Website Ad Clutter Study Launched

Factor TG today announced the launch of an advertising clutter comparative study for online publishers which will measures the effect of advertising to editorial ratios and the effect they have on reader's perception of the site and the advertised brand. The study will be fielded over the next three months with results available in June.

Burger King Hootie Commercial Spawns Taco Bell Spoof

Adrants reader John Brock points us to a spoof Taco Bell commercial created in response to a Fark thread which comments Burger King (CP+B) has gone insane with its new Hootie commercial and asks Farkers to submit their own screwed up commercial for another fast food chain. Jason, from Monolithcreative took on the challenge and created this oddity for Taco Bell. Part Starship Troopers, part Saturday morning cartoon, the ad has a bunch of tacos marching toward their enemy ending Iwo Jima-style with the tacos holding the Taco Bell flag gloriously.

With its war-like overtones and copy that reads, "We fought to protect the value of freedom. And the right to be full," the spot seems to comment on the current state of affairs over fast food, its health issues, whether it needs regulation and perhaps why it might not be anybodies business if we are fat or not.

Jason explains his creation to us, writing, "The Taco Bell commercial was really just made for fun (and the Fark thread) but animation and video is something that I really enjoy doing. I saw an opportunity to create a video that would be viewed by a large audience so I took advantage of it." Add this one to the growing list of consumer created commercials.

Movie Critics Don't Lie. Movie Ads Do

Not that we ever really believed all those praise-worthy quotes heaped on top of all movie ads to make even the most pitiful movie seem like it will be great but we never really took the time to dissect the racket behind movie blurb abuse. Thankfully, someone has. Gelf Magazine has collected some favorable quotes for recent movies and put them back into the context of the original articles from which they were ripped. One great example is for 16 Years of Alcohol. A quote from the Daily Star in the movies ad says, Trainspotting meets A Clockwork Orange making the movie sound pretty good. The actual quote is not so positive. It reads, "This glum, violent drama about a Scottish thug ruined by drink is written and pretentiously directed by Richard Jobson whose approach—Trainspotting meets A Clockwork Orange—is bad enough to drive you to drink in no time."

That's why we like Ebert and Roper's Thumb method of recommending a movie. It's not so easy to take a thumb out of context.

TTR2 Launches Marketing and Tracking SMS Service

UK viral seeding service TTR2 has launched Sendus, an SMS service marketers can use to provide additional information via email to people who respond to their ads using an SMS code. The service, free to set up, enables marketers to track consumer response to promotions and to lengthen the period of contact between marketer and consumer.