Just when you think nothing could be more ridiculous that a person suing a fast food company for forcing them to eat their food and, thusly, making them fat, we now have a man who is suing his cable company for making his wife fat and his kids lazy. Timothy Dumouchel of West Bend, WI claims Charter Communications made his wife gain 50 pounds and his kids become lazy because Charter didn't turn his cable TV feed off after he cancelled his service allowing the family continued access to programming.
"I believe that the reason I smoke and drink every day and my wife is overweight is because we watched TV every day for the last four years," Dumouchel said in a written complaint against Charter.
Perhaps he hasn't heard today's televisions have advanced to the stage where they now have off buttons.
Comcast has been running an ad campaign that pokes fun at various TV shows one of which is "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." The spoof has not been well received by the Pennsylvania Lesbian and Gay Task Force claiming the ads stereotype gay men as being effeminate and caring only about fashion. The groups also faults "Queer Eye" for pepetuating a narrow view of gay men. Perhaps a show about gay men sitting around staring at each other and talking about football might be more exciting?
Prior to her Las Vegas wedding dalliance with English language challenged Jason Allen Alexander, Britney was originally scheduled to appear in a different Vegas. Producers of the NBC drama, "Las Vegas" had been wooing Spears to appear on an episode as herself. Now, there's a lot of second guessing going on. Executive Producer Gary Scott Thompson was interested then "her little weekend [wedding] happened and we kind of went, 'I don't know if she's gonna want to do Vegas anymore."
My agency is promoting a concert which will benefit Rhode Island Station fire victims' families. For those of you who don't know, 100 lives were lost when pyrotechnics caught fire to sound insulation which then burned the Station nightclub to the ground in a matter of minutes.
The concert, on January 22nd at 7PM at the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence, will feature the old rocker bands Foreigner, Starship and John Cafferty of the Beaver Brown Band. If would like to support this cause or just to come to a concert featuring some good old rockers, visit TicketMaster or call 401-331-2211 or 617-931-2000.
Jon Bon Jove and John Elway, who both own Arena Football Teams, are appearing together in a new two minute commercial which will promote the league and air in 400 Regal Entertainment Group theaters. In the spot, Bon Jovi and Elway pit their teams against each other in an in-house football game that reults in mayhem. Thanks to Adrants reader Jeff for submitting this.
Two new weekly magazines, "Nuts" from IPC and "Zoo Weekly" from Emap, focusing on sports and humor are launching this month in England. In typical U.S. fashion, the idea will be stolen and imported to America but U.S. publishers and analysts think the effort will fail.
"In Britain, the actual exposure to magazines is so great. Everybody kind of walks past stacks of magazines several times a day, said Ed Needham, a Brit who launched FHM in the U.S. and now edits Rolling Stone. "Weekly magazines here are very much bought by women at supermarket checkouts."
"The issue is where do you put the magazines," agrees consultant Steve Rosenfield of Media Resource Group. "Twenty-year-old guys dont frequent anywhere that they come into contact with magazines."
Besides, with "Cargo" and "Vitals" and "Stuff" andMaximin" and "FHM" and "Razor" and "GQ" and "Esquire" and "Sports Illustrated" and "Men's Health" and "Details" and "Ramp" and the countless other male-focused magazines combined with a drop in magazine readership, success looks far from a sure thing.
Like the cheap looking ads you see in the back of obscure business to business magazines, San Diego web hosting company, cari.net, has, knowing its target audience, capitalized on the male obsession with the female breast in its own equally cheap looking ad in ComputerUser Atlanta Magazine. The ad carries the headline, "Our Software is so Powerful...even Stay-at-Home Moms can run a profitable Web Hosting Business," and is accompanied by a picture of a mom breastfeeding her baby while working on her laptop.
While one might categorize this sort of ad as trashy, I can guarantee you there or Moms out there who have done this and more while breastfeeding to get through their busy day. It does speak to a certain life-reality that is mundane, sexy, awkward voyeuristic, beautiful, embarrassing to see and normal all at the same time. Thanks to Adrants reader Anthony for submitting this.
A study done by Beta Research Corporation found media buyers rate basic cable higher than broadcast in terms of brand image, audience demos, creative marketing and cost efficiency. While NBC ranked second, 13 other cable nets scored higher than ABC, CBS of FOX on brand image. ESPN was number one. MTV topped the list in terms of creative marketing and 30 percent of buyers plan to increase their spending this year on ESPN, Discovery, TLC, HGTV, TBS, VH1, Food Network and E!
