Produce Laser Labeling Could Be New Ad Medium

While produce companies, grocery chains and consumers might like the new laser tattooing of fruit and vegetables, as opposed to the annoying stickers, it won't be long before everyone has their head in a twist when advertisers discover they can use the technology to emblazon their logo all over the country's produce.

AOL Uses Blogs and Video to Introduce AIM Mail

To promote its new AIM Mail, AOL has a couple of strange online videos, created by Attik. One has a receptionist drifting into a daydream which consists of superhero midgets...oops...dwarfs...oops...little people giving her a tickle attack. The other has a pair of sushi falling in love only to have one killed by getting eaten. Both end with @aim addresses and no other form of linkage.

Once at the AIM Mail site, there are blogs that promote the videos. The videos can be viewed here and here.

Nestea Ice Gets Kooky Microsite Treatment

Adverblog points to a microsite, created by Juxt Interactive and done up with a combined country/hip-hop/British twist, for Nestea Ice which hopes to attract 12 to 24 years olds guys with its music videos, T-shirts, branded character stories and a contest which offers chances to win a bunch of Sony products including a TV, mini stereo, PlayStation 2, games, music CDs and inflatable chairs.

Bathroom Oddities Promote Toilet Paper

Adverblog points to a semi-funny website for Angel Soft toilet paper, called Bathroom Moments, which contains clips of strange and humorous bathroom occurances such as a lost battle with a toilet plunger, mustache bleaching and a fish funeral. The site also includes a list of "bathroom blunders" and a sweepstakes where entrants get a chance to win a $15,000 bathroom makeover.

RSS Ads Done Incorrectly Annoy Readers

Where's there's smoke, there's fire goes the old saying which might be appropo to this Flickr user's complaint regarding the proliferation of ads in RSS feeds. adammathes writes, "I have no problem with advertising, but this is just ridiculous. A one-to-one ratio of ads and content in an RSS feed? Do they even bother to show this sort of thing to actual users before doing it?"

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Tucker Carlson Promotes New Show on Jon Stewart

After a lashing by Jon Stewart, leaving CNN's Crossfire and finding a new job on MSNBC's The Situation with Tucker Carlson," the promotional staff behind Carlson's new show decide to go for inside humor by promoting the show on Stewart's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Campaign Helps Parents Remove Sex and Violence From Children's Lives

In a campaign created for child protection group, Pauseparentplay, and created by LA-based David & Goliath, parents are offered advice on how to protect their children from sex and violence saturated media using already existing tools such as television's V-chip, parent-focused movie and television review services, music review services and video game review services.

The campaign, which promotes the ParentPausePlay website, is done up with tab rag headlines such as "Suburban Mom Wipes Out Army of Bloodthirsty Ninja Assassins...with eject button on DVD player," "Parents Thwart Flesh-Eating Cyborgs...from invading their children's game console" and "Small Town Dad Disarms Chainsaw Wielding Psychopath...with skillful use of the remote.

Currently, the campaign is appearing in magazines with future plans for television. Councilman Vallone would love this campaign.

Councilman Trashes Graffiti Video Game

Even before its release this September, self-appointed anti-gaffiti mouthpiece Queens Councilman Peter Vallone is trashing a new Atari video game, called "Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure," which features a young graffiti artist up against corrupt officials and rival gangs as he spreads his tag around the city. The game was developed by Marc Ecko, features the voice of Talib Kweli and tags from 50 graffiti artists including Cope2 who created the Time Magazine graffiti board.

In a letter to Atari Chairman Bruno Bonnell, Vallone, who is concerned that game and the graffiti tips it provides encourage vandalism, wrote, "You are personally encouraging children to deface neighborhoods, break the law and wind up behind bars. This is an appalling lack of responsibility on your part." Atari has not yet commented on Vallone's comment.

Uber-graffiti overlord Bucky Turco, founder of of Animal magazine, told the New York Daily News, "Marc Ecko and Atari are giving graffiti artists an outlet to do something legal. You'd think Vallone would applaud that as opposed to opposing it."

For all Vallone's complaining, all he's going to do is bring more attention to the game and boost sales - not exactly what he had in mind. Many times the very important communications strategy of just keeping one's mouth shut eludes so many. Of course, if Vallone kept his mouth shut, he'd be cannibalizing his primary strategy which is to build political awareness of himself.