Russian Translation Company Helps Guys Get Dolls With Dolls

Hoping to help men who seek Russian brides for their apparent adherence to the "promise to obey" wedding vow, English/Russian translation company Russian Gal Translations has launched SmokingHotKova, a site which features obedient Russian dolls called matrioshkas. The work, cheeky as it may be, was created by that Hawaiian/Irish tag team, Hawiirish.

Maxim to Host 'Maxim Rock City' Super Bowl Party

Ever the guy's guide to being a guy, Maxim is unhinging itself once again to the Super Bowl hoards with its Maxim Rock City Super Bowl party. Coors Lite will have the beer. Cadillac will have the cars to drool over. Absolut will get you drunk with The Who's Tommy and Reebok will clothe you with tee's, roller skates and sneakers.

Commercial Alert Launches Anti-Direct-to-Consumer Website

Today, Commercial Alert launched StopDrugAds.org, a site devoted to ending direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising in the United States. Commercial Alert says the purpose of the website is to educate the public about the dangers of prescription drug advertising, and to recruit Americans to voice their opposition to the ads.

Subway Ads Find Way Into Game Without Game Maker's Knowledge

The Internet has done many wonderful things but it's also enabled some elaborate, not completely above board marketing efforts such is the insertion of geographically targeted Subway ads into an online game without the knowledge of Valve, the game's creator. Read the convoluted story and the intricate chain of agencies and vendors involved in this campaign which, while Valve wasn't happy about it, was an admirable effort, legal issues aside.

Agency Takes Bordem Out of Website Case Study

Portland, Boston and New York-based Via has put together a nice Year in Review site that highlights the agency's achievements, the work it did for its clients and the people on the agency that did the work. It's taken the typically boring Case Study section of most agency websites and turned it into a piece of entertainment one would actually enjoy viewing.

DVR Data Shifts Nielsen Ratings In Unexpected Direction

As if you didn't already realize, we're certainly no expert on all things Nielsen but we do know when reading a MediaPost article about Nielsen ratings declining after DVR viewership is added to live and Nielsen blather such as this is uttered, "With time shifted data, there have been occurrences when demographic projections (in units) for 'live plus same day' are lower than for 'live' projections (units). This difference can be attributed to the imputed VCR record activity which is calculated from household tuning activity that includes VCR record and household tuning that excludes VCR record. The VCR adjustment factor is applied to each building block demographic at the quarter-hour level for both programs and time periods," and we feel like a first grader listening to a college physics lecture, something is very wrong.

Does anyone else feel like Nielsen is going to implode upon itself finally giving way to more effective and realistic metrics?

Size, Focus, Puffery: Ad Serving Companies Revealed

BlueLithium, TribalFusion, Casale, Tacoda, Claria. To those outside the ad industry, and to some within, these names would lead one to believe we're talking about some new form of drug therapy intervention. In actuality, they are the names of ad serving companies, those wonderful, if difficult to define, operations that help deliver marketers online ads to websites that make sense for the advertiser. With all the buzz words these companies insist upon using, it's a wonder any of us in the industry have a clue as to the real modus operandi of these companies.

With the help of iMediaCommection's Jim Meskauskus, you need not feel like a clueless buffoon any longer. Jim has queried 14 of these companies with a series of questions geared towards helping us all understand just what these companies do, how big they are, who they target, why they're different from their competitors and what kind of ads they serve. So dig in and become an expert on ad serving. Or, at least become an expert at knowing what these companies want you to know versus what you might really want to know.

'The Postal Service' Complains to Apple For Copying It's Video

AdPulp points us to The Postal Service website on which band member Ben Gibbard posted a statement complaining about Apple's copying of its "Such Great Heights" video for use in the company's new Apple/Intel spot. In the statement, Gibbard writes writes, "We did not approve this commercialization and are extremely disappointed with both parties that this was executed without our consultation or consent." Eminem. Lugz. Apple. Intel, TBWA/Chiat/Day. What's the deal?

White Castle Proposes Day After Super Bowl Holiday

If a marketer can't own Super Bowl Sunday then, at least, they can try to own the following day by creating a holiday. White Castle has launched an online effort along with a petition to turn the day after the Super Bowl into The "Day After The Big Game Holiday." Referring to the holiday as DA Day, White Castle believes the day is necessary to recover from the previous days eating and drinking and obsessive viewership of Super Bowl ads.

MediaCheck Expands Commercial Effectiveness Metrics

When we wrote last summer about the test launch of The PreTesting Company's MediaCheck, a passive, digital television commercial viewership measurement service, we knew a new world of television viewership was upon us. Following a test launch in 2,500 Omaha homes, MediaCheck plans to have its measurement service in 35,000 homes in up to seven cities. The company is also in talks with cable operators to embed the system within set top boxes. Bye, bye archaic program ratings measurement systems. Bye, bye Nielsen. Hello commercial viewership metrics that will allow buyers to properly price television buys.

Responding to Strawberry Frog's Scott Goodson who said metrics such as MediaCheck could "rob commercials of edgy creative," AdJab's Chris Thilk took the words right out of our mouths writing, "You're [Goodson] the problem. Advertising is about selling, not entertaining. If you want to entertain go to Hollywood."