MTV Gets Your Attention With Dental Sounds

In this MTV spot, nervous patients in a dentist's lounge awaiting certain pain in the dental chair are subjected to certain aural pain.

Via TTR2

Coffee Campaign Offends Gay Community

We're Not Pretentious

Fagg's, a New Zealand coffee company recently launched a billboard campaign with the tagline, "The Great Straight Coffee." The ad also pokes fun at the predominantly gay Auckland suburb Ponsonby. Complaints call the ad campaign "overtly homophobic."

Fagg's Coffee Marketing Manager James Ford dismisses the complaints claiming the word "straight" is simply used to distinguish the brand from other coffee companies who position themselves as pretentious.

"We are straightforward," he said. "What you see is what you get, and it's common knowledge that there's quite a lot of coffees that take themselves extremely seriously."

While that may be true, the creative team knew what they were doing on this one and knew they'd gain attention for it. Which, of course, is the whole purpose of advertising.

Beer Babes to Disappear in Brazil

Beer Babes Gone?

This would never happen in America but a spokesman for Brazil's independent advertising industry regulator Conar said on Tuesday new guidelines which require that ads for alcoholic drinks should "avoid the use of eroticism" will come into force within three months.

The new restrictions listed on the Internet site of Brazil's National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation, or Conar, also say beer and wine ads run between 6 am and 9:30 pm should also avoid any symbols that might be attractive to youngsters, such as cartoon characters.

Please Stay

Adverts for alcoholic drinks should also only feature people, "who are and seem older than 25 years of age," a move which could prove to be a blow to young models whose careers are frequently launched by an appearance in a bikini to launch one of the nation's brews.

The world's fifth-largest brewer Companhia de Bebidas das Americas, better known as AmBev, and rival Kaiser, which is owned by Canada's Molson Inc, routinely bombard Brazilians with ads featuring scantily-clad women and quirky cartoon mascots to promote their beers. I thought Brazil was the place where nudity and pride of the body was part of the culture. Is the whole world going PC?

Both brewers declined comment on the new ad guidelines.

Writer Goes Crazy, Tattoos Book on 2,301 People

Don't Read My Book

Author Shelly Jackson has a new way to publish a book. She will ask that 2,301 people step forward and have one word each of the 2,301 word story tattooed somewhere on their body. Now that's innovative but she has also placed some restriction on the participants insuring this story will never actually get read.

Jackson will never release the book in print and if pictures are taken of those who have been tattooed, they must make sure the tattoos are not visible. What the fuck? Oh sure, it's art, you say. Come on. Seems pointless if no one will ever be able to see the work and appreciate it.

Bike Maker Commercial Uses Cheeky Bike Rack

For an Australian bike maker, illustrating a unique replacement of a bike rack can be one cheeky event. Click image to view.

New York Magazine to Get Snarky With Elizabeth Spiers

According to Elizabeth Spiers herself, she is officially joining New York Magazine. Along with writing general topic pieces for the magazine she will write for the Intelligencer column. Or, as she puts it, "edit this and make it funny."

Interestingly, the magazine wants to start a weblog. Until recently, Elizabeth was the editor of the gossipy snark-log called Gawker which, following its launch last Fall, quickly became the talk of the NYC media community.

So now Elizabeth will be hopping from party to party like Tara Reid and the Hilton sisters, voyeuristicly digging for dirt, hunting for gossip and writing sniping pop culture columns. OK, so it will be a bit more serious than that but believe me when I say it will be writing well worth reading.

I'm subscribing. Far better Gawker story on this topic here.

McDonalds to Test Market Adult Happy Meals

On the heels on winning the lawsuit where fat people sued McDonalds for making them fat, the fast food company is test marketing a "healthy" Happy Meal called "Go Active Happy Meal". The meal includes a salad and, humorously, an excersize booklet and a pedometer.

The test will occur in the Indiana cities Indianapolis, Bloomington, Munice, Lafayette and Kokomo this Fall.

New Xbox Spot Presents Tough Choice

Honey, Don't Eat So Fast

Microsoft's new Xbox now has over 200 games. For the Xbox lover, that makes for some tough choices in life. The allure of a candle light dinner with your sexy spouse or a night of Xboxing. Not easy.

The Fascinating Future of Advertising

In this lengthy Wired article, Frank Rose examines how the proliferation of programming choices and time shifting devices such as TiVo are dramatically altering the way advertisers will communicate with consumers.

The 30 second spot is still being clung to by dinosauric ad agencies as the only major means of communications. Fortunately, some smart marketers and agencies are realizing the nature of marketer/consumer communications is changing with the power shifting more to the consumer. Consumers will be the ones who control what they watch and when they watch it. Marketers are reacting with product placement and TiVo Showcase advertising which sends ads to a TiVo box for later viewing and consumer information request.

There are simply too many media outlets and there's too much ad clutter for the existing model to survive much longer and for brands to be able to thrive. Consumers are simply tuning out and opting out of marketing communications. With technology giving time shifting and programming control to the consumer, current media brands such and ABC, NBC and FOX will become irrelevant. What will become very important are individual networks; channels created and programmed soley and individually by the consumers to suit their specific viewing needs. TiVo's role in this shift could become very important providing advertisers access to the personalized channels.

AOL Time Warner to Drop AOL From Name

Correcting an idiotic move, AOL Time Warner will remove AOL from its name becoming again, Time Warner. America Online has been a drain both financially and from a brand perspective for the publishing giant and removing the Taint of AOL, if only in name, should help.

The board is expected to approve the name change at its meeting tomorrow in New York City. Richard Parsons, chairman and CEO, has been a proponent of dropping the AOL namesake and upon approval will move quickly to implement it. The company logo will change as will its stock ticker reverting to the old Time Warner symbol, TWX.