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• McDonalds Wants to Sell Your Kids Hamburgers and Sex

  You don’t need me to tell you McDonald’s is marketing to your kids.  They want to snag your juniors early and mold them into lifetime users.  In America, McDonald’s ropes tikes in with Playlands, toys in meals and easy going clown/nightmare fodder Ronald McDonald.  Japanese McDonald’s, however, know what your kids really want: sex. Jump ahead to watch the sexiest Ronald McDonald you will ever see. Read More... Posted Feb 22 2008, 11:49 AM by Cole Gamble with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: mcdonald's, Sex, Japan, advertisements, clowns, hamburger

• Wimpy Obesity Campaign, But the Whole Idea Is Junk, Really

  There's a story on how critics say the U.S. government's public health campaign on obesity is too tame to do any good. The campaign, called "Small Steps," advocates healthier snacks and using the stairs, but some health groups say the ads won't effect meaningful change because they aren't hard-hitting enough. Interestingly, in the middle of the article on MSNBC was a Hoodia weightloss spot showing an obese woman rapidly shrinking. Ha! But here's my favorite part:  Young viewers pay more attention to ads that evoke feelings of personal loss, sadness, anger, disgust or fear, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kids also tend to remember such ads longer. That drama is lacking in the obesity spots ... Read More... Posted Oct 23 2007, 01:36 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: junk food, obesity, exercise, advertisements, mass confusion, public health, campaign

• Kid's TV Food Ads are Supposed to Improve, Sort Of

  Yep, lots of people want to blame the fat-kid problem on junk food ads on TV, and the jury's still out on that one. But meanwhile, eleven of the U.S.'s biggest kid's food advertisers have agreed to new standards of the products they advertise. Sounds good in theory, doesn't it?  But the reality is a bit, well, watered down.  For instance, Campbell's will advertise its low-sodium soup as opposed to regular old chicken-noodle. Trix won't advertise until it changes its formula (WHAT?? Mess with Trix?!! Sacrilege!). And McDonald's will still advertise, of course. Only it will be for kid's meals limited to 600 calories or fewer. So kids can still see junk food, only, what, in smaller portions? Reduced-fat? Couldn't we just have ads that didn't actually feature any junk food? Or is that too much to ask? Yeah. I know the answer to that one. But consider this: will the new initiative cause more marketers to actually change their products or will they simply spend less on kid's advertising and spend their dollars elsewhere? A Nickelodeon spokesman predicted their financial impact from loss of advertising revenue based on the new standards would be “a non-issue” because most products advertised already fit the criteria have plans for reformulation. So like I said, the changes won't amount to much in practice. Oh well.  Posted Jul 20 2007, 07:29 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: television, mcdonald's, junk food, children's TV, Trix, advertisements, Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup

• Kids and Cigarettes: A Match Made in Heaven

  When we were very young and very stupid, and when we couldn't pilfer smokes from older brothers or fathers, my friends and I would find discarded cigarettes outside of stores and strip clubs and hepatitis clinics, give them a good brush on the jeans and light them up. I think we were role models for the cigarette industry -- the perfect dupes so enthralled by the coolness of smoking that we risked contracting scary hobo germs to do it. Just one. That's all the industry is banking on. That just one of us would get hooked. The Seattle PI's daddy blog -- "Working Dad" -- links to a scary stat showing that 4,000 kids smoke their first cigarette each day -- and 1 in 4 of them gets hooked. Thank god Joe Camel is dead, right? Kids no longer have anything to fear. Think again. Read More... Posted May 29 2007, 08:29 AM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with no comments Filed under: cigarettes, advertising, advertisements, advertsing to kids

• TV Marketers (Wisely) Turn to Mommy Bloggers

  Marketers have finally discovered the unique genius of appealing to the blogosphere.  Mommy bloggers in particular.  We're a virally communicatin' bunch.  Plus, we're not afraid to show skin in support of a breastfeeding starlet or 10, or promote a TV show if it comes to that.  Yvonne Marie, author of Joy Unexpected and contributor to Babble's new blog (coming soon), was interviewed by the on-line Wall Street Journal recently about her involvement with promoting the TV show "New Adventures of Old Christine." As media types get more savvy about the importance of word on the street and person-to-person marketing, blogging will become an increasingly important element in public outreach.  It's only a matter of time until blogs become the go-to PR machine for all things fabulous and new and sparkly. [Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal]     Posted May 16 2007, 12:37 PM by Rachael Brownell (Redsy) with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: marketing, advertisements, blog ads, blog marketing, joy unexpected, yvonne marie, ads

• Be Flip About Divorce and People Get Pissy

  All kinds of people are all kinds of upset about a billboard promoting a law firm in Chicago. The billboard shows a photo of a woman's boobies in a black lace bra and a guy's six-pack abs with the catchy tagline: "Life's Short. Get a Divorce." The law firm, Fetman, Garland & Associates, Ltd., specializes in international copyright law. Ha ha! No, the all-female firm focuses on divorce cases. Why do I see an ABC dramedy in here? As you can imagine, a whole lotta lawyers think this is in poor taste, that it is a black mark for an already scribbled-on profession struggling for respect. Also, the billboard is located in an area called the "Viagra Triangle" cuz of all the singles bars. More wood than a redwood forest. All that has horrified many people, who believe divorce is no laughing matter, seeing as how it causes real pain and heartache for tons of families. How does the firm respond to charges that the ad is in really poor taste (aside from rolling in the handfuls of cash they probably got as a result of all the publicity)? Fetman says, "'If you think somebody's going to look at a billboard and go out and get a divorce as a result, you're insulting the intelligence of people. If that's the case, our next billboard is going to read, 'Gimme Your Money.'" As a child of divorced parents who knows first-hand how traumatic a marital breakup can be for the kids, I thought hard about this billboard. On one hand, divorce tears many individuals and families apart, and often infidelity or at least the "grass is greener" attitude implied in the ad is a factor in marriage explosions. And there's certainly some heartfelt debate over whether marriage has become devalued in our modern world. On the other hand, the billboard made me laugh. Funny wins! I love this ad. Fetman can so represent me if I ever need counsel. Too bad Jessica told me the billboard was taken down yesterday, one month early. Farewell billboard, we hardly knew you...     Posted May 09 2007, 11:50 AM by Kelly Mills with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: divorce, marriage, advertisements, lawyers, singles

• Kid's TV Chock-Full of Junk Food Ads

  In yet another episode from the Tell Us Something We Don't Already Know School of Research Studies, the latest reveals that American kids are beseiged with ads for candy, snacks and sugary cereals while they watch TV.  Researchers evaluated advertising during 1,638 hours of TV programming on the top networks watched by children, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, the Cartoon Network, Disney, MTV and Nickelodeon, and found that eight- to twelve-year olds were inundated with more than twenty-one food ads daily, or more than 7600 a year.  That's a LOT of highly-suggestible information filtering through those brains, the equivalent of FIFTY HOURS of ads for junk food in a year.  Two- to seven-year-olds saw "only" about twelve food ads a day (I guess it's not as profitable to sell to the little ones, since they make fewer decisions about what they eat), totalling about 4400 a year, which is still way too many. Read More... Posted Mar 28 2007, 06:57 PM by Karen Murphy with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: television, fat kids, food ads, advertisements