New York Transit Union to Strike, Holiday Ad Campaign Continues

Resident rail rider Bucky Turco points out the idiocy and irony of a New York City MTA ad placed in today's New York Times promoting discount Holiday fares by asking what good reduced Holiday fares will do if the transit union carries out its planned strike in two days thereby making fares of any kind irrelevant. Yes, my friends, what good indeed?

Screwed Up Family Promotes Microsoft Security

Interactive agency Inspire has created an online video featuring Mr. Jefferson who loosely reveals all of his family's inner secrets illustrating just how unprotected life can be if, of course, one does not use Microsoft security products. While the video (the Netherlands version) is in English, the sites are not. We'll leave it to you Belgian speaking folks to tell us whether we've made any sense here. And would Adobe, for the love of David Ogilvy, please make freakin' Flash understand a browser's Back button?

Royalty-Free Production Music Library Launches

For web designers, Flash animators, computer games developers, video artists and creatives in search of good music for their work can now turn to Premiumbeat, a service that offers royalty-free music. The site is categorized by genre and includes music preview and quick download. We thought you creatives out there would like to know.

Yahoo Launches Web-Based Reality Show

Yesterday at MPG's Media Contacts broadband content summit in Boston, Yahoo Content Operations VP Scott Moore announced Yahoo would launch Wow House, a home makeover reality show which will follow two families as they spend $10,000 to upgrade their homes electronics such as a home theater. Both families receive the upgrade but only one gets to keep it. Viewers vote their choice.

More Content (And More Ads) Hit PDA's

MobilePlay, a company that provides smart phones with free content in exchange for ads, of course, has added Pocket PC to its list of devices through which it can offer its content. Launched in early 2005, MobilePlay currently works with Palm, Blackberry and now Pocket PC phones and PDAs. In return for downloading the MobilePlay software and viewing accompanying ads, users get free content from Business Week, PC World, USA Today The Weather Channel, Gawker, The Sporting News and others. Microsoft and Volvo are charter advertisers on the service.

Bernbach's VW Campaign Killed Advertising, Ads A Commodity

Writing a chapter (pdf) for Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin's book Pick Me, U.K. creative Brian Millar blames Bill Bernbach's Volkswagen campaign for forty years of advertising sameness. Perhaps that it a bit of a stretch but his piece does contain some good commentary on how insights can lead to great creative. He must have read Phil Dusenberry's Then We Set His Hair on Fire.

Britney Spears Fans Launch Anti-Kevin Campaign

As loyal readers know, it's be a long, long time since we've had reason to cover anything related to Britney Spears what with her recent transformation from pop goddess to tabloid trailer trash. But, perhaps, now there's reason to bring Britney back to the pages of Adrants by noting a group of Spears' fans has launched a site called DivorceKevin, a site calling for Brit to dump dancer/hubby Kevin Federline. Sure to provide gossipists plenty of schadenfruede, SoftPedia reports the front page of the site contains two pictures of Spears, one pre-Kevin and one post-Kevin that clearly illustrate her fall from grace. An opening statement on the site reads, "Welcome to the home of the anti-Kevin movement. Are you sick of seeing the train wreck that is Britney and Kevin? Sign the K-Fed Up Petition, grab your Divorce Kevin gear and help Britney remove the boil that is Kevin from herself and her payroll!"

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2005 Weblog Happenings Summed Up

From RocketBoom's rocket boom to Jeff Jarvis' Dell Hell to the growth of podcasting to Forbes' anti-blog article to innovative blog PR and advertising to the exponential growth of the space, Intelliseek CMO Pete Blackshaw takes a detailed look at how weblogs affected the world of marketing and advertising.

CBS Tops Share of Voice Study

Brandimensions today announced the release of a new research report that captures the share of online discussion and sentiment generated by viewers of the Fall season's new television shows on major networks. Brandimensions searched over 150 million Internet sites and approximately 395,000 sources pertaining to the television industry, ultimately analyzing 6,497 relevant consumer comments posted online between September and November 2005 and specific to the season's new television shows. Findings conclude CBS retains its Best-in-Class position among all networks, based on its combination of online discussion share and high viewer sentiment. Additionally, NBC recorded the highest average sentiment for all new shows with the No.1 ranked My Name is Earl contributing greatly to the overall audience appeal of NBC shows.

Belgian Campaign Says Fois Gras Hurtful to Ducks

In Belgium, an outdoor campaign is hoping to educate people about Fois Gras, that fancy sounding fatty liver dish. Apparently Fois Gras is made from the enlarged livers of ducks who are force fed in captivity so that their livers dramatically expand. The campaign was supposed to run in 40 major Belgian railway stations but the railway company refused the posters because they are "too shocking" according to one news report. Here's a second image.