Web site having a privacy policy doesn’t guarantee that the site refrains from sharing customers’ information with companies.” But a do-not-track list is overkill, and a fearful reaction against emerging technologies.
Skyy Tastelessly Tries To Capitalize On Absolut’s Mexican Gaffe
By 4.12.08 — Updated: 11.1.12
Skyy vodka issued a crass press release declaring their support for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in response to an ad from rival Absolut that featured pre-Mexican-American War borders. We had no problem with the ad. We put up a poll. A majority of you had no problem with the ad. Not Skyy, though! They’re drunk with outrage and felt compelled to “[decry] Absolut vodka’s suggestion to redraw North [America’s] map.”
