'Got Milk' Campaign Becomes Clothing Line

Extending its brand, the California Milk Processor Board has signed deals with apparel manufacturers MJC Corp. and Cutie Pie Baby to create lines of Got Milk? branded men's boxers and baby clothing respectively. The MJC line will be sold through Wal-mart and the Cutie Pie Baby line will be sold trough Babies' R Us, Buy Buy Baby Baby Depot and Federated stores. There are plans for a an MJC women's wear line which will be sold through Target.

Chevy Uses Promotional Broadcast Integration During All Star Game

Adrants reader brings to our less than sports-minded attention a stunt Chevy pulled during Tuesday's Major League Baseball All-Star game during which FOX cameras panned, in feigned innocence, over a fan banner that read HHRYA.com. While broadcasters Joe Buck and Tim McCarver bantered back and forth about the banner, apparently, no one realized it was a paid placement for the new Chevy HHR vehicle directing people to a website that, according to The Register, was swamped and offline for for thirty minutes. The site is a repository for people to upload pictures of themselves with the letters HHR somewhere in the photo.

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Monitors Orgasm to Promote TVGuide Online

TV Guide.com has launched a yet another orgasm-themed viral called "Fusebox" which, using a computer monitor and a flat screen TV, illustrates the attractiveness of TV Guide online content. According to discussion in an Adrants forum, it has not been well received by the industry. From the wide screen take over to load times to relationship to the brand, many found the effort underwhelming.

Fusebox, Inc. Creative Director, whose company created the spot and who, commendably and in an uncommon practice, placed this work up for discussion in front of a naturally voracious and opinionated audience, has promised to heed the advice of his peers during the creation of the next three spots in the series. Join the discussion here and offer your opinion. We know. We know. It's pain, but you have to join the network to read the forum.

Shona Siefert Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison

Following Thomas Early, who got 14 months in prison, Siefert will be tasting the inside of a cell as well and, quite humorously, as part of her sentence, will have to draft a written code of conduct for the advertising industry. Eighteen months in prison ought to remove any versions of adver-babble that might remain in her brain.

MediaBuys Introduces New Media Store

MediaBuys, an online media buying club, has relaunched it Media Store, replacing its Single Buy program to deliver steeply discounted media to buyers within a 24 hour period. For buying members interested in purchasing single placements of television, radio, magazine, newspaper, out of home and interactive - as opposed to full campaigns - media sellers will provide predetermined discount packages from which to choose.

Land Rover Greases Press With Tasty Soft Drink

In early June, Land Rover launched a campaign themed, "The New Rush" to promote the launch of the car company's new Range Rover Sport. It incorporated a website virtual cityscape along with outdoor. To attract attention to the campaign, Land Rover had a soft drink, called, appropriately, "The New Rush," made and distributed to the media and other promotional channels. It's tasty "concoction of B vitamins, caffeine, water and fruit flavors" and it's better than most soft drinks available at retail. The Adrants offices received our flat of the drink and we're lovin' it. Oh, wait. That's McDonald's. Sorry, Land Rover. We're....uh...rushin' it. Yea, that's it. Thanks.

Boston Globe Launches New Section

This week, in yet another effort to save sagging circulation figures, The Boston Globe Launched Sidekick, a new, tab-sized section billed as "your guide to a better day." The section will be inserted in the main paper appear Monday through Friday. The section will include an enhanced television review section, more comics and puzzles and an interactive feature which will publish Boston.com reader-submitted content, including pictures and message board commentary. Capitalizing on the poker craze, Sidekick will feature two poker columns. The section is being distributed within half priced editions of the Daily Globe in an obvious bid to build readership and subscriptions for the main daily.

Earlier this week, the Sidekick was promoted with a bit of street distribution activity. Though in a completely different category, we have to wonder what T-Mobile and Danger, make of the Sidekick mobile device, think of the Globe's choice of name for its new paper.

McDonald's And NeoPets Team Again in Happy Meal Promotion

McDonald's is doing the Neopets thing again. Beginning July 8 and running until August 4, 2005, twelve Neopets species from Netopis will be placed in McDonald's Happy Meals and Mighty Kids Meals. This is the second annual Neopets promotion with McDonald's.

Neopets is the online youth community where members can "explore new worlds, play games, enter contests, and interact with each other in an entertainment environment." The McDonald's Neopets Happy Meal and Mighty Kids Meal collection has twelve new species of Neopets in seven different colors. Each Neopet that comes with a McDonald's Happy Meal features a virtual prize code, which can be entered online in exchange for prizes, such as "fuzzy slippers" or Neopoints. Each Neopet also includes a "Petpet" clip.

ad:tech Chicago Wraps

As ad:tech Chicago wound down, exhibitors disassembled booths faster than a prima dona diva account director whisks in and out of a status meeting. While there were 2,500 attendees at this year's Chicago event, up from 2,000 in 2004, the exhibit hall never seemed crowded. Perhaps, we have dmg world media conference planners to thank for perfect crowd flow control.

In the end, the hotel bars, hallways and lobby were full of people making deals, swapping contact info and planning their next product or campaign launch. Chicago might be over but before we know it, we'll be in New York in November for the next ad:tech extravaganza.

Branded Hotel Key Card Goes Un-Noticed

While we're sure this has been done before though we're not sure how effective it was since a friend had to point it out to us, Datran Media sponsored the hotel room key cards at the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago during the ad:tech online marketing conference. Every attendee who was staying in the hotel was given a Datran-branded version of the hotel's room key card.

Whether it was the Pampered Chef conference attendees cackling like hens in the elevator or simply the innocuous nature of a hotel room key, our attention was not drawn to the card. Perhaps it was the design. Perhaps it was our weary, conference-addled brain. We just didn't notice the card. What we did notice, disturbingly, was our car keys missing from our briefcase upon arrival at Logan Airport in Boston and the hundred dollar cab ride we had to take home while knowing those Massport folks would be collecting $29 for each day we had to wait for our keys to be FedEx'd back to us from Chicago. Who said conferences where uneventful?

WOMMA Established Word of Mouth Metrics

Yesterday, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) held their first Metrics conference, called "Measuring Word of Mouth," at the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago. The conference, which sold out in 20 days mostly due to word of mouth and followed the organization's founding conference several month ago, focused on the the measurement aspects of word of mouth marketing including the introduction of metrics terminology.

The genesis of the conference was the organizations acknowledgment that everyone in the industry was talking about word of mouth but had no common terminology. The groups three goals for the conference were to develop a common language of word of mouth related terms and definitions, figure out how to measure and track word of mouth and learn how to integrate word of mouth with other forms of marketing media. In developing these goals, WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz the measurement framework must "avoid pre-existing marketing terms, avoid bias towards online media and avoid bias towards active word of mouth campaigns versus organic, day-to-day word of mouth."

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