advertising

Sugary beverage companies are increasing advertising to kids

Despite promises to ease up on advertising to kids, the sugary beverage industry has been increasing marketing to children. If you’re keeping score at home, this is the opposite. They accomplished this feat with a diabolical genius: While pledging to keep their brands out of "television, radio, and print," brands like Coca-Cola have reached out […]

GM: Bikes will make you unattractive to ladies

Enough people thought this was a good idea that the ad made it into print. How did this ad meeting go? "We need to convince the youth to buy giant boat-cars." "Okay, tell them bikes will cockblock them." "Perfect, let's call it a day." Nice work, Don Draper. GM has clearly been getting a lot […]

Look! Up in the sky! It's an inflatable wind turbine!

In the department of cool inventions you'll probably never use, the inventor of the Segway has come up with an idea for an inflatable wind turbine.

Its main advantage is that it's mobile: imagine parking your EV and sending your inflatable wind turbine up into the sky to charge it while you're at work. It could be moved to take advantage of the best winds as they shift, and, more to the point, It could also be mounted on top of a building or on the side of the road in order to double as a billboard.
 

ConAgra pulls a dirty frozen-meal trick on food bloggers

Hey, remember those ads where they used to secretly replace people's actual made-from-beans coffee with freeze-dried Flavor Crystals? Those were a laugh riot, right? So obviously the most genius possible marketing plan for frozen dinners -- basically the food equivalent of instant coffee -- would be to make people think they're eating real made-from-food food, and then alert them that they've been baited and switched. It can't fail! You know, unless the people involved are food bloggers who care about eating organic, fresh, and healthy ingredients rather than mass-fabricated sodium-enhanced spun and capped protein strands. Then they might get pissed.

But ConAgra, makers of such food-adjacent items as Chef Boyardee and Reddi-Wip, didn't see that one coming when they set up a supposed luxury dinner with a group of food bloggers and their guests. The host, chef George Duran, served -- and implied he had cooked -- a main course of lasagna and a dessert of, um, "razzleberry pie." Once the bloggers had gotten it down their necks, Duran told them the food was actually frozen Marie Callender dinners. Smile, you're on ConAgra Camera!

The EPA does not want you feeding arsenic to your baby

It's only 16 months until the next election, and you know what that means: We are in the thick of political ad season. Mostly that makes everybody want to crawl under a sofa, but sometimes you get arresting ads like this one from American Family Voices.

Don't eat your broccoli: Junk food industry determined to target kids

Government agencies are set to release voluntary suggestions for how Big Food could less slimy in its advertising. The industry is pushing back.

Give 7-Up to your baby!

Hey, whatever else is wrong with our current cultural relationship with sugar water, at least nobody's pushing it as a baby formula alternative anymore, right? This 1956 ad says that 7-Up is "so wholesome" that "lots of mothers" give it to their babies. The company's evidence for this wholesomeness? They list the ingredients, even though they don't have to!

This clean air ad was deemed too hot for Boston public transit

Man, is this ad from 350.org ever edgy! First, it has a big picture of Scott Brown -- granted, just his face, not even his pecs or anything, but you know what's implied by a picture of a congressman. Rowr! And just look at those naked facts, parading themselves around so shamelessly. No wonder the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority refuses to post it on trains.

Bikes are now the hottest accessory

Bike lanes and bike riders may be controversial, but bikes as an image are marketing gold right now. Want to sell it? Put a bike on it! Transportation Nation found bikes for sale or used as display elements at Kate Spade, CB2, Club Monaco, Anthropologie, the Gap, Urban Outfitters, and Brooklyn Industries. Sure, those bikes […]