I cursed my parents when I first heard about the product-placement deal MSNBC’s Morning Joe had secured with Starbucks. The news-talk show, on which Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski regularly trade barbs over their choice of caffeinated beverage, is being paid upward of eight figures, according to the New York Times, to officially …
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NBC Renews Subway; Also Chuck
I mentioned earlier that NBC had picked up Chuck for 13 episodes this season, but NBC just issued its official announcement, which is worth a separate post simply for the way NBC was able to keep the show around. It really was all about the sandwiches! (Well, that and slashing the show’s production budget. Update: Or not! On a conference …
Don't Stop the Presses Over Bogus LA Times Ad Controversy
The buzz of newspaper-critic circles this morning—and, oooh, what exciting buzz that field generates!—is a front page ad in the LA Times for the new NBC cop drama Southland. (You can see it here, in a PDF that I assume will change with tomorrow’s edition of the paper.)
I wrote a column for Salon almost a decade ago when there was a …
McCain Tries to Britney-fy Obama
I haven’t been spending much time picking apart campaign ads in this election, because I know enough about what I don’t know about that I don’t want to pretend to be factcheck.org. But in his newest ad, John McCain has come into Tuned In’s house, as the kids say, attacking Barack Obama on pop culture.
Again, I’ll leave the analysis of …
There Has to Be Advertising for People Who Don't Have a Sense of Humor
As long as we’re on the subject of advertising this morning, there’s an interesting ad review by Seth Stevenson in Slate for a Scion XB spot, which asks whether it takes the Volkswagen “Think Small” strategy—turn a product’s weakness into an asset—too far. The weakness in this case is that the car looks like a box, or, more …
And Now for the McNews
At least one chain of local TV stations has found a solution for the nobody-wants-to-pay-for-journalism-anymore conundrum: product placements on the local news. The Meredith Corporation has struck a deal that has placed cups of McDonald’s iced coffee on the anchor desks at its Las Vegas affiliate; McDeals are in place at several other …
Dunkin Donuts Saves World from Rachael Ray's Terrorist Paisley Scarf
From the Boston Globe via The Huffington Post comes word that Dunkin Donuts has pulled a commercial starring Rachael Ray over complaints that Ray’s neckwear was hostile to the state of Israel.
The ad, in which Ray wears what Dunkin describes as “a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design,” came under fire from conservative …
MSNBC Holds Fire on Gun Ad
Ben Smith at Politico reports that MSNBC has decided not to run an ad from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization advocating the closing of a “gun-show loophole” for the purchase of firearms. The reason, says an MSNBC spokesman: “We don’t accept controversial issue advertising.”
Even if we leave aside the politics of guns, and …
Diversity Lesson of the Day: Mocking Chinese More Offensive Than Mocking Indians
Gung Hey Fat Choy! Salesgenie.com is celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year by pulling its Super Bowl ad, featuring pandas speaking in exaggerated Chinese accents, because it turns out that people get offended by that sort of thing.
Exaggerated Indian accents, though? Not so much. The company has no plans to retract its other newly-debuted …
"Yes We Can": That Other Big Ad Last Weekend
Other than the Mike Huckabee / Chuck Norris spot and the Hillary Sopranos parody, the two most memorable ads this campaign season are notable for (1) not being TV ads, (2) being for Barack Obama and (3) not coming from the Obama campaign. (I’m not including Obama Girl, if you’re wondering.) The first was the viral Hillary 1984 ad. The …
The Morning After: How 'Bout Them Giants…
… of advertising, that is. My instant Super Bowl ad reviews, all five zillion of ’em, are now posted. Add yours here.
[Update: USA Today, meanwhile, has released its 20th annual Ad Meter results; as usual, we agree on a few things–FedEx, Bridgestone–and disagree on a lot: where’s the love for Garmin GPS?]