BBC Uses Valet Parking Tickets to Promote 'Footballers Wive$'

To generate interest in it drama Footballers Wive$, BBC America has plastered the back of 500,000 valet parking tickets with four color ads to be distributed in southern California until March 13. Dallas-based AdverTickets is doing the work for McDonald Media, BBC America's media buying agency.

Labatt Spokesman Faces Kiddie Porn Charges

Ryan Anderson over at Ads That Suck points to a couple stories that report Labatt brand Alexander Keith's spokesman, Robert Smith, is facing child pornography charges after a Toronto undercover police operation found images of "prepubescent children engaged in sexual activity" on Smith's computer according to Toronto Police Constable Scott Purchase. Oops. Labatt has pulled the long running campaign

Scotland Offers Hotties to Attract Tourism

Jaunted points to a Scottish Tourism Board promotion called Date A Hot Scot where visitors can vote for the hottest Scot on the site and earn the chance to win a free trip to Scotland. And, by taking a quick survey, visitors can gain an additional entry into the drawing. It appears, though, Scotland is only interested in attracting women to its country.

Agency Has Bitch Fight With Holding Company Over Lost Account

We've enjoyed all manner of holding company/held company corporate bitching from the inside and always reveled in its idiocy, ego-powered chest beating and pointless one upmanship so it it with glee we see an IPG bitch fight sprawled across the pages of Ad Age. Follow along. IPG owned Howard Merrell & Partners won the North Carolina Lottery account. HM&P resigned the account within one week because, according to HM&P, IPG wouldn't put up a required $1 million bond to insure vendor payment. The Lottery issued a press release announcing its account would be handled by independent Wray Laseter but made no mention of HM&P. HM&P issued a release that read, in part, "has issues meeting the bond requirements for HM&P. IPG could not resolve the issues in a timely fashion. As a result, IPG advised HM&P to withdraw from consideration. And, we have. The entire staff at HM&P is extremely disappointed. We put a lot of time an effort into the bidding process, and we were looking forward to working with the [lottery]."

more »

Publicis Groupe Launches Future Marketing Group Denuo

Today, Publicis Groupe announced the formation and launch of Denuo, a "strategic initiative designed to anticipate and exploit the rapidly changing digital, interactive and mobile communication environment." Denuo will be a separate company and "but is not based on any pre-existing industry model." The company will focus on strategic consulting; ventures and partnerships and the usual execution of work. The group will be headed by long time Publicis Media Groupe guru Rishad Tobaccowala, Publicis Groupe Media Chairman Jack Klues and 15 others culled mostly from withing other Publicis Groupe companies including Beyond Interactive's Nick Pahade, Play's Tim Harris and PJ MacGregor, Digits Founder Courtney Jane Acuff, and Reverb's Dan Buczaczwer among others.

If this were coming from anyone other than Starcom/MediaVest/Leo Burnett/Publicis, we'd pass it off as industry puffery. But, time after time, this group has proved to innovate on a large scale and perhaps this is the first stab at exactly what the future ad agency will look like.

Famed Graphic Artist Creates Kobe Bryant Design For Nike Gallery

Bucky Turco reports on a collaborative effort between graphic artist WK and Kobe Bryant that resulted in a dramatic mural for Nike's LA Nike Gallery. Check out all the work at the Wooster Collective.

Retailer Advertises 'Wife-Beaters,' Wishes It Hadn't

Adrants reader John Brock sends us this precious example of how not to use slang in advertsing. Massachusetts discount chain Building 19 ran an ad in a flyer promoting wife-beater t-shirts. Oops. Out came the cause groups on that one with Jane Do Inc. spokewoman telling Boston's WCVB, ""I can't say what I thought. I know what I thought, but I can't say out loud what I thought." We know what she thought: "You chauvinistic asswipes! How the fuck could you degrade women so harshly glamorizing low life, trailer park scum who beat the shit out of their wives on a daily basis?"

Building 19 apologies came fast from spokesman Jerry Ellis who said, "They were right. It was awful and I am sorry it happened. It's a slang expression, a street expression, but we should have known better not to use it. I am supposed to read every word. Sometimes it's busy or I am lazy. We are working on a retraction." Refreshingly, that comment definitely didn't go through the press release filter.

Time's Square Board Displays Windows Error, Pointless Discussion Ensues

We wouldn't otherwise highlight such mundane events as a Time's Square billboard displaying a Windows error message if it weren't for the fact not even three comments in, the conversation devolved into a bunch of widget heads launching the ever pointless Windows versus Mac argument. Friggin' geeks. And before all you accuracy police decide to go all "dot the I" on us, yes, we know the image was posted to a tech forum. It's still funny.

Scion Sucks, It's Just A F'ing Box

There's consumer-generated brand love and then there's consumer-generated brand hate. Web hunter Bucky Turco sent us this funny example of the latter in which the Scion is lambasted for it's boxiness and labeled a retarded mini van that plopped out of some fat guy's ass. Give it a watch here. Click Watch This Movie.

Kittens Attack Desktop to Promote TNT's 'The Closer'

While we certainly don't need any more useless widgets clogging up our precious and limited laptop memory, apparently some do and Crew Creative, with work for TNT's The Closer, is filling that need with downloadable desktop kitty in a nod the the show's lead actress Kyra Sedgwick's reluctant affinity to kittens. To wallow in desktop cuteness, click the kitty on the lower, left-hand side of the site.

While we've never watched the show, our two seconds of research leads us to believe this show is watched by an older crowd, not exactly the crowd which loves to clutter it's desktop with functionless widgets. We could be wrong. We could just be in a cranky mood right now. Or, we could be completely clueless and this cat will become the Internet's next Star Wars Kid.

Agency Vandalizes Own Billboards For Client St. Louis Cardinals

Like stunt marketing run amok but not really, since, hey, everyone's doing it, St. Louis ageny Schupp Co. - which sounds more like a beer company than an agency - purchased a bunch of billboards for its client, the St. Louis Cardinals, then proceeded to steal the cardinal cut-out portion of the billboard. The agency, following stunt marketing protocol, created a fake MySpace (is there no other?) profile under the name of Bird Napper whose favorite activity is...wait for it...stealing birds from billboards. The profile contained other witticisms such as listing "Celebration" and "The Heat is On" as favorite songs - former pep songs for the Cardinals and for favorite movie, "anything but the last 20 minutes of Fever Pitch" - a nod to the Cardinals losss to the Red Sox in the 2004 World Series.

more »