Culture Jammers Reprise McDonald's Fat Kid for KFC

That poor McDonald's Fat Kid. We don't know where he came from but he's been our poster child for the obesity discussion over and over and over and over and, yes, over again.

Now, it seems, KFC wants in on the action. Well, not exactly. They're just victim to the latest culture jamming episode to hit the streets of East London.

Lawyers Say Don't Lie to Yourself, Get Divorced

Trendhunter points us to a law firm ad that reads, "Life's short. Get a divorce." The words are sandwiched between two yummy slabs of flesh that convey in no uncertain terms what awaits beyond the marital bed.

The ad comes courtesy of Chicago attorney Corri Fetman, who angelically admonishes that you "Be honest with yourself and with your spouse."

Politically-correct statement aside, we can't fault an attorney for cutting to the chase. How long can we play the Puritan and pretend we don't have an astronomical divorce rate? If we were lawyers we too would be snapping fingers at hesitant divorcees-to-be.

Ask Gets Cryptic, Too Cryptic, to Push Equally Cryptic Algo

We were trawling SF during ad:tech when we saw the ad at left, except smaller and on some kind of relief kiosk. We wondered whose it was and suspected Ask after seeing another billboard that said, "The algorithm killed Jeeves."

Bitter much? The butler was awkward. If the algo didn't kill him, Ms. Dewey would have anyway.

Anyway, Make the Logo Bigger asked the question we didn't and found all the alleged background information for this Ask.com campaign by Crispin.

The hope is people will be inspired to hunt around for the campaign online, thereby tickling the very algorithm that so escapes them. Well, one out of three ain't bad.

Newspaper Increases Circulation, Pigs Fly

"When pigs fly" would be the appropriate response to anyone discussing the notion of a newspaper increasing its circulation. Well, the Philadelphia Inquirer did increase its circ and pigs did, in fact, fly. Beginning last Thursday night, to celebrate the paper's 63,000 circulation increase and with help from Gyro Worldwide, flying pigs adorned the Philadelphia Inquirer building. Along with flying pigs, Gyro developed a print and radio campaign to celebrate the increase. Check out the video of flying pigs here. It's not something you see very often especially when it relates to newspapers.

Pedestrian Death Crosswalk Ad Defeats Intended Purpose

While we think its a great idea to call attention to the number of pedestrian deaths by doing so at one potential point of death, the crosswalk, we don't think asking people to read the names of dead people and other "don't walk and die"-related messages while crossing the road is a smart move. One primary preventer of death is to simply pay attention to your surroundings. Distractions such as this would seem to increase the very problem it's trying to prevent. A perfect idea of creative conference room idea gone wrong.

Of course, following this line of logic, all forms of roadside advertising such as billboards should be banned since, when driving, people should be paying attention to the road, not reading billboards, right?

Bus Bears Condoms in Childless Austria

Adrants reader Tian is spending a couple weeks in Austria and conveying funny ads he's seeing along the way. One thing that caught his eye was this bus swathed in condoms for Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Come on, BMS. Think outside the box a little. You know what would be really awesome? A bus of that size that actually appeared encased in a condom. Preferably one on a route with a tunnel or two. There's a winner.

Not that Austria suffers from too much fertility. Apparently they're having a hell of a time trying to get their dwindling populace to reproduce. Maybe that condom bus is doing too good of a job as-is.

Big Boobs in Boise Not Welcomed

A group of Boise mothers are miffed over a recent billboard promoting the Indianapolis-based Bob and Tom show which shows the pair emblazoned cartoon-style on a t-shirt stretched across a pair of very large breasts alongside the headline, "2 Boobs in the Morning.". The Boise affiliate which airs the show, in response to complaints, has decided to take down the board.

One mother, Kayla Mooso told Indianapolis television station WRTV, "My kids both saw it and my daughter is seven and she said, 'Mom, that's gross, that's immodest.'" Hmm, any seven year old who can use the word "immodest" certainly has the right to an opinion.

Wexley Wears, Smirnoff Explained, Spiderman Crawls, Ninja Returns

- Now you can get t-shirts from that weirdly-named agency Wexley School for Girls.

- If you were ever curious about the history of Smirnoff Vodka, Paranoid US and JWT(New York) have crammed hundreds of years into sixty seconds.

Aside from the fact all that nudity and porn seems to slow DailyMotion to a crawl (and the play/pause button in the middle of the video that prevents you from getting a decent screenshot), here's a pretty cool stop motion commercial for Big Yellow self storage.

- Spiderman is all over New York.

- Oh look! Another ad agency makes its debut in Second Life.

- Seems the Ninja is now a trend. First G4 did it. Now, Oregon State Lottery is going Ninja.

- George Parker says the new Maytag campaign sucks.

Sign Spinners Liven Up Sandwich Board Industry

You've seen them They're all over. Those unfortunate people that have to hold signs for furniture stores that are having close out sales or car dealers which are promoting their next scam. It's all very boring. Now, sign companies are changing that by training sign holders to become sign spinners. A sign spinners does just what the name implies, spin the sign. Sort of like a baton twirler, sign spinners stand on street corner and, one assumes, attract more attention than regular sign holder due to their acrobatic spinning of the signs. One problem....and it's a very, very big one. With all those signs spinning, how's a passing motorist supposed to read about what's being advertised?

Of course, like anything which is supposedly new, sign spinning is certainly not. It's been around for 20 years and is said to have been invented by Eventz Extraordinaire. We suppose if sign spinnings been around for 20 years, our wonderment as to whether the signs work or not is moot.

Mediaedge:cia Does Charity, MLB Calls, Industry Breaks,

- The Junior Committee, a group of young planners at Mediaedge:cia, have convinced a bunch of media outlets including USA Today, Fox News, CNN Money, CBS, New York Magazine, TV Guide, Reader's Digest and others, to donate close to 18 million impressions on behalf of the New York City-based charity, Safe Space.

- MLB and XM Radio make phone calls.

- Atlanta-based agency Fletcher Martin says Our Industry is Broken and offers up a quiz to test whether you realize it or not.

- Nokia's got a fun game of memory to play while waiting for the bus in London.

Cynopsis reports, "ABC Family will launch a new social networking site on May 14 to support its newest original series Greek, a dramedy about fraternity/sorority life. Virtualrush.com is a Facebook-like platform centered around the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes University Greek system, allowing users to create personal profiles, upload content, and virtually "rush" a fraternity or sorority of the character they most resemble on the show."

- The One Club has launched One Show TV, a "showcase that offers the public the unique opportunity to vote for their favorite television advertising of the year."