Bathroom Oddities Promote Toilet Paper

Adverblog points to a semi-funny website for Angel Soft toilet paper, called Bathroom Moments, which contains clips of strange and humorous bathroom occurances such as a lost battle with a toilet plunger, mustache bleaching and a fish funeral. The site also includes a list of "bathroom blunders" and a sweepstakes where entrants get a chance to win a $15,000 bathroom makeover.

RSS Ads Done Incorrectly Annoy Readers

Where's there's smoke, there's fire goes the old saying which might be appropo to this Flickr user's complaint regarding the proliferation of ads in RSS feeds. adammathes writes, "I have no problem with advertising, but this is just ridiculous. A one-to-one ratio of ads and content in an RSS feed? Do they even bother to show this sort of thing to actual users before doing it?"

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Tucker Carlson Promotes New Show on Jon Stewart

After a lashing by Jon Stewart, leaving CNN's Crossfire and finding a new job on MSNBC's The Situation with Tucker Carlson," the promotional staff behind Carlson's new show decide to go for inside humor by promoting the show on Stewart's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Campaign Helps Parents Remove Sex and Violence From Children's Lives

In a campaign created for child protection group, Pauseparentplay, and created by LA-based David & Goliath, parents are offered advice on how to protect their children from sex and violence saturated media using already existing tools such as television's V-chip, parent-focused movie and television review services, music review services and video game review services.

The campaign, which promotes the ParentPausePlay website, is done up with tab rag headlines such as "Suburban Mom Wipes Out Army of Bloodthirsty Ninja Assassins...with eject button on DVD player," "Parents Thwart Flesh-Eating Cyborgs...from invading their children's game console" and "Small Town Dad Disarms Chainsaw Wielding Psychopath...with skillful use of the remote.

Currently, the campaign is appearing in magazines with future plans for television. Councilman Vallone would love this campaign.

Councilman Trashes Graffiti Video Game

Even before its release this September, self-appointed anti-gaffiti mouthpiece Queens Councilman Peter Vallone is trashing a new Atari video game, called "Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure," which features a young graffiti artist up against corrupt officials and rival gangs as he spreads his tag around the city. The game was developed by Marc Ecko, features the voice of Talib Kweli and tags from 50 graffiti artists including Cope2 who created the Time Magazine graffiti board.

In a letter to Atari Chairman Bruno Bonnell, Vallone, who is concerned that game and the graffiti tips it provides encourage vandalism, wrote, "You are personally encouraging children to deface neighborhoods, break the law and wind up behind bars. This is an appalling lack of responsibility on your part." Atari has not yet commented on Vallone's comment.

Uber-graffiti overlord Bucky Turco, founder of of Animal magazine, told the New York Daily News, "Marc Ecko and Atari are giving graffiti artists an outlet to do something legal. You'd think Vallone would applaud that as opposed to opposing it."

For all Vallone's complaining, all he's going to do is bring more attention to the game and boost sales - not exactly what he had in mind. Many times the very important communications strategy of just keeping one's mouth shut eludes so many. Of course, if Vallone kept his mouth shut, he'd be cannibalizing his primary strategy which is to build political awareness of himself.

Website Allows Visitors to Hide Ads

Entertainment magazine, Giant, has introduced a feature that allows visitors to show or hide leaderboard banners on their website. The ads are served every time a page is viewed but can then be hidden. While some advertisers may not like this, a notion to consider would be the effect the physical act of clicking to hide or show the banner has on banner metrics.

The Three Ages of Advertising Slavery Illustrated

Illustrating the life cycle of the average advertising professional, Hugh MacCleod of "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" fame, has created a new cartoon, called "The Three Ages of Slavery," that clearly, but perhaps depressingly, depicts what the average person working in advertising can expect as he progresses through his career. There's no 50's or 60's cause, you know, after 49, all those ad people seem to disappear into other endeavors courtesy of ageism.

Celebrities Flock to Drug Ads

From Rob Lowe to Danny Glover to Kelsey Grammar to Lorraine Bracco to Julie Andrews to Cheryl Ladd, all the stars have jumped on the celebrity drug advertising train. Pulling in from $200K to $1 million, Hollywood stars have been schilling for drug companies since Jon Lunden promoted Claritan in 1988. Most of the ads these celebrities appear in, to skirt ugly disclaimers, don't mention the drug but simply point out possible symptoms and direct viewers to the drug maker's website. TNS Media reports these ads are on the rise, doubling to 4.6 percent of all TV drug ads placed from January through April 2005.

New York Refuses to Stop Olympic Bid Marketing

PlasticMoonRain reports the gigantic Olympic Clock in New York City's Union Square has begun counting down again as if New York City Olympic officials refuse to believe London was awarded the 2012 Olympics. Wishful thinking is one thing. Begging is another. Someone, please, rip this thing down! Of course, Circuit City is, for sure, loving the added attention.

'Billy The Finger' Promotes Virgin Mobile

Puppet Vision Blog points to another chapter in Virgin Mobile's Canadian "The Catch" campaign. This one, called "Billy the Finger," consists of a site with several videos in which finger act out various scenarios involving a shady cell phone salesman who attempts to convince Billy to sign up for one of those "bad" cell phone plans. The execution provides the viewer with the option to make decisions for Billy and view the various outcomes which include a trip to prison, a threesome, a hot cheerleader, circus acts, unintentional rear entry and finger burning.

The site is being promoted with fake "Wanted" posters in Toronto which don't mention Virgin Mobile but simply point to the Billy the Finger website which, as all viral-intended creations do, has a send to a friend feature which is labeled, cutely, "Finger A Friend." It's well done and amusing enough to create interest in checking out the various chapters of the story.