The Usual Suspects Make Up Super Bowl Advertisers

It's that time of year again. From FedEx to Cadillac to Sprint to Subway to ESPN to Burger King to CareerBuilder to Ford, Ad Age has compiled a comprehensive list of Super Bowl 2006 advertising activity reporting who's buying what, what creative will be run, ans what agencies are behind the brands. Oddly, GoDaddy is missing from the list but we know they'll make s showing.

Four Hour Erections No Longer Topic During NFL Games

How we went from a society that used to just go to their doctor when they couldn't get a hard on to one which, apparently, no one can get hard and everyone wants to talk about it, one will never know. Perhaps the NFL's recent move to end its $18 million contract with erectile dysfunction company Levitra will help the country alleviate its obsession with the four hour hard on and the penis as the only redeeming quality in men. Without belittling a very serious and unfortunate situation, the whole erectile dysfunction thing has gone from offering serious medical solutions to making a joke out of the situation along with turning some perfectly healthy men into pill-popping, 24 hour-a-day marathon pelvic thrusters.

In announcing this move, we've got to hand it to Ad Age for its cheeky third paragraph reporting that the NFL's decision "is a blow to Schering-Plough, which co-markets Levitra in the U.S. with Bayer..." Cute.

Adrants Makes Podcast Debut on 'Across the Sound'

So we've finally jumped on the podcasting bandwagon or, at least, we've hitched a test drive with an appearance as guest host on Across the Sound. A few months ago, Joe Jaffe and Steve Rubel launched Across the Sound which covers new marketing, media and PR. In late December, Steve Rubel had to back out to focus on other commitments and Jaffe decided to bring on some guests hosts. Timidly, we raised our hand while, at the same time, cringing at the thought of hearing our own voice uttering non-sequitors and pointless blather we so often relish trashing here on Adrants.

During the podcast, we rambled on about the genesis of Adrants, Brandweek's fascinating insight into the apparent pointlessness of blogs, those three year old PUMA spoof ads (more here, here, here and here), Sprint's Ambassador Program, cable news network screw ups, Stormhoek wineries who doubled sales in less than 12 months by leveraging a blog campaign in the sales process and Intel's poor choice of tagline.

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Kodak Introduces New Logo

On the heels of Intel's logo change comes another from Kodak. After 35 years, the photography giant introduced a new logo at the Consumer electronics Show in Las Vegas Friday. The new logo does away with the graphic Kmart-like K graphic and shifts to simply the word Kodak in a new typeface with horizontal bars above and below. It's cleaner looking but the company has some great equity in the old look. We're leaning towards the "we like the old better than the new" end of the spectrum. What are your thoughts?

Religious Zealots Have No Humor, Confuse TV With Church

Last Friday night, NBC aired the initial episode of The Book of Daniel, the show that unnecessarily had everyone's frocks in bunch last week because, God forbid, it mixed the topic of religion with a frothy dose of humor and human imperfection. Not dainty Starbucks-style froth but full-on, blender-busting froth in the form of a pill-popping priest, a gay son, a martini-swilling wife, a daughter who sells pot to support a manga cartoon hobby, another son who likes to have sex with a bishop's daughter, a priest who cheats on his wife, a relative who steals $3 million from the church, a mafia-connected priest who blackmails the pill-popping priest and a self-referential, wise-cracking Jesus who doles out less than traditional religious advice. Four NBC affiliates couldn't take the heat and pulled the show from their schedules.

Upon viewing the two hour premiere, we just don't know what all the fuss is about. The show was funny. Really funny. It took the very serious subject of religion, did away with the usual collection of unrealistically pious people and turned the whole thing on its head by dropping the kid gloves to portray people as they are in real life, full of flaws, faults and foibles.

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Shocker! All Press Release Quotes Are Fake

Not that we didn't all know this already but here, thanks to Gawker's ever transparent editorial staff, is proof positive, albeit embarrassingly for Hyperion who forgot to turn off "track changes" prior to sending its release, all press release quotes are fabricated and that no human being actually utters the wording we read every day in news articles pulled from releases.

AT&T to Attack Internet

Surely, you've already seen the new AT&T/SBC campaign at least 300 times on TV. You know, it's the one in which the world looks like it's being attacked by two luminous alien vehicles. Well, that campaign, with $500 million behind it, is about to take over the Internet. AT&T isn't saying what percent of the $500 million will be allocated to the Internet but, beginning Monday, January 9, they do plan to reach 137.8 million unique monthly user, nearly half of everyone who goes online in a given month. So be prepared for banners, banners and more banners everywhere along with page takeovers, interstitials, sliders, dog ears, video ad units and all manner of online creative. We wonder if they've heard of these things called blogs. Apparently, they have.

Nudity in Advertising Not An Issue in Prague

Somehow during the long history of America's creation with all its focus on freedom and supposed acceptance of just about anything, someone forgot to realize there's nothing with the normal portrayal of the human body in its natural state. No, we have to somehow equate nudity to the downfall of mankind and the catalyst for a nationwide orgy resulting in a country-wide orgasm of cataclysmic proportion causing the destruction of the moral fabric that binds our United States together.

In Prague, they just put nude ads up and no one blinks an eye.

Spider Crawling On Head Sells photo Services

As Flickr user dubitable points out, what sane marketer would assume a positive association between a spider crawling on one's head and quality digital photography services? Oh wait. Minolta would.

Old Farts Fart More Online Than Off

The wafting odor of the elder generation is diffusing online at an increasing rate according to a report from BURST! Media featured on eMarketer. The report says online users over the age of 54 are spending more time on the Internet and less time with offline media sources. While the over 54 crowd are still big consumers of offline media such as newspapers, many are finding valuable information online they can't find in traditional offline media. eMarketer has all the smelly details.