June 07, 2005

Fly Alaska Air, Get the Clockwork Orange Treatment

I've blogged before about coercive advertising before.... Today's Washington Post reports that Alaska Air is beginning to force its passengers to watch credit card advertisements during the last 30 minutes of flight into DCA, when one is not allowed to stand! How Clockwork-Orange like!

On a recent Alaska Airlines flight, passengers were told to remain buckled and seated for the last 30 minutes before landing at Reagan National Airport. It was a standard security measure for flights heading into restricted airspace over Washington.

It also turned a planeful of passengers into captive customers who were then pitched a Bank of America Visa card -- with little chance of tuning it out. Over the intercom, a flight attendant encouraged passengers to sign up for the Bank of America credit card. Then other flight attendants went down the aisle handing out applications.

...Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Amanda Tobin said passengers had expressed an interest in learning more about applying for Visa credit cards and that the airline's flight attendants share "basic" information.

Alaska isn't the only airline to push products. Since last August, Bank of America Corp. has paid US Airways employees $50 for each new applicant they get to sign up for a Visa card. The US Airways employees who nab 15 new applicants receive $750, plus a $75 bonus. The payments extend not only to flight attendants, but also to US Airways customer service and reservation agents...

privacy

June 04, 2005

Another Reason to Switch to Firefox: Fewer Annoying "Rich Media" Ads

Clickz news discusses the horror of horrors: those annoying ads don't appear on the computers of Firefox users. One more reason to switch from IE.

Various reports put Firefox's market share at 10 to 15 percent. Yet I can't view 75 percent of rich media ads while using Firefox. And while many online ad designers toil away on Macs, they often can't see the fruits of their labor in a live environment.

If you're a marketer, an agency executive, or a creative professional, this should give you pause. Ask yourself the following important questions about your own rich media planning and development...

May 10, 2005

Medical Journals Try to Crack Down on Drug Industry Hos

A must-read article in today's Wall Street Journal:

Doctors and patients who rely on articles in prestigious medical journals for information about drugs have a problem: The articles don't always tell the full story.

Some omit key findings of trials about a drug's safety and efficacy or inconvenient details about how a trial's design changed partway through. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last year reviewed 122 medical-journal articles and found that 65% of findings on harmful effects weren't completely reported. It also found gaps in half the findings on how well treatments worked.

The problem calls into question whether journals can play the role of gatekeeper in an era when articles are increasingly used as marketing tools. Editors have "found themselves playing a game of research hide-and-seek," says Jeffrey Drazen, editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. They have "had experiences where authors tried to pitch it, where they were telling you the good news and not the bad news."

[...]

The JAMA study last year said articles often cherry-picked strong results to report, even if those results were in a different area than the study was designed to test. Typically scientists set up clinical trials to answer one or two primary questions -- for example, whether a drug reduces the risk of a heart attack and stroke. These are called the primary outcomes. The JAMA study found that 62% of trials had at least one primary outcome that was changed, added or omitted.

[...]

One well-publicized dispute over data interpretation came in 2000 when a JAMA article said Pfizer Inc.'s painkiller Celebrex minimized damage to the stomach compared with older drugs. It later emerged that the authors used only six months of data even though they had some data extending to 12 months. When all the results were included, Celebrex didn't look markedly better than its rivals. (Separately, a study last year suggested Celebrex might increase heart risk.) Today, the 2000 article is part of a shareholder suit alleging that Pfizer misled investors about its drug.

[...]

Disputes are rarely clear-cut. Scientists may legitimately disagree whether an article that leaves out a certain figure is deceptive or merely reflects the fact that no several-page summary of thousands of pages of data can be comprehensive.

As part of a bid for Food and Drug Administration approval to sell the anticholesterol drug Mevacor without a doctor's prescription, Merck and partner Johnson & Johnson set up 14 mock drugstores and solicited customers through advertising. The store shelves were lined with products including over-the-counter Mevacor. A label on the drug instructed potential users that they should take it only if they met several conditions, such as having moderately high cholesterol and at least one risk factor for heart disease. The idea was to simulate the real-life circumstances under which the pills would be sold.

An article summarizing the results of the experiment in the November 2004 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology said about two-thirds of the people who decided to try the drug met the conditions or came close. The authors, who worked for Merck and J&J, said the study's full results made a "compelling case" that Mevacor was suitable to be sold over-the-counter.

In reviewing the case, the FDA highlighted another figure, one that never appeared in the article: Just 10% of the people who took the drug fully met the label's conditions. The others included in the two-thirds figure met many of the conditions but not all. After hearing a presentation by agency officials, an FDA advisory committee in January voted to reject the drug companies' request.

Edwin Hemwall, a vice president at the Merck-J&J joint venture that wants to sell the drug over-the-counter, says the label was conservatively written and the two-thirds figure accurately captured the percentage of users who were right for the drug. It included people who had been advised by their doctor to take Mevacor and some who were a year younger than the minimum ages on the label (45 for men, 55 for women). "We felt that that really represented, from a global perspective, the type of person who fit the label," Dr. Hemwall says. The FDA, he says, "went very, very strictly by the label."

The journal's editor, William Roberts of Baylor University, said he didn't remember details of the article and couldn't comment.

[...]

Alan Goldhammer, an associate vice president at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the top drug-industry trade group, says some of the new scrutiny unfairly singles out drug companies -- for example, by forcing them to get academic scientists to check off on their work. "When is enough enough?" asks Mr. Goldhammer. "Why are our submitted articles different from all other submitted articles?"

They're different, journal editors contend, because of their potential use in marketing. In 2003, an article in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society concluded that the Alzheimer's drug Aricept helps elderly people live at home longer. It cited "significant delays" in the date when people who took Aricept entered a nursing home. Pfizer and Eisai Co., the drug's co-marketers, ran ads in medical publications that cited the study and said the drug "helps keep patients in the community for more than five years."

Critics, in letters to the journal, called the study "seriously flawed" and "misleading." They suggested that its design tended to weight the Aricept group with the most compliant patients and those with the most social support -- making it unclear whether their superior results had anything to do with the drug's effects. Those in the non-Aricept group included people who refused the companies' offer for free ongoing treatment with the drug and some who dropped out of an earlier clinical trial of it.

The study acknowledged the possibility of "selection bias" between the groups, but suggested this wasn't a fatal flaw. David Geldmacher, the article's lead author and a professor at the University of Virginia, says the study results were "meaningful" and the two groups were "comparable to a reasonable standard." Thomas Yoshikawa, editor in chief of the journal, says the article was "topical and relevant" and its science "reasonably good." The Pfizer spokeswoman said in an email that the company "stands by our advertising and the results of this study," adding that they are consistent with a different study published this January in the same journal.

A 2001 analysis in JAMA found that side effects were adequately reported in only 39% of nearly 200 articles surveyed. The median space devoted to safety concerns was roughly a third of a page -- about the same as the authors' names and affiliations.

In 2001 the New England Journal of Medicine published an article about the Eli Lilly & Co. drug Xigris for sepsis, a body-wide response to infection that is often fatal. The article described Xigris as effective in a broad spectrum of patients. But four consultants to an FDA advisory committee later published a commentary in the journal, saying the FDA's analysis showed the least-sick patients got no benefit and suffered side effects. The FDA approved the drug only for sicker patients.

William Macias, a Lilly official, and Gordon Bernard, a Vanderbilt University professor who was the lead author of the article, say the authors used a different statistical analysis than the FDA, and their method showed no meaningful differences between the subgroups. Dr. Drazen, the New England Journal's editor in chief, defends the article, saying the main point was to tell readers the overall results.

"One solution to this is to publish the raw data" that emerge from a trial, says Dr. Abbasi of BMJ, the British journal. "The way things are going in terms of openness, you can't rule it out."

May 07, 2005

Who's Afraid of Commercial Free Speech?

Back in the 1990s, Judge Kozinski wrote an article in the Virginia Law Review titled, Who's Afraid of Commercial Speech. The answer, from the Merck case, and of other drug and food companies that have poisoned the public over the years, is everyone who values life over the hucksterism of advertising.

The Washington Post reports:

Merck & Co.'s longtime leader Raymond V. Gilmartin abruptly resigned yesterday on the same day congressional investigators released a slew of documents detailing how the company continued to aggressively promote its arthritis drug Vioxx after it knew of potentially serious safety concerns.

The documents made public by the House Committee on Government Reform showed that Merck directed its 3,000-person Vioxx sales force to avoid discussions with doctors about the cardiovascular risks identified in a major clinical trial of the drug in 2000. Sales representatives were told instead to rely on a "Cardiovascular Card" that said Vioxx was protecting the heart rather than potentially harming it.

Vioxx was withdrawn from the market last September after another clinical trial found that people who had taken the drug for 18 months were five times more likely to have heart attacks and strokes than those on a placebo. The withdrawal tarnished Merck's reputation and cost the firm billions in sales, stock value and legal fees.

[...]

Merck and other drug companies say their "detailers" act as neutral educators to guide physicians in prescribing drugs, but the more than 20,000 pages of documents released yesterday showed that Merck's representatives were coached to be aggressive salesmen.

They were trained how to smile, speak and position themselves most effectively when talking with doctors, and were exhorted to sell Vioxx and other Merck drugs using the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) read from a Merck training manual that directed instructors to play a recording of the speech and then say to the sales force: "King was someone with goal-focus -- he kept getting shut down but kept going. . . . Just as with a physician, you must keep repeating the compelling message and at some point, the physician will be 'free at last' when he or she prescribes the Merck drug, if that is most appropriate for the patient."

"Merck says the mission of its sales force is to educate doctors," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the panel's ranking Democrat. "This sales force is given extraordinary training so that it can capitalize on virtually every interaction with doctors. Yet when it comes to the one thing doctors most need to know about Vioxx -- its health risks -- Merck's answer seems to be disinformation and censorship."

[...]

The hearing also explored previously reported efforts by Merck to "neutralize" doctors who had concerns about Vioxx's safety by paying them to take part in clinical trials and offering grants and consultancies. Merck officials said their efforts were designed to dispel misinformation about their product...

May 05, 2005

Lowes to List Actual Movie Starting Times

Mark will like this one. The Boston Globe reports that Lowes theaters will start adertising the actual starting time of movies:

Facing growing audience rage at the proliferation of product ads in theaters before the start of feature films and trailers, the company has decided to list the actual starting times of the features, in addition to the official times that, increasingly, bear no relation to reality.

[...]

Listings will note that the features will start ''10 to 15 minutes after the published showtime."

The corporate announcement means that for those annoyed by the product ads, relief is on the way. Patrons will now be able to better calibrate their arrival to the start of the movie, although in doing so they risk marginal seating for a popular film.

Ads before movies, which push everything from cars to soft drinks, infuriate many who say they come to movies to escape these kinds of irritants that dominate television. But where TV viewers are armed with remotes to click away commercials, the captive audiences in theaters enjoy no such option.

The Loews Cineplex CEO, Travis Reid, maintained in the statement that the public understands the practice of running house ads. But he allowed, ''Recently, however, some of our customers have suggested that we also publicize the start time of the movie."

A spokesman for the Regal Entertainment Group, the largest theater chain in the country, said it has no plans to change its listings, which do not include the actual starts of the features.

Up-Update on Assholes

But before reading Bigelow's article, check out Rosenberg's Philosophy of Social Science. And the Leiter Reports.

Update on Assholes

I know that the post below may seem a little extreme. But I just finished reading Gordon Bigelow's "Let There Be Markets, The evangelical roots of economics," in the May Harper's. It's worth a trip to the newsstand.

April 27, 2005

Ads Influence Doctors's Decisions

The Washington Post reports:

Actors pretending to be patients with symptoms of stress and fatigue were five times as likely to walk out of doctors' offices with a prescription when they mentioned seeing an ad for the heavily promoted antidepressant Paxil, according an unusual study being published today.

The study employed an elaborate ruse -- sending actors with fake symptoms into 152 doctors' offices to see whether they would get prescriptions. Most who did not report symptoms of depression were not given medications, but when they asked for Paxil, 55 percent were given prescriptions, and 50 percent received diagnoses of depression...

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising soared after the FDA allowed drug promotions on television for the first time in 1997. Efforts to limit such advertising have run afoul of Supreme Court rulings protecting commercial speech.

The ads are regulated by the FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications. The office, which has barely three dozen employees, must review 30,000 to 40,000 ads a year. Acting commissioner Lester M. Crawford said recently that "our patience is sometimes worn thin" by the advertising claims.

Dan Troy, chief counsel for the FDA in President Bush's first term and now with a Washington law firm, said laws on drug advertising written by Congress in the 1960s have made it difficult to change policy. He added that most FDA professionals were "quite pro-DTC."

The article is in Jama.

April 20, 2005

WSJ: Bogus Fund Ads Back

Viewers! Pay attention! Those ads promoting fund performance are bogus! The Wall Street Journal reports:

There's a whiff of irrational exuberance in the air -- and it's emanating from the mutual-fund companies.

Remember the heady days of 1999 and early 2000, when fund companies ran breathless advertisements peddling stock-mutual funds with unsustainably high short-term performance?

Today's ads aren't nearly so irresponsible. But make no mistake: Performance advertising is back. That is bad news for gullible investors -- and it could be a bad sign for stocks.

...At the 2000 market peak, fund companies were hyping past performance like crazy, encouraging investors to buy the hottest funds at the worst possible time.

Indeed, the magazine's April 2000 issue included a staggering 20 advertisements touting stock-fund performance. Ten of those ads plugged stock funds with one-year gains of 100% or more.

As I see it, when a fund promotes past performance, there is an implicit suggestion that the results can be sustained. So what is the chance that a 100% gain will get repeated the next year? In April 2000, fund companies were clearly too busy raking in cash from investors to worry about such pesky issues.

...you ought to be cynical about the ads -- because the fund companies involved are clearly utterly cynical about you and your fellow fund investors. Fund companies know that past performance is no guarantee of future results. In fact, if you read the small print in these ads, you usually find words to that effect.

This is more than just legal boilerplate. It is a story told over and over again. Suppose, at year end 1969, that you had ranked diversified U.S. stock funds based on their 10-year performance and then bought the top 25%. Result: Over the next 10 years, you would have lagged behind the S&P 500, according to calculations using Lipper data by the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center in Malvern, Pa.

Similarly, the top performers from the 1970s were stock-market laggards in the 1980s, and the top performers from the 1980s fell behind the S&P 500 in the 1990s. And the current decade isn't looking too good, either. The top 25% of stock funds from the 1990s have fallen 5.2% a year during the past five calendar years, trailing the S&P 500's 2.3% annual loss.

Because past performance is such a rotten guide to the future, you should focus on other factors when picking funds...

More on Newsvertising

The Washington Post reports:

Corey Greenberg, tech editor for NBC's "Today" show, appeared last July to praise Apple's iPod as "a great portable musical player . . . the coolest-looking one" and suggested a compatible device to "share your music with other people." "This is the way to go," he declared.

"Let's cut the Apple commercial here right now, okay?" co-host Matt Lauer interjected.

Lauer was onto something. Greenberg, an NBC contributor, confirmed yesterday that he has received payments from Apple as well as Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Seiko Epson, Creative Technology and Energizer Holdings, charging $15,000 apiece to talk up their products on news shows. The contracts were first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal.

April 19, 2005

News & Advertising = Newsvertising

The Wall Street Journal reports on newsvertising:

In November, Child magazine's Technology Editor James Oppenheim appeared on a local television show in Austin, Texas, and reviewed educational gadgets and toys. He praised "My ABC's Picture Book," a personalized photo album from Eastman Kodak Co.

[...]

There was one detail the audience didn't know: Kodak paid Mr. Oppenheim to mention the photo album, according to the company and Mr. Oppenheim. Neither Mr. Oppenheim nor KVUE disclosed the relationship to viewers. During the segment, Mr. Oppenheim praised products from other companies, including: Atari Inc., Microsoft Corp., Mattel Inc., Leapfrog Enterprises Inc. and RadioShack Corp. All paid for the privilege, Mr. Oppenheim says.

One month later, Mr. Oppenheim went on NBC's "Today" show, the U.S.'s biggest national morning news program, which is part of NBC's news division. "Kodak came out with a great idea," he said to host Ann Curry, before proceeding to talk about the same product he'd been paid to discuss on KVUE. Ms. Curry called it a "nice gift for a little child." Kodak says it didn't pay for the "Today" show mention. But neither Mr. Oppenheim nor NBC disclosed the prior arrangement to tout the product on local TV.

In the "Today" segment, Mr. Oppenheim talked about products made or sold by 15 companies. Nine were former clients and eight of those had paid him for product placement on local TV during the preceding year.

[...]

Mr. Oppenheim is part of a little-known network that connects product experts with advertisers and TV shows. The experts pitch themselves to companies willing to pay for a mention. Next, they approach local-TV stations and offer themselves up to be interviewed. Appearances frequently coincide with trade shows, such as the Consumer Electronics Show, or holidays including Christmas or Valentine's Day.

The segments are often broadcast live via satellite from a trade event and typically air during regular news programming in a way that's indistinguishable from the rest of the show. One reviewer may conduct dozens of interviews with local stations over the course of a day in what the industry calls a "satellite media tour." While this circuit is predominantly focused on the local television market, the big prize for marketers is a mention on national television shows, which carry far more clout with viewers.

[...]

Mr. Oppenheim's pitch is typical. Late last year, he invited electronics and game companies to join two satellite tours, according to a copy of his solicitation. "We expect these tours to sell out fast," Mr. Oppenheim wrote. "So please contact us as soon as possible to reserve a spot." The $12,500 fee per company, he explained, covered development, production and "spokesperson expenses."

[...]

For several years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club paid trend and fashion expert Katlean de Monchy to get its jewelry mentioned on local TV. Ms. de Monchy's company, Nextpert News, charges $25,000 for a "special option" that includes Ms. de Monchy touting products on local shows, according to a copy of one of its pitches.

Then in January, Ms. de Monchy appeared as a guest on a "Good Morning America" segment explaining how to replicate fashions worn at the Golden Globe awards. "It's the accessories that really caught my eye, though. A lot of bling-bling," Ms. de Monchy told host Diane Sawyer, singling out a pair of diamond earrings available at Sam's Club.

Dee Breazeale, Sam's Club's vice president and divisional merchandise manager for jewelry, says the company didn't pay to get on ABC's "Good Morning America," but that the mention was "the icing on the cake." Ms. Breazeale adds that Sam's Club would probably not hire Ms. de Monchy if the payments were disclosed, because that would make her appearance seem too much like an infomercial. Ms. Breazeale says the paid segments are more effective than buying an ad. "It brings [the product] more to life," she says.

During the same "Good Morning America" segment, Ms. de Monchy showed off a pair of pointy-toed pumps, sold by another paying customer, shoe retailer DSW. Mike Levison, DSW's vice president of marketing, says he believed his company paid to get on "Good Morning America" as part of the satellite tour. With 10 being the ultimate marketing coup, he described the appearance as a "9 or 10."

March 31, 2005

New Yorker on Advertising

Ken Auletta has a nice article in the New Yorker this week discussing the evolution of the advertising industry (not online). There are a few gems in there:

...Today, the technologies that permit advertisers to track consumers also give consumers a way to hide from advertisers. Internet users can block pop-up ads and spam, and can refuse to give out more information than a mailing address and credit-card number. Millard and others have thought about trading free cable or other services for the right to track a consumer's buying habits. For privacy advocates, that would invite Big Brother into the home. Others would say that Big Brother has been there for some time.

When I stopped by [Linda Kaplan] Thaler's office one day this fall, she was being visited, as she often is, by prospective clients looking to be noticed in an increasingly crowded media world. "Most clients come to us and want the Aflac duck," Thaler told me. Thaler has considerable charm and enthusiasm, and she talked excitedly about the digital cable box that had just been installed in her apartment, capable of performing remarkable feats: allowing her to record programs, fast-forward and rewind, and skip the commercials (this she did not mention). Despite her professed optimism about the business-if advertising didn't work, she said, "the generic brands of every category would be selling out"-she knows that her agency must become less reliant on traditional advertising. (Similarly, talent agencies in Los Angeles are becoming less reliant on the movie industry by taking advertising accounts away from the agencies.) Thaler wants to produce more entertainment programs, as she did several years ago for CBS with a variety show for a client, the American Red Cross. "I put on my business cards 'advertising and entertainment,' " she said. "I'm interested in entertainment." In January, she opened a new division, KTG Buzz, to expand her agency's public relations and promotional abilities. "Advertising is in trouble only if you think of the narrow box advertising has traditionally been in, which is getting on TV or in print," she said.

March 29, 2005

Tivo is Dead, Long Live Tivo!

So, according to /., Tivo is placing popup ads on individuals' screens:

mkraft writes "ZDNet is reporting that TiVo has started a testing a new pop-up style ad on a random and limited number of subscriber's TiVo as of this weekend. The ads are designed to be displayed on screen when the user fast forwards through specially tagged commercials.

No surprise. Tivo has been trying to introduce advertising into its service for some time. The question is--what will be the next, advertising-free, tivo-style device? Maybe it will be Wendy Seltzer's MythTV / HDPVR.

I have a Hauupage Win-TV in my computer that acts like a tivo, has no subscription fee, etc. Maybe the home media PC (one built by us, not the advertising industry) is the way to go.

March 16, 2005

NY Times on Annoying the Annoyers

Megan passes along this article from the New York Times:

...Meg Daniel presses zero whenever she hears a computerized operator on the telephone so that she can talk to a real person. "Just because they want a computer to handle me doesn't mean I have to play along," she said.

When subscription cards fall from magazines Andrew Kirk is reading, he stacks them in a pile at the corner of his desk. At the end of each month, he puts them in the mail but leaves them blank so that the advertiser is forced to pay the business reply postage without gaining a new subscriber.

[...]

Wesley A. Williams spent more than a year exacting his revenge against junk mailers. When signing up for a no-junk-mail list failed to stem the flow, he resorted to writing at the top of each unwanted item: "Not at this address. Return to sender." But the mail kept coming because the envelopes had "or current resident" on them, obligating mail carriers to deliver it, he said.

Next, he began stuffing the mail back into the "business reply" envelope and sending it back so that the mailer would have to pay the postage. "That wasn't exacting a heavy enough cost from them for bothering me," said Mr. Williams, 35, a middle school science teacher who lives in Melrose, N.Y., near Albany.

After checking with a postal clerk about the legality of stepping up his efforts, he began cutting up magazines, heavy bond paper, and small strips of sheet metal and stuffing them into the business reply envelopes that came with the junk packages.

"You wouldn't believe how heavy I got some of these envelopes to weigh," said Mr. Williams, who added that he saw an immediate drop in the amount of arriving junk mail. A spokesman for the United States Postal Service, Gerald McKiernan, said that Mr. Williams's actions sounded legal, as long as the envelope was properly sealed.

February 16, 2005

Your Ad on Carrie's Colon

Carrie McLaren has started a new blog. You should visit it.

Check this out--advertise on Carrie's colon. It's the next logical step.

January 25, 2005

Interfection = American Online

"Ah, a web of lies."

Have you ever seen "Interfection," the episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force where the computer internet service provider takes over the house with pop up ads and the occupants cannot cancel the service? Isn't this episode about AOL?

Check out part of the transcript:

Internet wizard: [I am] the www.yzzerdd, the "Wizard," dot com...

Fry Man: What the hell do you want with us?...

Internet wizard: Why don't you fill this out, you could win a Porsche?

Fry Man: I'm not filling out no damn form so I can win no damn sports car. I want to know what the hell is going on here...

Internet wizard: Congratulations, you are automatically signed up to receive e-mails about updates, specials and e-mails about other e-mails!

Fry Man: ...I'm coming in there to unsubscribe...

Internet wizard: It's only 44.95 a month, that's pennies a day...Surely this convenience entices you. Pornography and online gaming at hundreds of times the speed of your normal advertising service provider. It's so easy to use. And the surgery to implant it at the base of your skull is so painless that it's no wonder I'm number one...

Fry Man: ...Now I know for sure that I don't want this service.

Internet wizard: You signed up for the thirty day trial. You must have to have it for thirty days...

Fry Man: ...You're going offline, Internet Wizard...

Internet wizard: Fine, fine, don't use our service. Get left in the digital dust, but remember, you could have won a Porsche.

Fry Man: [Looking at popup windows options] Yes! Sign me up for your fabulous and invasive service, including the home invasion cam!...No, I need another 90 days to decide, but I'm pretty sure I want this.

Internet wizard: And after this 90 day trial, you will be judged and sentenced to a lifetime of interactive sports, news and information. And we will continue to draw from your account, because banks don't care. It's not their money...

January 17, 2005

The End of Autonomous Content is at Hand

Someday, there will be no content. There will only be advertising. The Wall Street Journal tells us:

...Product placement has been around for years, but now the practice is growing rapidly in daytime television. Butterball turkeys, Nascar shirts and Kleenex tissue have all taken recent star turns. Not only do the characters on "All My Children" smell good, but they also have been swilling a lot of Florida orange juice -- and not because they're thirsty.

...Soap operas, a carry-over from radio that started on TV a half-century ago as platforms to sell detergent, are also serving as guinea pigs for networks to test how far they can go with product plugs before viewers revolt. Soap audiences are notoriously obsessive about their favorite programs, so feedback is swift to arrive...

Because advertisers are increasingly insistent that characters discuss their products -- a jug of Tide sitting in the background no longer does the trick -- the work of implementing these deals falls to beleaguered staff writers. Striking the proper balance is tricky: Items must be embedded naturally enough so they don't raise the ire of marketing-savvy viewers, yet overtly enough to satisfy clients. And, as in the case of the Wal-Mart perfume, over-the-top soap-opera storylines can be an awkward fit. "Let's say a character is tied to the railroad tracks," says Ms. McTavish. "I can't just have him sit up and drink a Lipton Iced Tea."

Writers also must deal with companies that have their own ideas about manipulating scripts. When ConAgra Foods and CBS agreed to incorporate Butterball turkeys into Thanksgiving plot lines on "As the World Turns" the meat processor thought it would be nice to have one of the program's most popular characters help serve up the birds. There was a small problem with that plan, however: She was eloping at the time.

...At ABC, Ms. McTavish says the 10 writers she supervises have figured out "clever little ways" to tuck placements into scripts. Throwing a few lines to a minor character is a favorite technique -- that's how she solved the perfume crisis. So is writing products into less-vital expository scenes. And don't get too self-important, she advises. "You have to play fast and loose," she says. "You can write in anything if you're clever enough."

A couple of observations:

-Product placement started as the intentional presence of recognizable items in the background or in an actor's hands, now it's beginning to control the actual dialogue. As far as I am concerned, there is no end in sight. No amount of promotion is too much. Expect for the entire show to be based around a product before too long.

-Note how soap opera viewers are guinea pigs for this type of advertising. It is not popularly understood that the limits of consumer acceptance are actually tested. Companies will test different versions of a product to see how far they can go in limiting features (so that they can be sold as premium services) before people revolt. So it's not the best product at the lowest cost. It's the most profit maximization keyed to the limits of consumer acceptance.

January 13, 2005

MS Unable to Develop Consumer Friendly Products

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Microsoft is not in a position to create consumer-oriented products because the company is too tied to the advertising industry. Remember how long it took Microsoft to create reasonable cookie handling tools in IE? Remember how long it took Microsoft to block popups in IE? Both delays are the result of the company being too tied to advertising revenue. They don't want to give consumers the tools they need to make the web friendlier.

In today's Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg reveals the newest insult to our privacy brought to us by Microsoft. Unlike all the other spyware programs out there, Microsoft's one does not eliminate third-party tracking cookies. Now, why would Microsoft do that? It's because Microsoft's software is designed for advertisers, not for you.

The software offers two kinds of scans: a quick, five-minute version, and a longer version that took about half an hour on my test machine. But the scans missed some spyware found by Spy Sweeper. In particular, Microsoft missed "tracking cookies," small files deposited by Web companies, often without your knowledge or permission, that track your online activities. The Microsoft program deliberately doesn't look for these. Microsoft officials say they are concerned that some legitimate cookies, such as those that store Web-site login information, could be unfairly labeled as spyware. They promise to add tracking-cookie detection in the future.

Even worse is the way the program handles another spyware problem,
the hijacking of Web-browser home pages and search pages. This is a spyware technique in which the home and search pages in a Web browser are replaced by pages selected by a spyware company, and it's nearly impossible for a user to restore his or her own selections.

The usual way of handling this, with programs like Spy Sweeper, is to detect the page changes and to restore the user's original choices. But the Microsoft program tries to replace the spyware pages with home and search pages from MSN, Microsoft's own online service. This smacks of the same kind of coercion the spyware authors are using.

Microsoft insists it isn't trying to drive people to MSN. It says it can't tell if a user's own choice of a home or search page was "secure," so it defaults to setting the home and search pages to a site it knows is secure, its own MSN site. But the user's choice should rule here, not Microsoft's...

It's good that Microsoft is finally offering users tools to protect their Windows computers. But it's going to have to do much better, and it's going to have to avoid the perception that it's using security as a tool to promote or favor its own products.

January 11, 2005

Radio Attacks XM, Sirius

The Washington Post reports that traditional terrestrial radio stations are attacking satellite radio companies XM and Sirius.

The radio industry plans to promote itself in coming weeks via a string of high-profile print and on-air ads featuring testimonials from music stars such as Nelly, Alicia Keys and Ludacris, as the medium finds itself the latest of a number of aging industries fighting back against new-tech rivals.

In the past three years, the nation's nearly 14,000 AM and FM stations have come face to face with a new threat: satellite radio. Washington's XM Satellite Radio and New York's Sirius Satellite Radio charge a monthly fee to beam more than 100 channels of largely commercial-free radio to customers. Both services started with zero subscribers and have grown to a combined 4.3 million as of the end of 2004…

The promotional ads, sent to thousands of radio stations yesterday, include the tagline: "Radio. You hear it here first." The campaign is designed to show AM and FM radio as the place that exposes listeners to new music.

The radio ads feature pop stars ticking off career accomplishments and allusions to hit songs, laid down over a musical track. Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne, whose 2002 single "Complicated" rocketed her to stardom at 17, chips in:

"Before the cover of Maxim, before stomping the red carpet, before I stole my father's ties, before the star on my wrist, before boy-beaters beat out wife-beaters, before I got nominated again, before the pop-tart drama, before I toured the world at 19 and 'Complicated' made things so complicated, you heard me -- Avril Lavigne -- on the radio."

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Radio executives long have dismissed satellite radio, playing down its threat on the theory that few people would want to pay for something they're used to getting free. But that line is getting harder and harder to swallow.

There's a few flaws in this campaign. First, I'm not convinced that those interested in XM and Sirius would be interested in Nelly, Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Avril Lavinge. Second, broadcast (some satellite radio also has terrestrial transmitters) radio isn't "free," it's burdened with constant crass commercialism and endless commercials. Third, the new stuff argument…there has to be more new stuff on satellite.

January 05, 2005

Ads in Movie Theaters

Gary Ruskin asks:

Are you tired of being held hostage at the movie theater?

Are you fed up with paying too much for a movie ticket, and then being forced to watch pre-movie commercials?

Most Americans are. According to an InsightExpress poll released on November 17th, 53% of moviegoers want movie theaters to stop running pre-movie commercials, and 27% say that the ads "will lead them to decrease the number of trips they take to the theater."

Take action by sending a message to movie theater owners. One site estimates that the ads only give theaters 18 cents per viewer. Isn't your time worth more than that?

December 17, 2004

You're Hot and All, But I'd Rather Just Have the Data

Back in November 2001, a Washington Post article by Yuki Noguchi described how wireless phone providers test the cellular network for quality and outages. It's an excellent article:

The carriers contract with companies such as the one Rutledge works for -- LCC International Inc. in McLean -- to find the weakest spots in their networks and to compare their service to the competition's. Most also conduct their own tests.

Other than customer complaints, the drive tests are the only way Verizon Wireless can check its network, said John Johnson, a spokesman for the country's largest wireless-phone firm, which typically tests 2,000 miles a month in the Washington-Baltimore area. If a call is dropped, or if it fades out, Verizon can reprogram software in the network to make the signal stronger or plan to build another cell tower to increase its coverage, Johnson said...

Rutledge's van has six phones -- one for each of the Washington area's major wireless carriers: Verizon, Cingular Wireless, AT&T Wireless, Sprint PCS, Nextel Communications Inc. and VoiceStream Wireless Corp. Every two minutes, each phone is directed by a computer program to make another call. A database keeps track of the strength of the signal, the quality of the transmission and whether the call runs into trouble...

Rutledge has worked for LCC for six years, and he said he's mapped nearly every city in the country that way, except the ones in New Mexico, which he figures is simply a matter of time.

Okay, now here's the obvious issue that Noguchi failed to raise--why isn't this testing data made public? If it were public, consumers could evaluate cellular service plans on facts rather than the stupid advertising that T-Mobile and Verizon use. All of those advertising dollars could be redirected to actually improving the network, instead of trying to convince people that the network is good.

I think that wireless quality advertising is one of the clearest examples of how advertising frustrates consumer choice and is actually a hindrance to the free market. If we just had the data, imagine the cost savings to consumers! We don't need this mindless advertising!

December 10, 2004

American vs. European Credit and Spending

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning on Europeans' spending habits.

...rules designed to save citizens from harm have conspired with economic cautiousness to close wallets in continental Europe. A thicket of laws to protect employees ensnares retailers, keeping prices high and store hours short...Limits on consumer finance protect borrowers from indebtedness -- and stifle the use of credit cards. Western Europe has only 0.27 credit cards per person, compared with 2.23 in the U.S. State pension systems are running out of funds, so people save extra for their retirement. Moreover, many affluent Europeans just don't want to spend their free time shopping...

In France, the evening news repeatedly broadcasts features on the dangers of over-indebtedness, and regulations discourage borrowing to consume. For example, the French central bank requires credit cards to display clearly the words "Carte de Credit," to distinguish them from more popular, less-stigmatized debit cards, which draw directly on a checking account.

"The consumer doesn't want to show to the retailer that he is paying on credit," says Herve Kergoat, MasterCard International Inc.'s country manager for France. "In France there is a culture strongly averse to credit."

David Thesmar, an economics professor at the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique in Paris, doesn't even have a credit card. He and his wife want only enough money to meet their spending needs, and he would rather spend his free time with his kids than go shopping, he says. "I'm not a very big shopper," says the 32-year-old. "I don't feel bad when I buy cultural things like books or CDs, but it feels bad to buy futile things, especially when I buy clothes."

...while the average American spends more than $5,500 a year using credit cards, the equivalent figure for Germany is only $64, and for France just $30, according to Euromonitor International, a market-research company.

December 01, 2004

Bogus Jeopardy Question

Why is this a question on Jeopardy? Is this a question that is relevant to anything in the world, or just an ad for H&R Block?

Asked to name the company whose 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work just four months a year, the 48-year-old Zerg correctly answered "H&R Block." Jennings guessed "FedEx." Zerg ended up $5,602 ahead of her famous opponent, who immediately shook her hand and reached over to give her a congratulatory hug.

November 30, 2004

Xmas Music: Psycho Terrorism Reminder

Having just returned from the Safeway where they were playing Alvin and the Chipmunks Xmas music for all to enjoy, I thought it would be appropriate to repost a blog from last year.

The Age reports that an Austrian trade union has claimed that Xmas music constitutes "psycho-terrorism" for salespeople!

"The Union of Private Employees is appealing to department store owners to use moderation and play Christmas music for only a few hours each day.

"From morning to night, for weeks before Christmas, there was the same Christmas music in department stores over and over again, said Gottfried Rieser of the Union of Private Employees.

"'Many staff in the retail sector suffer psychologically from it,'" Mr Rieser said. "'They get aggressive. On Christmas Eve with their families, they can't stand Silent Night or Jingle Bells any more.'"

I feel the same way about Xmas music. It assaults me when I buy breakfast at Safeway every morning. We must end this Xmas tyranny.

Posted by chris at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2004

WP on BND

The Washington Post reports on local iterations of Adbusters'-like Buy Nothing Day. (It should be noted that Adbusters has moved beyond Buy Nothing Day and is now advocating "Buy Nothing Christmas.)

Posted by chris at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2004

Tivo Adding Ads to the Ad Skip Button

So, many blogs (Boing Boing, PVR, etc) are commenting on Tivo adding ads to their ad-skipping service. People literally buy Tivo to avoid ads, and the company's representations about the 30 second skip are centered around avoiding ads...so why isn't this a deceptive or unfair trade practice? Someone (perhaps even a TV advertiser) should sue...

Posted by chris at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2004

Singletary on Commercialized Kids

Michelle Singletary reviews a new book by Juliet Schor on commercial influences on children called Born to Buy:

Advertisers and marketers are turning our children into materialistic monsters. And sadly, we are aiding and abetting the enemy.

We let the enemy into our house when we allow our children to watch endless programming surrounded by a steady stream of messages that communicate they aren't worthy -- a somebody -- without certain products.

We deliver our children to the enemy every time we choose to entertain them by shopping.

Posted by chris at 09:53 PM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2003

Coke in the School Doesn't Commercialize the Classroom?

Check out the most recent BadAds post. It's on the recent partnership between Coke and the PTA:

"according to a health and nutrition spokesperson for Coke quoted in the Times article. Says Kari L. Bjorhus, 'We do not believe that having vending machines in schools represents a commercial presence in the classroom because the machines aren't in the classroom.' Guess we can't argue with that...."

The post also has a link to an important new study by Alex Molnar of Arizona State University: No Student Left Unsold, The Sixth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends, October 2003.

Posted by chris at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)

October 04, 2003

Media Tank Creative Rights Conference

I had a great time at Media Tank's Creative Rights Conference in Philadelphia. I served on a panel moderated by Carrie McLaren of StayFree! Magazine. Carrie is the curator of the Illegal Art Exhibit, which features art that has been banned, blocked, or otherwise pursued by copyright holders.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Copyrights and Copywrongs was also on the panel. He explained how copyright law has evolved from a reasonable system to one that is locking out new artists and causing them to change how they make art.

Michael Hernandez de Luna spoke about his art: stamps that he has created, some of which have made it through the mail. Ray Beldner explained that music has experienced a greater copyright attack than the visual arts. Kristin Thomson of the Future of Music Coalition spoke of uses of P2P that are friendly to artists and consumers. Ispoke about Digital Rights Management, privacy, and fair use.

Posted by chris at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)

September 30, 2003

Commerical Alert Petitions FTC, FCC on Product Placement

Commercial Alert has filed a petition with the Federal Trade and Federal Communications Commissions requesting the agencies to investigate product placement as an unfair and deceptive trade practice.

Gary Ruskin writes: "Put simply, TV networks and stations are shifting advertising from commerical breaks to programming itself. They are inserting branded products directly into programs, in exchange for substantial fees or other consideration. This advertising technique, called “product placement,” has become closely integrated into program plots, to the point that the line between programming and “infomercials” has become increasingly blurred. Some commentators see no line at all.

[...]

The interweaving of advertising and programming has become so routine that television networks now are selling to advertisers a measure of control over aspects of their programming. Some programs are so packed with product placements that they are approaching the appearance of infomercials. The head of a company that obtained repeated product placements actually called one such program “a great infomercial.” Yet these programs typically lack the disclosure required of infomercials to uphold honesty and fair dealing.

[...]

American children are suffering from an epidemic of marketing-related diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and alcoholism, while millions will eventually die from smokingrelated illnesses. Gambling is a serious problem for millions of young people as well.

[...]

This is an affront to basic honesty. We urge the Commission to investigate current TV advertising practices regarding product placement and other embedded ads, and to take the steps necessary to restore some honesty and fair dealing to the presentation of these ads, by requiring concurrent disclosure that the ads are, in fact, ads. required of infomercials5 to uphold honesty and fair dealing.

Posted by chris at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2003

Should We Call Newspapers "Adpapers?"

Just came across this interesting footnote in Cincinnati v. Discovery Network:

Fn 16: Some ordinary newspapers try to maintain a ratio of 70% advertising to 30% editorial content. See generally C. Fink, Strategic Newspaper Management 43 (1988).

Posted by chris at 06:00 PM | Comments (1)

September 24, 2003

Senate Limits Prostitution on National Mall

The Senate voted yesterday to prohibit the Department of the Interior from whoring out the National Mall to Pepsi and Britany Spears.

Senators Bingaman, Dorgan, and Reid passed Senate Amendment 1740, which is now incorporated in the Interior Bill. The language is not in the House version, so the conferees will have to preserve the language in order for it to become law.

SA 1740. Mr. BINGAMAN (for himself, Mr. Dorgan, and Mr. Reid) proposed an amendment to the bill H.R. 2691, making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for other purposes; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. .. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this or any other Act, hereafter enacted, may be used to permit the use of the National Mall for a special event, unless the permit expressly prohibits the erection, placement, or use of structures and signs bearing commercial advertising. The Secretary may allow for recognition of sponsors of special events, provided that the size and form of the recognition shall be consistent with the special nature and sanctity of the Mall and any lettering or design identifying the sponsor shall be no larger than one-third the size of the lettering or design identifying the special event. In approving special events, the Secretary shall ensure, to the maximum extent practicable, that public use of, and access to the Mall is not restricted. For purposes of this section, the term "special event'' shall have the meaning given to it by section 7.96(g)(1)(ii) of title 36, Code of Federal Regulations.

Posted by chris at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2003

Adbusters Black Spot to Air

Adbusters' Black Spot commercial will be on CNN's Crossfire on Monday, September 22nd at 4:30. The ad was rejected by free speech advocates Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS and MTV.

Posted by chris at 08:42 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2003

Stop Naming Your Kids After Cars, Mermaids!

Gene Weingarten goes on the offensive in the Washington Post against all this weird naming of children, and specifically on all these people who are naming their daughters "Madison:"

"When you do this, your victim is your own child. I know of a kid, born in the mid-1960s, who used to introduce himself thus: "Hi, my name is Caribou, but you can call me Mike." Little 3-year-old Madison is someday going to be 60. ("Hi, sweetie, I am your Grandma Madison, but you can call me Mom-Mom.") It is hard to overstate the creepiness of some of this recent naming. Among the 1,000 most popular girls' names in America today are Essence, Precious, Journey, Heaven, Unique, Cadence and, of course, Lexus. (Elantra hasn't made it, yet.) All of those names are more popular than Betty, which has fallen off the list altogether.

[…]

"Editors have warned me that this is a dangerous column -- that names are a personal thing about which people feel strongly, and parents should be free to name their children what they want without fear of public ridicule.

"I know, I know, but I don't care. The Madisonness must end.

Posted by chris at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2003

Senate, House Not for Sale?

It seems that the Senate and House buildings are not for sale.

Posted by chris at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2003

Watch Out Bloggers...

...the hucksters are trying to figure out how they can use the medium to "increase their business revenue."

Posted by chris at 08:04 AM

September 06, 2003

National Mall and Commercialism

The National Park Service made a determination that all that NFL crap on the Mall is "sponsorship" and not advertising. The Park Service hasn't been so lenient in the past. In the 1990s, the Park Service attempted to ban all t-shirt sales on the Mall, and they were sucessful! The regulations on sale of items on the Mall are in title 36 of the CFR at 7.96 (k)(1).

Posted by chris at 10:54 PM

September 05, 2003

Age of Mammon

This guy hit the nail on the head: America's relgion is consumerism.

Commercializing the Mall

Friday, September 5, 2003; Page A20

The Post's Sept. 3 editorial expressing anguish over the crass commercialization of the Mall missed something fundamental about modern America.

Our core values no longer focus on family or community but on the marketing and consumption of products and services.

Instead of erecting affordable housing or inspiring public works, we build malls and sports complexes, the temples at which we can worship our capitalist gods such as Nike, Pepsi and Microsoft. Thus, converting the Mall into another consumerist spectacle represents more accurately what America has become.

We should applaud the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior for openly endorsing the new realities.

MICHAEL BRIAN SCHIFFER

Posted by chris at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2003

More Ads For Metro

Jimminy! More Metro ads in the future, the Washington Post reports. Is there any place where we can be free of this scourge of advertising? To enjoy our lives in peace? Perhaps we should just vandalize it.

Posted by chris at 11:22 PM

August 18, 2003

Fill the Void in Your Life

buy something useless at my online shop.

Posted by chris at 10:19 PM

October 01, 2002

Lancet Recommends Limits on Ads to Children

The stars are in alignment...one is used to reading about the harmful effects of commercial child molestation in Adbusters. Now, you can read about it in the Lancet.

Commercial child molestation is out of control as a result of a 1980 law that forbids the Federal Trade Commission from using its authority to declare that children's advertising is unfair. As a result, the agency could only pursue children's advertising under the "deception" theory, which basically requires some affirmative misrepresentation before the agency can act.

Here is the partial CRS summary of P.L. 96-252, a bill that reauthorized the FTC in 1980:

[...]

Eliminates the authority of the FTC to promulgate any rule in the pending children's advertising proceeding, or in any substantially similar proceeding, on the basis that such advertising constitutes an unfair act or practice in or affecting commerce. (Leaves unaffected other authority of the FTC to regulate such area.) Suspends through fiscal year 1982 the FTC's authority to regulate commercial advertising on the basis of such unfairness standard.

Suspends the children's advertising proceeding until the Commission complies with a new rulemaking provision, which requires the FTC to include in the proposed rulemaking notice the text of the rule and alternatives.

Posted by chris at 10:54 AM

November 02, 2001

Walk for Capitalism

You've heard of J20 and S30. Now, there's D2, the "Walk for Capitalism."

Posted by chris at 10:27 AM

July 25, 2001

Is this Freedom?

Is this freedom? Sure, you are free to buy a SUV that gets 11 miles to the gallon. But, are you free to view art, hear music, read books, watch movies, or even to surf or chat on the Internet?

Posted by chris at 09:43 AM

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