Lipton China Promotes...Something...With Blood And Violence

If we knew Japanese Chinese, we could tell you more about this Japanese Chinese Lipton video and online game that involves a lot of blood and violence. Perhaps it's tongue and cheek. Perhaps it's just plain violent. We don't know. The sound effects are cool though.

FCUK Says Goodbye to Logo With Insightful Commercial

A while back, we reported fashion label French Connection was retiring its FCUK brand acronym and had launched an ad campaign to do so. One of the components of the campaign is a television spot which is a brilliant, tongue-in-cheek, self-referencial, insightful play on advertising's obsession with persuasion and sexual imagery. The ad, filled with typical television commercial imagery and poking fun at the things advertisers do to sell product, never once mentions the brand name. Asking, "Haven't you had enough of being told what to do, where to go, what to wear?" and "Don't you just hate being influenced, especially by the great big, offensive logos at the end?'" the ad close with the simple, superimposed phrase, "so do we."

There's a problem with this approach though. At some point, French Connection will launch another brand to replace its FCUK acronym and the company will be back where it started - influencing people with great big, offensive logos. Thanks to Adrants reader Russell Buckley for the tip.

Weblogs, Inc. In Search of Advertising Blogger

Weblogs, Inc. Founder Jason Calcanis is in search of an advertising blogger.

That's right. There's soon to be more competition in the ad blog space as Calcanis plans to add to his growing empire of niche focused weblogs. On his blog, he compliments Adrants and says he's looking for someone who's "witty, clever, sardonic, sarcastic, cynical, funny, etc." He's even placed a Craig's List ad which is also complimentary to Adrants (that's no capital R, folks) which reads, in part, "If you're interested in the gig please send me three blog posts in a style similar to blogs like AdRants.com, Gawker.com or Engadget.com." Compliments in the face of pending competition. We love it.

Alas, we are not applying for the job. Things are going quite well here in the posh, suburban offices of Adrants but we do look forward to the inevitable link-swap fest that will surely accompany the addition of another blog in the ad space. So, if you're in the ad game and dying to express your opinion blog-style, get in touch with Jason and who knows, we could be battling it out for ad scoops in the near future.

Ad Industry to Drive $150 billion into New York City Economy

The advertising industry will help drive $151 billion into the New York City metropolitan area economy this year, a new study found. The total economic activity generated by advertising - which includes direct spending, supplier spending and inter-industry activity - is estimated to account for a projected 18.9 percent of the region's $800 billion economic activity and an estimated 679,151 jobs, or 16.2 percent of the area's workforce of 4.19 million. The study estimates that total advertising spending by businesses in New York City for 2004 is estimated to come in at $12 billion, and the total revenue impact of this spending on the NYC region will be a projected $151.4 billion. The total projected impact includes the $12 billion, the direct impact on area sales of $68 billion, the impact on supplier economic activity of $33 billion and the impact on inter-industry economic activity of $38.4 billion.

Heinz Continues 'Talking Label' Campaign With Celebrities

Continuing its long-running "Talking Label" campaign, Heinz has enlisted the "voices" of soccer star Mia Hamm, actor William Shatner, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw and actress Lindsay Lohan. The quotes will appear on limited edition bottles currently in stores. Mia Hamm's label will read, "Worthy of Gold." Shatner's will read "Fixes Burgers at Warp Speed." Bradshaw's will read "Served at the Immaculate Reception" and Lohan's will read "Burger-licious" which is fair comment on her current celebu-pop, "breast of the month" status. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to each celbrity's charity of choice.

Janet Jackson's Breast to Cost Viacom $550,000

The FCC has bitten the nipple off Viacom fining it $555,000 for what the agency deemed a willful broadcast of indecent material. We are, of course, talking about Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" aided by Justin Timberlake during the February 1, 2004 broad cast of the Super Bowl on CBS.

The fine will be split among the 20 Viacom/CBS television stations that broadcast the event because of their apparent involvement in the planning of the half time show. Other non-Viacom CBS outlets will not be fined.

Agency Promotes Client With Head Billboards

Following the debut of its assvertising product, New York agency NightAgency is promoting its new client, Spanish language newspaper publisher impreMedia with what is calls Head Billboards. The agency has attached mini-billboards atop helmut-headed humans to promote the publisher's website and an interesting survey testing marketers knowledge of the Hispanic marketplace.

Filmmaker Claims Nike Stole Ad Idea

Richard Greenlees claims Nike copied his idea for a commercial the sneaker giant is currently running for its Converse "peace" sneaker. Greenless created a commercial last year based on man he saw in 1996 at the Moscow International Peace Marathon who was wearing sacks full of hay as shoes. Greenless recreated the moment in a commercial promoting peace and set it to John Lennon's Imagine. Oddly, Nike is now running a commercial with Lennon imagery to promote its "peace" sneaker. Nike says its all purely coincidence.

Advertisers May Leave CBS Following 'Rather-gate'

As CBS continues to do a horrible job owning up to its Bush memo error and refusing to give credit where credit is due, Emerald Partners Media Consultant Fraser Seitel predicts the "scandal" will hurt ratings and advertisers will pull out.

While none, to date, have, Katz Media Director of Programming Bill Carroll says they'll do it later, avoiding controversy saying, "Advertisers don't want to inject themselves into the controversy and become part of the story."

M&M Brand Icons Place First in Advertising Week AUTHOR: Steve Hall

The M&M characters were voted to be the favorite advertising icon of all time. Along with M&M in the top five were Mr. Peanut, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Tony the Tiger and the AFLAC Duck. The survey was conducted by Yahoo and USA Today as part of this week's Advertising Week conference in New York.

Adrants Billboards: Maxim Publisher Felix Dennis Pushes Poetry

• Taking a break from semi-nudity and sex, Maxim Publisher Felix Dennis has written a poetry book, "A Glass Half Full," and plans a nationwide promotional tour.
• Florida's tourism group, Visit Florida is spending $2 million on a campaign carrying the tagline, "We're Still Here. Naturally," to get tourists to come back to the state after it was ravaged by hurricanes.
• ABC has contracted with ad-tracking firm Teletrax to track airings of its television show promotions to get a better handle on when and where its promos are airing and to relate that back to programming ratings.
• Hachette Filipacchi has hired Home and Garden Television's Candice Olson as contributing editor on Woman's Day and Home magazine who MediaPost thinks could be the next Martha Stewart.
• UPN's Top Model begins its third season tonight at 8PM and Tyra Banks promises lots of bitchiness.
• About.com has launched the Advertising Trivia Challenge, a collection of surveys in which you can test your knowledge of advertising from which celebrities pitch which brands to famous songs used in ad campaigns to identifying an advertiser just by looking at their logo.
• Fagoogle, a search engine for gays has launched.

Man Pulls Woman's Top Off, Ad Gets Banned

Well, it's time for the monthly banned beer ad story. You know how if goes by now - company creates ad, ad pushed limits, ad gets conservatives all riled up, ad gets banned. Old news? Yes. But there's something about beer and sex that keeps us covering these sorts of stories. Besides, do you really want to read another, "ACME Launches Revolutionary New Interactive Ad Campaign" story? We didn't think so. So, on with the story.

Australia's James Boag Beer hired the late Helmut Newton to shoot an ad in which a woman holds a beer bottle the way many men like to be held and the man is about to do what most men would love to do when near a woman such as the lovely lady in this ad. Of course we know it's just a fantasy but apparently the Royal Women's Hospital Centre Against Sexual Assault doesn't like to fantasize and has complained to the Advertising Standards Bureau asking the image not be used in the ad. The Centre's spokeswoman said, "The message they're giving is that somehow beer makes women sexually available." Well she's right. Beer makes everyone sexually available. If you've ever had a beer or two too much, you know this. Basically, the ad is getting banned because it's being honest.

Pointing to the likelihood this was a planned strategy from the start, the brewer issued a statement in which it said there are "no plans for media placement." Hmm. Create an ad. Get it vetted by the Standards body. Have "party pooper" groups complain. Get the ad banned. Get tons of media coverage. Call it a day. Of course there are no plans for media placement. It's all free. Right here in this little news item and in news items all over the media. Now that's a media strategy.