Adrants reader and freelance designer Donna Carty claims she's been ripped off by Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Designer Bill Pull.
Bill Bull, designer of special costumes for the Victoria's Secret fashion show and dressmaker tailor for such folks as Anna Wintour and Holly Hunter is apparently ignoring a small claims judgement I filed against him and won in January. I worked two weeks on projects for the 2003 show and a cardinal Holloween costume for Annie Leibowitz's daughter, only to be given a check for half what he had agreed to pay me as a freelance fabric painter. Worse, the check was not honered by his bank, he didn't turn up to defend at small claims court, and has not answered an informational subpeona inquiring about his assets. The judgement was for $2400, a big amount for a small-time freelancer.
A little bird told us moblogUK may be using their weblog to market camera phones for the likes of Nokia and Sony. moblogUK has set up separate weblogs for each camera - and plans to do so for others - that displays pictures, audio and video taken from each phone and reviews the results. Is this an ingenious way to bypass and cut through ad clutter or simply an innocent editorial feature of the site? Adrants has asked this very question to moblogUK but has not yet received a response.
UPDATE: A response from moblog assures us that, while the phones are supplied by a PR agency, the reviews are purely editorial. Here's the full text of moblog's asnswer to our question from moblogUK's Mat Brown:
"Excellent question, and the answer is no, they're not. (being paid by manufacturers) They are totally independant reviews of the handsets, I was very clear that was the only condition we'd do them on. The handsets are supplied to us gratis by a PR firm, but nothing more than that. If they start telling us to "be more positive about feature Y" or "mention feature X more", then I'll start telling them we're not interested in being their puppets - I want to offer objective reviews that are actually useful to people, not just another online advert spot.
When we get some more handsets, they'll start to make their way out as prizes for moblog's users, but myself and alfie decided to keep the first two for ourselves - it's just about the only material reward we've got for the last year or so's work on the site!
In a recent poll conducted across the membership of the Adrants Network, respondents ranked JWT the least preferable place to work. In fact, in response to the question, "Who would you prefer to work for?", JWT was not mentioned once. The highest marks went to Wieden & Kennedy and BBH which tied each other for the number one position.
Recently re-launched viral firm, The Viral Chart, is tracking it's first viral ad campaign. The ad, developed by Fallon but deemed too gross for television, is part of British Telecom's "BT Yahoo Anytime" campaign. Eatmail is seeding the campaign. View the spot and you'll see why it didn't make it to TV.
One has to wonder, though, why all this seeding and tracking effort is being done for a spot that makes no mention of a brand. Even if this seeding is succesful, the only people who will know who the advertiser is are the people reading advertising news stories like this one. Fallon, how about adding at least a link at the end of this disgusting little thing.
Ads on the sides of trucks are not new but it has become a growing segment of business for 25 year old ad agency Donovan/Green. The agency launched a division for this practice called Asphalt Media. In the past year, the company has developed 53' X 9' banners for BIC, NBC/MGM and XM Satellite Radio. Using GPS technology, the trucks are tracked on an hourly basis to help support Asphalt's Post Performance Report, a range of studies to prove that mobile media keeps its impression guarantee, including CPM Analysis, In-Market Digital Photography, Anecdotal Video Interviews, and Dedicated Route Demographic Mapping.
Asphalt Media, which partners with Swift Transportation trucking, will also be carry ads promoting The Tony Danza Show, Live with Regis & Kelly and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Arnold Schwarzenegger used a truck side in Las Vegas with the headline "Hauling Jobs Back to California" to brag about his efforts on the job front.
Asphalt Media has future plans to enable truck side ads to change messaging based on location or proximity to a paying advertiser.
 Sloane Crossley's Butt? Writing in The Village Voice, Sloane Crossley comments on the apparent explosion of white girls with big butts. She says they're hanging out all over the city and that men are loving it including her own big ass. ("White female butts are on display as never before and they're being checked out by people of every race, sex, and contact prescription.") While everyone seems to be happy with this big assed white girl trend, the media seems to be at odds with it. Crossly points ot the endless women's magazine articles and ads encouraging women to cover up their butts and providing them with the fashions to do so. Party Poopers.
A commercial running in Amsterdam for coffee drink Caffiato shows three women with straws in their mouths sucking "lines" of the drink off a tray. After sucking the lines, they react as one might following suckage of the white stuff into one's nostril. Even for a country which prides itself on the acceptance of drugs, this ad seems to have pushed the wrong buttons and is causing many complaints.
The Dutch Reclame Code Commissie, overseer of all things advertising, has received many complaints about the commercial claiming it apparently references drug use too closely. Pre-screenings of the commercial were well received and Caffiato claims it was "done with a wink."
In Australia, the September issue of Cosmopolitan, ever the leader in the "how to keep you man happy" category, was yanked from a Woolworths magazine rack over complaints regarding a tagline that read, "Oral sex lessons: Blow-by-blow tips for you and for him." It was too much for some who complained to store management. Talks between store management and publisher Australian Consolidated Press and it was agreed the magazine would go back on sale but with a sticker covering the offending language. Men across the country were distraught over the prospect of their girlfriend/wife/hooker's inability to provide a proper hummer. Thanks again to Charley Brough.
Kerry McCoy over at Bannerisms and President of FlagAndBanner posted a picture she found at FunnySign of this very intresting billboard and thought we'd like it over here as Adrants. Well, Kerry, we sure do and thanks for thinking of us and our sick, twisted advertising mind. One wonders what the billboard hangers where thinking when they hung this one or what the model thought if and when she ever saw it. Bigger image here.
Pardon this selfless plug for business but I thought that since all of you work in advertising and marketing, you and your clients might want to know that advertising on weblogs, including Adrants, works. To date, there have been several advertisers here on Adrants, all of whom have been pleased with their results and a few have renewed. Aside from that, weblogs provide a new and different audience.
There's a good overview of the general weblog audience here. And you'll be delighted to know it's not all highschool girls but professionals just like you and me. So if you have products you need to market to those who work in marketing and advertising and want to explore sites beyond Ad Age, AdWeek and others, check out the advertising section of Adrants or contact me and I'd be happy to talk to you about how Adrants, and weblogs in general, can give your media plan a boost.
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