 Do I Look Cool? Owls Replace Models inNew Ad Campaign Eschewing the usual near naked models, Giorgio Armani is launching a campaign for Armani Eyewear using owls.
"The fashion industry is often guilty of taking itself too seriously," Armani said of the campaign. "It therefore seems appropriate to launch the first Safilo manufactured Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani eyewear collections with ironic advertising campaigns, which will get noticed because they break from this tradition."
The campaign will be underscored with the tagline, "Daywear for Night Owls"
Giorgio himself will also be featured in another campaign for one of the eyeglass lines with the tagline, "Eyewear from Giorgio Armani". Gee, that's groundbreaking.
 Reid Opens Up on 'Scrubs' In a move to perhaps change the public's perception of her as a party animal, Tara Reid has signed on to NBC's 'Scrubs' for a six episode story arc.
In the arc, Reid will play love interest to series star Zach Braff. 'Scrubs' kicks off this season on October 2. This just might be the catalyst to tune in and check out the show.
Reid to patient she's about to open up, "That glass of tequila on the tray? Oh, that's just to calm my nerves before I cut you open."
To see Tara open up bigger, click the picture.
A federal judge Thursday threw out a class-action lawsuit by two Bronx teenagers claiming McDonald's used false advertising and that the chain's food made them fat and contributed to their health problems.
In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet said, "If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of super-sized McDonald's products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain, it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses."
It's about time common sense ruled.
 Po or Porn? John Zuccarini, hated cybersqutter and owner of thousands of domains names consisting of misspelled addresses of popular websites, could be off to prison. Zuccarini has been arrested under a new law making it illegal to redirect traffic to pornographic or obscene websites.
Zuccarini has a long history of shady Internet activities having been sued by Radio Shack, HP, Office Depot and Nintendo. This time, he's being dragged in for redirecting unsuspecting kids looking for the Teletubbies website to Teltubbies.com, a site that is called Hanky-Panky-College and quite pornographic in nature. Thinking further, perhaps this is just a stealth effort by PBS to fight off rumors one of the Teletubbies is gay.
Advertising has to be the only business where billions of dollars can be spent and it's OK to say, "Sorry, we really don't know how much your sales will go up after this ad campaign." That's changing.
"Chief marketing officers are under enormous pressure to demonstrate returns on investment," Bob Liodice, president-CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, told attendees at the Television Bureau of Advertising's Forecast Conference in New York. "CEOs are holding marketers accountable for the effective management of billions of dollars n marketing expenditures. There is little tolerance for soft measures, excuses and explanations."
Marketers will demand to see proof of concept for advertising programs and will not readily accept "standard" annual rate increases that have been the norm for years. While an ROI analysis is old hat for online marketers, it's a challenge for those using mostly offline media. Those offline media that wish to survive might want to begin exploring proof of concept techniques for their media.
 Feel The Love Fueled by a $20 million budget, Doner is launching a campaign for Mazda's new RX-8 kicking off during Sunday's ESPN Sunday night football. The campaign will include :15's and :30's and highlight the car's rotary engine.
The spots tie into the inexplicable love men have for their cars showing a man hugging his car in the garage.
"We wanted to tap into the key consumer insight that guys love their cars," said Tim Blett, president of Doner in Newport Beach, "though they don't want to show it, except in private."
 Aerosmith's Steven Tyler First, let it be said. Aerosmith rocked! They made Blige and Spears look positively lame. It's nice to see musical artists actually sing their songs rather than just pump out choreographed, lip synched bullshit. OK, so the ladies didn't suck that bad and they are nicer to look at but Aerosmith showed them how it's done.
This NFL Kick Off has legs. It really was a good show. Much more interesting than the Superbowl half time show. Aretha Franklin did the Star Spangled banner big time justice. Full of soul and spirit.
The little speech President Bush gave pior to the game was a bit cheesy and at the same time kind of cool.
All in, this show gives the NFL and sponsoring advertisers a powerful marketing platform that may not rival the Superbowl but will certainly rank high on the must buy list.
Simmons Market Research Bureau announced today the release of the Tipping Point Segments, which identify each Simmons respondent by his or her influence on word-of-mouth advertising.
Inspired by the concepts outlined in Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book, The Tipping Point, Simmons has identified four segments of the U.S. population that are primarily responsible for the spread of word-of-mouth advertising. These four groups of individuals can be profiled based upon their media usage, brand consumption, spending habits, leisure activities, demographics, psychographics and opinions, in order to gauge which media vehicles and messaging advertisers can use to target them for the maximum effect.
Simmons added questions to its Spring 2003 study to enable classification of respondents based upon their proclivity to influence the spread of information and trends. The four segments Simmons has identified - Connectors, Mavens, Salesmen and Innovators - are distinct small groups that work together to ultimately stimulate word-of-mouth influence. Simmons has established a powerful and accessible link between word-of-mouth and traditional mass media advertising. For example, clients can now examine the Tipping Point segments based upon their television viewing behavior using Simmons' television BehaviorGraphics(tm). These Tipping Point targets can be tracked on a daily basis via the BehaviorGraphics(tm) link to Nielsen Television Ratings. Examining the Tipping Point segments within the context of BehaviorGraphics(tm) enables clients to identify which television programs afford the most successful multi-modal advertising opportunities.
Finally, the big boys are going to measure what has been happening for years. The power of word of mouth is far under rated and today is more powerful than ever with the proliferation of the Internet, mobile phones, video phones and weblogs. It's no wonder why movie studios put all their eggs in the opening weekend basket. If the movie sucks, everyone will know about it two minutes after it starts. Measuring how this happens and how it can be affected by advertising will become a key element in a company's marketing programs.
 Honesty in Advertising Acknowledging the often assumed, rightly or wrongly, reason a homeless person asks for money, this gentleman decided to advertise the truth.
Interestingly, it looks like he is on a cell phone. I guess everyone really does have a cell phone now.
 In Search of Great Creative With its marketing director leaving and two agencies battling for the account, KFC is apparently not getting what it wants creatively and has turned to the public for salvation. KFC is offering a $10,000 prize to the person who submits the best television commercial. The winner will also see their spot aired in prime time on October 2.
Entrants are asked to submit commercials that promote KFC's "Bigger Better Popcorn Chicken." Submissions must be made by September 23. Details are available on KFC's website.
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