Yes, It's True. House Advertising Is Here

Three years ago, we said it might not be so surprising for an advertiser to place their logo on the side of a house. Now, a company called Riley, with help from new Durham-based agency The Republik, plans to "turn upscale homes into a media vehicle" by allowing manufacturers to purchase space for product placement within newly built homes. Eesh. And we thought E's 'The Simple Life' pink house promotion was bad.

With Twisted Logic, PayPerPost CEO Defends Indefensible Business

If you're interested in hearing some of the most twisted, blubber-filled blather explaining and defending PayPerPost, the service that pays bloggers to write positive posts for advertisers with questionable disclosure, you'll love this interview Jason Calacanis did with PayPerPost CEO Ted Murphy. To hear Murphy say he has no problem reading a blog that contains paid posts that aren't disclosed as such and try to attach some kind of logic to it is one of the saddest moments in marketing history. PayPerPost has been a laughable business model from its start and to hear Murphy try to justify it is just painful and offensive. It's an affront to what limited credibility marketing still has in the eyes of people. Lines are already blurred enough and Murphy, it seems, wants lines to disappear completely.

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Beatbox-Style Laughter Pumps Comedy Festival

Who knew random laughter could be randomly mixed into a beatbox-style commercial? Well, the folks behind the Melbourne International Comedy Festival which will be held April 4-29, that's who. They even tied it together nicely with the tagline, "With comedy, timing is everything."

The commercial was created by Grey along with DJ Nick Thayer who mixed together the laughter of 50 people to create this beauty.

Jim Beam Bimbo Makes Men Happy

Jim Beam has gone all beer babe on us here with a newish commercial that offers up the perfect girlfriend. She doesn't mind if you are fat or have back hair. She will like you if you watch a lot of football and won't mind if you leave her at home and go out with the guys all the time. She doesn't care if you don't buy her flowers and she has no problem with you going to the strip club. She truly understands your needs. What this has to do with selling bourbon, we have no idea. And, if there were such a girlfriend as this girl, you can believe you would be doing none of the above but rather ravishing her on the couch as she blathers lovable platitudes even as your happy ending is achieved in a paltry 30 seconds..

Hyundai to Give Away Four Elantras in Competition

In early March, Hyundai began accepting applications for its Mash and Seek Challenge, a game somewhat similar to a game developed for Budget car rental, which will, on April 30, place 16 finalists in teams of four with a single photograph mashed up with the faces of the team members. The first team to find another will win four 200y Hyundai Elantras. Quizes will be administered every two weeks and those that answer correctly will be given clues to the location of other teams. Check it all out here.

Girl in Shorts Says There's Not Enough Girl on Girl Advertising

Becky C., publisher of Just A Girl In Short Shorts Talking About Whatever (and, yes, she looks good in her short shorts), has written a piece entitled Girl on Girl Advertising which examines advertising that features women with women and may or may not portray a lesbian relationship. She points to ads from Skyy Vodka, Banana Republic, Beefeater, Cartier, Abercrombie & Fitch and several others and wonders why there aren't more positing men would respond to these ads as well as women because, after all, what man doesn't like to see two women together?

She cites a study which finds gay male ads are ten times more prevalent than lesbian focused ads and also posits marketers are missing out on an important point: bi and lesbian girls love to shop just as much as straight girls. She's right. Bring on the girl on girl ads.

UPDATE: Actually, Becky C. seems to be misleading us a bit regarding her appearance. An Adrants reader tells us the Beck C. picture is really actress Andrea Bogart with whom he claims to have gone to school. Well, I guess you can't blame a girl for wanting to look hot is denim shirts.

Bleeding Coasters Deliver Drunk Driving Message

The Mumbai Traffic Police, with help from Mumbai agency Contract, have placed coasters with images of faces on tables and bars in the city that start to bleed when they get wet from the condensation of the glass placed on it. A message on the coaster reads, "Just a reminder. Drunken driving kills."

Onion Goes Audio/Visual, Dewars Foots the Bill, Deep Focus Blogs

Watch out, world - the Onion, our news source of choice, is leaping from the written word and taking on CNN with its own newscast: ONN, "faster, harder, scarier and all-knowing."

The Onion's Sean Mills gets strangely sober in his effort to explain: "[Comedy Central and Saturday Night Live] are parody shows, and this is serious news," he says. "There's no studio audience, and no one's in on the joke. What we are trying to create is a broadcast-quality newscast on the Internet."

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Super Glues, Sorrell Settles, Animax Wins

- In Guatemala, Super Glue is affixing branded boots to car wheels to promote its sticky stuff.

- Advertising Age reports, "Both sides are claiming victory as Martin Sorrell's libel action ended today after several days of debate behind closed doors over new forensic evidence. Mr. Sorrell dropped his claim that Marco Benatti and Marco Tinelli were personally responsible for scurrilous blogs and an e-mailed photo. And the two defendants agreed to payments to the WPP Group chief executive and Daniela Weber, WPP's chief operating officer for Italy, apparently because of evidence that FullSix, the Italian media company Mr. Benatti founded and Mr. Tinelli ran, may have been involved in disseminating the material online."

- Animax Entertainment has been nominated for its second Emmy Award for its work on "Off-Mikes," a weekly original animated series the studio produces for ESPN.com. Last year, Animax and ESPN won the first-ever broadband Emmy for its debut season of "Off-Mikes."