Proving there's no such thing as meaningful self-regulation in any for-profit industry, food manufacturers, following their recently introduced guidelines for advertising food with too much sugar to kids, have simply played games serving sizes to limit per-serving sugar content to the agreed upon 12 grams thereby loopoling their way past the very junk food guidelines they created for themselves.
As an example, the U.S. Food Policy blog took a look at the nutrition labels for Cocoa Puffs and Trix and determined Cocoa Puffs, the cereal with more sugar than Trix based on the government's standard 30g serving size, will be able to advertise while Trix will not. This is possible courtesy of the foolish fuckery food manufacturers deploy when it comes to serving size. At a serving size of 27g and 12g of sugar, Cocoa Puffs meets guidelines while Trix, with a 32g serving size and 13g of sugar does not.
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After attending the Ypulse conference in San Francisco earlier this week, we've come to realize a few things about teens, tweens and the marketers who want them in their back pocket. Sometimes it seems like today's marketers are falling into the same potholes our predecessors did: trying to deconstruct cool, relying too heavily on surveys, and forgetting that before we're marketers, we're consumers. We've been consumers all our lives. That experience is our biggest trump card.
Another thing we don't realize is that generations of kids, teens and adults also fall for the same potholes their predecessors did. What we need to remember is, no matter what age we are, we all suffer from a bit of age elitism.
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While it might have been a bit less than imaginative to begin Mad Men focusing so heavily on the impending doom of tobacco marketers, the AMC debut was quite good in our eyes and illustrates things haven't changed since "the good 'ol days." In an early scene talking with his boss about pitching a Jewish department store account and how it would be nice to have someone Jewish in the pitch, series's star Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, offers, "you want me to run down to the deli and grab somebody."
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Acknowledging China's recent statement nearly half of pregnant teens met their impregnator online, George Simpson notes several other not so great things about the internet such as Narcicism Gigantus, Video or the "delusional condition leading the infected to believe that their stupid skateboard trick or baby upsetting her food dish or dog farts deserve a worldwide audience." And Infantile Anger Syndrome symptomized by "vitriolic anonymous postings to message boards and community forums using racist or scatological language that, if said out loud in a crowd, would result in enthusiastic resurrection of ancient art of stoning to death."
And our Favorite, Jargonamania (which, unfortunately, has been around well prior to the internet), defined as "an attempt to hide lack of knowledge by using words that everyone else does even if you aren't exactly sure what they mean, such as "long tail," "granular," "monetize," and, god forbid, "engagement." Check them all out here. You will be guilty of at least three.
The inaugural Miami ad:tech show, held at the Miami Beach Convention Center June 26-27 was a success by my metrics. It was well attended. It offered content not found at other ad:tech conferences and it opened the eyes of many to the burgeoning Latin American and Hispanic marketplaces. While many of the panelists and speakers agreed definitive research on the space is lacking, there is no doubt each demographic group has left its minority status behind and are fast becoming a major influence on the American scene. And "they" isn't even the proper word. After all, there's really no "we" and "they." There's just "us." Americans. The people that live together on this soil, fuel its multi-faceted culture and buy a lot of stuff.
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This is a tough one. We were fully loaded to tear Lenore Skenazy's smile off her face for an article she just wrote in Advertising Age condemning publications that accept escort service ads that straddle the legal/illegal line but this isn't a black and white issue so we can't. On one hand, if these ads weren't accepted, the businesses behind them would exist anyway but would likely be even less upstanding (a bad thing) then they already are because, let's face it, sex is a powerful need and one that will never go away. On the other hand, if publications do accept the ads then, perhaps, the businesses are in the public eye a bit more and under its scrutiny (a good thing) for their debatable practices and, one would hope, more receptive to maintaining a positive image.
In either case, the girls that work for these companies are recruited under nefarious (another bad thing) circumstances and forced to perform sex when they otherwise might choose not to. Might public vigilance do more to help here than to ignore it completely? It's a conundrum.
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Oh, the horror! Here we go again. It seems the blogosphere - that square, internally mirrored box in which opinionated blowhards spew forth mindless drivel, their commentary ricocheting off the inner wails of the enclosed box for every other blogger to see and respond to while everyone else outside the box ignores it like children in a sandbox at a backyard cookout - is up in arms...up in arms, we say, over...over...wait for it...comments bloggers have made about - and as part of - Microsoft's new "people-ready" slogan.
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Wouldn't it be nice if, when you walked in to Victoria's Secret (as a guy) and hot, lingerie-clad models where there to help you choose the perfect thing and cleavage-revealing bra for the women in your life? Of course, that's never going to happen because some cause group would get all pissy accusing Victoria's Secret of treating women like sex objects. Oh, and the fact shopping would be the last thing a man would be thinking about in a situation like that.
But, it's perfectly OK for (sort of) hot looking men to dress up in red boxers to help women shop for the man in their life as French clothing store Celio does. No double standard here, right? Oh wait, their French. They have an entirely different set of rules when it comes to the perfectly normal attraction each sex has for the other. In fact, rather than hiding, they celebrate it.
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For all of you who think we do nothing around here but heap praise on agency-of-the minute Crispin Porter + Bogusky, we have news for you. We have a new favorite agency and you've probably never heard of it. It's in Cleveland - which many a New Yorker may never have heard of either - and it's called Brokaw. In existence for 15 years, the place just drips with wit.
Tossing political correctness aside, Brokaw created a campaign for Horton Crossbow which proudly proclaimed "Hunters really aren't so different from other environmentalists. We just like to keep souvenirs." Then, the agency released a 15th anniversary video highlighting its work but, eschewing all sense of normalcy, self-mocked itself with a montage and song that was so bad it was good. Following that, it did some really nice work for the Cleveland Art Institute.
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One could look at this eBay auction promising a marketer complete access to this person's non-personally identifiable information for a 30 day period so as to razor target the marketer's advertising as a joke or one could realize this is exactly what the future holds: people divulging detailed information about themselves and selling it to the highest bidding marketers in return for a promise to view all their advertising.
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