Reality TV has never been anything but a guilty pleasure for me. In high school I shunned my friends for watching the first season of Survivor and at home, if someone walked in on me watching The Real World I would change the channel as quickly as possible. But like it, secretly like [...]
While Packard and Steve were dreaming of an awesome future on the bus stops and billboards of San Francisco, someone else was dreaming up much bloodier situations on the bus stops and billboards of London! An anonymous graffiti hero known as THE DECAPITATOR has been liberally choppin’ off heads, or at least, covering up [...]
In West LA, a 56 year old homeless man, John Jermyn, has inspired a clothing “brand” created by a handful of 23 year olds that’s sold alongside Gwen Stefani baby clothes and Posh Spice jeans.
John Jermyn’s sister has mentioned that he’s a schizophrenic and that homelessness is a problem that is not being [...]
Internet rogues are swashbuckling into your operating system using pirate-like advertising portals. These virus infested banner ads have been popping up on legitimate websites like MLB.com and Canada.com and reroute your browser, without clicking, to an antivirus website that automatically downloads harddrive scanning malware disguised as a flash file, trapping you in [...]
Emily Gallagher returns with Part Two of her multi-part examination of advertising and the music industry. Be sure to check out Part One, which gave an overview of how and why advertisers are interested in popular music. And on we go… -Steve This post has been updated! Please see below. Certainly there are musicians [...]
In May 2003, two young filmmakers disguised as “managers” cut the red ribbon and invited 3,000 people to clamor greedily towards a hypermarket that was, in fact, just a tromp-l’oeil billboard.
A long, professionally developed and beautiful ad campaign so persuaded guests that they were shocked when the golden promise of 10 cent mineral water turned [...]
The blog Poplicks.com posted some amazing Brazillian ads for yogurt on Friday. The tagline, when loosely translated, reads, “Forget about it. Men’s preferences will never change.” The images are voluptuous takes on famous film stills.
It’s got me thinking, well… why not? Historically tastes have shifted quite a bit. Junichi, the [...]
I wasn’t sure what I was going to think about the following website. After all, we third wave feminists are always at each others throats for being the “wrong kind” of feminist, since through the past 30 years there have been fads in believing every tangent of contradiction possible. But the website About-Face, I think, [...]
Junk mail is annoying. This is obvious, it’s why it’s called “junk.” It’s also why my friend Bob’s worst enemy signed him up to every mass marketing campaign as part of a prolonged vendetta which also includes logging a noise complaint every time he plays music in his apartment (which I have to admit [...]
My Mom recently expressed exasperation at a toothy magazine cover of Oprah Winfrey. “She’s the same age as me, so why doesn’t she have bags under her eyes and everything else?” The answer is, of course, the vanity tag-team of plastic surgery and photo airbrushing! Thanks to Evan Roth, a senior fellow at [...]
The imperative Iraq budget is long overdue, so doesn’t it make sense that Congress should spend hours discussing the oldest federal law regulating billboards, the 1965 Highway Beautification Act?
This unlikely coupling was courtesy of Senator Harry Reid, who, admidst the thoughts of blood, debt and destruction abroad, folded in a big wet kiss to our [...]
