A cold front that has raged across much of Europe over the past week has brought arctic temperatures, icy high winds and dozens of deaths. In addition to its human toll, it has been a marketing snafu for BMW AG’s Mini brand.

[..]

A marketing agency for Mini decided that BMW should bet on a sponsorship that would make potential customers associate Mini’s new roadster with brisk but sunny weather. For €299 ($394), it bought the name for a 2012 high-pressure area and dubbed it Cooper. It spent another €199 on a low-pressure system and secured the name Minnie.

It is “a wind- and weatherproof idea,” the Munich agency, Sassenbach Advertising, said on its website in late January, as the Cooper-driven front began to make its way from Siberia.

But as Cooper swept through Eastern Europe, it brought more than the wintry sunshine Mini had hoped for. Temperatures sank to below minus 30 degrees Celsius, or minus 22 Fahrenheit, and more than 250 people have died, mostly in Ukraine, Poland and Romania.

And Kunkel, the University of Arizona professor, says that scientific studies have shown that children under eight cannot understand the persuasive intent of advertising. At a fundamental level, then, advertising to children is simply unfair.

With mounting concerns over childhood obesity and its associated health risks in the U.S., would a ban on junk-food advertising aimed at children be more effective than the current voluntary, industry-led ban? According to published research from a University of Illinois economist, advertising bans do work, but an outright ban covering the entire U.S. media market would be the most effective policy tool for reducing fast-food consumption in children.

I can’t help being bothered by the Imperial March followed by “That’s the power of German engineering”..

usive advertising” option is enabled by default for all users but the ones using privacy filter lists (EasyPrivacy, Fanboy’s Tracking, Adverisity Privacy).

Apparently advertisers can now pay adblock to get whitelisted.

Let me quote a comment from Reddit:

Advertising is like a drunken party crasher. He invariably promises he’ll behave; and even starts out trying in his clumsy way to be non-intrusive. But in the end, he can’t do it — he lives to intrude. In fact he can’t survive unless he does.

So all too soon, he’s banging into the invited guests and loudly interrupting their conversations with a tediously repetitive story about himself. When he’s asked to quiet down, he loudly insists that he’s the life of the party, then lurches over to the buffet at the side of the room to pile most of the table’s contents onto his own plate.

That’s when I need to ask my friend AdBlock to help getting Mr. I’ll Be Non-intrusive out the door…

You know, some people compare the above ad to the Mac vs PC ads that Apple did. There’s subtle difference: the Apple ads was heckling the actual devices – the PC – and this ad is heckling the users of said devices. Does anyone really think it’s smart to insult the people you are trying to win over?

I keep reminding myself of these words by Jeffery Zeldman:

Most of all, I worry about web users. Because, after ten-plus years of commercial web development, they still have a tough time finding what they’re looking for, and they still wonder why it’s so damned unpleasant to read text on the web — which is what most of them do when they’re online.

The scary thing is that Zeldman wrote that in 1999 (he revised the post slightly in 2005). And many years later the experience of reading text on the web seems to be getting worse, not better. As I wrote in The demise of quality content on the web, I’m worried that the wells of attention are being drilled to depletion by linkbait headlines, ad-infested pages, “jumps” and random pagination, and content that is engineered to be “consumed” in 1 minute or less of quick scanning – just enough time to capture those almighty eyeballs.

As advertising clickthrough rates continue to drop, the ads become more desperate and invasive, and readers are starting to notice and do something about it. I’m doing the majority of my reading in RSS and Instapaper where I can read in peace without being pummeled by distractions.

He has some great example screenshots on that page. But instead of Instapaper, just use AdBlock and RequestPolicy plugins.

Let me freeze-frame that for you:

Here are the iPhone and the Optimus browsers side by side:

“LG — None of us actually use our own phones, so we don’t spot mistakes like this until it’s too late.”

Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year.

Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year’s Day, two U.S. malls — Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. — will track guests’ movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.

While the data that’s collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers’ paths from store to store.

The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks? How long do most customers linger in Victoria’s Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren’t being visited?

[..]

Still, the company is preemptively notifying customers by hanging small signs around the shopping centers. Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones.

Consumers can opt out by not consuming…

Of course, they claim to do this to “improve the shopping experience” which is marketing speak for “shove more ads in your face”

and take a look at the picture with that article: “An anonymous mobile phone survey” sounds, to the average consumer, like maybe you’d be given a number you could call and fill out a survey or answer some questions about your experience in the mall, right? This is disingenuous to say the least.

The innocent-sounding “Mobile Information Call Act” would allow all sorts of nuisance calls to cell phones, eating into customers’ costly minutes, Sen. Chuck Schumer warned Sunday.

[..]

“What politician in his right mind would support this?” asked John Berigan, 44, of Park Slope, who uses his cell phone for his real estate business.

“There’s no one in the general public who would want this. “It would seem that some lobbyist in Washington has gotten to [Towns],” he said.

Current law bars telemarketing calls to cell phones unless the customer has given approval. The proposed change would allow prerecorded “informational” calls to be made to cell phones without consent.

This is from a commercial for East Japan Railway. Because nothing says “safe, reliable and rapid public transportation” like synchronized ostrich skiing.

The health consequences of consuming sugary drinks are well known. It is not surprising, therefore, that groups such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and other groups have said that consumption is too high and needs to come down.

What has been missing from this picture is a detailed analysis of how the industry markets these products to the most vulnerable segment of our population: children. It is important to know this in order to help establish government policies on whether children should be protected from this influence, and also test whether the industry is holding true to its promises to market less to this age group.

The beverage industry, dominated by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, is represented by a trade association called the American Beverage Association (ABA). The beverage companies have made a number of promises that it will market less to children. Coca-Cola, for example, claims they "…will not place any of [their] brands’ marketing in television, radio, and print programming that is primarily directed to children under the age of 12…"

[..]

Our group at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University has just released the most extensive analysis ever of the marketing of sugary drinks to children and teenagers. This new report found that children are exposed to more — not less — advertising for sugary drinks than they were several years ago, and that the companies are finding new and sophisticated ways to reach youth.

Okay, I admit, some advertising is great

Most people know that Venice has long been threatened by chronic flooding, but in recent years the Queen of the Adriatic has faced a rising tide of a different sort: advertising.

From the Doge’s Palace to St. Mark’s Square to the bittersweet Bridge of Sighs — named for the grief its splendid views once inspired in crossing death row prisoners — immense billboards lit late into the night now mar the city’s most treasured places.

Allegedly built to cover the cost of restoration work in the face of government cutbacks, the ads have brought in around $600,000 per year since 2008 — a fraction of the shortfall — and show no sign of going away any time soon. Their presence prompted a consortium of the world’s leading cultural experts led by the Venice in Peril Fund to air an open letter demanding the city government put a stop to the placards that “hit you in the eye and ruin your experience of one of the most beautiful creations of humankind.” Mayor Giorgio Orsoni, for one, was not moved, saying last year “If people want to see the building they should go home and look at a picture of it in a book.”

Another photo of the now-pitiful Bridge of Sighs

Venice stages its own funeral to mourn population decline

Why are Venetians fleeing, anyway? It’s not due to flooding…

Troubled waters: Paintings show Venice in decline

“Venezia” by flapjax at midnite

"Just wait."

So powerful. So easy to say. So appealing when your current products are behind the curve, and the press and analysts are beating you up about it. You can shut up the critics instantly if you just drop a few hints about the next generation product that’s now in the labs.

So dangerous.

The phrase "just wait" ought to be locked behind glass in the marketing department, like a fire extinguisher, with a sign that says, "Break glass only in emergency." And then you hide the hammer someplace where no one can find it.

Saying "just wait" is dangerous because it invites customers to stop buying your current products. You’re basically advertising against yourself. If your company is under financial or competitive stress, the risk is even greater because people are already questioning your viability.

This danger is especially potent in the tech industry (as opposed to carpeting or detergent) because tech customers worship newness, and they use the Internet aggressively to spread information. One vague hint at a conference in Japan can turn into a worldwide product announcement overnight.

A woman who was targeted by Toyota in a creepy, stalker-themed online advertising stunt will be allowed to sue the company, despite the carmaker’s argument that she unknowingly agreed to the whole thing.

Amanda Duick sued Toyota in 2009 over its intrusive “Your Other You” campaign, after she began receiving frightening e-mails over a number of days from a strange man. The man, who had her home address, told her he was on the lam from the law and needed to crash at her place for a bit to hide out with his pit bull, Trigger.

According to a court document (.pdf), “Sebastian Bowler,” who appeared to be a 25-year-old Englishman and soccer fanatic with a drinking problem (based on the MySpace page he sent Duick), told the plaintiff that he was on a cross-country road trip and would be at her house in a few days. After Bowler wrote that he’d run into some trouble at a motel, Duick received an e-mail from someone purporting to be manager of the motel, who included a bill to Duick saying she was responsible for a TV Bowler had smashed.

Duick freaked out over the e-mails before she received a message directing her to a video explaining she’d been punked by Toyota. The video explained that Bowler was a fictional character, and the whole thing had been an elaborate prank — part of an ad campaign for Toyota’s Matrix car.

Unknown to Duick, someone had signed her up for the campaign at YourOtherYou.com, a web site set up for the prank. The campaign was aimed at 20-something males because the company’s advertising firm, Saatchi & Saatchi LA, determined that the demographic loves to punk their friends.

[..]

“Even when you get several stages in, it’s still looking pretty real,” Saatchi creative director Alex Flint said about the campaign in 2008. “I think even the most cynical, anti-advertising guy will appreciate the depth and length to which we’ve gone.”

“appreciate”? I don’t think that word means what you think it means, Alex.

Taking inflation into account, Ad Age goes on to explain, the “incomes of most American workers have remained more or less static since the 1970s,” while “the income of the rich (and the very rich) has grown exponentially.”

The top 10 percent of American households, the trade journal adds, now account for nearly half of all consumer spending, and a disproportionate share of that spending comes from the top 10’s upper reaches.

“Simply put,” sums up Ad Age’s David Hirschman, “a small plutocracy of wealthy elites drives a larger and larger share of total consumer spending and has outsize purchasing influence — particularly in categories such as technology, financial services, travel, automotive, apparel, and personal care.”

[..]

Targeting this $100,000 to $200,000 cohort, the new Ad Age report contends, no longer makes particularly good marketing sense. These consumers don’t “feel rich” today and won’t likely “graduate into affluence later on.”

Only under-35s who make between $100,000 and $200,000, says Ad Age, will likely make that graduation. This under-35 “emerging” tier will have “a far greater chance of eventually crossing the golden threshold of $200,000 than those who achieve household income of $100,000 later in life.”

So that’s it. If you want to be a successful advertising exec in a deeply unequal America, start studying up on 20-somethings making over $100,000 a year.

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,"

Apart from those sitting around at investment banks coming up with mathematic models to game the financial system, of course.

[Quote]:

Startup advertising firm Adzookie has latched on to a high-profile way to publicize itself: by turning homes into massive billboards.

In exchange, Adzookie says it will pay the house owner’s mortgage every month for as long as the home stays painted.

Apple’s dominance on tablets and smartphones presents a threat to accurately measure and optimize the performance of paid-search marketing campaigns.

Search firm Marin Software published a white paper Tuesday based on findings and unanswered questions surrounding Apple’s iOS platform. The report identifies Safari, the primary browser for iOS devices, as a major challenge because it blocks third-party cookies by default, making it difficult for ad servers, tracking systems, and ad management tools to link visitors to ads that brought them to the Web site.

Boo hoo hoo.

[Quote]:

Besides death and taxes, here’s another thing you can always count on in life. Somehow, someone, somewhere will find a way to make flying and airports even more intolerable.

[..]

When someone is washing their hands or shaving or something, the bathroom mirrors work as expected. But when no one is standing in front of the sink, the mirrors switch to showing full-screen ads.