While it's no surprise Starbucks is not the best coffee out there, the marketer doesn't take kindly when another coffee brand claims that in an ad. UK-based Costa Coffee recently launched a campaign that, based on taste tests, claimed 7 out of 10 coffee lovers preferred Costa cappacinno to Starbucks.
Starbucks complained to Britain's Advertising Standards Authority claiming the taste tests only applied to cappuccino's, not the entire product line. The Authority dismissed Starbucks' claim. It's no surprise since, well, that's all the ad claims - that 7 out of 10 coffee lovers preferred Costa cappacinno to Starbucks.
Sorry, Starbucks.
The whole Microsoft sexting thing? A total joke. It wasn't sexting and that wasn't a breast. Relax people. Seriously? If you haven't yet heard, an ad for Microsoft's new Kin shows a guy sticking his phone up his shirt to take a picture. He then sends it to a girl who "marvels" at his seemingly incredible "breasts." So says Consumer Reports writers Mike Gikas and Paul Reynolds.
Once again, dudes. Guys don't have breasts and sending a picture of a guy's chest does not constitute sexting.
The most surprising thing about this non-issue is that Microsoft actually thought what these guys had to say had merit and removed the "offending" scene from the ad. Stupid.
- Eastpak backpacks will save your skateboarding ass.
- Diapers.com will help office babies manage their poop. Seriously.
- Iron Man 2 has an interactive trailer.
- WongDoody is out with a new campaign for FullTiltPoker.
- Despite his apology, Pittsburgh Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger has been booted as spokesman for Big Ben's Beef Jerky.
- Former Penthouse Club stripper Nicole Hughes has sued Penthouse for putting her in a Scores ad without her consent.
- Mini goes big with Man Boobs
- When Philips asks directors to create a few short movies from the same script, you know it's going to have a gratuitous ass shot.
- Ten rebranding disasters and what you should learn from them.
- Justin Long says Get A Mac campaign might be over.
- Want to make one of those consumer-generated Doritos commercial? Check out this tutorial from David Shane.
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A phone hacking ad for call management systems company Re-Tell has been banned by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority. Why? Becasue it shows the image of a woman from the backside with chains around her and a sign which reads, "Access Denied." The group ruled the ad as "likely to cause serious offense."
In the News reports, "The company explained that the photograph of the naked woman in chains was chosen because it was the 'most striking image available' when they entered the phrase 'access denied' into a search on a reputable photograph gallery."
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TruckAds, a company that, well, puts ads on the side of trucks recently received a letter from th City of Austin making the company aware of its prohibition of mobile billboards and the fact that, after June 16, it'll be a crime to place one on a vehicle and drive it around.
The prohibition has been in place since June 16, 2008 but June 16 of this year is the final date a mobile billboard can exist in the city. Needless to say, TruckAds isn't happy and is labeling the city's move a limitation of free speech.
We can see both points of view. Advertising, in most cases, should be afforded the same principles of free speech as described in the Constitution. Yes, we've mostly banned cigarette advertising and heavily regulated other forms. But outright bans are limited.
Yet, who really wants a landscape littered with advertising? Already New York and Las Vegas, among others, have become one giant advertisement. Do we want that everywhere?
And besides, Austin's weird. And they like to keep it weird. So this ban...well, it just seems normal for the city.
Thoughts?
AgencySpy reports activist group Corporate Accountability International staged a "Retirement Party" protest outside a Chicago McDonald's Wednesday afternoon.
AgencySpy's Kaitlin Madden spoke with CAI spokesperson Karla Pippa who said, "For the last fifty years Ronald McDonald has been hooking our kids on unhealthy foods, spurring an epidemic of diet related disease, and we are calling on McDonald's to retire this icon so that he can have a break, and we can have one too."
She hopes "Ronald McDonald will go the way of Joe Camel." And in a study touted by CAI in a press release, nearly half of those surveyed were found to favor Ronald's retirement.
Anyone who's ever been to the hospital, a doctor's office or any other location where nurses are present are fully aware of the fact most nurses do not fit the sexy stereotype often attributed to them. In fact, most nurses are just as pedestrian as the rest of us. Which is why a recent bus back campaign has English nurses in a snit.
A bus company is pimping its Royal Hospital route using the headline, "Ooooh matron!" accompanied by an image of a woman wearing a nurses outfit easily classified as less utilitarian. Nurses aren't taking kindly to the campaign but the Diamond Bus company is refusing to removed the posters from its vehicles calling the campaign "bright and positive."
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Why are we writing about this crap? Why do we ever write about this crap? Banned ad! Woo hoo! Look at our banned ad! It's so controversial, It's so offensive.
...yawn...
"Bookmaker Paddy Power's latest commercial has fallen foul of regulators who fear it likely to cause widespread offense. The advert - depicts four wheelchair bound actors 'doing a runner' on their bill from a curry house. One of the actors wears a branded Hearts & Balls rugby shirt, to raise the profile of a rugby-based charity that helps players who have been impacted by catastrophic injury."
It shouldn't be banned because it's offensive. It should be banned becasue it is horrifically uncreative and ridiculously stupid.
So why, today, is everyone writing about a Pamela Anderson commercial that debuted last year? because, surprise, surprise, it's fallen into the":banned ad" category. And because of that we all get to write about it again. And who doesn't love to write about busty milk-soaked hotties in a boardroom who disrobe down to their unmentionables and douse themselves in milk?
Wait. What were we talking about? Oh yea. The ad, for Crazydomains.com.au, has been banned by Australia's Advertising Standards Authority after receiving hundreds of complaints.
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