In response to reader request, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is placing all the ads appearing in the print version of the newspaper on the paper's website. Visitors to the paper's site will be able to browse ads by category, search through text and view the actual ad. This is a perfect offering in a media world moving more and more toward consumer control. Consumer wants something they thought they saw in an ad, they search for it, find it and perhaps make a purchase. What would be very informative to the paper is to be able to track this whole process which I hope someone at the paper has already thought of.
Riviera Concepts Inc. has partnered with penile inadequecy brand Hummer to produce an SUV stink they will pass off as colonge. For $52 a bottle, you can have a manly colonge packaged in a man-sized box which industry wonks predict will bring in $36 million in sales over the next two years from men who just need...well...more. Defamer is on the case with all the proper jokes.
Supermodel Milla Jovovich is promoting her new movie, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, with a spread in Maxim. The Superficial wonders (and has more pictures), admitting to not having seen the movie yet, why one of the world's highest paid models would star in "a piece of shit" like Resident Evil. Well we know why. More money. The first one made $100 million (so I heard) and the next one should do at least that. Besides, the movie was actually good. The movie's not out yet but the trailer looks good if you are into the whole Resident Evil/end of the world thing. Another reason it may do well? While it was fun to watch a girl in mini skirt kick ass as Milla did in the first movie, there's now two mini-skirted ass kickers saving Raccoon City in the second movie.
Ypulse reports on a couplel new magazine launches including K-Maxx! for tween boys and Mynt a magalogue for African American teens. K-Maxx will be published by Dennis Publishing, publisher of Maxim, so we know what that'll be all about.
In September Emergency Medical Systems will place 600 kiosks across the Midwest which, connected by satellite to paramedics as well as local EMS, will offer health related videos and an automatic defibrillator. In theory, a person with heart attack symptoms could receive walk-up emergency care at one of these stations. Of course, there will be advertising in the kiosks so while you are having your heart attack you can look at an artery clogging Burger King ad.
MediaPost's Mag Rack takes a look at the top performing magazines on the newsstand citing Cosmopolitan as the leader. Celebu-mags have shown great gains in newsstand sales with In Touch up 73.6 percent and US Weekly up 47.3 percent. Oddly, the new Star magazine is down 11 percent. Read the article for a more in-depth view of magazine business.
Apparently sexist ads are welcome in Australia. Infact, there's even an award called the Golden Ernie which celebrates the most sexist ads each year. This year's top honor went to Tooheys beer for an ad showing rugby union supporters at a match holding a sign that said, "Boys, if you win, you can have our sisters" with an arrow pointing the the supporter's actual sisters next to them. The awards ceremony is well attended and the winners are chosen with audience participation in a "boo-off." Who knew.
3M will construct what it's calling the world's largest pink ribbon in Times Square during the first week of Breast Cancer Awareness month in October. The ribbon will be constructed of 75,000 pink Post-it Super Sticky Notes. 3M will donate $1 for each of the first 75,000 people who sign up on their website showing support for the fight against breast cancer and City of Hope, one of America's top 50 cancer hospitals.
Gawker reports on Nest magazine's endgame as "interior design magazine for the haute and freakish." Seems there just weren't enough advertisers to foot the bill. The magazine routinely featured interior designs in odd setting such as an igloo, a prison cell or an attick room.
BizNetTravel tells us about a great service we all need from time to time. When you are out on the town having a good time and the end of the night nears, you realize (or your friends do) you are far too drunk to get behind the wheel. Fear not, British company ScooterMan is there. For a small fee, a ScooterMan driver (not the bikini-clad hottie pictured on the BizNetTravel site) will meet your drunken, drooling ass on his scooter, put it in your trunk, drive you home, then grab his scooter and head out for the next drunk. Their website does a great job explaining the service. Of course, you can only get drunk in England because they haven't figured out how to make scooter that floats. Or, if you live in LA, go here.
