Disney to Launch Family, Kid-Friendly Phone Service

Extending its brand further into people's lives, Disney, using the Sprint network, will launch Disney Mobile, a cell phone service targeted t families with kids 11 to 14. Besides phone service, Disney Mobile will offer Disney-related content including ring tones based on familiar Disney songs, Disney branded phones, games and images. The service is set to launch in 2006.

ICON Advertising Signs Ad Sales Deal With Marvel

ICON Advertising Solutions, an online ad sales company has signed a deal with Marvel.com, the online division of comic giant Marvel Enterprises, Inc., under which ICON will act as an online ad sales representative for the interactive division of the entertainment company.

Marvel.com features interactive information and activities for many of Marvel's comic book titles and characters such as Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four and The Incredible Hulk. Marvel.com claims reach of 18 million impressions to 750,000 monthly unique users, mainly in the male teen and young adult demographic.

GE to Sponsor Reuters Interactive TV

Reuters has partnered with GE in a sponsorship deal which will place the American maker of all things in a premiere sponsor position on the Reuters Interactive TV channel. The sponsorship will center on GE's "ecomagination" campaign which touts the company's environmentally friendly products.

As the premier sponsor, GE will run 30 second post-roll video ads. While the video ad plays, a banner ad is also displayed on the left-side navigation which clicks through to a GE branded sponsor page. OMD Digital NY was responsible for the planning and buying of this campaign.

Nickelodeon Launches Internet Channel 'TurboNick'

MarketingVOX reports Nickelodeon has launched a new broadband internet channel called TurboNick. The "channel" will contain 20 hours of original programming including SpongeBob SquarePants viewable on visitors own time schedule. Unfortunately, Nickelodeon appears oblivious to the fact all the cool kids use Firefox crippling TurboNick to work only with Internet Explorer. Perhaps now that Google has acknowledged the existence of Firefox with its introduction of the Google Toolbar for Firefox tomorrow, the rest of the slackers will finally catch up. IE is dead. Firefox is the only way to view the web.

OK, so we did fire up IE and can confirm the video quality on TurboNick is TV quality and the program selection is great. A cool concept. TurboNick is hip to the cool kids' viewing habits. Oops, viewing full screen crashes IE. Oh well.

Female Masturbation Ad Gets Banned

An ad for London-based Accurist watch company which ran in Glamour and showed a near naked woman reclining in a chair with her left hand in her crotch above the tagline, "Me Time," was banned by the Advertising Standard Authority which deemed it sexually suggestive and likely to cause serious or widespread offense to readers. Accurist, apparently not having seen their own ad, denies the ad has any association with masturbatory imagery. One reader who complained seems to think masturbation is somehow offensive and demeaning to women. It seems both sides are having difficulty facing reality with Accurist plainly denying a near naked woman with her hand between her legs might possibly be interpreted as sexual and the complainer refusing to admit we've progressed beyond the pre-Kinsey world where masturbation was taboo.

Of course, this doesn't mean masturbating women in ads is a good thing but let's not mince words. In the ad it looks like she is. And, there's nothing wrong with masturbation which is certainly not demeaning to women.

Accurist has a series of these ads on its website including another crotch grab ad.

London Gets 2012 Olympics, NYC Still Advertising

Steve Rubel points to yet another not so well timed contextual ad placement. Today, London was selected to host the 2012 Olympics. In a Yahoo story announcing the news, a New York City Olympic bid ad appeared embedded within the article. Not that anyone's to blame as you can't always time your ad campaign to breaking news but it wasn't looking good for New York for quite some time.

School Considers Selling Naming Rights

The proliferation of ad creep has made it far too easy for institutions in need of money to turn to marketers for relief. Naming building and stadiums was once taboo. Now, it's odd if a sports arena is not named after a marketer. A school in New Jersey sold the naming rights to its gymnasium to local grocery store Shop-Rite and now an elementary school in suburban Detroit is considering courting marketers to name its new school.

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Paris Hilton Adjusts Panties, Sells Yellow Pages

AdJab points to a new Paris Hilton ad bonanza. This time, she's gone international and is hawking GoYellow, a German online yellow pages service. In the commercial, Paris primps and frolics on her bed as only Paris can while adjusting her yellow boy panties, eating a red apple and waiting for the delivery boy to arrrive

Even better than the commercial is Paris's bubble-headed "performance at the press conference which you can view here.

Nike Teams With Graffiti Writer For Lance Armstrong Promotion

Crashing the swelling corporate graffiti party, Nike has teamed with graffiti writer, Futura, to create a series of symbols and icons that illustrate Lance Armstrong's personality and challenging life story. The images were then reproduced on Lance's Tour De France time trial bike. A website ties it all together and promotes Armstrong's new line called 10/2 which is the date that he was diagnosed with testicular cancer

Big, bad, biker Bucky comments, "With the rising popularity of bicycling and Lance himself, I think it's really cool that NIKE would hire an underground celeb like Futura to work on a project like this." And now, the comment section eagerly awaits the wrath of graffiti purists.

UPDATE: Futura offers his own take in the comment section.

Casino Picks Not-So-Smart Name

Yet another California Native American casino has opened in the Southern California area. While we know a lot of morons go to casinos believing they will leave rich, the Morongo casino seems to be openly welcoming these people in both spirit and in name.