Ask Jeeves to Buy Bloglines

Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion points to a report by Mary Hodder that reveals Ask Jeeves will announce its purchase of blog search engine and content management company Bloglines on Monday.

Marketers Turn to Web During Super Bowl For Feedback

Now that everyone is multitasking, blogging and posting to forums, Marketers have come to realize, the best feedback on their Super Bowl marketing efforts will not come from formal research but from monitoring and joining the worldwide discussion racing around the Internet in real time.

Intelliseek and New Media Strategies are two of the companies who have taken on the challenge of measuring and monitoring conversation for marketers during and after this tear's Super Bowl. The will do it by monitoring blogs, forums, industry analyst commentary and, in the case of Intelliseek, their own panel of bloggers. No doubt, there will be a flurry of activity and commentary for marketers to dig through. All this heightened communal conversation makes us want to simply close the laptop and actually watch the game.

Conde Nast to Launch $3.5 Million Pro Magazine Ad Campaign

On the heels of the Magazine Publishers of America's launch of a trade pro-magazine ad campaign, Conde Nast is launching their own $3.5 million campaign aimed at consumers. The campaign, which will appear in outdoor media as well as trade, will carry the tagline "The point of passion" and show readers having a love fest with their favorite Conde Nast magazine. San Francisco based Heat created the campaign which will also play up the high "time spent reading" figures magazines can claim.

Late Night Question Mark Man Starts Blog

Thank God we don't watch late night TV and subject ourselves to the oddity of Matthew Lesko, the question mark-wearing, Free Money, infomercial screamer. Anyway, he's started a blog. Why we're telling you this, we don't know.

Marketer Fails Again in 'The Apprentice'

Doofy Danny did it again. Apprentice candidate and CEO of Boston-based POPstick Danny Kastner, who had a less than stellar performance in the first episode, led this his team to dismal failure on this week's The Apprentice.

Supposedly a creative genius, Kastner received poor marks from Nestle on some promotional work done for Taster's Choice. Displaying zero leadership skills (again, producers love to edit people into idiocy), Kastner, apparently, couldn't make a decision if his life depended on it. Losing valuable time, he waited until the absolute last minute to choose a partner company capable of pulling off the promotional idea his team came up with. How Kastner has built a successful company remains a mystery.

Kastner was not entirely alone in the episode display of less than smart behavior. His entire team displayed some serious idiocy as well by banding together on a plan to suggest to Trump that Michael, a team member who received exemption last week, be fired. Granted, Michael came off as a sexist, Neanderthal loser-slacker but there was no way he could go down for this week's task. In a cluster fuck of the boardroom, the team turned on Kastner as he tried to blame Michael for the failure and Trump lambasted both Kastner and Michael, both from Massachusetts which might have some hidden reason why they nearly came to blows during the episode. And in the ultimate display of bubble headed logic, Kastner selected the un-fireable Michael as one of the two teammates he brought back into the boardroom to face Trump. We suppose in this day of crazy-ass stunt marketing, that's just par for the course.

And if that display of brilliance didn't make it a very good thing Kastner already runs his own company, his guitar playing, folksy send off in the cab pretty much eliminated the likelihood anyone else would be knocking at his door to offer him a job. Unless of course it's in the ad business. We love that kooky stuff, don't we?

I-Mockery Spoofs 'I'd Hit It' McDonald's Banner

Last week, we reported on McDonald's apparent lack of street smarts or its odd juxtaposition of sex and its Double Cheeseburger when it ran an ad banner containing the phrase "I'd Hit It." Now, of course, the spoofers have had there fun with it and have created new takes on "hitting" a burger. Actually, McDonald's is probably fooling all of us knowing this would race around the net like the Suicide Bomber ad. View the banners here.

Nielsen to Launch Ethnic Focused Ad Campaign

Nielsen Media Research will launch a branding advertising campaign in February to heighten awareness about who Nielsen is and how its TV reports accurately reflect the viewing habits of all different kinds of people.

Nielsen has partnered with Burrell, one of the nation's largest African American full-service communications agencies, to create and execute the campaign. It includes print, radio, online and cinema advertising, targeting Asian, African-American, Arabic, and Hispanic consumers and opinion leaders. The informational advertising campaign is also designed to inform multicultural audiences about Nielsen's role in television ratings. One wonders why "whites" don't need this information as well.

As part of the campaign, Nielsen will roll out print ads featuring the faces of adults of various ages and ethnicities merged together, to illustrate the company's inclusive research methods. The print ad copy is translated in Chinese, Spanish and English for respective audiences and will run in ethnic weeklies in and national publications that reach ethnic opinion leaders. The radio ads will run on top-rated African American and Hispanic (Spanish and English language) stations. The campaign also includes on-screen advertising in multicultural movie theaters.

Pregnant Women Gets $4,050 For Ad On Pregnant Belly

The woman who offered her pregnant belly as ad space on eBay has found a buyer.

Not surprisingly, The Golden Palace, famous for placing logos on nude people at widely attended events, has paid Amber Rainey, 22, $4,050 to place its logo on her protruding stomach.

UPDATE: Truly disgusting: eBay Colon Advertising Auction

Super Bowl Commercial Foreplay

MediaPost's Amy Corr has compiled a comprehensive, quarter by quarter preview of this Sunday's main event: The Super Bowl Commercials. If you want to know what you'll see before you see it, her column is the place to visit.

YWCA Debuts Anti-Racism Campaign

With the tagline "Eliminating Racism. Empowering Woman," the YWCA launched a national advertising campaign January 31 that points out the subtle and not so subtle existence of racism in society and how it affects people.

The campaign will include national television, online, radio and print.

Created by Bozell & Jacobs and directed by Bronwen Hughes, two spots kick off the campaign. The first, "Unspoken," illustrates the many subtle ways that racism occurs in everyday situations, from a man shunning another of a different race as they enter their identical apartments to a Native American child sitting alone as an outcast while other children play around him on a playground. The second, "Little Girls," demonstrates the blatant ways that women and girls are routinely devalued in today's society. This spot uses harsh music lyrics as a metaphor for the underlying opinions and attitudes that are still commonly accepted. Visually, the spot celebrates the enthusiasm, innocence and spontaneity of little girls, while the soundtrack emits jarringly derogatory rock, hip hop, pop and country music lyrics. It's quite stunningly effective.

Through a media partnership with Viacom Plus, Viacom's cross-platform sales and marketing group, the YWCA will target young adults ages 18-34 with the campaign on MTV, MTV2 and BET as well as MTV.com and BET.com.

The components of the campaign can be viewed here.