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New Apple ads savage Microsoft's $300m Windows campaign

The first, "Bean Counter," is the most direct and tackles Microsoft's well-publicized $300 million marketing campaign for Windows, which already includes $10 million just for a set of ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld as well as the company's usual online, print and TV efforts. Long's persona suggests that PC -- and thus Microsoft -- is putting far more money into marketing Windows than into fixing it, creating a smokescreen to mask the problems with its latest operating system.

Starbucks' Saucy Siren Boobs Are Back!

Is the Starbucks mermaid the new Paris Hilton? As mentioned on Crosscut, the quality of Starbucks' new everyday Pike Place blend is the subject of discussion, but so too is the company's "new" iconic, retro logo. In use for at least a few more weeks as part of Starbucks' effort to reconnect consumers with the chain's funky, regional roots, the logo is a version of the company's original. The big news: the saucy siren's boobs are back!

The Top 100 Video Sharing Sites to Upload Video clips

The most up-to-date list of Video Hosting platforms for serious Video and Internet Marketers. See the Smartmarketers Marketing Minute Video on Video Sharing Sites. Have fun.

I am data; politicians micro-target me to get elected

To our presidential candidates, I am not a human being: I am a set of data points, one of about 168 million sets of data points collected by both the Democratic and Republican national committees. Presidential candidates will base their direct-mail, push-poll, robo-call and volunteers-knocking-on-my-door messages on computerized analyses of me as data. I will be micro-targeted by candidates campaign organizations for the sole purpose of producing a vote...

Advocacy Group Blasts Unilever's 'Hypocrisy'

The organization claims that Bartle Bogle Hegarty's work on Axe "epitomizes the sexist and degrading marketing that can undermine girls' healthy development" while Ogilvy & Mather's "Real Beauty" ads for Dove promote healthy self-images for women.

A Dot-Org Stresses That It’s No Dot-Com

Interesting. TIAA-CREF is making its nonprofit-ness the center of its new marketing campaign. Dot-org pride, baby!

Suspicious devices part of marketing plan

Oh My God: The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger, Turner said in a statement. It said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; and Philadelphia.

In Board Sports, Insider Status Makes Gear Sell

Interesting article about how Nike is too corporate to penetrate the world of skateboard and snowboard marketing. Usually, they just create sub-brands e.g. American Spirit tobacco, but apparently that hasn't worked or been tried.

Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You

When it comes to the slippery issues of snacking and portion control, no one thinks he or she is the schmo who digs deep into the snack bowl without thinking, or orders dessert just because a restaurant plays a certain kind of music. To a person, people will swear they aren t influenced by the size of a package or how much variety there is on a buffet or the fancy name on a can of beans, but they are, Dr. Wansink said. Every time. He has the data to prove it. Dr. Wansink, who holds a doctorate in marketing from Stanford University and directs the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, probably knows more about why we put things in our mouths than anybody else. His experiments examine the cues that make us eat the way we do.

Starbucks pulls free iced coffee promotion

File this under tech-novice, though not quite as big a gaff as Liebermann's Web site being 'hacked' when he really just hadn't paid the bills for the domain registration.

Lonelygirl15 jumps the shark

Pretty funny investigative blogalism piece on LoneyGirl15 from YouTube. Interesting use of YouTube.

For CBS’s Fall Lineup, Check Inside Your Refrigerator

The network plans to announce today that it will place laser imprints of its trademark eye insignia, as well as logos for some of its shows, on eggs 35 million of them in September and October. CBS s copywriters are referring to the medium as egg-vertising, hinting at the wordplay they have in store.

Why I'll never give a nickel to Catholic Relief Services

I hate marketers. And when the sales pitches fill up my snail mailbox, I just throw them, unopened, into a basket to be shredded. I recycle a bag of shredded junk every few weeks or so. And the marketing weasels know this. So they've come up with several new ploys to stop you from shredding the junk mail before you open it. The most insidious of these is the inclusion of metal objects in the mailings -- one group actually stuck in a nickel, but other types of tokens are becoming common.

EnviroHealth: How the Drug Companies Want Us to Be Sick

The medicalization of American life is continuing apace. Ordinary sexual functions are redefined as treatable medical conditions, diseases are over-diagnosed and over-prescribed, advertising glosses over the side effects of drugs and more people are made insecure by corporate propaganda designed to lure them into purchasing medication.

3D plasma shapes created in thin air

The night sky could soon be lit up with gigantic three-dimensional adverts, thanks to a Japanese laser display that creates glowing images in thin air. Kill him.