What started as casual curiosity about a Groupon deal for a photographer in the Dallas area offering boudoir photo sessions turned into a full-fledged fight when a group of photographers realized the company had stolen an image from one of them. Because of course, don't you want to see an example of a product that you won't actually get if you buy the deal? More »
Last year, people around the country cheered Chrysler's ad touting the phoenix-like rebirth of Detroit and American automakers. But it's an election year, so the car company's most recent TV spot, featuring Mr. Grizzle himself, Clint Eastwood, has been attacked by some as being propaganda for the Obama administration. More »
Pit bulls have gotten a bad rap over the years and are too often associated with dog fights and violence, though that has significantly more to do with horrible owners than the rather pleasant pit bulls they mistreat. Somehow this escaped the people at McDonald's, who thought that these dogs would be a good way to epitomize the idea of "danger." More »
Since we don't really know what happens to us when we pass on, a Taiwanese commercial is taking advantage of the unknown and picturing heaven as a place where Steve Jobs can finally play with Android phones to his heart's content. Which is very likely, considering he called them "sh#!" while he was alive. More »
It's generally seen as bad form for a bankrupt company like Kodak to have its name plastered on a theater as a title sponsor. Kodak, which filed for Chapter 11 protection last month, has realized it would have a lot more cash to burn if it could wriggle out of a $75 million, 20-year commitment to slap its name on the Kodak Theatre, which hosts the Academy awards. More »
Once upon a time, a lot of people viewed Microsoft as the epitome of corporate omnipresence, as many of us wrote our 11-part fantasy series in Word, checked our Hotmail accounts while surfing the web on Internet Explorer, probably on a computer running Windows. But now we have Google Docs, Gmail, and Chrome, and Microsoft is taking out full-page ads warning consumers of how this other company is the one to be reviled. More »
During last year's Super Bowl, Best Buy tried to use not-at-all-a-flash-in-the-pan teen star Justin Bieber and slurring punchline Ozzy Osbourne in a failed attempt to announce its Buy Back upsell program that we've barely heard about since. For this Sunday's big ad the retailer, inspired by the death of Steve Jobs and the fact that people seemed to like him, has turned to tech innovators to convince customers it's not just a showroom for Amazon and Newegg. More »
Sure, we all love the sight of Kate Beckinsale in a skin-tight bodysuit waving around a pair of guns, but what did the poor little child in the neighboring poster ever do to merit such terror? More »
You may recall that earlier this week, bottom-dollar carrier Spirit Airlines launched an e-mail campaign to convince customers that the new FAA regulations requiring truth in airfare advertising was really just a ruse by the federal government to hide taxes and tax hikes in airfares. Well, that didn't go over well with Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who threw off the gloves and sent a bare-knuckles letter to Spirit in response. More »
H&M, better known as the store you go to when you need a decent-looking shirt that you don't expect to make it through the wash more than twice, is feeling some Internet heat today over allegations that it's cashing in on the work of a Georgia-based artist without permission or payment. More »
In recent years, the Dept. of Transportation has been cracking down on airlines, especially discount carriers, for advertising airfares that don't actually represent what consumers will end up paying. With the latest round of rule changes having just kicked in, low-budget airline Spirit is fighting back, telling its customers that this is all about the government trying to hide higher taxes in airfares. More »
Paula Deen is known for packing in the butter in her recipes, with such recipes as doughnut hamburgers (with bacon and a fried egg, of course) and Krispy Kreme bread pudding. But now that she's going on air to announce that she has Type 2 diabetes, it's probably the perfect time to announce that she's the new paid spokesperson for a diabetes drug company. Timing is everything. More »
Shock is the name of the game in the most recent ads from New York City's health department, as they aim to scare people away from drinking soda and eating fast food with some jarring images. One such ad shows the increasing size of sodas set in front of a backdrop of diabetic man with most of his leg amputated. More »
Raise your hand if you thought Vince Offer, aka ShamWow guy, was gone from informercials for good after that whole prostitute-punching incident. You were wrong, we all were, as it turns out he's back with a new product perfectly designed for terrible jokes, the Schticky. More »
Groupon dipped its toes in the Super Bowl ad waters last year, and having found it quite chilly, has decided not to risk repeating past mistakes. That means no more stabs at trying to be funny that come off as completely insensitive and awful. More »
Much like — and to some people, more important than — Verizon Wireless' quick flip-flop on its plan to introduce a $2 convenience fee, NY-based grocery chain Wegmans has heard the voices of the people and decided that most of you don't hate Alec Baldwin and want to see him in cute, low-budget ads for the supermarket his mom loves so much. More »
Watching TV has turned into a game of "spot the product placement," one that isn't really a game because it's all too easy to notice when your favorite characters are suddenly touting the video camera capabilities on their cell phones. So who had the most instances of product placement in 2011? More »
It's been almost a year since Facebook began taking your "like" list and turning it into advertising via so-called "sponsored stories," and on Friday, a U.S. District Court judge in California rejected the social networking site's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit that claims Facebook unjustly enriched itself with these ads by violating a California law pertaining to commercial endorsements. More »
The FDA has issued warning letters to eight surgical centers in California and a marketing firm behind the 1-800-GET-THIN number for misleading advertising of the Lap-Band, an implanted device intended to promote weight loss in severely obese individuals. More »
When you're looking to buy clothes, heaven forbid the models showing off apparel all have different, imperfect bodies! That apparent disgust with the human form is perhaps why H&M has admitted to using digital bodies on many of its models on the website, with the heads of real women placed on top. More »
As many of you may remember from this time last year, o.b. tampons became one of many Johnson & Johnson products to disappear from store shelves. And for many, many months, store shelves remained o.b.-free, until they gradually began showing up in the spring. Now the tampon makers are saying "we're sorry"... at least to its Canadian customers. More »
In spite of the fact that every bit of marketing targeted at teens and college students seems to come with some sort of QR code for this smartphone-happy demographic to scan, a new study says that most college students don't know what to do with the codes and have no interest in ever scanning them. More »
Yesterday, we brought you the story of the Wodka (a brand of Vodka and not a typo) billboard that advertised "Christmas Quality" at "Hanukkah Pricing," which more than a few folks took as playing up the stereotype that Jewish people as cheap. After initially attempting to defend the ad by claiming that the idea was to say Hanukkah's eight nights of festivities are a better bargain than the one day of Christmas, the makers of Wodka announced last night that they will be taking the billboard down. More »
Hovering above the Upper West side of Manhattan is a new billboard for a Wodka, a brand of Vodka that apparently contains "Christmas Quality" for "Hanukkah Pricing." And while some people are none too thrilled, claiming that the ad reinforces a stereotype of Jewish people as being cheap, the people behind the billboard say it's actually all about what a great value the festival of lights is. More »
The Dept. of Transportation rules about airfare transparency don't just apply to carriers' websites and ads, but also to their Twitter feed. Just ask Spirit Airlines, which was slapped with a $50,000 fine for Tweets touting its $9 airfares. More »
One aim of an ad is to get you to remember the product, right? If so, T-Mobile accidentally did an excellent job of making sure their "Walking in a 4G Wonderland" TV spot sticks in your brain. Mostly because it sounds like something super sexy. More »
Our TV shows, magazines, and outdoor spaces are already inundated with ads and marketing for prescription medications, so why shouldn't we be able to get them from a vending machine? More »
Depending on the airline you choose, everything from the exterior of your jet to the overhead compartments to your tray table and the back of your seat to your airplane safety video can be sponsored by an advertiser. And considering the amount of revenue being generated by these ads, they probably aren't going anywhere anytime soon. More »
It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as you can tell from pink gloves worn by football players, pink drinks offered at restaurants and pink luxury items for sale wherever you look. While it's laudable that so many industries that seem to have little to do with cancer prevention are lending a hand, some see the flood of pink as disingenuous marketing that does little to fund cancer research. More »
The ad, which features an animated baby talent show where the only talent being judged is just how much fecal matter each of the three grunting tots can dump into their diapers, earned slightly more than 32% of the vote, beating out the AT&T ad (23.98%) in which a man's wife decides to unload what appears to be decades of pent-up anger after he tells her he signed the family up for some sort of unlimited texting plan. More »
As regulators in Washington make efforts to limit how companies market their products directly to the youth of America, public schools struggling for cash have opened the floodgates to advertisers. More »
The Hunger Games is a wildly popular series of books about a dystopian future where the government spies on your every move and teenagers square off in a to-the-death tournament for the amusement of the upper-class residents of the capitol city. The books are soon to become a big-time Hollywood franchise and as part of the much-hyped countdown to that release, millions of people are getting in on the viral marketing by logging onto a website that creates a unique badge for each user. But are these people looking at the permissions they're signing away when they log in? More »
In the two years we've been running the Worst Ad In America awards, we've received responses from nominated companies that ranged from the defensive to "it wasn't us." But this is the first time we've actually received a response from an animated character. More »
In the jungle, a fist punches a snake. Lasers blast across the screen. A man in commando gear attempts and fails to pour a can of Dr. Pepper into a glass while hurtling through the bush in an ATV. Yes, it's the new ad campaign rolling out for Dr. Pepper Ten diet soda being marketed at men, and women aren't invited. More »
Someone at AIG must have a sense of humor. The bailed-out insurance behemoth — and, more importantly, one-time Worst Company In America champ — has announced it will now offer insurance policies that help defray the costs for damage control after a company does something that puts in the ranks of widely reviled businesses like AIG. More »
For the second year in a row, we asked you to tell us which TV commercials get on your last nerve, and you didn't hold back. After sifting through hundreds of comments and e-mails, we've finally whittled down all those annoying ads to the elite few worthy of recognition in the Second Annual Consumerist Worst Ad In America Awards. More »
While fast food advertisers have taken a lot of heat in recent years for packaging and marketing that is targeted heavily toward children, the evil ad geniuses of the world have found another demographic on which it can focus its marketing laser — your furry friends. More »
If, like me, you're not a stranger to scanning through the meager offerings on late-night TV, you will more than likely recognize TV pitchman Don Lapre, whose numerous get-rich-quick ads became so infamous he was spoofed on Saturday Night Live. They also landed Lapre in an Arizona jail on charges of, among other things, mail fraud and promotional money laundering. And this is where the 47-year-old was found yesterday morning, dead of an apparent suicide. More »
Consumerist reader Peter was flipping through YouTube when he came upon the Free Flexor, a handheld workout device that may give the notorious Shake Weight a run for its money in the race to be the most, um... self-stimulating workout device on the market. More »
JCPenney is rebounding from the recent outbreak of negative press over their "Too Pretty to Do Homework" sweatshirt for girls, with what we're sure they thought is a good, original, funny ad geared toward men. Is it? More »
Earlier today, we wrote about the $25 million settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and Reebok over the shoemaker's misleading ads for its EasyTone line of shoes. And while that $25 million in refunds is a nice slab of cash, it's chump change compared to what Reebok has spent marketing the shoes — and what it's earned off their sales. More »
Among the many hot-button debates of the last few years has been the state of Arizona's controversial proposals to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. But while both sides of the debate take the topic very seriously, the folks at Southeastern restaurant chain Lime Mexican Grill have decided to have some fun with it. More »
As we reported yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission was going to announce a huge settlement, involving millions in refunds to consumers, with some big name shoe company over deceptive advertising claims. And today it was revealed that it's sneaker biggie Reebok that has agreed to fork over $25 million in refunds to buyers of its EasyTone shoes. More »
According to lawsuits filed by five women, a St. Louis plastic surgeon violated their privacy, advertising his skills by posting naked pictures of them on his site. More »
Once upon a time, the comedy duo of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong (some refer to them as Cheech and Chong) were as closely associated with marijuana as rolling papers and bongs. But oh how times have changed and priorities have shifted from getting high on pot brownies to getting high amounts of fiber from brownies. More »
Getting revenge on an ex can be tempting, and this pawn shop in Albany, NY, seems to be tapping into that desire for comeuppance in its new storefront marketing campaign. More »
Usually, when you lock someone into a mid- or long-term contract, you offer them some sort of discount. And if you don't, that's probably not something you want to tout with a big outdoor sidewalk ad. More »
Claiming their free speech has been violated, advertisers are speaking out against the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission's decision to let taxi drivers decline to post ads featuring scantily-clad women on their vehicles. The companies are bitter that they apparently wasted the money they paid to create ads they now can't use as widely as planned. More »
For more than a year, the folks at the Corn Refiners Association have been making a very public push to rebrand the controversial but widely used high fructose corn syrup as "corn sugar," telling consumers that "sugar is sugar." But newly uncovered correspondence between the Food and Drug Administration and Big Corn show that regulators aren't exactly thrilled about the new name. More »
For years, Honda has been irritating TV viewers by continuing to bring back its smug animated shill, Mr. Opportunity. The spots grew so grating that Consumerist readers voted it as the third-worst ad in the country last year. But several of you have noticed Mr. Opportunity's absence from your TV sets and wanted to know if Honda had finally put the toon out of its misery. More »
Corporations get to tweet all day at customers who follow them on Twitter, but have had trouble reaching those who don't sign up to be spammed by their 140-character offers. Twitter has solved the problem by pledging to push ad-generated tweets to accounts that don't follow the advertiser, targeting users based on an "interest graph" generated from the list of accounts they do follow. More »
The nomination period for this year's Worst Ad In America Awards was supposed to have ended last Friday, and even though you've nominated hundreds of bad ads, we've decided to extend the nomination period through the end of this week in order to flesh out some of the possible new categories. More »
It seems like celebrities of all stripes will allow their names to be attached to any number of products, from Whitesnake wine to the bottled manly essence of Bruce Willis. And just like all retail goods, the quality of celeb-branded items can vary wildly. That's why our test-lovin' cousins at Consumer Reports recently decided to try out a slate of food products with star-powered names. More »
Back in April we told you about how Campbell's Soup was in some legal hot water over labels that declared "25% less sodium" but contained no less sodium than before. Earlier this week, the soup giant settled a pair of related lawsuits for $173,000. More »
We're sure American Apparel is just trying to be ever-so-adorable by making a play on the phrase "next big thing," it's not exactly cute to call someone a " big thing" when you're searching for a model to show off XL sizes of clothing. More »
Being the savvy consumers that you all are, you're probably no stranger to something not appearing in person as it does in a promotional photo. More »
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is no stranger to using skin to draw attention to its cause, and has decided to go big in the direction rather than go home. The new idea is to launch a porn site in hopes that people will come for the eroticism and stay for the preaching. More »
Nivea drew a deluge of criticism for running an ad in Esquire featuring a black dude holding what looks like the mask of a black guy with an Afro and facial hair with copy that read "Look Like You Give a Damn." and "Re-civilize Yourself." Nivea's parent company, Beiersdorf AG, quickly backed away from the ad, apologizing and issuing an apology. More »
"Let the wiener wars begin." That's what a judge in a legal battle between the nation's two biggest hot dog brands declared earlier today, as the makers of Oscar Mayer and Ball Park franks each accused the other of misleading and deceptive advertising practices. More »
Even if you've never lived near Chicago, longtime readers of Consumerist may remember Windy City grocery store Moo & Oink for its so-bad-it's-friggin-awesome TV ad that launched our Great Moments In Commercial History series. But now comes sad news that the dancing cow and pig might be headed to the liquidation slaughterhouse if Moo & Oink doesn't find a buyer. More »
While there is certainly no shortage of celebrities willing to step in front of the camera to shill for a product, there are countless ads featuring the unidentified voices of famous folks. More »
It's not a shock that some people find a luxury home — especially something like a tricked-out, multi-million dollar NYC apartment — to be a bit of an aphrodisiac, perhaps to the point of overlooking the other person's less attractive qualities. But a NYC real estate broker has decided to do more than just hint at this behavior in its new ad. More »
When you're a cash-starved school district, just about any idea to pull in some extra scratch can sound appealing. One concept that's catching on is turning school buses into moving billboards for paying clients. More »
Tiffany & Co makes shiny, expensive diamond rings, so why not hire a handsome, expensive man like Edward Burns to present a movie-mercial to convince you that a ring equals true love? More »
Note to retailers: Under no circumstances, at any time or for any reason, is it okay to sell a piece of clothing with a Holocaust theme. Like, never ever ever. BuyDefinition learned that lesson the hard way. More »
In a move found shocking by no one, Summer's Eve has pulled those ads featuring hands talking like they're lady parts, after critics dubbed them racially insensitive. More »
In an effort to give sponsors more bang for their buck while somewhat disregarding the needs of its users, Twitter has started to push sponsored tweets up to the tops of feeds. The 140-characters-or-less ads only show up in feeds that you follow, scroll down in the normal way as newer Tweets appear and can be deleted with a click. More »
While we can definitely say that 43-year-old Julia Roberts still looks pretty darn good, it's safe to say that no one on this planet, regardless of age, has the flawless glow of the woman pictured in the Lancome ad seen here. In fact, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority found the retouching work on this ad, and others, so misleading that it has banned them. More »
Probably the most shocking part of this story is that it took so long to reveal what seems to be kind of a given: Those ubiquitous "1 Tip for a Tiny Belly" ads are a scam, says the Federal Trade Commission. More »
Advertising, especially of the outdoor variety, is often viewed as being anti-green, a signifier of befouled outdoor spaces. But this Coca-Cola billboard is trying to turn that image on its head — and sell some Coke while it's at it. More »
For the past few years, networks have been digitally inserting ads and product placements for new products into old reruns. Shannon just noticed one in a rerun of a 2007 episode of "How I Met Your Mother." In the background on the shelf is a magazine with an ad on the back for the new "Zookeeper" starring Kevin James. Here's the original shot, which shows no books on the back shelf. More »
After cutting ties with quarterback Michael Vick in 2007 following his involvement in a dogfighting ring, the shoe giant has apparently decided that Vick's on-field performance has restored his good name enough to re-enlist him with an endorsement deal. More »
Even though the Federal Trade Commission recently appeared to be coming down hard on "news" sites shilling for things like acai juice, it looks like those sites are not only still around, but links to them are popping up on major, legitimate news sites. More »
Boston's mayor has asked Nike to stop its use of questionable phrases on a line of new t-shirts. The phrases "get high," "dope" and "ride pipe" all have double meanings pertaining to drugs, the mayor complains. An anti-drug group sent a similarly themed letter to several members of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. More »
Since Microsoft launched the Xbox 360's Kinect motion-sensing device last year, the company has hinted at the Kinect's potential use for advertisers who want to create more interactive ads. Microsoft never asked consumers if they actually wanted this functionality, but that didn't stop the company from demonstrating it earlier today. More »
Remember that time you couldn't fall asleep because you were afraid of the big bad monster coming to tear your guts out in some creepy, tumbleweed-blown field, all because you'd just watched a Rob Zombie-directed Woolite commercial? Yes, that's right. He directed an ad spot for Woolite. More »
Procter & Gamble may only be #26 on the Fortune 500 this year, but that hasn't stopped the company from once again outspending all other U.S. advertisers by nearly $2 billion. More »
Thanks to scientists at Samsung and the University of California, San Diego, the next time you're watching Jersey Shore, you won't have to imagine the smell of spray tan, jagermeister and Axe body spray, because those scents could be right there in the room with you. More »
Looking for something to watch but don't really like shows with scripts, actors or dramatic arcs? Then Burger King and DirecTV have come up with a channel for you, especially if you want a free Whopper. More »
As LeBron James's Miami-based detractors woke up Monday to resume their dreary lives following the Miami Heat's NBA Finals loss to the Dallas Mavericks, they were subjected to an unintentionally mocking full-page ad in some editions of the Miami Herald, congratulating the team on a victory that never was. More »
If you watched Tuesday's Nintendo E3 press conference, which I attended, you might have been floored by the showmanship that unveiled the upcoming Wii U wonder-system, which is capable of HD graphics that, unlike the Wii, are theoretically on par with PCs, the Xbox 360 and PS3. But the impressive graphics Nintendo flashed in a demo reel at the conference were from those other systems, and not the Wii U. More »
It's easy to get all abuzz and up in arms and other angry, huffy things when the Internet can show you a billion things a day, but is this one of those things worthy of a tirade, or is it just a thoughtless, not so smart ad layout? So we posit the question: "Is This Racist?", Dove Body Wash edition. More »
Paging the sensitivity department: Someone at Oklahoma News 9 wasn't paying very close attention to ad programming in light of yesterday's devastating tornado in Joplin, Mo., which reportedly killed 89 people, caused likely millions in damage to homes and businesses and laid waste to a large area. More »
Our nerdy cousins over at Consumer Reports had their technicians put some "as seen on TV" products to the test as part of yesterday's edition of the ABC News magazine "20/20." Among the tested products were two designed to get you in shape (Belly Burner and Shake Weight) and three aimed at making cooking easier (FlavorWave Oven Turbo, Magic Bullet Express, and Ninja Master Prep Professional QB1004). So how did they do? More »
For three years, kids around the country have been learning about where their electricity originates from a book called The United States of Energy, published by Scholastic with sponsorship from the unbiased people at the American Coal Foundation. Yesterday, after the book's contents became the object of some public ridicule and scorn, Scholastic announced it would no longer be offering the title. More »
Malt-O-Meal's Bag the Box site claims the discount breakfast cereal line is doing its part to inflict minimal damage on the environment because its product doesn't use boxes like its competitors do. But because Malt-O-Meal didn't recently shift from boxes to bags and is vague about resources used to create its packaging, GreenBiz argues it's hard to discern whether or not the company is easier on the environment than boxed cereal manufacturers. More »
As we recently mentioned, Consumerist and Consumer Reports have teamed up with ABC News for an upcoming 20/20 special called "Infomercial Nation," that will air next Friday, May 20. More »
News broke earlier this week that Google had set aside $500,000 to settle a mysterious Department of Justice investigation of "advertising by certain advertisers," and now a report indicates the badvertisers were "rogue online pharmaceuticals." More »
What's the value of a $2 bill that's been sprayed with gold leaf? Two dollars — maybe less, if merchants don't want to accept the corrupted currency. But that hasn't stopped vendors from selling these and other "collectible" bills and coins at prices way above face value. More »
Preparing to settle a Department of Justice investigation of "use of Google advertising by certain advertisers," Google has set aside $500 million to make the investigation go away. More »
You might need to take a deep breath and have a safe place to be when you read this next bit of food travesty. We cannot believe Consumerist reader Isabella had to go through what she did when she unwrapped a Smuckers Uncrustable sandwich snack. More »
Movie theaters are finding it more difficult to find buyers for those often irritating pre-show commercials, thanks to hard times suffered by one traditional client source and the lack of a need to advertise by another. More »
Yesterday we wrote about the proposed guidelines put forth by a federal interagency working group regarding the marketing of food to children. The "principles" asked for food companies to market products with healthier ingredients and gave suggested limits on things like fat and sodium. The ad industry is less-than-pleased by the news. More »
Earlier today, an interagency working group consisting of folks from the Federal Trade Commission, Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, and the Dept. of Agriculture, issued a set of "proposed voluntary principles" it hopes the food industry will ultimately adopt in its marketing to the youth of America. More »
At a small book store in NYC's West Village, there are shelves labeled "Best Sellers" and "Sale," but even a quick scan of the spines will reveal something: They're all the same book. In fact, all 3,000 or so volumes stacked and shelved in Ed's Martian Book store are the same. More »
Last summer, the California Attorney General filed a $34 million lawsuit against daytime TV mainstay "Tax Lady" Roni Deutch, alleging that her firm defrauded customers out of millions each year. Now, the AG's office has asked that Deutch be thrown in jail for allegedly destroying important documents and for not refunding money to customers. More »
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is taking a harsh legal stand against 10 companies and individuals marketing acai berry weight-loss products online by using fake news websites which imply endorsement from major media outlets — including our sibling publication Consumer Reports. More »
Unwanted text message ads are annoying, but if the advertiser lets you opt out that should be the end of it, right? Apparently the folks at Lithia Motors, one of the nation's largest auto retailers, think you might not have meant it when you told them to stop bugging you. More »
Unhappy with ABC's plans to cancel One Life to Live and All My Children in favor of lifestyle programming, longtime advertiser Hoover is sucking all its ad dollars away from the network. More »
Remarkably, no one at ClearChannel Advertising seems to have realized that it might be a bad idea to post a giant ad for a zombie-themed television program on the exterior wall of a funeral parlor. That's precisely what happened in the town of Consett in England. The advert for post-apocalyptic drama The Walking Dead has now been taken down, and the company responsible has apologized, but how on earth did this happen in the first place? More »
Considering the large number of strip mall vacancies, you might think that the proprietors of the two businesses pictured in this reader-submitted photograph would have had ample opportunity to find locations that did not abut each other. Our inner adolescent thanks the universe for making this happen. More »
For most gamers, the blip sound and tally of pretend points is reward enough for racking up in-game achievements. But a Silicon Valley startup is out to monetize the habit of achievement whoring, joining with advertisers and game publishers in a model that echoes Groupon. More »
It's a tried-and-true trick of advertisers to sell you a product by making you feel like you'd be somehow less pretty, manly, or intelligent if you don't buy it. And then there's what we like to call "insecurity innovation," when companies introduce you to new ways to feel bad about how you look, mow much you earn or what your armpits look like. More »
In their attempts to convince kids to beg their parents for their wares, toy manufacturers rely on a relatively small set of gender-biased buzz words. More »
Having trouble making your mortgage payment? Think the paint job on your house could use some splash, color and branding? Then there's an ad agency you might want to talk to. More »
Pro tip: when you buy an old ice cream truck and turn it into a mobile cigarette dispensary, you should probably cover up all the old ads for Bombpops and Choco Tacos. Reader discounteggroll's co-worker snapped this picture at a gas station on the NY-CT border in Greenwich, CT. (Perhaps the truck is parked on the CT side of the parking lot, to take advantage of CT's lower cigarette tax?) If it doesn't violate any regulations, like the Tobacco Control Act of 2009 which prohibits the sale, distribution, marketing and promotion of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to children under the age of 18, it's in poor taste, even with the sign asking for ID. "One Big Vanilla ice cream sandwich, please." "Sorry kid, we got Pall Malls." More »
This could be a premature April Fools joke, but the folks at Ecko have launched a new marketing campaign that offers customers a lifetime discount of 20% off in-store purchases at Ecko Unltd. and Marc Ecko Cut & Sew... if they get either of the stores' logos permanently tattooed on their skin. More »
First it was Diet Coke pushing Pepsi out of the way to take over second place on the bestselling soda list, now it looks like beer behemoth Budweiser might lose its coveted number-two slot to Coors Light. More »
Late last week, Abercrombie & Fitch raised more than a few eyebrows when someone noticed that the company was selling push-up bikini tops to girls as young as seven years old. Looks like the retailer has had a change of heart following the uproar. More »
You might want to think twice the next time you update your Facebook status with, "Someone send me a pound of gummy bears and a gigantic chocolate rabbit": Facebook is in the process of testing ad targeting that would work off your real-time conversations. More »
In our post about the worst infomercial products ever, we mentioned that Consumerist is working with ABC News on a project about as-seen-on-TV items. So now it's time to focus on those infomercial items which are better than not-awful and actually do what the ads say they will do. More »
The average child watches thousands of television commercials every year. Ads geared to kids don't just encourage purchases of mass-produced plastic toys and mass-produced junk food: they also enforce rigid gender stereotypes about who should be playing with which kind of toy. Girls want sparkly pink ponies that bake cupcakes and need to be fed bottles, and boys want loud, fast remote-controlled tanks that shoot lasers and green slime. But happens when you pair the audio to a "boy" ad with the video to a "girl" ad? More »
After several years of squawking about supplemental insurance in TV commercials, loud actor Gilbert Gottfried is without his cushy job as the Aflac duck. Why, you ask? Because he decided that it was time to crack wise on Twitter about the ongoing earthquake/tsunami catastrophe in Japan. More »
Ever bought an infomercial product that just completely sucked? Didn't work at all? Maybe it injured you like the fictional "Cornballer" from Arrested Development? If so, we'd love to hear about it. No, we're not lawyers looking to represent you. As we've mentioned previously, Consumerist is working with ABCNews on a project about infomercials. More »
Something fishy about that late-night ad for the new device that chops, slaps, snuggles and absorbs all stains — all for just $19.95 plus shipping and handling? Turns out the ad may not be illegal, but could still run afoul of the standards of the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, a sort of industry star chamber that warns advertisers when they've gone too far. More »
After nearly a quarter century of being told that pork is the other white meat (because we all know that unicorn is actually the original white meat), the National Pork Board has pushed its tried-and-true slogan to the side in favor of the less-than-inspirational "Pork: Be Inspired." More »
Even though it didn't put up much defense as Blake Griffin posterized it during Saturday's NBA slam dunk contest, the Kia Optima became much more desirable after Griffin used it as a prop. More »
You know what puts me in the mood for Mexican food? References to '70s suicide cults. I must be the only one, though, because an Indiana restaurant chain ended a billboard campaign after complaints about its Jonestown theme. "We're like a cult, with better Kool-Aid," the billboards read. "To die for!" More »
Looking around the internet, there is often a thin line between editorial content and advertising. It's not surprising to go to an entertainment blog on a Friday to not only see that the page has been skinned with an ad for a new movie but also a gallery of that movie's star or a fluff interview with someone in the film. But some mommy bloggers say they're not willing to cross that line by accepting a $10 gift card in exchange for writing a positive story about Toyota. More »
Well we never saw this coming — okay just kidding, really we saw this coming as soon as these ads aired: Groupon has decided to stop airing the controversial commercials they debuted during the Super Bowl, which played on organizations in need asking for help to promote their coupons for various businesses. More »
Apparently, not all of Groupon's controversial ads were shown during the Super Bowl. Conan O'Brien unearthed an ad for the site you may have missed. More »
They say that first impressions are crucial and the folks at Disney are taking that very literally, having recently launched a campaign to begin marketing their products to brand new moms and to babies barely out of the womb. More »
Here in NYC, there are countless surfaces available for slapping your ads onto. So for its slam on Starbucks, the folks at Diet Coke picked the perfect spot: on the same building as Starbucks. More »
When you think of Kenneth Cole, you probably don't associate the apparel brand with edgy, topical humor. And you probably won't ever again, after the company stuck its shiny leather shoe in its mouth with a Tweet referencing the current political upheaval in Egypt. More »
From time to time at Consumerist we like to take a look back at comically antiquated ads from the long-ago past, gawking at their abruptness and racial insensitivity. But thanks to the magic of Sony and its colossal failure in an attempt to be "edgy" and "viral" while marketing the PSP, we need only look back to 2004-2006 to bask in the glory of badvertising. More »
It probably goes without saying that I love a good cat fight, that's why I'm licking my paws and purring with delight over the news that Jackson Hewitt has bared its claws to take on the biggest feline of them all, H&R Block. More »
No one likes their game of Bedazzle Blast or whatever it may be interrupted by an annoying, floating mobile add popping up on the screen. So it's really not surprising to hear that most of the clicks those ads get from consumers are accidental. More »
For the none of you who really, really wanted to have your Facebook updates automatically converted into ads for which you receive no money — and which you can't opt out of — the site has answered your prayers! More »
Because there is no such thing as a space safe from sponsorship, a new technology is allowing advertisers to put their marketing messages where your face is — or at least where your face should be reflected. More »
Do you buy Activia because Jamie Lee Curtis says you should? Or a Sony TV because Peyton Manning is their pitchman? What about that stash of Extenze you keep in the bedside table — did you purchase that on the recommendation of Jimmy Johnson? A new study shows that the answer to all these questions is probably a big "no." More »
Now that the NFL's postseason is in full swing (even though my beloved Eagles were so quickly eliminated), it's time for many to start wondering if owners and players will be able to resolve their problems before the start of the next season. If not, the biggest losers could end up being the networks and, by extension, TV viewers — whether they watch football or not. More »
When I was a little girl playing dress-up, it always made me so unhappy and pouty that I would just lie around on plush couches and make sad faces. Wait, no, I'm thinking of those controversial ads running in French Vogue right now of (very) pre-teens posing in stilettos and looking way too adult for their own good. More »
Here's what I've learned today from stock photos: I've never watched myself eating chocolate, but apparently I'm making a sexy face while I'm doing it. When I eat salad, I probably laugh, even if I'm alone. More »
I know that when I hear the words "chicken poop," the first thing I want to do is lather it on my lips. And there's nothing better than "jizz" for painting my fingernails. Wait — why are you looking at me like that? More »
Do you like it when marketers track your behavior across the Internet, in the name of providing you with targeted ads? If you said no, you're in the majority, according to a new Gallup Poll and common sense. But don't worry. Advertisers will continue to follow you anyhow. More »
While the whole WikiLeaks thing has become and incredibly divisive topic in recent weeks, at least one company has found a way to use the hot-button issue to its advantage. More »
More than a year after settling a class-action lawsuit over false advertising claims, Dannon has finally settled a separate but related complaint from the Federal Trade Commission. As a result, the company says it will no longer market unproven health benefits of its Activia and DanActive yogurts. More »
Even though Hanukkah is over, it sounds like the folks at Jos. A. Bank (much more easily pronounced as "Joseph A. Bank") are having a sale that might be perfect for Jewish shoppers looking to save on menswear. More »
The world of college sports is a confusing place nowadays. The Big Ten Conference has 12 teams, while the Big 12 has 10 teams. The Big 10, which once actually had 10 teams but adopted a clever logo that integrated the number 11 into the structure of its old logo, paid tribute to its 12th team by moving on to a logo that appears to have been designed by a 12 year old. More »
Duncan Hines has managed to stick its foot deep into the hornet's nest with a YouTube video for its Amazing Glazes product that features "hip hop" cupcakes that some say resemble minstrels in blackface. More »
State Farm didn't win too many people over with its Worst Ad In America-nominated spokesman, so now the company is trying a very different approach by courting college students with mutilated monkey keychains. More »
John picked up a phone call that seemed to be from his wife, but discovered it was someone even more adept at nagging and less affected by indifference — a robocaller. He says he was the victim of caller ID-manipulating trickery by credit card marketers. More »
Even though Coors Brewing Company didn't pay Walt Disney Pictures to place a beer can in the PG-rated movie Tron: Legacy, the can still ended up in there somehow. Whether or not Coors masterminded the appearance, one could argue that Coors is marketing its beer to underage viewers. More »
It looks like Heineken has had second thoughts about one of its currently running TV ads. After months of airing a commercial which describes a woman at a party as "prey," the company has altered the voice-over on the ad to now refer to her as a "prize." More »
If you're a deep-pocketed advertiser who thinks all your product needs to get over the top is some Twitter love from Marlon Wayans, Khloe Kardashian or Lindsay Lohan, pull out your checkbook, because you're just a payment away from making it happen. More »
Alec Baldwin has been nominated for an Oscar, won Emmys and Golden Globes, stars in a hit sitcom and can basically do whatever he wants with his free time. And it looks like the Glengarry Glen Ross star has decided to spend that time filming in upstate New York... for Wegmans grocery stores. More »
Next spring, the commuters of Chicago may no longer be taking the Red Line to Addison if they want to catch a Cubs game. If the Chicago Transit Authority has its way, they could be riding on McDonald's Express and getting off at Costco Station. More »
Showing just how much they have their fingers on the pulse of 2006, the folks at Camel have decided to come out with packaging for their cigarettes that tries to cash in on the hipster cachet of Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood. More »
Perhaps jealous of all the publicity The Gap received when it unveiled its dopey, short-lived new logo, Urban Outfitters unveiled this beauty of its own. More »
Corporate guerrilla marketing efforts are getting more sophisticated, as well as more annoying. A Consumerist-reading blogger is under constant commenting attack from either paid Home Depot plants or a well-organized squadron of people with a lot of spare time on their hands who really, really love to defend the big box chain's honor. And who share the same IP address. More »
If you were hoping to spend millions advertising your business during the Super Bowl (which will certainly be a face-off of the ages between the Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills), you are out of luck. According to Fox, they've already sold out all the available ad slots for the Feb. 6, 2011 event. More »
In case you hadn't noticed as you fast-forwarded through the ad breaks while watching Biggest Loser, a growing number of those ads you're not watching are now half the length of the ads you used to have to sit through in the days before DVRs. More »
More than a few of you have expressed feelings of fear and horror at that Snickers TV ad we wrote about a few weeks ago. And just in time for your last-minute Halloween needs, you can bid on the actual creepy costume from the commercial. More »
It's been about a month since you, the readers of Consumerist, selected the Absolute Worst Ad In America. But since there are new, crappy ads already cropping up on the TV, we are asking you to be ever-vigilant in advance of the next competition. More »
If you listen to the radio enough, you've probably heard the ads for Nuvigil (aka armodafinil), a prescription stimulant being heavily marketed toward shift workers as a way to stay alert and awake on the job. But our curious siblings at Consumer Reports Health wanted to know if it really is the cure for "Shift Work Disorder." More »
UPDATE: This post was based on a hoax perpetrated by the corporate pranksters/filmmakers the Yes Men, who put out a fake press release under the Chevron name. The quote attributed to Chevron in the post came from the fake release. Thanks to Sara for pointing this out. More »
David writes in with what may be the most questionable piece of Chili's advertising since Mike Myers — as Fat Bastard in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me — co-opted the "I Want My Baby Back" ribs jingle to express his fascination with eating infants. More »
Over his storied career, Brett Favre has developed a reputation for inexplicable turnovers, but his off-field exploits could cause his biggest giveaway yet. Accusations that he sent lewd pictures and text messages to a whistle blower could make him cough up $100 million in potential endorsements over the rest of his life. More »
There's a reason that the commercials nominated for Consumerist's first ever Worst Ad In America competition had to be nationally broadcast ads — Because if we'd included local TV spots, all the nominees would probably have been for personal injury law firms. More »
This might be some kind of record. Only a few days after The Gap unleashed its spare new logo to a rousing chorus of boos, the clothing retailer has backtracked and ditched the updated branding entirely. More »
For strictly journalistic purposes not having anything whatsoever to do with me being a sucker for silly, addictive promotions, I visited McDonald's four times over the past week to collect Monopoly game pieces. Emboldened by the ubiquitous ads that say one in four game pieces are winners, I racked up 40 chances to become a millionaire, or at least a Redbox free rentailaire. But all I have to show for my endeavors are five pounds gained and a free medium fry. More »
New kid-centric cable channel The Hub hasn't even debuted yet, but it's already receiving a lot of criticism from parental and consumer watchdog groups, not because its programming is too violent or racy, but because it's co-owned by toy and game giant Hasbro. More »
DirecTV ads are everywhere — on TV in your mailbox, on flyers stuck on doors and in glossy Sunday newspaper ads — so it's only natural that David found one along with his Borders receipt. More »
Earlier this week, the L.A. Times ran a fake front page — chock full of stories intended to sell NBC's new L.A.-based Law & Order franchise — and guess what? Readers of the paper weren't exactly pleased with the bit of crass badvertising. More »
Yes, this is last-minute, but Consumerist wants to invite all our NYC-area readers (over the age of 21) to come out tonight to toast our first ever Worst Ad In America Awards! More »
After almost a week of voting — and nearly 100,000 votes — it's down to the final hours before we shut down the polling on Consumerist's first ever Worst Ad In America Awards. More »
The FTC wants to see some proof that the pomegranate ingredients in POM Wonderful's products can actually treat heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction, which is what the company says in marketing and packaging materials. More »
Consumerist reader Mel recently signed up to receive updates from DailyCandy.com with the hope of getting the scoop on sample sales and shopping in the San Francisco area. What Mel didn't expect was a paid political ad for a gubernatorial candidate. More »
We all know that it's best to take the claims of any infomercial — or really, any commercial at all — with a grain of salt so large it would turn Lake Michigan brackish. And yet, there appears to be no end to the stream of products being hawked late at night by loud (and often Australian) pitchmen. More »
Among the five aggravating ads duking it out for in the battle royale that is Consumerist's first ever Worst Ad In America Awards, is the "Singimals" campaign by sandwich shop Quiznos. Surprisingly, the sandwich company actually responded to our request for a comment on their inclusion. More »
Even though the Burger King ad featuring a mail man singing about being chewed on by attack dogs hadn't been out long enough to be a Worst Ad In America 2010 nominee, we're pretty sure it will have one semi-famous person, Shorty Rossi of Animal Planet's Pit Boss, backing its nomination next year. More »
Looks like the King of Beer's crown could use some polishing. Bothered by sagging sales and the availability of other beers that aren't Budweiser, the folks at Anheuser-Busch InBev N.V. LLD, DDS, PhD, Esq., have decided it's time to give a few hundred thousand people a massive lager lesson — by giving away samples of Bud. More »
A company called Solve Media is rolling out a new CAPTCHA interface that requires you type in an ad slogan instead of a nonsense word, reports AdAge. Advertisers are looking for message comprehension," says the company's owner, "And you know what they say, 'If you write something down, you remember it.'" And if you force a customer to repeat your slogan during an unrelated transaction, does he resent you for it? More »
Readers of Consumerist: We asked you to tell us which commercials you hate the most, and oh boy, did you let us know. Finally, after sifting through thousands of your suggestions, we bring you your nominations for Consumerist's First Annual Worst Ad In America Awards. More »
Last week, we wrote a group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine that had produced an ad that made a direct link between McDonald's food and heart disease by showing a corpse in a morgue clutching a partially eaten Big Mac. Believe it or not, McDonald's was not pleased with the TV spot. More »
A Midtown Manhattan sandwich shop got less than stellar marks from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene decided to integrate its 'B' grade into some inaccurate, possibly ironic advertising. More »
Those of you with good memories may recall that we recently asked readers to nominate the worst ads currently airing on U.S. TV. What had been intended as fodder for a one-off poll has blossomed into something much bigger — Consumerist's First Annual Worst Ad In America Awards. More »
The makers of Jewly Bandz, a Jewish-themed knockoff of those Silly Bandz things that kids today are into, are having to do some explaining after the Internet noticed that, along with recognizably Jewish icons like a menorah and a dreidel, there is also a dollar sign included in its Chanukah Set. More »
Viacom must be really hurting for cash. First, they give Spike viewers 10-minute commercial breaks during Entourage and in October, their Nicktoons channel will begin airing Zevo-3, which a children's advocacy group says is nothing but an extended ad for Skechers. More »
Anyone who has ever listened to the songs of Canadian power pop supergroup The New Pornographers is aware the band is strictly PG. And the folks at Calvin College in Michigan are aware of this fact. But that still hasn't stopped them from pulling the plug on the band's scheduled show for fear that their school be associated with the word "pornographers." More »
It's not surprising that some people might be a bit offended by an ad that tries to sell ice cream by using a photo of a pregnant nun. What is surprising is that the UK's Advertising Standards Authority has actually banned the ad for fear of ticking off Catholics. More »
Because we apparently don't already know that McDonald's and other fast food aren't exactly wonderful for your health, a non-profit physicians' group in Washington, D.C., has cooked up this ad that directly links McDonald's to heart disease. More »
As we recently reported, KFC (nee Kentucky Fried Chicken) has a bit of an image problem these days. So how does the company want to get its name back in the public consciousness? By advertising where your dog pees. More »
How long can a cable channel run commercials before viewers forget what they were watching and — literally — tune out? That's the question that the folks at Spike TV appear to be tacitly asking their audience, as it stretches the length of some of its commercial breaks well past existing standards — some to as long as 10 minutes. More »
The group Consumer Watchdog is pushing hard for Congress to establish a "do not track" list for online consumers, which I'm all for. I'm not sure whether releasing a ridiculously unpleasant cartoon in Times Square is the right strategy, though—especially when you use the very service you're warning people about. More »
Tony tried to get Walmart to drop its price for a car stereo by getting the store to price-match the item, which he found for much cheaper online. His Idaho Walmart, which Tony says has signs outside declaring it will "match any price," turned him down flat, saying the ad needs to be printed in a newspaper. More »
War's 1975 hit song "Why Can't We Be Friends?" is all about hugging it out and making nice, but don't tell that four of the band's original members, who have filed a suit against Pepsi, alleging the beverage company didn't get proper permission to use the tune in their currently running TV spots for Pepsi Max. More »
KTXL in Sacramento is toking tooting its own horn a bit this week, claiming that they are the first TV station in the US to air an ad for a medical marijuana dispensary. More »
Chuck enjoyed Pizza Hut's supreme pizza, especially via its $10-a-pie promotion. But a new advertising campaign, in which the mega-chain claims to be slashing prices on all its pizzas, has made his supreme cost $12 instead of $10 because it surpasses the new three-topping threshold. More »
Head and Shoulders pitchman/Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker/ thief of Arizona Cardinals' fans dreams Troy Polamalu is known for his flowing black locks that cover the last name on his jersey. The shampoo ad guys want to make sure things stay that way and thus have taken out a $1 million insurance policy through wacky British insurers Lloyd's of London, the AP reports. More »
Sometimes you feel like a nut but Chex Mix don't. Lynda was annoyed to tear into this bag of Honey Nut Chex Mix to discover not a single nut was in the bag. More »
Maybe you thought bizarre "fix your naughty bits!" ads for feminine hygiene only appeared back in your grandparents' era, but no. This Summer's Eve ad from Women's Day magazine says that if you want a raise, one of the first things you can do is shower with "Summer's Eve Feminine Wash," although it might also be a good idea to bring some "cleansing cloths" with you "for a quick freshness pick-me-up" right before you ask the boss for more money. That's all in tip #1; tip #7 says "Don't let the conversation stray or get personal." More »
The PR outfit that publicizes the Rock Band video game franchise settled with the Federal Trade Commission, which caught agency employees posing as customers to post positive reviews on the iTunes App store. More »
For years, Popeyes has been bragging about the quality of its fried chicken, but now that the fast food chain says they beat KFC in an independent national taste test, it's decided to take the battle right to the Colonel with a new marketing campaign that pits Louisiana against Kentucky. More »
Last week, when we asked for nominations for really horrible TV ads, self-described "Tax Lady" Roni Deutch's name was mentioned more than a couple times. Adding insult to injury, Roni is now being sued for over $34 million by the California Attorney General over allegations that her heavily advertised tax relief service doesn't actually live up to its promises. More »
Consumerist reader RandomHookup (probably not their given name) forwarded us a promo e-mail they received from Dunkin Donuts that asks customers to go out to a DD, buy one of their mocha drinks, take a photo of it, and be rewarded for their efforts with... fun facts. More »
As we announced earlier this week, Consumerist is out to find the worst commercials currently airing on TV. So far, the response has been overwhelming, but there's still time to get your least-favorite ads nominated. More »
A few months back, we asked readers to vote on the ad spokesperson who most needed to be retired from the air. This has since brought up the discussion here at the Consumerist Cave of what is the most annoying, aggravating, irritating, overplayed commercial on TV right now. And that's where we want your help. More »
I think it's safe to say that most people have a decent grasp on the distinction between advertising and reality. Most of us know that the cheese on our Whopper isn't going to perfectly placed like the cheese on TV or that the bacon on our Baconator probably won't be identical to the crispy, glistening bacon we see on the poster. But at what point does fast food cross the line between "acceptably different" from the picture and "completely unrecognizable"? More »
Maybe you didn't take MTV News too seriously to begin with, but if you did you might want to reconsider. BrandChannel started noticing that MTV News was posting articles about FreeCreditScore.com's contest for a new sellout band for its TV spots. (This is the same company as FreeCreditReport.com; both charge for their services and generally suck.) The problem with the paid MTV sponsorship is that it's not disclosing that the "news stories" are just advertorials. More »
Police officers carry guns. And, at least in ads for movies like The Other Guys, they brandish those guns while performing high-flying kicks. But not in San Francisco, where many posters for the movie feature deadly pepper spray in place of firearms. More »
The soon-to-be-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has at least some Wall Street insiders worried. No, not the bank bigwigs or hedge fund managers. The latest hand-wringing comes from the advertising community, which worries that the new agency may create "overly cumbersome, cost-prohibitive and possibly even onerous requirements" for financial ads. More »
Miami-Dade County's consumer cops are suing DirecTV, after receiving over 300 complaints from customers over the company's pricing. According to the county's Consumer Services Department, DirecTV's ads led customers to believe they'd get a satellite package for $34.99 a month, but actual charges went as high as $65.99. More »
Miami is about to get a taste of Times Square, now that the city's commissioners have given their okay to a plan that would erect a pair of towering electronic signs. More »
Either someone at AT&T thinks thousands of its customers need to know about its newly renovated store in Niles, MI — a town of around 12,000 not far from the Indiana border — or someone at AT&T screwed up and sent out e-mail announcements about the store to the wrong distribution list. Because we've gotten several complaints — including one from yours truly — about this apparent gaffe. More »
Sugar-free Trident Xtra Care gum makes a lot of bold statements about what it can do for your chompers, but a man in New York is claiming that it's all a lot of hot air and has filed a lawsuit against Trident's parent company over what he alleges is a misleading marketing campaign. More »
It hasn't been a good week on the other side of the pond for Burger King or Coca Cola. The fast food company got a kick in the rear for misleading customers about the size of its chicken sandwich, while the cola giant is left having to tell little kids not to Google "2 girls 1 cup" after a failed Facebook campaign. More »
Rental car company Hertz has recently begun a massive ad push in cities where its rent-by-the-hour Hertz Connect service is available. The ads I've seen here in New York tout the service as a way for us car-less city folk to do things like go shopping in the 'burbs or drive to a beach where dead bodies are less likely to wash ashore. More »
What do you think of when you think of Home Depot? Planes from a nearby airport crashing into the building, of course, which is obviously why this Home Depot in Farmingdale, NY put up such a creative felt banner. The person who shot the photo and posted it to NYCAviation last Friday says that when he asked to see a manager the sales associate responded, "What kind of manager?" You know, the store manager or the incendiary felt banner manager, because there's both. More »
Brent noticed this Bud ad at a sports bar and noticed a similarity between the three sets of chompers. Either the men go to the same orthodontist or there was some photo-altering funny business going on. More »
The Grocery Shrink Ray is so powerful its scope spreads beyond grocery store aisles and into movie theaters, where it reduces the number of bloodthirsty villains in action movies. More »
Noel discovered what the "Beyond" in Bed Bath & Beyond stands for — the point past reason it intends to stretch his patience when he requests to be taken off its junk mail list. More »
With men's razor makers engaged in a constant competition to design more elaborate stubble-eliminators that phase out older models and slash deeper and deeper into your budget, blade hoarders are hauling in high-end razors to bolster their stash for the future, the Wall Street Journal reports. More »
Someone at Steve's Walgreens knows that marketing table tennis balls to beer pong users is smart business. The little suckers have a way of getting lost amid the drunken mayhem of late-night competitions, so beer pong players make excellent repeat customers. More »
It's common practice for companies to license stock photography to use in promotional materials, but one of our readers thinks it's somewhat strange that a camera company would go this route, when the one thing you're trying to sell to consumers is the ability to capture great images. More »
One would think that in these tough economic times, placing a help-wanted ad in the paper or online would be sufficient for netting employers a pile of resumes. But the Transportation Safety Administration has decided to target a very specific demographic in the Washington, D.C., area — pizza eaters. More »
Just like the kid in high school who suddenly asked you to stop calling him "Earl" and start calling him "Big E," the 166-year-old Young Men's Christian Association no longer wants to be known as YMCA, but simply "The Y." More »
Update #2: On Thursday morning, July 8th, ScienceBlogs contributor PZ Myers posted that the founder and CEO of Seed Media (which owns the blog network) has announced that the PepsiCo sponsored blog has been removed—although as of this update (10:44 am EST July 8th) it's still online. More »
Have you been sitting in the hot tub, trying to enjoy your bottle of Whitesnake wine but felt that you were lacking a cologne to match your macho sexiness? Well, yippee-kay-yay mothertrucker... Bruce Willis has come to save the day with his new signature scent. More »
A Brooklyn man is suing the makers of Yoo-hoo, the weird chocolate-flavored drink that's been around for 90 years, over their claims that the drink is as healthy as it is delicious. Although actually, if the company would change its description to "as healthy as it is delicious," they'd probably be able to avoid all lawsuits: "Look, we told you it wasn't healthy." More »
One is a white rapper looking to make a comeback. The other raps about kitchen gear on late-night TV. An odd couple? Or oddly suited to each other? You be the judge, as Vince Shlomi trades in the ShamWow and Slap Chop to pitch Eminem's new CD, which he boasts "cuts razor-thin slices." More »
A couple weeks back, we discussed the growing trend of in-game ads in video games. And while it's nothing new for sports games to feature sponsors in the background, the ad folks at Old Spice are breaking new ground, not just sponsoring a portion of the game, but completely fabricating a new statistic — swagger — to slap their name on. More »
The letter was from "Motor Vehicle Services." It warned Serra that his car's manufacturers warranty is expiring. It accurately listed the monthly payment he was making on his car, and the number of payments he had made. It was even written in that typewriter font beloved by mechanics and bureaucracies. But it wasn't from the Department of Motor Vehicles, it was a piece of extended warranty junk mail gussied up to look official. Here's the letter: More »
A would-be challenger to the massively multiplayer online game kingdom ruled by World of Warcraft, All Points Bulletin has already got the market leader beat in one department: annoying advertising. More »
With sales down and consumer interest flagging, Abercrombie & Fitch has decided it's time to bring back its provocative catalog. The return of A&F Quarterly, which will go on sale July 17 for $10, is a blatant grab for the attention of America's recession-wracked teen spenders. Will it succeed? More »
Reader bethSmash is freaked out that Best Buy sent her a follow-up email even though she didn't give the clerk her her address or even flash her loyalty program card when she bought a wireless router. She assumes the corporation connects her credit card number to her email address, which she must have given Best Buy when she signed up for the program, through some sort of privacy invasion trickery. More »
Spirit Airlines is known for pushing its bottom-scraping fees with crass emailed promos, but usually they just stick with dorky sex puns. Now they're branching out into sociopolitical commentary with their latest "Check Out The Oil On Our Beaches" promotion that leverages the BP oil spill in comedy and marketing gold. More »
If your Twitter feed starts blowing up with effusive praise for Virgin America, it may be because the airline has influenced those sets of 140 characters with free flights. More »
Sometimes you can take branding too far. Apparently this Hello Kitty engine oil is a real product designed for compact cars, and it sells for $2980 Yen, 33 American dollars. Perfect for outrunning bad penguins. [Newlaunches via BoingBoing]
I know we all like to laugh at old homemaker ads, like where bad coffee will make your husband have an affair or the wrong douche will let the communists win, but here's one that pushes it a step further. How? Dead babies. As the scary ad explains, a thermos keeps filthy germ-ridden flies away from the milk, and keeps the milk cold, and that means the milk won't kill your baby. If you don't buy this thermos, you may as well make your baby into terrible tasting instant coffee and use it to drive your husband into the arms of his secretary, because that's what you deserve. More »
If you happen to be going to Cannes this summer (and, really, if you aren't, you should be) mega-conglomerate Unilever is ready to tempt you with a treat straight out of Minority Report. The company has set up a vending machine that lets anyone who walks by score some free ice cream. The price? Just smile for the machine's facial recognition software, which will determine your age, gender and emotion. Only the most happy will get ice cream. The rest? We don't really know, but we seem to remember something having to do with stolen eyeballs that can be used to trick such systems. More »
Because we all know that the two things the world lacks these days are (1) advertisements and (2) car accidents, a California State Assemblyman has put forth a bill we kill both birds with the same 23-car pileup on the freeway by replacing our boring, non-revenue-generating license plates with fancy electronic ones complete with advertising. More »
When McDonald's recently began airing a TV spot in France that not only admitted the existence of homosexual men, but also that they eat at — and are welcome at — the fast food eateries, it received many plaudits from gay rights advocacy groups on this side of the pond. But now that bigwigs out of Oak Brook have made it clear the ad, or nothing like it, will air stateside anytime soon, the tide has turned against the golden arches. More »
"Buy solar. Get a gun." Perfect for off-the-grid survivalists, Bland Solar and Air Inc has a new deal offering every customer who buys a 3kW+ solar system a free firearm. Best. Cross-promotion. Ever. More »
If the vuvuzelas haven't scared you away from watching the World Cup, you may have noticed a Chrysler commercial that salutes all things American, including, of course, the company's cars. Just one problem: The car featured in the ad was made in Canada, using German technology and Italian funding. More »
If you sat down at a restaurant table and saw a sign advertising a special—say, $4.99 breakfasts—with a photo of a certain meal, you'd assume that the promotion includes that meal, right? Well, Felicia writes, at Marie Callender's, your assumption would be wrong. More »
As more and more web surfers become inured to standard banner and box ads, the designers and developers of online advertisements continue to find new ways to engage consumers. Unfortunately for advertisers, many consumers tend to find each new evolution in ad tech to be more aggravating than the last. More »
In the recently released Xbox 360 video game Alan Wake, players can't help but notice that — in addition to playing the game — they're also being heavily advertised to by Verizon. At one point, they're even fooled into watching a Verizon ad. More »
So, Mexico is apparently pretty @#$%ing intense. A total of 28 people were kidnapped by machete-wielding locals who objected to Grupo Modelo, the maker of Corona beer, filming a commercial on their land. 13 of the people kidnapped were actually Mexican reporters who had nothing to do with the beer company. More »
For some reason, a few TV stations in the Houston area have a problem with the date of June 9, or at least the way Ikea decided to portray the date in a new ad promoting the reopening of their local store. More »
My hatred for the sports teams of New York City is part of my DNA, but I still have always felt a bit sorry for the New York Jets for having to play in Giants Stadium. Things seemed to be looking up on that front when it was announced that the spankin' new arena set to open shortly would be simply be called "New Meadowlands Stadium." But the owners of a dating website for cheaters want to make it so that both teams are shamed by the name of their new digs. More »
Texas' Attorney General Greg Abbott is going after Bally Total Fitness for the fraudulent "past due" scheme it was using to trick former customers into re-upping with the gym. The AG office says that the gym mailed more than 11,000 fake notices to former customers between last summer and March 2010, and at least 1,000 Texans fell for it and paid the fees. More »
We sure hope you football fans love Papa John's commercials, because you're going to see a lot more of them in the upcoming season. The pizza chain has just signed a three-year deal with the NFL to become the official pizza sponsor of both the league and the Super Bowl. More »
Jane Lynch is a funny woman, so even though a parody of the iconic (and now dead) Mac vs. PC ads is a little tired, it's fun to see her going all Sue Sylvester on the iPhone 4. If you enjoy spoofs of ads and want to see why Jane Lynch dislikes Gizmodo as much as Steve Jobs, take a look. More »
If you think you can avoid advertising by, say, staring down at your feet as you walk through the urban landscape, you're out of luck. Sure, you won't see the billboards overhead, the skinny trucks that are really rolling billboards, or the dudes handing out flyers for various establishments of dubious pedigree. What you will see, however, are "reverse graffiti" ads, pressure washed onto sidewalks where, once upon a time, all you'd see were gum wrappers, dog poop and the occasional Obey Giant stencil. More »
For the second time in a year, Kellogg Company has been called to the principal's office at the Federal Trade Commission and slapped on the wrist for misleading customers into thinking its cereal products offer unproven health benefits. More »
Woman's Day has put together a collection of the top 10 most controversial billboards. We can think of a few they missed, but they had to stop at 10, right? More »
Diaper commercials, much like commercials for menstrual products, have always sort of glossed over the actual function of the products. No more. A new Huggies ad for denim-patterned diapers (really) features a voice-over that says "I poo in blue," and ends with the tagline, "The coolest you'll look pooping your pants." More »
Despite the NBA postseason being in its 13th month, basketball fans are still hungry to see their favorite teams. And now they can feed that hunger, literally, as the NBA has licensed the use of team logos on everything from pizzas to toast. More »
So, Lost ended, as you may have heard, and you also may have heard your friends complaining about the number of commercials that were in the finale. EW says there were 107 of them in 2.5 hours — or more than 45 minutes worth. More »
The next time you go shopping for a new HDTV, keep in mind that the brightness and contrast settings don't adjust brightness and contrast, and most of the fancier-sounding image quality controls don't do anything except possibly degrade the image. Also, motion blur in live video is largely imaginary, which is good because advertised response times are highly exaggerated. And hey, that impressive "dynamic contrast ratio" the manufacturer is crowing about? Most of the extra contrasty goodness happens when there's no image on the screen. More »
Wonder why Sarah Jessica Parker's character in Sex And The City 2 is using a HP laptop? HP paid for it. Why are they drinking Skyy vodka? Well, that's the films "official vodka." According to the NYP, "every aspect of Carrie’s life is reduced to a vignette that can be monetized." More »
If John Williams, the CEO of Domtar Corp., has his way, kids all across North America will be asking for printers this holiday season. Somehow I doubt he'll have his way, but here's his plan: his company is about to launch a "Put It On Paper" campaign via print, Facebook and YouTube that will encourage people to print out things like emails and web pages. More »
If you pay attention to all the various automobile ads on TV, you'd probably notice that just about every make and model of vehicle has won some sort of award from some magazine, or that its been "rated highest in its class" by any number of organizations. But what many people don't know is that these awards and thumbs-up ratings almost always cost the car companies a pretty penny. More »
Celeb-friendly weight loss company Nutrisystem has sacked Hall of Fame NFL star Lawrence Taylor following allegations that the former New York Giant raped a teen girl earlier this week. More »
Networks and advertisers alike are understandably worried that the commercial-obliterating magic of DVR would render ad spots irrelevant. The fears are unfounded, according to Duke University business professor Carl Mela, whose study found that the Aflac duck and Verizon Can You Hear Me Now Guy won't go down so easily. More »
The NYT says that for the past two years the Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use has been trying to eradicate the scourge of humorous signs from its city. More »
Unless you don't have a TV, you've probably seen the new ads for General Motors where GM CEO Ed Whitacre touts the amazing rebound of the car manufacturer, and how they repaid their "government loan in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule." Yeah, well that might not be exactly true. More »
Reader Nick would like to ask how Gap managed to design a pair of jeans that would fray and tear without unraveling, since that seems sort of impossible. More »
Cracked has assembled a list of 15 unintentionally perverted children's toys. This Batman water pistol was somehow the worst. It's just... we just don't want to think about it anymore, ok? More »
For some reason, the ad sales peeps at ABC and Fox don't think this TV ad for some sort of new lingerie from Lane Bryant is appropriate for airing in prime time. More »
In one of the more inane attempts at viral marketing, a man in New Zealand was almost shot by police as he roamed the streets of Auckland scaring the bejeezus out of bystanders with his toy gun. More »
Perhaps in an effort to show that the iPhone isn’t the only super sexy young hip fun phone out there, Microsoft had a bit of a misstep recently with a commercial for the Kin that seemed to promote sexting, the act of sending graphic content via camera phones (aka the ultimate fear of teenagers’ parents everywhere). More »
It's the hitmaker vs. the designated hitter, as rapper/producer/mogul/Beyonce-marrier Jay-Z has filed a lawsuit against Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, claiming the oversized Ortiz stole the name of his new nightclub from Jay-Z's celeb friendly night spot in New York City. More »
Verizon likes to boast that its coverage is ubiquitous, but it's gone way overboard when it makes claims that it covers more than 220 countries, as it did in this ad the company sent to Justin, who writes: More »
Over on Rick Moser's blog, he posted this photo of a billboard in NYC featuring a mammoth bed bug looming over a strip club, a souvenir shop and a pizza joint. Aside from it just being creepy-to-the-max, might this billboard not also be doing damage to the businesses below? More »
People keep sending us the link to this sign outside a shopping center somewhere in Massachusetts and saying things like, "LOL" and "So f-ing hilarious." But we can't figure out just what is so humorous about it. After all, it's just a combination sign for a Pumps gym and a Dick's sporting goods store. More »
Consumerist reader Mike C. has got quite the sharp eye when it comes to spotting math mess-ups: He sent us this picture of a "free year" subscription offer from Family Circle. Only problem is, there's absolutely nothing free about this deal. More »
In case you have been comatose since Thanksgiving, Tiger Woods has been in the news a lot because the Masters will be broadcast in 3D or something. In advance of that golf tournament, Tiger Woods has returned to the world of being a human billboard with this new ad from Nike, which resurrects the golfer's dead dad. More »
Over at Cracked.com they have a guide to making a Nicholas Sparks movie. It's funny and all that but for our purposes we are only interested in this little part at the end about posters. More »
For as much as exotic dancers (you might call them strippers) show off when they're spinning around the brass pole on stage at the club, most of them are pretty private about their profession when they're not at work. That explains why a former dancer of the exotic type filed a lawsuit after she saw a picture of herself being used on a billboard — for a club she never even worked at. More »
It seems a jewelry store is experiencing some backlash on Facebook for a print ad that they say they did not approve. Here's the ad and their statement. More »
So this is old, like 2004, like before Consumerist existed old, but we're posting it anyway because it's making the rounds and, like we said, we didn't exist when it was new. More »
In an age of skyrocketing budgets, movie studios are looking for any edge they can to make sure they cover their costs. According to the New York Times, those fears have led to partnerships with advertisers that develop at the concept stage, and advertisers have a hand in forming the plot of the film. More »
If you live in the Bay Area and don't mind getting a little commercial body art, Casa Sanchez has a deal for you: Get Jimmy the Cornman, the San Francisco restaurant's mascot, tattooed anywhere on your body (minimum size: four square inches), and you get free tacos for life. And, yes, you can get it in a not-quite-public spot and still take advantage of the deal. The restaurant keeps track of its walking billboards, so you don't have to lift your shirt (or any other article of clothing) to get fed. Unless, that is, you really want to. More »
Burger King is taking a bit of flack from some mental health advocates who claim that a TV ad the fast food chain has been running in recent weeks is insulting to those suffering from mental illness. More »
In these cash-strapped times, you'd think anyone willing to buy $50K worth of ad space on subways and buses would be a good thing. But for some reason, the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority wasn't happy with this recently proposed ad campaign. More »
Many schools have seen some sort of inside advertising since the '90s, but it's usually been relegated to a few posters in the cafeteria. But several school districts in the Detroit metro area are moving ahead with plans to include advertising for national brands on gym walls, athletic fields and school web pages. More »
Glenn bought a Suncast compost barrel that was labeled "Made in the USA" on the box. So it's only natural that when he opened up the box he found another box that revealed the included hardware was made in China. More »
Because James Cameron's Avatar — that little indie film about indigenous people fighting against corporate greed — apparently didn't make enough money at the box office, Twentieth Century Fox has decided to come out with three different DVD versions of the flick. More »
Have you ever had McSpaghetti? How about a basket of piping hot, deep-fried chicken livers from your local KFC? These are just a few of the not-so-popular menu items that made ChicagoNow's list of the 15 Worst Fast Food Fails. More »
In a remarkably crass act of prostitution, Topeka has up and changed its name to Google for the month, ABS-CBN News reports. The name change is a way for the mayor to thank Google for using Topeka as a test ground for a high-speed internet network. More »
The folks over at the Center for Science in the Public Interest recently took a look at how 128 different food and entertainment companies market food to kids. And, perhaps not surprisingly, they gave failing marks to 95 of them for having either weak policies for marketing food products to children or having none at all. More »
For several years, LifeLock has been so brash about their skills at protecting customers from ID theft that they not only drove around a truck displaying their CEO's Social Security Number in public, they also advertised his SSN on TV ads. But that hubris has come back to bite them on the rear, as LifeLock has just agreed to a $11 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over the bulked-up claims made in their ads. More »
Does the milkaholic baby named Lindsay in the latest E*TRADE commercial remind you of a certain celebrity? Lindsay Lohan says it's supposed to be her and is a jab at her own milkaholism, and she's suing the company for $100 million and seeking an injunction to get it off the air. I agree that the baby playing the milkaholic doesn't give a very good performance, but I always assumed it was supposed to be Lindsey Buckingham. More »
Los Angeles has had a problem with illegal billboards for a while, but apparently it's taking a ban on one type of display advertising seriously. "Supergraphics" are giant outdoor ads that stretch across the sides of buildings and are so big they can be seen from the International Space Station. Last month, the city filed a lawsuit involving several supergraphics already on display. A few days later a businessman hung an eight-story tall one on a building on Hollywood Boulevard, in the line of sight of cameras shooting red carpet coverage for the Oscars. He was arrested and held on a $1,000,000 bail. More »
In January, Consumerist reader Matt received a brochure from Comcast touting their high-speed Internet service with "Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly rate." But only one month after upgrading to Comcast's "Ultra Tier," he found out that, well... "unlimited" actually means "limited." More »
If you really love those Freecreditreport.com commercials just the way they are, take this next half year to pause and reflect on what they mean to you, because in September, the Huffington Post reports, owner Experian will have to start telling people their side business isn't the real way to get free annual credit reports from the government. We had this story last year, but in the wake of CARD act reforms, it bears repeating. More »
Here at Consumerist, we're constantly writing about online frauds, scams and misleading deals. But for all our writing, we're not a federal agency. That's where the Federal Trade Commission comes in. The good folks over at the FTC have just put together a short video demonstrating how easy it is for you to file a complaint with them on their site or over the phone. More »
Mark Smith just got suckered into buying travel insurance that turned out to be worthless to him. There was a huge hole in the middle of the coverage, which meant he and his two kids were stuck overnight in Denver on his own dime. Luckily the policy only cost $40, but that's $40 that now belongs to Access America in exchange for providing a useless service. More »
Lucy the Slut is one of the puppets in the musical "Avenue Q," and like the other puppet characters she's frequently displayed in their advertising. But not in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where a billboard company refused to put up ads showing Lucy's cleavage. An exec for the billboard company told the local paper, "If I have to explain it to my 4-year-old or my grandmother, we don't put it up." Hey four-year-old, it's a puppet. Hey grandma, those are boobs. Problem solved. More »
Domino's new pizza recipe is such an improvement, even robots are getting excited. Joel says he got a robocall with a "special offer" from Domino's. He writes: More »
NBC has been running a commercial featuring Jay Leno in one of his 9 f*ckzillion automobiles. In this commercial, he is seen driving while the Beatles song "Get Back" plays. This song includes the lyrics "get back to where you once belonged." Now someone who we can only assume is part of Team CoCo has remixed the commercial with a, um, different song. Enjoy. More »
If you've spent enough time on the Internet without good ad-blocking software, you've probably seen the odd-looking fellow on the left. He's clearly the product of either a very polluted gene pool or a graphic designer with an odd imagination. But why has he become a mascot for mortgage refinancing and other financial products? MainStreet's Michael Schreiber decided to find out. More »
Now that Tiger Woods has come out of sex rehab hibernation — if only momentarily — to beg for a bit of forgiveness from the public that once loved him, the question still remains: Will he ever get close to regaining his status as the poster boy for poster boys? More »
Sometimes you need to leave the house, for instance to go to the supermarket or to attend a job interview, and let's face it: that's when the Snuggie fails you. Until they make the formal Snuggie, there's at least PajamaJeans. They're like sweatpants, but disguised as jeans. Sadly they're only for the ladies right now, so guys will have to stick to sweatpants when they give up on life. More »
If you've been having flashbacks to the fall of 2007 while watching the Olympics on NBC this week, you might want to blame Chevy, who decided to dust off their love-it-or-hate-it "Our Country" ad campaign for the winter games in Vancouver. More »
Just a few days after a California woman filed a lawsuit against Jillian Michaels, one the hard-nosed trainers on NBC weight loss hit The Biggest Loser, alleging false advertising for her Maximum Strength Calorie Control diet supplement, a second purchaser of the product has filed a similar claim. More »
Angry about "excessive stories" ABC has aired about Toyota's recall shenanigans, the company is pulling ad dollars from network affiliates in Southern states and shifting it toward competitors. More »
On NBC's The Biggest Loser, trainer Jillian Michaels is known for her no-bull-allowed attitude in the gym as she attempts to help her obese pupils drop massive amounts of weight in a very short time. But one woman is now seeking class-action status for a lawsuit that claims Jillian should have had the same no-nonsense stance toward a diet supplement she's lent her name to. More »
Sunday night's thrilling thrashing of Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts at the hands of the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV wasn't just the most-viewed show in TV history, with over 150 million people tuning into the CBS broadcast, it was also the most advertising-heavy Super Bowl in the history of the football season's grand finale. More »
Just about the only commercial from Sunday night's Super Bowl ad blitz that still had anyone talking the next day was CBS' spot for The Late Show with David Letterman, which featured Dave watching the big game on his couch with Oprah Winfrey and his once-again time-slot competitor Jay Leno. So how did this all happen? Jay went on his own show last night to explain... well, sort of. More »
Anna says Dell sent a special offer on a laptop via text, and even though she acted on the sale immediately she hasn't been able to bag the deal, and instead was offered a similar product for $150 more. More »
The ratings company Nielsen—the company you can blame for bad stunt-casting and stupid plot devices during sweeps week—is going to start rolling in data from online viewings of commercials this fall, which means networks will start using online viewing stats to help sell ads this time next year. What this means: if a network uses the new Nielsen rating system, "shows seen online will have to have the same group of commercials that run on TV," reports AdAge. More »
TechCrunch canned a teen intern for asking for a MacBook Air in order to do a post about a Startup, Inquisitr reports, pointing out the site's founder and co-editor Michael Arrington throws the kid under the bus, hardly acknowledging the lack of managerial oversight that made the practice possible. More »
If you can't actually manage to get an ad placed during the Super Bowl, the next best thing is to get it rejected by the network so you can make a big deal about it online. The Daily Beast has put together a list of 12 ads that were rejected for a variety of reasons. Well, actually in most cases it comes down to gay stuff, cussing, or sex. One thing you'll notice, though, is that most of the rejected spots aren't very well-made to begin with—I'd be happy if they were banned just for that. More »
Last year Spirit Airlines had something called a M.I.L.F. Sale. They played it off as an accident, but I don't think anyone believed them. Now they're at it again, this time with an otherwise generic online ad that "accidentally" puts the word "muff" next to the word "diving." Hmm, maybe that customer service number that really directed callers to a phone sex line wasn't an accident, either. I bet if you fly Spirit Airlines and ask the flight attendants for some salted nuts, they burst into shameful giggles and run off. More »
Burger King has suffered two consecutive quarters of declining sales, and a Wall Street Journal says the drop is due to hard-core "super fan" Burger King eaters shying away from the chain in favor of, gulp, possibly healthier choices. More »
CBS told EA it can go to hell rather than use the "provocative" slogan for its upcoming game Dante's Inferno on a Super Bowl commercial, AdAge reports. The game's ad will instead inform viewers "Hell Awaits." More »
Beer and sausages may indeed be the perfect combination for your Super Bowl gathering, but there's something about this grocery store display from Budweiser and sausage maker Johnsonville that is terribly wrong. I think it's the man's expression as he points to his, er, bratwurst. More »
It's easy for companies to target non-tech savvy people to unload outdated products that pale in comparison to the stuff on the lower end of the market. Alvaro spotted this terrible deal, which offers a machine with 512MB of RAM, a Pentium IV processor and a 30GB hard drive for $400. More »
Now that corporations have bought up just about all the naming rights to every sports stadium in existence, the next step is to sponsor destruction of the old venues that make way for the new ones. More »
By now you hopefully know that more megapixels don't necessarily make a better camera. For one thing, you can almost double the megapixels of a camera while only gaining about a 40% increase in resolution. For another thing, it takes a lot more than just sheer number of pixels to produce a decent image. Nevertheless, point-and-shoot cameras with ginormous megapixel stats (now topping 12 MP) continue to hit the market. But Ross at Petavoxel says there's another reason to avoid huge MP point-and-shoot cameras: something called the Airy disk. More »
The idea of panties with built-in ass enhancement is hardly new, but selling them via infomercial is. And it kind of scares us. That popping sound is particularly disturbing. More »
I'm going to grab a bunch and resell adopt them out for extra money in 2010. Thanks to Kevin, who snapped the pic and who adds, "I know Hollywood Video isn't probably doing that hot with the advent of Netflix, but I'm not sure if this is the way to go." More »
The man at left appears in banner ads for mortgage refinancing. He looks like a person most people would avoid. So why does this ad network think that he will persuade us to refinance our mortgages? More »
A direct answer to Subway's Jared, Taco Bell's new spokeswoman Christine says she lost 54 pounds in two years in part by substituting the restaurant's lighter fare for her usual fast food splurges. More »
A new study says that Tiger Woods spectacular fall from grace has cost shareholders of the firms that used him as a spokesperson to lose $12 billion in value. More »
The ads for Broadview Security address an important issue for modern women: someone is always lurking outside waiting to rape you. Did I say address? I meant to say something more like stoke flames of fear. Comedian Sarah Haskins takes on the security alarm systems rape fables in a recent epsiode of Target: Women. More »
Over at Ditchwalk today, Mark Barrett points out that sex in mainstream advertising is a tell. There are two things it immediately communicates: that the product is "indistinguishable from its competition," and that it is generic. You don't have to stop appreciating libido-stirring images the next time a sexy ad airs (not that you probably could, anyway). But if you keep Barrett's advice in mind, you may start noticing that some companies are telling you more about their product than they probably mean to. More »
Pepsi is backing out of the insane Super Bowl ad buying derby this year, announcing it will instead spend its pound of flesh on online ads, ESPN reports: More »
This bottle of French's mustard caught Stefanie's eye with its 40 percent more boast, but she read the smaller print to determine that the label was a sly way of saying nothing at all. More »
A recent update has apparently released a downloadable patch on Madden NFL 10 that forces players to stare at ads before every snap, Ripten reports. More »
The Necky is apparently for the person who keeps strangling himself when he tries to tie his scarf. There's nothing I can write about this that would make it more absurd than it is in real life, so just go watch the video if you haven't already. More »
Finally, the truth is revealed: this is clearly where the bailout money went. Below, watch a Chevy Volt promotion song-and-dance-spectacular performed earlier this month at the LA Auto Show. More »
Back in 1951, American were clearly excited to no longer have to go outside in order to amuse themselves — and McGregor was happy to provide them with sportswear designed specifically for "America's New Way Of Life." Couch potatoism. More »
Happy Halloween from AT&T! The maligned cellular carrier's latest ad doesn't seem to be as concerned with getting Verizon to stop picking on it. Instead, a headless Luke Wilson staggers around the screen, roaring silently and searching for someone to kill. Stick to AT&T or who knows what might happen to you. More »
1962! It was a great year if you like large cars, crinolines, the Kennedys, and strangely prescient oil company ads. Humble Oil, which eventually became part of the company we now know as Exxon, ran this ad in Life magazine, and it's been making the rounds of the Internet since. More »
According to Lagniappe, a local bi-weekly, the general manager and news director of the station have both been suspended over the incident. Harsh, man. Harsh. More »
Maybe Oscar Mayer was thinking that folding the turkey that way would make shoppers think about turkey breasts. Maybe I have spent too much time in the more colorful parts of the Internet. Either way, I am not sure I could see this in the supermarket without doing a double take. And probably giggling. More »
If you happened to log onto British Airways' site Oct. 2, you could have bought a $40 flight to India. Well, you could have bought the flight, but wouldn't have been able to use the tickets because the airline said the offer was a mistake. More »
Jon received this e-mail from the book club QPB. It promises free shipping, and a free travel set, if he pays shipping and handling. That shipping is on the travel set, we presume, but no one can really be sure. More »
This is what happens when you let robots select up-and-coming stories for your banner ad on Digg. Although now that I think about it, I'm not sure I'd ever let a Digg story be assigned to my brand, automatically or otherwise, without looking at it first. (Thanks to Jeff!)
Sears stuck its drumstick in its mouth by apparently sending out an email advertising a ludicrously amazing Black Friday deal: a 54-inch 1080p HDTV for $399.99. Chris forwarded us this message from Sears in which the company backs away from the deal and offers a boring one in its place. More »
This advertisement for Camel cigarettes appeared in the November 23, 1936 edition of LIFE magazine. It earnestly demands that you smoke a Camel after each course of Thanksgiving dinner — "for digestion's sake." More »
—>Must we put video screens everywhere? Reader Grey says that he was fooled into pressing a button above a tiny video screen at his local Safeway — only to be subjected to a very low-res commercial for Bumblebee Tuna. More »
—>It's probably a bad idea to market to consumers by tricking them with practical jokes. It's definitely a bad idea to make a consumer fear for her safety over a five day period because she thinks a stalker is coming after her. That's why a woman in Los Angeles is suing Toyota for $10 million after being on the receiving end of a Punk'd-style stunt to promote the Toyota Matrix. More »
—>The problem with annualcreditreport.com—other than its name—is that getting your reports from the site is a little like dealing with GoDaddy: you have to deal with upsells and side-sells at every step. You can indeed get your free credit reports from the site, but you'll also have to keep turning down other offers from the three participating bureaus. Hell, there are even ads (sorry, "sponsor" links) on the home page, the one place where you'd hope for the least consumer confusion. More »
—>Amazing pills that will make me look younger and lose weight? And it comes as a free trial, you say? Of course I'll try it! Here's my credit card number. What could possibly go wrong? More »
—>Fashion advertising has a long tradition of lying, but this comically stupid Ralph Lauren ad seems to have confused the human anatomy with a box of Pocky. Unfortunately, Ralph Lauren doesn't want to be mocked for its own advertising, so it started sending out DMCA takedown notices to blogs who have posted the ad—both Boingboing and Photoshop Disasters have been ratted out to their ISPs. Blogspot took down the pic from Photoshop Disasters while it investigates, but Boingboing has posted it a second time. More »
—>We were taking a look at the new FTC guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials when we noticed something interesting. Advertisers will no longer be able to get away with showing only amazing results from consumer testimonials and presenting them as typical. Under the old rule, they could exclusively show spectacular results if they added the phrase "results not typical." This is no longer the case, according to the FTC. Now, if they use such testimonials, they will also have to disclose the results that consumers can reasonably expect.More »
—>As part of our stand against Christmas Creep, we want to celebrate the actual upcoming holiday by lobbing some pretty frightening images at you from the website Your Logo Makes Me Barf. Take this alarm sign, for instance. The obvious chills come from recognizing what they're walking into, but then you notice the kid figure and the term "young alarm" and, wait, wtf? More »
—>Everyone likes hosting launch parties, right?! What? No one likes them? They're not real parties—just promotional events dreamed up to move units? But Microsoft told me that it's okay to host my own launch party! It'll be cool! Just look at these two married couples hanging out and gabbing like a box of birds about how much they love Windows 7. More »
—>If you visited the New York Times website last week, you may have been surprised to have your browsing interrupted by one of those scammy "we're scanning your computer for viruses OH NO YOU HAVE A VIRUS!" ads that overtake your window. Now Microsoft has filed 5 lawsuits in an attempt to fight back against the jerks who may have been responsible for it, and certainly for other ads like it all over the web. More »
—>These Play Doh ads from Singapore don't seem to be aimed at kids. Then again, the message "safe no matter what you make" seems to be aimed directly at parents of kids who play with Play Doh, which leads us back to our initial thought, which is wtf kind of kid requiring parental supervision is shaping eerily realistic looking bottles of pills and razor blades for fun? Play Doh, the fun sad toy that tastes like tears! More »
—>The are plenty of scams promoted in the backwaters of local radio and late-night TV ads. Most tend to focus on one ripoff at a time; after all, why complicate the message by asking listeners to choose how they want to get fleeced. But a tip from a viewer alerted TV reporter John Matarese to what may be a new trend: Bundling three worthless offers to create one colossally bad deal. More »
—>Alternet reports on the latest fad in marketing: touting one's national or even multinational corporation as local. HSBC calls itself "the world's local bank." Winn-Dixie, a 500-outlet supermarket chain, is advertising "Local flavor since 1956." There's the non-Starbucks Starbucks. And "[e]ven Wal-Mart is getting in on the act, hanging bright green banners over its produce aisles that simply say, 'Local.' " More »
—>If advertisers and websites would play fair with their readers, we wouldn't need to apply various filters and blocks to them. But when you're trying to read an article and every sixth word is hotlinked with a pop-up ad, while the FavIcon in the browser window blinks at you like a traffic light, while loud video clips start auto-playing when the page loads—well, it's time to shut it all down. Lifehacker has put together a great list of all the ways to reclaim your sanity when you're online. More »
—>Cache asked about the $10 "Super Power Pass" add-on at his local XSport Fitness club today—the sign in the window says "work out where you want, when you want with a Super Power Pass for just $10 more*," and lists "Chicago - New York - Washington" across the top. We don't know what's linked via that asterisk, because the fine print on the ad is so small that it's unreadable in the photo Cache took, but as you might expect there's no such thing as a $10 add-on that lets you use any XSport Fitness. More »
—>I like to make fun of white people (and, really, who doesn't). Even McDonald's likes to make fun of white people if the white people live in Japan. A new McDonald's advertising there campaign centers on one Mr. James, a bespectacled idiot who tortures the Japanese language and is quite literally crazed for McDonald's burgers. More »
—>Netflix customer service says that search results are unaffected by sponsorships. Still, that doesn't explain what happened when Melissa Leff tried to add some movies to her Netflix queue: nearly every search she tried brought up the Andy Richter star vehicle Aliens in the Attic. More »
—>It's funny when something accidental happens in advertising, like when billboards that shouldn't be next to each other are put up. We always suspected the placement of religious billboards are intentional, but we're really not sure about Cat Jesus. Yes, Cat Jesus. More »
—>Here's a common problem: we have many ex-lovers, who have put ice on our wrists and given us countless pearl necklaces. But these wealthy suitors have left our hearts broken and in this economy, we're hurting for cash. Thankfully, we discovered Out of Your Life (motto: "It's time to break up with his jewelry, too"), who will buy our tear-stained jewelry back from us! More »
—>The Wall Street Journal looks at how an unfortunately named marketing agency called the Intelligence Group tried to promote recent bomb "I Love You, Beth Cooper" with a viral video on YouTube. (Can we just once and for all ban anyone who works in advertising from accessing YouTube?) They paid the valedictorian of a Los Angeles high school $1,800 to "spontaneously" blurt out a secret crush during her speech, and they hired someone to film the speech in a faux-homemade style to post online. More »
—>Remember Hardee's anal-centric "a-hole" ads? Even if they never aired in your area, they've been floating around online for a few weeks at least. Ben Mayo Boddie, who operates 350 Hardee's restaurants from his home in North Carolina, has had enough of a-hole this, ball muncher that, and he's refusing to air the spots. More »
—>Last week, we wrote about how sugar isn't any better than corn syrup when it comes to you health. But it turns out we were wrong. According to this old ad I just found, sugar is perfect for weight-watching: "That's because sugar helps prevent you from overeating... with sugar in your diet, you're happier with smaller portions of everything." More »
—>While perusing old advertising trade journals, I came across this ad for the New Yorker. You win if you can correctly answer what the message is here: New Yorker readers are under-exercised fat cats? That blackface was more common in hotels than we ever thought? That retail stores once secretly conspired with the New Yorker's ad department to divulge customers' sales histories? More »
—>Wired has found several examples of scams-disguised-as-news on Slate, Salon, and Huffington Post, among other websites. Most of the mock news stories, none of which are labeled as ads, tout lucrative Google jobs: "Can You Really Work Online at Home? We Investigate This Trend." More »
We have also shared with all of our pharmacy departments that this is an unacceptable practice and should not be repeated. At Sam's Club we always have the health and welfare of our customers and members in mind with everything we do and we deeply regret that this incident occurred. More »
—>One thing I personally hate about Facebook is how the ads co-opt my friends' pictures and use them to try to sell me stupid stuff. Dan received one of those types of ads yesterday, only the combination of text and photo selection was a little... um, let's say "open minded." More »
—>BBC News reports that the furniture chain Habitat is very, very sorry for using keywords such as "Iran" and "Mousavi" to drive sales via Twitter. The tweets were posted last week and have since been removed, but in case you missed the poetry of this particular brand of badvertising, here's one sample: #MOUSAVI Join the database for free to win a £1,000 gift card! More »
—>Mother Jones reports that a study of "4,000 'eco-friendly' consumer products... found that 98 percent make false or misleading claims." Hardlyasurprise, huh? More »
—>The Sam's Club in Salisbury, Maryland, is promoting its pharmacy by handing out pill bottles filled with candy to kids. I guess that's better than filling Dots boxes with Vicodin. Or handing out gallon-sized jugs of Nerds. Update: Sam's Club has ended the promotion and apologized for it.More »
—>Good news for those of you who hate loud commercials — a bill currently bouncing around in Congress would force the FCC to "preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes than the program material they accompany." More »
—>You know what's worse than not having a big bag of M&Ms on your desk to enjoy while you work? Having to read a blogvertisement disguised as editorial content! Hold on, I have to eat some more M&Ms. Good gravy these are delicious. Did you know M&M's cure malaria? It's true! Anyway, the FTC says bloggers should reveal when they're being compensated in some way to promote a product, and I agree. More »
—>Tysons Corner, an upscale mall in the Washington, D.C. area, just pulled down over 400 ads that were recently posted in the city's metro system because they looked an awful lot like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, except instead of names of soldiers they had names of famous retail stores. We're sure they would have gone with soldier names if any of the soldiers offered great deals on today's hottest fashions. This is really on you, America's Finest. More »
Back in early '08, to promote their new line of pasta primavera items, Domino's rolled out a screechy-voiced CGI rigatoni that raps about the joys of oven-baked pasta, reports SoGood. "Pasta Dude" some rhymes, then he busts out some dance moves that look like he's bending over an imaginary dance partner and slapping them across the rear. This, apparently, was cause for controversy. More »
—>Seriously, what's up with them? Their new ad features an oven that begs a Quiznos employee to "put it in me, Scott," as the camera pans over what it calls a Toasty Torpedo. There's also a subliminal flash of a periscope jutting up from the flames at one point, as our eagle-eyed reader Bbender pointed out. More »
—>Subway spokesman and occasional thin guy Jared Fogle may soon be out of work thanks to a new FTC rule banning commercial testimonials that warn "results not typical" or "individual results may vary." Under the new rule, marketers using, say, body builders to advertise weight loss pills are also going to have to show an average lardass whose results might be more typical. You can guess how advertisers are reacting to the change... More »
—>Reader Ben says: "This reminds me of the days when Henry Ford used to tell Model T buyers that they could have their car in any color they wanted, as long as it was black. With Verizon, you can have a discount on any plan you want, as long as it's not the unlimited one." More »
—>Apparently the people at Integrity (!) Chrysler Jeep Dodge in Las Vegas don't read our blog, or they would have seen this post last year. Then they would have known what a bad idea it is to trick people into thinking you've hit their vehicle just to get them to call you about a trade-in offer. More »
—>Our sister publication Consumer Reports Health has posted a new video in their AdWatch series, which examines direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. This time they're examining some "stealth" advertising for the quit-smoking drug Chantix. More »
—>Reader Eric was looking at his credit card account activity when he noticed something odd. No, it wasn't an unauthorized charge. It was advertising. More »
Remember those Bud Light Real Men of Genius commercials? So does Maryland's Comptroller, Peter Franchot, and he's commissioned a cringe-inducing parody to encourage Marylanders to use the state's e-file system for their taxes. Behold: "Mr. Frustrated Taxpayer." We're pretty sure he recorded the backing vocals. More »
—>I guess on some level we were all wondering just how many credit card offers we get in a year, but one Chicagoland family decided to count them. And weigh them. More »
—>Orbitz sent out an "email exclusive" advertising 20% off select hotel rooms, which might have been a decent deal if hadn't expired four days before the email was sent. More »
—>This may be one of those posts where it turns out nobody else is bothered by it, but seriously, wtf is up with Gap Kids? Their little headless mannequins have always been a bit off-putting to me, but now they've gone full-blown Anne Geddes and placed the bodies in a weird context that makes them seem even creepier than usual. More »
This terrible, terrible commercial for Lenovo's new laptop is clearly meant to go viral a la Songsmith, but someone forgot that it should be amusing and not just cringe-inducing. You got your viral on, Lenovo, but now your new slogan is "That's What She Said." [YouTube via Engadget] More »
—>Know what needs to come back? Great Moments in Commercial History. If you'd like to nominate a commercial for this prestigious weekly award, please send a link to the commercial along with a paragraph explaining what the commercial means to you. Please, please check our archive to make sure that we have not already featured your favorite. Send your email to tips@consumerist.com and put "Great Moments" in the subject. More »
—>On Monday, Meg alerted you to a BBB warning about Acai sellers doing scammy things to consumers. Now Donna has tipped us off to a slew of identical websites that have sprouted up online, featuring Everyday Women Like You And Me with names like Jenny, Sarah, Nancy, and Amy, and who all look like the same blonde model. They've all lost pounds, too! How? With "My 2 Step Formula," that's how! More »
—>The economy is 'sploding so that means it's infomercial mating season. Prices for airtime are dropping as bigger advertisers pull their spots, so the Billy Mays of the world are now getting slots during 30 Rock commercial breaks. At the same time, more people are watching TV because they don't have money to go out and it helps anesthetize them to the pain of reality. Thus, the rise of the ShamWow and the Snuggie, a super slurping sponge cloth, and a blanket with arms, respectively. Let's take a closer look. More »
We know tween girl clothes aren't sexy; we also think pre-tween clothes shouldn't be promiscuous. More »
—>As a female person who doesn't see the need for overpriced allotropes of carbon, I find jewelry commercials annoying. I could explain, but Current TV's Sarah Haskins has done it for me. Enjoy. More »
After already putting up 'Sexy tween' clothing, it looks like Amazon has made another misstep in their categorizing- the 'Sexy French Maid' found its way into the "Office Products/Children" section. More »
—>Yesterday we told you about PrettySinful, a clothing maker on Amazon that was marketing its tween girl tights as being "sexy." Tipster Jasmine also sent a complaint to PrettySinful. A customer service rep responded and pledged that they'll be removing the word "sexy" from all their children's clothes descriptions. More »
—>I don't think it's ever appropriate to market clothes to tween girls using the term "sexy." Manufacturer "PrettySinful" has a different opinion, as seen in these "sexy" tights sold on Amazon, accompanied by a picture of a prepubescent girl. Perhaps the picture is in error because the rest of the clothier's offerings are along the lines of crotchless bodystockings and various "do-me" adult party costumes. In any event, it's gross and should be fixed. More »
—>At first glance, this ad for CreditReportAmerica seems to have the credit score system reversed, with 350-619 listed as "excellent" and 750-840 listed as "poor"...but then you realize it's actually a graphical depiction of the system shady mortgage brokers used to get when whoring up the sub-prime mortgage orgy. Travel blogger Mark Ashley says he spotted the ad on the frontpage of Yahoo Finance. At the bottom, the ad says the service does not include credit scores. Remember folks, the place to get a free credit report is annualcreditreport.com. More »
—>The Federal Communications Commission and its benevolent overlord, Mr. Kevin Martin, recently spent $350,000 to sponsor a NASCAR team for 3 races. The “Digital TV Transition Ford” sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission crashed during its inaugural NASCAR race Sunday afternoon, says the WSJ. More »
—>Reader Michael noticed these weird, soup-bashing ads in some Detroit-area newspapers yesterday. It seems that Progresso and Campbell's have launched some negative campaign ads — smearing each other for using MSG in their soup. Is the world ready for a canned soup war? If it is, should we be depressed about it? More »
—>Reader Meg says that she saw this sign at KB Toys in New Jersey and just had to go back and take a picture. She's wondering why we can't have Halloween anymore without mentioning Christmas. More »
—>Man, cigarettes were awesome in the past, if these old ads collected by Stanford University are to be believed. They calmed your nerves so you'd stop humming nervously! They soothed your throat! They made you a movie star and helped you capture animals on your big game hunt! We don't know what tobacco was made of before the mid-80s, but no wonder everyone smoked. More »
—>The expression on the little guy's face in this banner ad seems say, "I'm gonna kick your ass unless you get some freakin' life insurance." Maybe even throw in a "sucker" at the end there. Seriously, what's his deal? He's sooo angry! More »
—>Okay, we got the bathroom humor of Kellog's All-Bran commercial last year. We're not sure if this commercial for Extended Stay Hotels, which shows guests so relaxed that they pass gas—or what the French call un petit éclatement—is quite as effective. Maybe they should change the tagline at the end to, "Our windows can be opened." More »
—>Reader Steve says this photo was taken at the Austin City Limits Festival on the same day that WaMu was seized by federal regulators — making it not only funny, but extremely accurate. More »
—>Toys "R" Us is not doing a very good job of explaining why an ad advertising a special that applies to "ALL Video Games $19.99 or less" only applies to some video games that are "$19.99 or less." Reader Laura says that not only are they unable to explain how "ALL" means "some," they aren't able to understand why she is upset. More »
—>Best Buy didn't want to honor the sale price of the 2GB flash drive Matt ordered through their website, so when Matt arrived to pick-up his purchase, the store's assistant manager called customer service and, pretending to be Matt, asked to cancel the order. Let's read Matt's story and see how it violates Massachusetts law, inside... More »
What sort of ad do you run next to a full-page PSA that says, "My sister accidentally killed herself"? Probably not this one. [FAIL Blog] (Thanks to theblackdog!)More »
Tonight's premiere of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" is about cannibalism and hunting men for sport. The unfortunately-placed McDonald's commercial halfway through the show featured a guy swinging a bat at his friend because he smells food, and then everyone else at the party swarming over the fallen friend to feast. Awkward! More »
—>Sometimes gentleness is required of your toddler. Sometimes ill-tempered old folks get too agitated and threaten you with canes. That's why sometimes the best solution is a good old fashioned thorazine pill, or a barbiturate elixir. Weirdomatic has a collection of bizarre ads like these from the past. Our favorite, aside from the drug ads, is the one showing Olympian speed skater Jack Shea taking a break from his skating to enjoy the rejuvenating effects of a Camel cigarette. So that's how Phelps did it. More »
—>Foodmakers are planning to bombard you with advertising to keep you from ditching their carefully groomed brands for some blechy cheapo generics. Pay no attention as they try to re-brand their products as cheap and affordable. Here's a small preview of what to expect... More »
—>Priceline won't let deal-hating weathermen keep you from the amazing savings churned up by Tropical Storm Hanna. Rooms in Hilton Head are now going for the low, low price of $64 per night, but act fast because the deal is only valid while Hanna pummels the dream destination's shores with 70 mph winds! More »
—>Is this Verizon promotional email being over-enthusiastic with its subject line, or is it actually misleading? A phrase like "you've earned a new ___" doesn't usually get followed up with, "Just pay us anywhere between $100-$200 for it," unless it comes from a scam vacation offer. Or Verizon. As Bryan notes in his email to us, "The subject line must mean something like when you tell Verizon, 'You've earned my suspicion and contempt.'" More »
—>Does anyone remember Bunnicula? We think there's a similar beast in the Banquet pot pie plant, only instead of sucking vegetables dry he's draining the pies before they ship. That's the only thing that can explain how the real pot pie this Consumerist reader cooked looks nothing like the bountiful pot pie harvest shown on the box. Oh wait: it could also be that Banquet is a cheap-assed company that can't be bothered to sell decent frozen food. More »
Northwest Airlines has pulled political billboards depicting Minneapolis being targeted by nuclear weapons from their terminal in the Minneapolis airport. We wonder why. [NYT] More »
—>MSNBC's Ads of the Weird blog is a little creeped out by Duracell's new kidnapping commercial, and so are we. Making people feel bad about something is advertising's job, we get that, but trying to scare parents into thinking their kid will be stolen from the playground by the classic man-in-a-van is going a little overboard. (Watch the commercial below.) More »
—>Reader Brian says he saw the above pictured infomercial on CNBC this Sunday, and is wondering how they get away with such a "blatant attempt to take advantage of those same mortgage consumers who where hoodwinked in the first place." More »
—>Using codes of masculinity to sell products to guys is nothing new, but it's usually about beer, "hard lemonade" or deodorant. It's also usually funny, and pokes fun at male insecurities while celebrating them. A new Snickers commercial, however, seems to just be about beating the crap out of sissies. More »
If you've been waiting to buy the fancy Britax car seat and you live in New Jersey, now's your chance. It was spotted by a bargain-shopping Consumerist reader who says he wishes he'd waited until it was on sale to buy one.
—>Here's a sign Flickr member betterbethany found in Portland, Oregon over the weekend. We like to imagine there's a competitor's sign nearby that just reads "Free Dirt." More »
—>Logan thought this bonus pack of Colgate contained two equally-sized tubes of toothpaste. After all, the boxes are exactly the same size. Yet when he opened the bonus box, he found a smaller box containing a mini tube of toothpaste. More »
—>Meet Ms. Suspicious, a member of the "Online Liberation Movement." According to AT&T, Ms. Suspicious "has nothing to hide," so she certainly won't mind when AT&T and their traitorous telecom buddies trash the Constitution and violate her right to privacy! More »
—>The conductors of Boston's Green Line trolleys aren't exactly amused by a new ad campaign for Legal Sea Foods that accuses them of having faces like a halibut, says the Boston Globe. The campaign features "fresh fish," that toss out hilarious insults such as: "Hey lady, I've seen smaller noses on a swordfish," and, "This trolley gets around more than your sister." Har, har, har. Most of the ads are fairly innocuous, but one has the trolley conductors seeing red. It reads: "This conductor has a face like a halibut." More »
—>Poor Howard Castleman. All he wanted was a little PR for his car dealership. Castleman planned to give four scholarships to students at Patterson High School in Baltimore, but instead of honoring Castleman's charity by inviting the media and displaying his dealership's banner at the senior's farewell ceremony, the school instead decided to honor a long-time teacher who recently died of a heart attack... More »
UPS' horse, Big Brown, failed this afternoon to deliver a much-anticipated Triple Crown victory. Maybe he'll try again tomorrow from 2pm-5pm. [AP/Chicago Sun Times] More »
—>Another update to the Kieffe & Sons "Sit Down and Shut Up" ad fiasco: The quasi-apology issued by the California Ford dealer on Wednesday was mandated by Ford Headquarters. Kieffe & Sons remains unrepentant, so to speak, and blames the imbroglio on "Blog-lo-dites." More »
—>On Monday, we wrote about Kieffe & Sons, the California Ford Dealership that ran a pointlessly offensive radio ad attacking non-Christians and supporters of secular government. Today, the owner of Kieffe and sons apologized for the ad. More »
Kieffe and Sons, a California Ford dealership, decided for some reason to launch a radio ad attacking non-Christians and people who believe that prayer shouldn't be in public schools. Audio and transcript of the ad, inside. More »
—>One person's joke is someone else's insult it seems. Reader Nate sent in a photo of a fake poncho ad that ran in the LOLCats themed issue of the Boston-area free magazine Weekly Dig. He thinks the ad is hilarious, but we found at least one complaint from a Weekly Dig reader who thought the fake ad was "misogynist" and that the "potential hilarity was ruined by bad taste and poor judgment." See the (fake) ad inside if NSFW language doesn't bother you... More »
—>Tyson Foods has 14 days to stop claiming that their chickens are "raised without antibiotics." The deceptive nationwide campaign was brought to an end after rivals Sanderson Farms and Purdue filed suit claiming that all three poultry processors use antibiotics, and that Tyson was trying to steal an undeserved appearance of health. More »
—>So Disney is all upset over some slightly saucy photographs of 15-year-old Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, but it seems in their haste to toss out accusations (Disney spokeswoman Patti McTeague told the New York Times that "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines"), the company neglected to consider the appropriateness of using obviously under-aged girls on their underwear billboards in China. More »
—>Skyy vodka issued a crass press release declaring their support for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in response to an ad from rival Absolut that featured pre-Mexican-American War borders. We had no problem with the ad. We put up a poll. A majority of you had no problem with the ad. Not Skyy, though! They're drunk with outrage and felt compelled to "[decry] Absolut vodka's suggestion to redraw North [America's] map." More »
Apparently, Microsoft is thinking about using Johnny Knoxville to sell PCs to "jackasses." [CajunBoyIntheCity] More »
—> Brawny's not the only product skimping on size to sneakily increase profits. Here are two more items readers have noticed recently.
Henry writes:
Our house uses Skippy Peanut Butter, but i just found out they changed their jars from 18 ounces to 16.2 ounces for the same price. I know 2 ounces is not a huge amount of peanut better, but still.
And Matt writes:
I have noticed this same thing with Quilted Northern. I don't know what the price used to be but i noticed while shopping at sams club now you get less quilted northern than you used to.
If you know of another company that's downsized a product without passing along the savings, let us know. Maybe we can put together a single reference post so shoppers will see which products are the worst offenders. More »
Yet another common product has been hit with the shrinking ray—this time it's Brawny paper towels, which Jason noticed recently received a new package design, apparently to disguise that there are now fewer sheets and a higher price. More »
Here's a commercial that demonstrates that even local public access TV has standards that must be met. Fortunately for us, when public access says no, YouTube says "yes." More »
—> The once-popular—surely it isn't still?—teenaged sexpot clothing store Abercrombie & Fitch is shelling out $10 million to build a new emergency room and trauma center at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Now a group is speaking out against the idea of prominently naming the kids' ER after the store, which the hospital has been hinting at in announcements. The reason the hospital is called "Nationwide Children's Hospital" is because Nationwide Insurance gave it $50 million. Up next: the Budweiser End Zone Birthing Center, and then the American Apparel Teenaged Pregnancy Wing. More »
—>Lisa made her kids impervious to advertising by asking pointed questions that forced them to think about the source and truthfulness of ads. She knew action was needed when when her kids, who weren't old enough to read, stopped in front of the bleach while shopping to ask the advertiser's dream question: "Mom, aren't we going to buy some Clorox?" Hit the jump to see how she responded. More »
—>Cash Tomato, a would-be YouTube! competitor, tried to drum up free advertising by handing out tomatoes wrapped with wads of cash in New York's Union Square. The event was scheduled to kick-off yesterday at 2:29 p.m. to honor the leap year with giveaways of up to $29. Predictably, a riot ensued as a mob of over 100 overwhelmed the three workers dressed as tomatoes who were holding the cash. Video of the riot, after the jump. More »
This fake ad-battle from "Mr. Show"—a big city supermarket chain squares off against a naïve local grocer—perfectly captures a certain type of aggressive, scorched-earth advertising style usually reserved for political campaigns.
—>Just got this PR spam in my inbox. I can't wait to not buy this godawful ring. I just love the body copy. I think my favorite part is where they say that the fact the ring is only sold over the internet further enhances its uniqueness.
CODE ROYAL is the first jewel brand worldwide that combines a costly engraved white agate with a rose golden frame (massive) in 18 carat. White is the color of purity and innocence, of the unbroken light and the absolute truth. What accentuates the color white in a more beautiful way than the deeply symbolic agate gemstone?
—>Stephen Colbert interviewed Susan Pagan, a mother offended by McDonalds' sponsorship of her daughter's elementary school report card, for his segment "People Destroying America." More »
—>Congress has been asking some tough questions while wearing their serious faces about why Dr. Robert Jarvik (inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart) is shilling Lipitor when he's not actually licensed to practice medicine. More »
—>Salesgenie.com president Vinod Gupta has apologized for two offensive SuperBowl ads featuring animated pandas that spoke with painfully stereotypical "Chinese" accents and an "animated salesman named Ramesh who speaks with an Indian or other South Asian accent.":
"We never thought anyone would be offended," said Mr. Gupta, who developed and wrote both commercials himself. More »
—>Last night's commercials were a tame batch of disappointment. Everybody wanted cutesy animals—squirrels, horses, ponies, pigeons, crickets, dogs, lions, and lizards—to endorse their products. After the jump, the four spots that caught our eye. More »
If you'd like to nominate a commercial for our weekly series "Great Moments In Commercial History" send us an email at tips [at] consumerist [dot] com. Be sure to put "Great Moments In Commercial History" in the subject. To see other commercials that have been featured in the series, click here.More »
When Kristi went to her car the other day, she saw this mysterious note stuck to her mirror. "PLEASE CALL ME ABOUT YOUR CAR!" Immediately, she thought someone had run into her car—she walked all around it looking for damage, but couldn't find anything. More »
—>The school district that approved McDonald's-sponsored report cards has a hot new partnership with Bus Radio, a friendly company that advertises to kids as they ride to school! More »
—>McDonald's has decided to stop branding report card envelopes in a program that gave kids in Florida free food as a reward for good grades after a backlash from parents concerned about exploitive marketing. Teport cards came in an envelope (pictured, click to enlarge) telling kids to check their grades and redeem a free Happy Meal if they got all A's and B's or got good marks in "Citizenship" or attendance. The jacket also showed a smiling Ronald McDonald and mentioned McDonald's several times. More »
Okay, we're just going to say it: calling men of a certain age "cheddar hunks" just sounds like they all smell like stinky feet. That's a table I want to stay far, far away from. Nevertheless, Cabot Cheese of Vermont has launched a new television campaign featuring Guzmán and his Stinky-Feet-Friends sitting around drinking beer and eating cheese. It's weird. And though we have always liked Cabot Cheese, now it's going to be hard not to think of middle-aged toes (and werewolves) whenever we go cheddar shopping. Urg. More »
—> After David Pogue's public complaint last week that some movie trailers go too far in misleading consumers about the movie, he was contacted by the director of both "National Treasure" flicks, Jon Turteltaub, who offered his opinion on the practice: "What's funny is that the filmmakers do exactly what you do. I was watching the final trailer for my movie, saying what you said: 'Ummm....that's not in the movie, that's not in the movie, THAT'S not in the movie.'" More »
—> Here's a perfect example of the power of the written word in advertising: Jane Hambleton's splashy classified ad to sell her son's car worked so well that now everyone knows she caught him with liquor in his car and sold it as punishment. More »
The ads for Axe body sprays have a cultural debt to be paid to the makers of Hai Karate aftershave, sold from the 60's to the 80's. Their whole marketing strategy hinged on the notion that the budget aftershave would turn women into wild maniacs who couldn't wait to put their hands on you. More »
—> Robert sent in this photo he snapped at the Home Depot in Frederick, Maryland on January 4th. "The cashier rang up all three at first and they came up as $11.97. Scanning them one by one set the price to $3.33." Maybe the extra $2 is for the stackability of the containers. After all, you don't get that feature with just one. More »
Ad Guy #1: Okay, these gays have money. How do we get it?Ad Guy #2: They like wangs! And cross-dressing!Ad Guy #1: Done! [They high five.] Radar takes a look at eleven gayish ads that range from over-the-top crass to "Well, if you want to see it that way" coy. More »
—> The War on Christmas has taken a sneaky left turn, with Coke and Wal-Mart mounting an entirely unanticipated attack on one of the world's most beloved phrases! A reader, Josh, was shopping and/or protesting in his local Wal-Mart recently when he saw this in-store display for soda. More »
—>Cablevision is trying to scare consumers into signing up for basic cable service ahead of the planned transition to digital television. After February 17, 2009, consumers will need a $60 converter box to receive television signals over-the-air. The transition to digital will significantly improve the quality of over-the-air television, but that isn't stopping Cablevision from funding a scare-mongering campaign to rustle up new business. More »
—>This photo, and a few others of similar signs on similar hams, was taken at Balducci's on 8th Ave. at 14th Street, on Sunday, 12/2 by NancyKay Shapiro. She's attributed the signs to the "Department of Monumental Cluelessness, Well-Meaning Division." More »
—>Have you ever heard a store advertising stuff they don't sell over the PA? Reader Anne describes some weirdness she encountered at Marshalls:
I just returned from a trip to Marshalls where I was subjected to an ad for Proactiv over the PA system. It was really horrendous and must be addressed! The worst part is that I'm pretty sure they don't even sell Proactiv at Marshalls, so it's not like a blue light special informing us shoppers of a Proactive special in aisle 12. More »
Did you know that before he hawked for Priceline or regaled us with the adventures of T.J. Hooker, William Shatner had another TV career? Yes, he appeared in commercials for the Commodore VIC-20: "Unlike games, it has a real computer keyboard." More »
Eagle Insurance started it, but when Lincoln Insurance put our 16th president in a prison outfit complete with striped top hat, we knew they had something special. More »
—> A new malware ad has managed to sneak its way onto Doubleclick's DART ad publishing system, which means it's been showing up on several legitimate websites, including Major League Baseball, The Economist, and Canada.com. It doesn't require user interaction to be triggered—as soon as it's loaded into the page, it initiates the redirect, closes your browser window, and starts bullying you to install "anti-virus" software. It will even attempt to download a virus-laden .exe file, naturally. More »
As a criminal defense attorney, I must say, I am extremely suspect of where all these heaps of "scrap gold" Tom's customers have lying around came from.More »
—>The latest installment of quietly shrinking packages arrives care of Dial's Full Force Soap Bar. Once 4.5 ounces per bar, Dial now packs a mere 4 ounces of sudsy splendor.
Downsizing is a sneaky way to pass on a price increase because you are getting less for your money but may not catch the change. As is typical for many downsized products, the manufacturer diverts your attention from the net weight statement to something else "new". In this case, they are calling it a "new grip bar" because ridges have been carved into it.
Soap bars are supposed to shrink in the shower, not on the shelf. More »
—>Do you hate, "Our Country," the John Mellencamp song that Chevy uses to promote their line of trucks? You're not alone. Everyone hates it, according to Newsweek. More »
I always assumed the kids at the end were Jhoon Rhee's kids, like in those car dealership commercials. Regardless of what they said, I bet they got beat up a lot. More »
Dunce Dunn Bros Coffee is celebrating their newest location at the University of Minnesota by offering a coupon for a free medium coffee. For the price of a small. More »
—> How offensive do you find this Dolce & Gabbana ad? The folks at NOW Foundation have it at the top of their list of offensive ads, describing it as "a scene evoking a gang rape and reeking of violence against women." In fact, it was banned in Spain earlier this year after public outcry, but was published in Esquire here in the U.S. More »
A commercial for Kellogg's All-Bran seems to have gone back to the source and adopted the crazy butt-obsessed attitude of the company's forefather, because as the actor talks in the foreground about how great his cereal makes him feel, in the background you can see several over-the-top metaphors for... well, let's just say "pulling an I-beam out of my wall" is going to take on a whole new meaning. And in case it's not explicit enough, wait for the tag line.
"It's the smartest money you'll spend in your life." A bed-mounted gun rack? Smart? At first we thought this was fake, but no. Here's the patent. More »
—> Fashion Fever Shopping Boutique, the correctly named Barbie toy, features a built-in credit card swiper and a life-size credit card for young children to use when buying outfits for their dolls. According to the Amazon website, "Once the balance hits zero, it will reset so you can continue to shop." More »
—>They say there's no new ideas in advertising, but after seeing the latest ripoff routine, where Sony Bravia totally jacked an independent artist team's work for their new ad, we disagree. They do have one idea. It's that it's totally okay to blatantly steal other's work, repackage it, and get away with it. But we've got to wonder, what are these firms thinking? If consumers discover the cut and paste job, isn't that a pretty negative backwash on the client they're supposed to be promoting? Or do they figure, hey, it's just a few thousand internet geeks and artists, they don't have any money anyways, who cares, let's snort some more coke off the copying machine glass? More »
—> Last Friday, we published a post about Cubic Telecom, an Irish start-up that sells a SIM card that's supposed to enable international calling for "50-90%" less than standard carrier rates. The post was in reference to columnist David Pogue's review of the product, and he was quoting rates that were provided to him directly by Cubic's CEO. Turns out the CEO was "misleading" him—he provided numbers that were substantially lower than the actual rates, and has been stringing Pogue along with assurances that they'd "update the site" ever since. As of Thursday, October 4th, they still hadn't. More »
—> In the U.S. they're called PoweriZers, but in the U.K. those springy pogo-boot things are called FlyJumpers, and the company that sells them has come up with a bizarre ad that appeals to... materialistic and amoral fame-seekers who are suicidal, we guess? The commercial—which is available on the Amazon.co.uk product info page—shows a bank robber making an amazing escape on his FlyJumpers, and getting away with thousands of pound notes. Then, inexplicably, it turns into a scene from "Final Destination." More »
—> The next time you fly, if you're going in or out of a major hub you might have the delight and pleasure of seeing an ad 5 acres in size as you take off or land. Ad-Air is launching the new ads at airports in Atlanta, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Geneva, Tokyo and Abu Dhabi. More »
If you'd like to nominate a commercial for our weekly series "Great Moments In Commercial History" send us an email at tips [at] consumerist [dot] com. Be sure to put "Great Moments In Commercial History" in the subject. To see other commercials that have been featured in the series, click here.More »
—> The owner of this mobile phone and accessory store in NYC has found a creative way to re-use some existing signage. It's not exactly as genius as the "COBY" brand you see on low-rent CD players and headphones, but it gets the job done. More »
Canadian telecommunications giant Bell Canada is pulling down over 50 ads placed around parts of Toronto and Vancouver, because they show a woman wearing a button that reads "Belsen was a gas," the title of a Sex Pistols song and a reference to the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. The button is one of many the model wears, and the company says it was impossible to read during approval and proofing, and only became legible when blown up to billboard-size proportions. [Reuters and Free Republic] More »
We like watching ads for outdated technology. It reminds us not to spend tons on money on soon-to-be obsolete junk, and also makes us feel happy that technology is so much better than it was in 1984. More »
Reader Diane calls this Dr. Jang & Associates commercial "a bay area classic!" Dr. Jang sure does seem like a cheerful guy. If you'd like to nominate a commercial for our weekly series "Great Moments In Commercial History" send us an email at tips [at] consumerist [dot] com. Be sure to put "Great... More »
—>We'd always heard rumors that there were companies that would pay you to wrap your car in their ads... but we thought it was a bunch of hooey. That's right. Hooey. It's not. There really are guys like Brian Morris of Pheonix, AZ who will pay you to wrap a big vinyl ad around your SUV. More »
—>Direct-to-consumer drug ads show pretty pictures of people laughing while running through fields of flowers and enjoying romantic dinners and such while a monotone voice speaks about side-effects like diarrhea, blot clots, and death. You're watching, but are you really listening? More »
—>Time Warner charged Nick $0.23 for the Home Shopping Network coupon included in his monthly bill. The "Adhsn fee" listed on his bill was an oversight, according to a Time Warner representative, who defended the omnipresent charge as something that is usually "just bundled somewhere else." Nick writes: More »
If you'd like to nominate a commercial for our weekly series "Great Moments In Commercial History" send us an email at tips [at] consumerist [dot] com. Be sure to put "Great Moments In Commercial History" in the subject. To see other commercials that have been featured in the series, click here. More »
Intel's intent of our ad titled "Multiply Computing Performance and Maximize the Power of Your Employees" was to convey the performance capabilities of our processors through the visual metaphor of a sprinter. We have used the visual of sprinters in the past successfully. More »
We love this Select Dental commercial, which, if you have cable in the NYC area you'll surely agree, is shown approximately 4 times per second. Yet, it never gets old. More »
THEY PAUSED THE SHOW AT THE PUNCHLINE. Advertised their crap-ass made for the station show... then "Went back to the show" for another 10 seconds so the Joke could finish before going to regular commercials. More »
Reader Laurie nominates these two commercials for a rural dating service. Farming is so lonely. 
