Quechup Spams Members' Contacts With Invites

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Late last week, we received an invite from Hugh MacLeod to join a new social network called Quechup. While we love Hugh, we need another social network like we need another MediaPost email newsletter. Like many other invites we receive, we ignored it hoping Hugh wouldn't be too angry. He wasn't. Mostly because he had no idea he sent the invite in the first place.

While it's standard practice for a social network to ask you if you want to invite friends from your address book, it's far from acceptable to do it automatically, behind the scenes without the member having any knowledge the invites have been sent. That's what Quechup did. That was bad.

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by Steve Hall    Sep- 5-07    
Topic: Social, Worst



Incredible India Creatives Need Incredible Cross-Cultural Disaster Control

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Adrants reader Jinki brought our attention to this unfortunate tourism ad where a woman holding back her veil brightly admonishes watchers to fuck off.

Incredible India, indeed.

by Angela Natividad    Sep- 4-07    
Topic: Magazine, Worst



TrekStor Beats Blacks...Then Changes Product Name

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In an unfortunate and amusing product naming mishap, German company TrekStor had named one of its MP3 players i.beat blaxx. upon realizing the not so nice meaning of that product name, the company has since switched the name to a less culturally agitating and more simple blaxx. One wonders who looks at this stuff before it goes out?

by Steve Hall    Aug-27-07    
Topic: Brands, Strange, Worst



Jailhouse 'Thriller' Has Chilling Background Story

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The first time we saw this video of Filipino inmates dancing to Thriller, we remember thinking, "... Dude, how were 1500 inmates at a Cebu prison coaxed into a coordinated syncopated jamboree?"

We didn't have long to wonder. Security consultant Byron Garcia, the force behind it, isn't exactly shy. With a near-comical audacity, Garcia uploaded the video onto YouTube himself, along with a shit-ton of other coordinated nightmares, including I Will Follow Him from Sister Act.

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by Angela Natividad    Aug-16-07    
Topic: Online, Worst



America's Freedom Begets Idiocy in Advertising

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AdPulp gives us good reason why America is such a great country. Or not. And why all this wonderful freedom we have doesn't always stop us from acting like complete idiots. Oh but wait, this is a car dealer commercial. Now it all makes sense.

by Steve Hall    Aug-16-07    
Topic: Commercials, Worst



And Ironically, Imus See Reinvigoration

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Our favorite post Civil War relic Don Imus is back after reaching a settlement on Tuesday that frees him to get back on air at a new station, four months after calling the Rutger women's basketball team nappy headed hos.

"He's more valuable now than before the controversy," says founder Michael Harrison of Talkers magazine. "He was such a focus of media attention for so long that his career has been reinvigorated, and he's in a position to sort of reinvent himself -- to make himself more pertinent and even more interesting."

Racist slurs spouted by major media figures are indeed demonstrably interesting. Consider our other buddy Mel.

Well hell, if nothing else, maybe Nike will get another campaign out of it.

by Angela Natividad    Aug-15-07    
Topic: Celebrity, Radio, Worst



Orville Redenbacker Dies. Again.

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So much for the attempted resurrection of Orville Redenbacher. Seems the creepy fellow didn't accomplish what Crispin Porter + Bogusky and ConAgra foods had hoped and the account has been moved to Venebles, Bell & Partners. The campaign, which launched in January and met with a collective "what the fuck?" from observers and has been laid to rest alongside the real Orville Redenbacker...who never should have suffered the indignation of this excuse of a campaign from the former poster child agency.

by Steve Hall    Jul-25-07    
Topic: Agencies, Worst



Food Maker's Self-Regulation Nothing More Than Foolish Fuckery

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Proving there's no such thing as meaningful self-regulation in any for-profit industry, food manufacturers, following their recently introduced guidelines for advertising food with too much sugar to kids, have simply played games serving sizes to limit per-serving sugar content to the agreed upon 12 grams thereby loopoling their way past the very junk food guidelines they created for themselves.

As an example, the U.S. Food Policy blog took a look at the nutrition labels for Cocoa Puffs and Trix and determined Cocoa Puffs, the cereal with more sugar than Trix based on the government's standard 30g serving size, will be able to advertise while Trix will not. This is possible courtesy of the foolish fuckery food manufacturers deploy when it comes to serving size. At a serving size of 27g and 12g of sugar, Cocoa Puffs meets guidelines while Trix, with a 32g serving size and 13g of sugar does not.

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by Steve Hall    Jul-23-07    
Topic: Brands, Opinion, Policy, Worst



Folgers Sponsors Coffee-Induced Heart Attacks

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We just can't get enough of this stuff! We love it when computers are left to do the work of humans because, well, computers are dumb and dumb nets dumb no matter how much the things try not to be dumb. Ah yes, our favorite whipping boy, contextual advertising, has risen his ugly head once again in a ad for Folger's coffee directly next to an article about hoe coffee could trigger the first heart attack in some people.

Oddly this story is dated August 15th so either there's some time travel going on here, this thing is a year old or it just came up in a Yahoo News search. No matter. It's still fun to witness idiocy in action.

by Steve Hall    Jul-19-07    
Topic: Online, Strange, Worst



Saatchi Wins No Cookie for Creativity

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After All You Need is Luvs, we can't say we're crazy about anything Saatchi at the moment.

But having seen this conspicuously similar pair of ads by MFI and IKEA, the Ad Police - an incognito force - did some following-up and found another pair of matched ads from the same two campaigns.

See IKEA's fighting couple, 2002, Crispin, Porter & Bogusky.

See MFI's fighting couple, 2007, M&C Saatchi.

Way to leave your lovemarks, guys.

by Angela Natividad    Jul- 9-07    
Topic: Agencies, Commercials, Worst