Pro-femme magazine Ms. recently got a spanking in the Jewish community for rejecting the ad at left. It features images of three Israeli women in power: president Dorit Beinisch of Israel's Supreme Court, foreign minister Tzipi Livni, and speaker Dalia Itzik, above the words, "This is Israel."
The American Jewish Congress -- which submitted the ad -- said Ms. first approved it, then rejected it at the last minute under grounds it would "set off a firestorm," which, as often happens, it did anyway.
"Since there is nothing about the ad itself that is offensive, it is obviously the nationality of the women pictured that the management of Ms. fears their readership would find objectionable," deduced president Richard Gordon of the American Jewish Congress. (Because when people reject us without explaining themselves, it's obviously because we're brown.)
In response, Ms. pointed out Tzipi Livni's career and accomplishments are profiled in its current issue.
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- The Denver Egoist, which covers the Colorado ad scene, is in search of an additional writer and is holding an essay contest. Check it out here.
- It seems American Idol judge Paula Abdul along with Madonna may perform during the Super Bowl. No one at FOX is confirming or denying anything and it's unclear when (and even if) either of them will make an appearance.
- Maybe because it's now OK to make movies about girls who have teeth in their vaginas, it's OK to develop an ad that looks just like the body part.
- The Green Effie Awards has announced its call for entries which will be due February 15. The Green Effies honor eco-marketing campaigns. Info here.
- January 11 is the deadline for entering MarketingSherpa'a 2008 Email Summit Awards which "recognize email campaigns that have outstanding measurable results."
- The Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), announced today that entries are now being accepted for the 2008 AICP Show, The Art & Technique of the American Commercial. Entries may be submitted online here. The Show debuts on June 3rd at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
- GSDM Creative Director Luke Sullivan has released the third edition of his book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.
- The Custom Publishing Council has announced its first custom content conference, Content '08: Re-thinking Branded Content in the Age of Engagement, held March 9-11 at the New Orleans Marriott.
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Sassy bloggers, take note: Gawker might be down to drop you a few thou if you can raise traffic amongst its sites, which include Gizmodo, Valleywag and Defamer.
Jason Calacanis, the golden child of Weblogs Inc., looks at the compensation process as whoring for ratings. And we know from experience that whoring of any kind sets blows against sector quality.
"People are coming to blogs because they are NOT playing the ratings game! What difference does it make if a blog gets 10% or 20% traffic [spikes] if it alienates the core audience by playing the ratings game?" he says.
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Remember that YouTube video of the college kid getting repeatedly Tased for hassling John Kerry? His repeated cry, "Don't Tase me, bro!" has become the most memorable quote of '07.
Editor Fred Shapiro of the Yale Book of Quotations calls it a "symbol of pop culture success," beating out Imus' "nappy-headed hos" comment.
Can you guess what the second-most-memorable quote on the list was? We'll give you a hint: "I personally believe..."
Why does Vladimir Putin deserve to be named Person of the Year? Probably because of his insightful commentary on Call of Duty 4.
Quoting from Time Magazine, the Quintura blog provides a more intuitive reason, if "imposing stability on a nation [...] at significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize" can be considered more intuitive. (We'd call it "catty.")
Some might call it an improvement on last year's choice, though.
Who knew behind the grizzled, embattled facade of George Parker lay a man of intelligence, eloquence and insight? Well, we always did but for those who are new to George and his expletive-laden blog, AdScam, it might come as a surprise the man knows exactly what he's talking about when it comes to advertising having done it since the days of Mad Men.
For a recent PSFK Conference in LA, the self described "archetypal dirty old man" interviewed Suicide Girls Founder Missy (who apparently has no last name) talks about the community she started back in 2001 as an experimental art project as a way to give girls a place to express themselves. It's actually a nicely insightful look into something that's a whole lot more than a site full of hot women.
Look, a pair of plump red lips telling you what she wants ... from marketers and content providers. And she's got a British accent.
In terms of ambition, the video is a lot like this, except you're watching lips move instead of a cursor. Guess there's something to be said about that.
This would-be viral is brought to you by Redwood Publishing, which hopes to spark a discussion about what users really want, and what our future may look like.
After watching all nine web opera-style ads composed of three different narratives, we finally picked up Douglas Coupland's The Gum Thief.
The narrative style of the book maintained a weird fidelity to the ads -- segmented between Roger, his co-worker Bethany, and Roger's novel-in-progress, Glove Pond.
Every once in awhile, you get another voice -- Bethany's mom, some malicious Staples employees, or Roger's bitchy ex-wife. Sometimes you get an experimental scenescape involving buttered toast. And for a brief, completely insane moment, you get a story in a story in a story.
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I've known Tony Pierce since Adrants was a part time gig started while I was between jobs and was read by one person. Me. That was early 2001. Now, in late 2007, Adrants is, if we can be so egotistically blunt, a major contender in the ad world. Now, in late 2001, Tony Pierce, who was most recently Editor at the LAist is moving on to the LA Times where he will oversee the newspaper's 25 blogs. Times do change.
I think the LA Times' decision to hire Tony is an amazingly astute choice. Newspapers know they have it tough these days and they need to explore new publishing channels. In an exit interview with LAist News Editor Andy Stemberg, Tony cuts through the crap and tells it like it is. Bloggers are bloggers and journalists are journalists. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. Pierce examines this in his interview and refreshingly steers clear of early days, blogger-bashes-MSM rhetoric. For as much as blogging has contributed to the world of information transferral, mainstream media still holds the cards when it comes to infrastructure, extensibility, expertise and a lot of other things.
It will be very interesting to see how Tony marries the two worlds. If his past successes are any indication, newspaper publishing and blogging are going to become and even more delicious cocktail than they already are. Congrats, Tony.
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