Shocker! All Press Release Quotes Are Fake

Not that we didn't all know this already but here, thanks to Gawker's ever transparent editorial staff, is proof positive, albeit embarrassingly for Hyperion who forgot to turn off "track changes" prior to sending its release, all press release quotes are fabricated and that no human being actually utters the wording we read every day in news articles pulled from releases.

AT&T to Attack Internet

Surely, you've already seen the new AT&T/SBC campaign at least 300 times on TV. You know, it's the one in which the world looks like it's being attacked by two luminous alien vehicles. Well, that campaign, with $500 million behind it, is about to take over the Internet. AT&T isn't saying what percent of the $500 million will be allocated to the Internet but, beginning Monday, January 9, they do plan to reach 137.8 million unique monthly user, nearly half of everyone who goes online in a given month. So be prepared for banners, banners and more banners everywhere along with page takeovers, interstitials, sliders, dog ears, video ad units and all manner of online creative. We wonder if they've heard of these things called blogs. Apparently, they have.

Nudity in Advertising Not An Issue in Prague

Somehow during the long history of America's creation with all its focus on freedom and supposed acceptance of just about anything, someone forgot to realize there's nothing with the normal portrayal of the human body in its natural state. No, we have to somehow equate nudity to the downfall of mankind and the catalyst for a nationwide orgy resulting in a country-wide orgasm of cataclysmic proportion causing the destruction of the moral fabric that binds our United States together.

In Prague, they just put nude ads up and no one blinks an eye.

Spider Crawling On Head Sells photo Services

As Flickr user dubitable points out, what sane marketer would assume a positive association between a spider crawling on one's head and quality digital photography services? Oh wait. Minolta would.

Old Farts Fart More Online Than Off

The wafting odor of the elder generation is diffusing online at an increasing rate according to a report from BURST! Media featured on eMarketer. The report says online users over the age of 54 are spending more time on the Internet and less time with offline media sources. While the over 54 crowd are still big consumers of offline media such as newspapers, many are finding valuable information online they can't find in traditional offline media. eMarketer has all the smelly details.

Successful Agency Holiday Card Gets MarketingSherpa Post Analysis

While this last holiday season generated an inordinate amount of agency holiday cards filled with the usual inside humor, self-effacing irony (does that make any sense) and kitsch quotient, one never thought a simple agency holiday card would merit the attention of uber-marketing site MarketingSherpa (open access until Jan. 15) but one agency cracked through the barrier. Enlighten, whose card, called Holiday Party Excuse Generator, gave visitors a means to gracefully back out of attending the overbearing plethora of industry holiday parties generated 50,000 visitors who sent 20,000 email excuses, got named Macromedia Site of the Day, received loads of press attention and helped grow traffic to the agency's site 400 percent with visitors who spent 75 percent more time on the site than usual.

Not bad. Not bad at all for what used to be a last minute, let-the-interns-do-it, love-the-client endeavor. And, to boot, not bad at all having the work analyzed and featured in front of 150,000 marketing and advertising professionals courtesy of MarketingSherpa. It seems the Holiday card will now become the new agency self-promo.

New England Patriots Highlight Visa Security Features

Visa has teamed with the NFL in an AKQA-created online campaign, called Know the Metaphors, which uses cartoon images of New England Patriot players standing in as metaphors for the Visa card's security features. In individual videos, each of the five selected players, Brandon Gorin, Tom Ashworth, Dan Koppen, Russ Hochstein and Matt Light use their football prowess in humorous ways to deter criminals and highlight Visa security features. It's a nice way of making boring credit card features like identity theft, fraud monitoring and that little three digit code on the back of the card seem interesting.

Adobe to Launch 'Faces of InDesign' Campaign

Created by Goodby-Silverstein and GREY Direct, Adobe will, on January 9, launch a new online campaign called "Faces of InDesign" to promote the company's Creative Suite 2 which launched earlier this year with the tagline, "Everything but the idea." The campaign will feature the images and personal stories of designers, art directors and ad execs as they go through their day using Adobe products. One of the creative elements in the campaign can be seen here.