I-Mockery Spoofs 'I'd Hit It' McDonald's Banner

Last week, we reported on McDonald's apparent lack of street smarts or its odd juxtaposition of sex and its Double Cheeseburger when it ran an ad banner containing the phrase "I'd Hit It." Now, of course, the spoofers have had there fun with it and have created new takes on "hitting" a burger. Actually, McDonald's is probably fooling all of us knowing this would race around the net like the Suicide Bomber ad. View the banners here.

Nielsen to Launch Ethnic Focused Ad Campaign

Nielsen Media Research will launch a branding advertising campaign in February to heighten awareness about who Nielsen is and how its TV reports accurately reflect the viewing habits of all different kinds of people.

Nielsen has partnered with Burrell, one of the nation's largest African American full-service communications agencies, to create and execute the campaign. It includes print, radio, online and cinema advertising, targeting Asian, African-American, Arabic, and Hispanic consumers and opinion leaders. The informational advertising campaign is also designed to inform multicultural audiences about Nielsen's role in television ratings. One wonders why "whites" don't need this information as well.

As part of the campaign, Nielsen will roll out print ads featuring the faces of adults of various ages and ethnicities merged together, to illustrate the company's inclusive research methods. The print ad copy is translated in Chinese, Spanish and English for respective audiences and will run in ethnic weeklies in and national publications that reach ethnic opinion leaders. The radio ads will run on top-rated African American and Hispanic (Spanish and English language) stations. The campaign also includes on-screen advertising in multicultural movie theaters.

Pregnant Women Gets $4,050 For Ad On Pregnant Belly

The woman who offered her pregnant belly as ad space on eBay has found a buyer.

Not surprisingly, The Golden Palace, famous for placing logos on nude people at widely attended events, has paid Amber Rainey, 22, $4,050 to place its logo on her protruding stomach.

UPDATE: Truly disgusting: eBay Colon Advertising Auction

Super Bowl Commercial Foreplay

MediaPost's Amy Corr has compiled a comprehensive, quarter by quarter preview of this Sunday's main event: The Super Bowl Commercials. If you want to know what you'll see before you see it, her column is the place to visit.

YWCA Debuts Anti-Racism Campaign

With the tagline "Eliminating Racism. Empowering Woman," the YWCA launched a national advertising campaign January 31 that points out the subtle and not so subtle existence of racism in society and how it affects people.

The campaign will include national television, online, radio and print.

Created by Bozell & Jacobs and directed by Bronwen Hughes, two spots kick off the campaign. The first, "Unspoken," illustrates the many subtle ways that racism occurs in everyday situations, from a man shunning another of a different race as they enter their identical apartments to a Native American child sitting alone as an outcast while other children play around him on a playground. The second, "Little Girls," demonstrates the blatant ways that women and girls are routinely devalued in today's society. This spot uses harsh music lyrics as a metaphor for the underlying opinions and attitudes that are still commonly accepted. Visually, the spot celebrates the enthusiasm, innocence and spontaneity of little girls, while the soundtrack emits jarringly derogatory rock, hip hop, pop and country music lyrics. It's quite stunningly effective.

Through a media partnership with Viacom Plus, Viacom's cross-platform sales and marketing group, the YWCA will target young adults ages 18-34 with the campaign on MTV, MTV2 and BET as well as MTV.com and BET.com.

The components of the campaign can be viewed here.

Ford Pulls Lincoln 'Lust' Super Bowl Commercial

Yesterday, Ford joined Budweiser as another marketer getting cold feet prior to this year's Super Bowl and has cancelled a planned commercial for its new Lincoln Mark LT pick up truck. The spot, created by Young & Rubicam Dearborn, shows a clergyman finding a key to the Lincoln truck in the collection plate. Following the service, the clergyman is seen lusting after the vehicle in the parking lot only to find out from a church member it was a joke played by his daughter. He is then seen placing the word "Lust" on sign outside the church indicating the topic of his next sermon.

Once again, we have become a bunch of humorless, PC-controlled bores with no backbone. It seems Janet Jackson's right breast has become the most powerful cultural anomaly now guiding our lives.

Nurses Fight Schwarzenegger With Ad Campaign

Angered by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's comments on the nursing profession and his plan to freeze nurse-patient staffing levels, the California Nurses Association has launched a $100,00 national (that won't go far) cable campaign in support of the nursing profession. The campaign takes aim at Schwarzenegger's calling nurses "special interests" and that he said, "I kick their butt." The campaign also takes shots at hospitals which ran a campaign thanking Schwarzenegger for putting a stop to lowering patient to staff ratios previously approved by former Governor Gray Davis. In other news, Schwarzenegger will appear in Terminator 4 only if it is shot in California.

Model Gets $15.6 Million For Photo Shoot 19 Years Later

Indicating we all might want to look at packaging more closely the next time we shop, Russell Christoff, whom, in 1986, was photographed by Nestle for possible use on company packaging was surprised, in 2002, to see his image on a Taster's Choice package because he was never told his image would be used. In 1986 a Nestle employee believed permission had been obtained and the company started using his image on Taster's Choice packaging and from 1997 to 2003, his image was used on packaging in the U.S. Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Israel and Kuwait. For Nestle's transgression, an LA County Superior Court jury awarded Christoff $15.6 million form profiting from his image without his permission, The award was based on 5 percent of Taster's Choice sales from 1997 to 2003.

Goodyear Advertises on Basketball Player's Head

Seems there's no end to the use of the human body as a walking billboard.

Just a few days ago, Detroit Pistons guard Richard Hamilton wore the pattern of Goodyear's Assurance TripleTred tire pattern as a hairstyle during the game against the Knicks in Detroit. Hamilton plans to keep the style for a week or so. Neither Hamilton's management nor Goodyear would comment on what, if anything, was paid to Hamilton.

Yogi Berra Upset Over TBS 'Yogasms'

Baseball legend Yogi Berra has sued TBS for referring to him in a billboard campaign for Sex and the City. One of the boards asks for a definition of "Yogasm" and one of the answers in "sex with Yogi Berra. There is no comment from TBS but the lawsuit ways the ads "damaged his otherwise spotless reputation, is hurtful to his personal sensibilities and has created a false image."