American Madness

Last week I was pretty miserable, I had a bad head cold, my sinuses were killing me, my throat felt as if I had been swallowing sandpaper (which I had not) and my nose wouldn’t stop running. After digging through my medicine lunch box (yes, we keep all of our first aid and cold cures in a lunch box, a Curious George one at that) I discovered that pretty much all we had were cough drops and Airborne. I went through the cough drops pretty quickly kept drinking Airborne through out the day. That is until I read that it contains about 1500& of the daily recommendation of vitamin C, then I decided moderation was best and eased off the 4 glasses of airborne a day.

Needless to say, by Sunday I was feeling 95% better (I still have a bit of congestion, but nothing too bad). Apparently this has little to do with Airborne… Or maybe it has everything to do with Airborne (that was pretty much where all of my Vitamin C intake was coming from). According to a NY Times article Airborne has decided to settle a class action lawsuit out of court, admitting to no wrong doing, but I am sure changing its unproven claims that it helps prevent and cure the common cold.

For more info you can check out the settlement website here. Pretty much you will get a refund for the Airbrne you purchased (part of the millions of dollars of sales from last year). Personally I am going to skip it, I took Airborne pretty much as a dietary supplement (which is what it actually is), pumping up the Vitamins in my system to help my immune system battle that evil cold. By the end of this week I hope to again have a stable system with no signs of the cold insurgents.

Josh posted about the excellent Ikea website set up right now with slow motion shots that allow you to travel through the frame a little while ago. Well, now we bring you a one-off from that.

Outside the US in, let’s say Sweden (just a guess from the test), they have another great site that allows you to go into “frozen rooms” and look around them… then travel through them, through an Ikea ‘portal’ into another “frozen” room.

Yes, we are aware that we are just propagating Ikea advertisements, but there is some clever advertising and marketing out there that deserves more attention. I would much rather bring your attention to good/clever work on the web rather then most of the other junk you see around the net.

The New Museum is re-opening its doors to the public very shortly. In fact it opens to the public on Saturday. If you live in New York you may have seen some of the banners proclaiming its arrival or some of the posters that have been plastered up all over the place.

One of the more innovative ads they have placed announcing their arrival is a cross-over ad in conjunction with Calvin Klein. Although seemingly odd bed-fellows the two have come together in an ad that is a little out of the ordinary. Over the course of the week the Calvin Klein ad on Houston and Lafayette (a jump ad that covers the entire side of a 5 or 6 story building) looked like it had been attacked by pink splatter paint. On the first day pink paint appeared to be dripping down from the top of the ad. On day two the paint had “dripped” down covering most of the ad and then finally there was the “reveal” last night when the rest of the new ad went up- dripped pink paint outlining the shape of the New Museum with the text announcing the museums opening in December on the Bowery.

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Have you ever been playing a video game and thought “Gee, I bet I could be a British Spy?” Well then, most likely you were playing a James Bond game. Apparently, though the surveillance arm of British intelligence thinks there are a bunch of gamers out there who would make good spies.

USA Today reports that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) will be placing in-game ads in to certain games to attract candidates to fill their positions. The ads will be placed online in games like Need for Speed, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Splinter Cell (Splinter Cell being the only spying game of the bunch) on billboards within the game atmosphere.

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Well, neither of these are particularly recent stories, but I was just going through a list of things I meant to blog about last month and never got around to.

I figure posting them together with some related topic will work for now. As for the others, I figure there is a reason I didn’t write about them then, and, well, they are kind of old news now. Moving right along…

First up, let’s look at what New York has decided not to spend money on anymore: As a state we will no longer receive nearly $4 million of federal funds for abstinence-only sex ed programs.

While we are losing out on $4 million from the government, conversely we will be teaching a sex-ed program that might actually be beneficial in the real world, focusing on teaching good sexual health and about how to avoid getting pregnant (and while I am guessing abstinence will be one such suggested method, it will no longer be the only one taught).

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A lot of companies are hesitant to take a stand on what they consider social or political issues. They feel the best bet is to keep their mouths shut and, by doing so, no one can have too big an issue with them. Not Manhattan Mini Storage!

The New York Sun reports that a new(-ish) billboard by the West Side Highway in Manhattan has the typical Manhattan Mini Storage look and branding. On the left side an image of a hanger in the background with the text “Your Closet Space Is Shrinking As Fast As Her Right To Choose.” An earlier ad of theirs read “Your Closet is Scarier Then Bush’s Agenda.” Wow! Way to take a stand.

Of course folks from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights are saying the sign is highly offensive and insulting (though I am not quite sure how since the New York Sun doesn’t have any details on that), Planned Parenthood loves it. The article claims that “Passers-by had mixed reactions” (of the two they mention one said they thought it to be a little tasteless and the other had no problem with it: not exactly a spectrum of folks with solid opinions).

The comments I found to be most interesting was from the editor of the conservative journal First Things, Joseph Bottum. He said: “Manhattan Mini Storage must have had a pretty good idea that the sign was not going to hurt it. ‘One of the things that has helped American democracy survive is the fact that commercial enterprises have not generally entered the political arena.’

Also it is interesting to note that the building that the advertisement is on is a Manhattan Mini-Storage. No surprise there.

Okay, the other day I complained about the New York Times with their “Times Select” Feature that they slap onto popular articles so you actually have to pay to read them, well they did it again with another article I was planning on writing about here. Almost came to be that you wouldn’t be able to read it, fortunately, I discovered a work around to this solution. Let’s say I retyped the entire article here and it is available to read after the post (with proper credit to the author and the NY Times of course).

Anyway, we are back to my favorite topic to write about: Water.

We’ve previously noted that drinking water is on the rise, over taking soft drinks, coffee, milk, and encroaching on beers territory. We’ve also noted that NY has begun to campaign to get people to drink more tap water instead of fancy bottled waters. Now we have an article from the New York Times (posted after the jump since yo can no longer access it online) titled “A Battle Between the Bottle and the Faucet” which briefly touches on the uphill battle tap water is going to need to fight to prevail over bottled water. Multiple government agencies are getting involved with this one as well: “The city Health Department, mindful of high obesity rates, says water is more healthful than many other, sugar-filled drinks. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection touts its low environmental impact. Both note that it’s practically free.”

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Carlsburg is a beer that has recently been doing some popular advertising in London.

Taking £5,000 of £10 and £20 notes they slapped stickers on each of them saying: “Carlsberg don’t do litter. But if they did it would probably be the best litter in the world.”

They then proceeded to place (or drop) the notes randomly around the city. Anyone lucky enough to find one was £10 to £20 richer and, as Carlburg hopes, then headed to the local market to pick up a six pack.

Although it is a nice advertising stunt, which probably will get them plenty of news as well, what is the return on investment here? Even if each of the folks who find the notes runs out and buys a pint, or even a six pack, in the end aren’t they going to lose money?

Of course the argument could be made that that the recognition and “cool points” they get for such a campaign (or stunt) ut weights what they will make off their £5,000 investment (plus what ever it cost to thinkup and execute this idea)

Okay, I am questioning myself here, maybe I am wrong about this, but is it me or do these new viral ads for the Nokia N95 look a bit too much like ads for spousal abuse awareness?

The profiled picture, the lack of identifying features, just the “wound” of a keyboard slapped across the face. Similar to a hand slap across the face.

Their other 2 ads a similar (1, 2) and play off the “attacked by a computer” concept recommending a Nokia phone a solution.

As I said though, maybe I am just being a bit of a stuffed shirt here.

The actual videos of the attacks are kind of humorous, the concept is funny- It is just those posters I guess I have a problem with.

What do other folks think about this one?

[UPDATE 7/30] Gerdien also apparently told BoingBoing about this. Though they got to it a few dates after we did

Clothing company Sisley has a new ad campaign out now called Fashion Junkie. We’ve all heard the term before (or some variation on it) and think nothing of it.

Well, Sisley actually did start to think about it and decided to run with it, producing a line of ads depicting addiction (at least to drugs and booze)… I don’t know about these, they could have gone with a light hearted play on the term, but they seemed to go a bit extreme in their imagery.

Also with 2005’s Kate Moss cocaine scandal still seeming kind of fresh (since every time she becomes “the new face of…” a product they bring it up) the idea of models and drugs doesn’t quite seem as funny as maybe they were hoping.

Also note that beyond just the idea of the dress straps as lines, the MasterCard sitting on the table is covered in a white powder… Of course maybe these ads are meant for Vice magazine, where they would be pretty fitting actually.