Sue Bird, 22 year old WNBA player, made a bet with radio host, Mitch Levy, that called for her to get spanked on air while yelling, "Harder, Daddy, harder" if her assist-to-turnover ration was higher than 2-1 by season end.
Well, she chickened out and cancelled her bet.
"She did it in fun and she did it with the best of intentions," said Bird's agent, Jimmy Gould. "She's terribly upset about it. She regrets it. She hopes people understand. She didn't stop to think about the impact she has on younger people and that she's expected to be more clear and thoughtful when making a statement like that, even though it was done in fun."
Seems everybody got all PC about the bet.
"It helps feed into the images of violence against women and stereotyping," Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle told Seattle Times sports columnist Steve Kelley. "I don't condemn her. I appreciate that she doesn't have the experience in life that other women have had. But this could be very hurtful. Not just to the WNBA, but to other women and girls."
So maybe spanking isn't good but this was a joke. It's humor. It's a stunt to get guys to go to WNBA games. Is that really so bad? And besides, she's hot.
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There have been a lot of changes on Adrants lately so a summary is in order.
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Evan Williams of Blogger is very frustrated with the proliferation of phone cables. They come with everything you buy; phone, computer, modem, powerstrip, etc. And everyone has tons of them. He suggests, "Someone should do something creative with them, like the world's biggest phone cable ball, or 'bring a phone cable, get in free!'"
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As much as this looks like one, this is not an ad. But it sure would make a good one.
Update: I thought this looked familiar. Thanks to TTR2 in the comment section, this actually was an ad. It was an outdoor board for Queercompany.com, a British web site. See the ad here.
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If Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake were still together, we could refer to them as a marketers dream come true. But, alas, they are going it alone. Britney's done her fair share of promotional gigs and now it's Justin's turn.
Timberlake will become part of McDonald's 'I'm Lovin' It' campaign when it breaks again after Labor day. There may be tie ins with Timberlake's 'Justified' tour and he may also provide vocals or the campaign's jingle.
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Last Week's Ad Age TV Commercial of the Week was full of sex-sells spots. In an interesting juxtaposition to that, this week we have an anti-sex PSA from the Campaign for Our Children in which hundreds of kids chant "We will wait". True to form, though, there's an ad about panties this week from Hanes. Also, Mary J Blige for Reebok, a guy in drag for Ameritrade, SpongeBob for Mitsubishi, and a bull riding dude for Levi's.
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Chevy Chase stars in two new commercials for Cola Turka, a Turkish cola. The spots were filmed in New York and aired in Turkey. Apparently, the Turks really like Chevy. It doesn't make the spots any better though.
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With the growth of collaboration online, the death of the trendsetting profession may be near. With search engines tracking popular searches and weblogs giving everyone a voice, it's not too hard to figure out what's in and what's out.
All of this may be the demise of cool. A big ingredient to something being cool is its under the radar factor. Once everyone knows about it, it's not cool anymore and the length of time between cool and uncool is fast decreasing. Very soon we will reach the point where nothing (and everything) will be cool (or not) at the same time.
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