Retailer Gets Pussy

U.K. Retailer Marks & Spencer is getting 77 year old "pussy." Honor "Pussy Galore" Blackman, that is. Blackman is famous for appearing in the James Bond movie Goldfinger and has been tapped by the retailer to become its spokeswoman in a new ad campaign. Blackman will model the company's Classic Collection fashion line.

Kraft Sponsors White Supremacist Website By Mistake

Kraft Foods was a bit surprised when they found themselves advertising on whiterevolution.com late last year. Kraft had used Google's AdWords contextual advertising program which matches page content to keywords the advertisers select. Google offers a free search engine to website publishers which, when results are returned, AdWords advertising appears above or next to the search results.

Whiterevolution.com used this Google feature and when Milford, Connecticut freelance reporter Tom Giordano entered the search term "Halloween" on whiterevolution.com, Kraft's text ads appeared near the results. Giordano was researching a story on the group who had distributed fliers locally.

Google, of course, forbids sites that contain pornographic, hate-related or violent content from using its search tool but the search code is freely available to all who wish to use it even if they do not conform to Google's requirements. Upon discovery, Google has disallowed whiterevolution from using its tools.

Verizon Wireless to Open Phone Content Floodgates

Paving the way for more content, Verizon Wireless is dramatically expanding its high-bandwidth Vcast service which allows for delivery of music videos, television shows, newscasts, and, we're sure, the birth of the "phone-porn" industry. The service, already available in San Diego and Washington, D.C., will expand to 60 cities by year's end.

Ad Exec Inserts Foot In Mouth

For the reason many large ad agencies will drop off the face of the planet suddenly, leaving them homeless on Madison Avenue, looking upward, longingly, saying, "Huh? What just happened?", rather than successfully morph into agencies that have a clue and are open to the future, we need look no further than a recent AdWeek poll that asked, "What advertising trend would you like to see die in 2005?" Taking the homeless agency exec prize is this nugget of intelligence from Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Mary Baglivo who said, "The trend I would love to see die is the frantic production of non-traditional, non-TV marketing ideas. In the quest to be smart, effective and media-agnostic, many marketers have become manic." No witty comment needed on this one.