A movie studio was wrong to silently edit a reviewer’s tweet for an ad. But quoting writers’ Twitter work is fair game.
Advertising
Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy Films 70 Ads for Dodge Durango
Hawking a new ride ahead of sequel
You Might See A Pro-Pot Super Bowl Commercial
How one online competition is going up in smoke.
Disney Nixes Junk-Food Ads Aimed at Kids. Can Good Health Be Good Business?
Children’s TV programming and junk food have been tied since the beginnings of the medium, as in the above video of an early Mickey Mouse Club, sponsored by “your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola.” Now, however, the Disney corporation plans to kick ads for many sugary and fatty foods off its programming (including ABC Saturday …
Dead Tree Alert: Law & Order: DVR; or, Confessions of an Ad-Skipping Thief
My latest column in TIME (now free from the paywall!) is about the uproar in broadcast TV over Auto Hop, a new feature on Dish Network DVRs which takes commercial fast-forwarding one step further, allowing viewers to …
Madonna, Clint and the Rest of Super Bowl XLVI Halftime
I went into last night’s Madonna Super Bowl halftime show expecting to hate it: yet another performer whose appeal can charitably be described as “nostalgic” (see The Rolling Stones, The Who, etc.) blasting out a set of oldies …
The Best and Worst Super Bowl Commercials of 2012
Animals, beer, women in bikinis, aging actors — all the things that one would expect from Super Bowl commercials were present and accounted for this year. TIME grades the ads of Super Bowl XLVI.
Campaign Video: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em for Herman Cain
Can this insane campaign ad help keep Herman Cain from inadvertently getting himself nominated?
Plenty of Chances to Meet Fox’s New Girl
Fox is deeply convinced that you will love Zooey Deschanel this fall in its comedy New Girl. But if you are not thus persuaded yet, then by God, Fox is going to help you learn to love her by any means necessary. To that end, Variety reports, the network today will begin previewing the show’s pilot in various forums online, two weeks …
Robo-James' Time Machine: They Were Still the One
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It’s almost fall, which means that promos for new fall shows are starting to reach a crescendo. But one thing that we’ve lost amid all the multimedia advertising is what used to be a network staple: the fall-season promo reel. Above, see an example from the ABC “Still the One” …
The Morning After: Am I Blue?
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Last night in Los Angeles, my fellow TV critics who have already arrived at the TCA press tour attended a party thrown by the Playboy Channel at Hugh Hefner’s mansion. I sat in Brooklyn and watched America’s Got Talent. Not bitter! Because it meant I had the chance to see possibly the most …
Pardon the Interruption: PBS Planning Ad Breaks Within Shows
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The major difference between PBS and commercial broadcasters used to be, well, commercials. For-profit TV relied on ads, PBS didn’t. OK, maybe it had sponsors, but nothing so crass as commercials. Then, OK, maybe it had “enhanced” sponsor messages, which looked a lot like commercials …
Groupon: We Meant to Do That
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So as I wrote this morning, Groupon seems to have alienated much of the football-watching world with its commercial last night, which began as a seemingly earnest plea about the plight of Tibet and ended with Timothy Hutton describing the awesome deal he and others got at a Tibetan …