Plenty of famous people post Tweets, Facebook updates, and Instagram photos where they mention a product or company name that they truly enjoy. But if those celebs are getting paid to slap their name on these messages, they need to be transparent about it. A pair of sportscasters at ESPN apparently missed that memo when they recently name-dropped Domino’s Pizza on Twitter. [More]
advertising
GQ Website Gives Ultimatum To Readers: Disable Ad-Blockers Or Pay Up
By 12.28.15
With ad-blocking apps and plugins preventing U.S. content companies from earning some $22 billion a year off your eyeballs, some sites are throwing down the gauntlet and demanding that readers pay up if they want to avoid ads. [More]
Minnesota Vikings Sue Wells Fargo For Attempting To “Photo Bomb” New Stadium
By 12.23.15
When you build a new multibillion-dollar stadium for an NFL franchise, you probably want to make sure that advertisers are paying for their name on or in the building, not just near it. And you probably want to ensure that those advertisers who do pay for their name on the building aren’t being overshadowed by the neighbors. Which is why the Minnesota Vikings are suing Wells Fargo. [More]
Feds Clarify When & How Advertisers Need To Reveal They Paid For Sponsored Stories
By 12.22.15
If you’re reading a website about business travel and you read an interesting news story about saving money on hotels, does it matter to you if that “article” was paid for by an advertiser? If so, how should that sponsorship be communicated to the reader? [More]
Dairy Crisis Averted: Advertising Group Weighs In On String Cheese War
By 12.17.15
When there’s a cheese war raging, who’re you gonna call to settle things? If it’s a fight over whether or not a product is being incorrectly advertised, The National Advertising Division (an offshoot of the Council of Better Business Bureaus) often weighs in. This time, it’s addressing a string cheese dispute between two different companies, in the hopes that we can all just relax and enjoy some cheese. [More]
Twitter Starts Showing Ads To Non-Users Just Wandering By
By 12.10.15
Twitter doesn’t use banner ads, but instead shows users sponsored tweets that are theoretically targeted to them. Yet plenty of visitors to the site aren’t registered users: they’ve followed a link despite not having an account or not being logged in yet. Twitter hadn’t tried selling these visitors’ eyeballs to advertisers until now. [More]
Consumer Advocates Ask Regulators To Investigate T-Mobile Over Advertising, Debt Collection Practices
By 12.8.15
Those two-year mobile phone contracts we all signed for so long became a relic of the past pretty quickly over the last two years, with national providers all abandoning ship. T-Mobile moved to “contract freedom” almost two years ago now, and has since then continued to make a big deal over the fact that their users are neither locked into time-locked agreements nor face old-school high data overage fees. [More]
Google Testing Ads That Let You Try Mobile Games Before Downloading Them
By 12.3.15
Sometimes, a mobile game may catch your eye — all bright, blinking, beguiling colors — but after you’ve downloaded it, it turns out to be rather… meh. Yes, you can simply delete it from your phone easily enough — but if wasn’t a free game, that might smart a bit. In an attempt to defeat downloader’s remorse, Google is playing around with ads that would allow folks to try games before they’ve taken the leap to install them on their mobile devices. [More]
Car Dealers Can’t Scream “Zero Down On All Leases” If Most Buyers Won’t Qualify For Deal
By 11.24.15
Car dealers are known for hyperbolic slogans like “Everybody rides!” or “Nobody walks away from our lot!,” but that sort of puffery is a far cry from repeatedly claiming that the advertised lease price includes “Zip, Zero, Zilch — Nothing Down!” only to hide the ugly truth in fine print that most people won’t understand. [More]
Justice Department Investigating Comcast’s Influence On Cable TV Ads
By 11.24.15
You know when you’re watching national prime-time TV and, after a bunch of ads for big-name brands you’ll suddenly be treated with a commercial for some local car dealer? Those are called “spot” ads and Comcast is being investigated for possibly having too much control over their sales. [More]
Eavesdropping Barbie, Books About Famous Brands, Bratz Selfie Sticks Lead List Of Year’s Crassest Toys
By 11.23.15
Not all toys are equal; just ask those ungrateful children who will throw a tantrum on Christmas morning for getting a GoBot instead of a Transformer (wait — that was me). But some kid-targeted products cross the line from being blah to being truly terrifying. [More]
Use AdBlock And Yahoo May Block You From Reading Your E-Mail
By 11.20.15
If you still live in 2003 and have a Yahoo e-mail account but also use Ad Block to, ya know, block ads, then the folks at Yahoo might have a nasty surprise for you when you go to check your inbox. [More]
American Medical Association Calls To Ban Ads For Prescription Drugs, Medical Devices
By 11.18.15
In the future when you tune in to watch the big game or your favorite primetime show there might be something missing during the commercial break: ads for prescription drugs and medical devices. The American Medical Association proposed a ban on such advertisements Tuesday, claiming the marketing may be driving consumer demand for unnecessary and expensive treatments. [More]
John Oliver Has Rewritten Those DraftKings & FanDuel Ads For You
By 11.16.15
With daily fantasy sports sites DraftKings and FanDuel in a high-profile legal battle with New York state over whether they are a form of unlicensed gambling or games of skill, HBO’s John Oliver has released his own version of the sites’ infamous “anyone can win” ads. [More]
Bloomingdale’s Apologizes For Ad Suggesting You Should Secretly Get Your Friend Drunk
By 11.11.15
You know what’s kind of funny and cute? In the movies when two best friends are standing near a punch bowl at a lame party and they’re like, haha, let’s put some whiskey in our punch glasses to liven this thing up. You know what some people find not so adorable? A retailer suggesting you get your friend drunk without them knowing it by spiking the egg nog, possibly so you can take advantage of said friend. Cue an apology from Bloomgindale’s. [More]
Now You Can Take Your Kids To The “Krispy Kreme Challenge” Clinic
By 10.26.15
While hospital naming rights have long been up for grabs to big donors, it’s not every day that a healthcare facility is branded with the name of a product that most people associate with being unhealthy. There’s no “Black Tar Heroin Elder Care Facility” or “Stick Your Finger In The Light Socket Cancer Center,” but there is now a Krispy Kreme Challenge Children’s Specialty Clinic. [More]
AirBNB Apologizes To Own Employees For Passive-Aggressive Ads
By 10.23.15
If you’ve ever walked up to a government employee and shouted, “You’re welcome for paying your salary!” you wouldn’t see anything wrong with a recent series of ads from lodgings site AirBNB that recently appeared around San Francisco. Even some people who wouldn’t do that had issues with the tone of the ads… including the company’s own employees. [More]
Christina Hendricks Nice ‘n Easy Ad Banned In UK For Being Misleading
By 10.7.15
As her run on Mad Men came to an end, famously redheaded actress Christina Hendricks started showing up in an ad for Procter & Gamble’s Nice ‘n Easy hair dye, where she transforms into a blonde. Now the commercial has been red-flagged in the UK after an ad watchdog declared it misleading. [More]
