The Anti-Advertising Agency » ads everywhere

Logorama – Ronald Raygun McDonald gets his revenge

Michael Mandiberg — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:00:38 +0000

[Oscars 2010 Mejor Cortometraje] – Logorama

This is 16 minutes long animated film of logos and and advertising characters produced by a serious 3D house in France, and nominated for an Oscar, but yet in dire threat of lawsuits for use of corporate logos. At least this is according to the blogs, which, are… well… contradictory. But it is a hell of a great 13 minutes. Great villains, chase scenes, and a surreal vision of contemporary corporate life. It helps if you know Los Angeles.

Great fun. Sad truths. Fantastical visions.

Billboard industry gums up anti-blight enforcement in S.F.

Paul S. — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:40:14 +0000

The city of San Francisco has been slowly working to enforce a 2002 city proposition which banned new billboards on private property. Of course, we all know city governments are notoriously cash-strapped. So it comes as no surprise that it was only in 2007 that the city had completed a survey of the existent billboards in order to begin enforcement.

Now, the city has three full time people working on the code-enforcement detail stopping illegal billboards. Unfortunately, San Franciscans who don’t want to be bombarded with billboards across the city-scape have a new problem to contend with… the billboard industry’s legal team.

As this article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle explains, although the city has issued citations in over 250 cases, almost none of the fines have been paid by the billboard owners.

According to city Planning Department officials, a three-person enforcement team has located more than 250 illegal billboards and sought fines against the company owners and landlords totaling about $1.5 million. Only $50,500 of that has been collected, however, in part because the majority of the fines are tied up in unresolved legal actions. “We’re trying to stop any new billboards from going up and finding the ones that have been put up without permits,” said Dan Sider, the city planner in charge of the program. “Outdoor advertising is a lucrative industry, so the companies are hiring very skilled lawyers who are waging legal challenges.” It didn’t take long for the outdoor advertising industry, which handles $7.2 billion in business each year, to file legal challenges. Two cases recently argued in Los Angeles federal district court may not bode well for San Francisco. In both cases – which are now pending at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – the district courts ruled that restrictions on billboards are not enforceable because they violated the Constitution. In one case, the court ruled that Los Angeles created a double standard by restricting private advertising signs, but simultaneously sold ad space on bus shelters and other public places. “It’s a violation of the First Amendment if the city allows some signs, but not others without justification,” said Rex Heinke, a Los Angeles attorney, who is representing a company in one of the Los Angeles cases.

I guess we’ll have to see what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (also located in San Francisco) has to say about this issue. Once again the business interests fall back on the First Amendment to purportedly protect their trampling on the public’s enjoyment of a blight-free public space. Of course, the First Amendment, as any grade school kid will tell you, is the right to free speech enshrined in the Constitution. However, the right is not absolute, but rather elastic. It applies absolutely to some speech and less so to others. The most protected is political speech, while commercial speech requires much less deference. It remains to be seen how much import the judges on the Ninth Circuit will attach to visual clutter…

Obsessive Stephen Colbert Disorder

Anne Elizabeth Moore — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:00:19 +0000

We’re supposed to have viewed Stephen Colbert’s “Dr. Pepper Interview” with Lucas Conley, author of Obsessive Branding Disorder, as a hilarious detournement on the subject of Conley’s book, our nation’s ever-increasing need for brand mentions. But all I got out of the interview—yes, difficult to parse through all the hilarious jokes about brands, ha ha—was that Conley thinks companies should cease striving for lifestyle status and stick with branding only what they are also good at producing. And he gave several examples—by brand name, even without Colbert’s prompting—to back up his theory.

How is a call for proper branding actually going to change the supposed illness from which our nation suffers? If anyone can tell me, great, cause I have no interest in reading the book to find out.

I’m not going to link to it

Michael Mandiberg — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:30:44 +0000

I’m not going to link to it, because if I do, they win.

There is a mock-scandalous advertisement out there for cologne, or underwear, (or cologne-and-underwear) that has some actress showing some nipple. They submitted it for TV, got rejected, and are now all mock-righteous.

OF COURSE IT WAS GOING TO BE REJECTED! That was the whole plan. And then a bunch of bloggers would write about it, and the YouTube video would get millions of free impressions. Cheap advertising.

Which is why I’m not going to link to it.

But I will say that I slowed it down to check, so you didn’t have to, and frankly the web video quality was so crappy that I couldn’t even see the nipple. Maybe on HDTV (but it ain’t ever gonna get on HDTV…) So it is double hype.

N.B. this is the first AAA post tagged “sex.” Steve, how did that happen?

Is the Ad Porn more Ad Creep?

Michael Mandiberg — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:22:57 +0000

The interwebs are abuzz with tittering about the video of a pretty young blond woman who ~~sensually~~ sexually licks nearly every phallic object in the hotel room of a chain hotel. You tube has gone so far as to put a warning that the content is “inapropriate for some users” and requires you to sign in to verify your age. (Hence it seems I can’t embed he video. Just go to the link and watch it.)

While I would really prefer to think that there is someone out there with a fetish for licking recently cleaned objects in hotel rooms, and wants to share that with the rest of the world, all signs point towards a marketing stunt. There are several clear logo shots in the opening sequence. The clip is silent save when the woman says “very clean” after a long sensual lick of the toilet bowl. She then shows an open hand to the camera with the url “exstay.com” on it.

Exstay.com redirects to ExtendedStay.com. It seems that Extended Stay has owned Exstay.com since 1996!. There are some reports that for a moment exstay had its own content, but I can’t verify that.

There are going to be Tipper Gores who are going to get all pissy because they are using sex to sell. I guess I’m used to ads using sex to sell. I’m not used to ads pretending to just be straight up amateur fetish porn, only to reveal that they in fact were viral marketing. I can handle the sex. I don’t like being tricked.

And the weird thing is that I can’t get the brand name and logo out of my brain now. I have forgotten most of the licking scenes, but I keep thinking about the hotel name. I hate it when they win. I hate it when they win.

YouTube: Monetizing Alleged Copyright Violators—And Skirting the Law

Anne Elizabeth Moore — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:14:07 +0000

My friend Franklin Lopez—videomaker extraordinaire—recently received a bizarre notice in his inbox regarding a show he produced reusing some Universal Music Group (UMG) imagery. The note stated in part, “Your video is still live because UMG has authorized the use of this content on YouTube. As long as UMG has a claim on your video, they will receive public statistics about your video, such as number of views. Viewers may also see advertising on your video’s page.”

Now forget that Lopez’s show, It’s The End of the World As We Know It And I Feel Fine, is a news program. (In my opinion a very good one, although unlikely to attract a mainstream audience due to its radical politics and volume of swears.) Here, he’s even commenting—favorably, nonetheless, on a popular song. These facts, in a normal copyright infringement allegation, would make Lopez’s show a good candidate for the Fair Use defense.

Forget it, though, because this case won’t ever go to the courts. Lopez—unwittingly, perhaps, maybe even regretfully—agreed to such terms when he posted videos to the site. And now UMG, the company he refers to as one of the “corporate bloodsuckers that dominate the culture industry” in the episode in question is targeting and, potentially, profiting from his audience. And skirting the law.

(Incidentally, they’re targeting mine too: the song leads into an interview about Unmarketable. See the whole thing here.)

But anticorporate radicals aren’t the only ones being subjected to this profitable new plan for subverting the Copyright Act of 1976—even with those fancy pro-corporate provisions that favor businesses at the expense of creativity. Blogger John posted a jazz video, apparently never having realized he may (or may not) be committing a crime.

“Ooh,” he wrote when he got his note. “I just came close to being sued for posting copyrighted songs on YouTube! That’s crazy!”

In full, Lopez’s note—and maybe one headed toward your inbox soon, too—reads like this:

Dear YouTube Member:

UMG has claimed some or all visual content in your video It’s the End of the World as We know it #31. This claim was made as part of the YouTube Content Identification program.

Your video is still live because UMG has authorized the use of this content on YouTube. As long as UMG has a claim on your video, they will receive public statistics about your video, such as number of views. Viewers may also see advertising on your video’s page.

Claim Details:
Copyright owner: UMG
Content claimed: Some or all of the visual content
Policy: Allow this content to remain on YouTube.
* Place advertisements on this video’s watch page.

Applies to these locations:
Everywhere

UMG claimed this content as a part of the YouTube Content Identification program. YouTube allows partners to review YouTube videos for content to which they own the rights. Partners may use our automated video / audio matching system to identify their content, or they may manually review videos.

If you believe that this claim was made in error, or that you are otherwise authorized to use the content at issue, you can dispute this claim with UMG and view other options in the Video ID Matches section of your YouTube account. Please note that YouTube does not mediate copyright disputes between YouTube owners. Learn more about video identification disputes.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Content Identification Team

Which raises the question: What sort of “program,” exactly, is YouTube’s Content Identification program? The answer appears on YouTube’s Help Center page, and includes the following description:

The Video Identification tool is the latest way YouTube offers copyright holders to easily identify and manage their content on YouTube. The tool creates ID files which are then run against user uploads and, if a match occurs, the copyright holders policy preferences are then applied to that video. Rights owners can choose to block, track or monetize their content. [An ID file is a] digital content identification file which corresponds to a reference file (a piece of content like a movie, music or other audiovisual material). This file is generated using Google software and is also known as a “fingerprint.” . . . If Video ID identifies a match between a user upload and material in the reference library, it applies the usage policy designated by the content owner. The usage policy tells the system what to do with the video. Matches can be to only the audio portion of an upload, the video portion only, or both. . . . There are three usage policies — Block, Track or Monetize. If a rights owner specifies a Block policy, the video will not be viewable on YouTube. If the rights owner specifies a Track policy, the video will continue to be made available on YouTube and the rights owner will receive information about the video, such as how many views it receives. For a Monetize policy, the video will continue to be available on YouTube and ads will appear in conjunction with the video.

And don’t overlook the disclaimer:

WE ARE NOT YOUR ATTORNEYS, AND THE INFORMATION WE PRESENT HERE IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. WE PRESENT THIS INFORMATION FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

So what are your options as a law-abiding devotee of the Fair Use defense, when you find your work is now both promoting and criticizing copyright owners? Well,if you’d been accused of copyright infringement, and your work was removed under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, you could file a counter-notice. But since we’re working here outside the law, you can file a dispute with YouTube, who will forward it along to the company claiming copyright ownership. They’ll sort it out for you—privately.

But this is all a little different than the plan alluded to by Google CEO Eric Schmidt in the spring to monetize YouTube’s success. When revealed last month, the plan promised to award the videos of certain “content partners”—record labels, movie studios, and TV networks who presumably pay for the service—an “about-to-go-viral” honorific, and attach ads to them. It’s called “buzz targeting,” and according to Silicon Alley Insider the user-generated content for which YouTube is so celebrated is not eligible.

“One of the greatest aspects of YouTube is how it has democratized the way in which videos are discovered and promoted,” Shiva Rajaraman, YouTube Product Manager, states in the press release. “On any given day, a video from a top-tier content creator or an ordinary YouTube user can become the next big thing.”

Of course, YouTube now has a vested interest in turning certain videos from certain “top-tier content creators” into the next big thing, which isn’t any longer a “democratizing” project. And the company has still found a way to monetize its more democratic aspects, for the benefit of those in the top tier.

And the only one losing out here is that “ordinary YouTube user.”