Newspapers about to get tastier?

Wonka-style edible ads -- the future of marketing?

In case you haven’t noticed, newspapers aren’t exactly the place to be right now.

But Old Man Print is one resilient fellow. Even though his battle against the Internet might be more lopsided than a Kimbo Slice street fight, there’s now something the papers can offer you’ll never find online.

The Economist reports newspapers might be getting a shot in the arm by delivering edible ads inside its pages, an homage to Willy Wonka and a creative spin on those cologne/perfume pages you see today in magazines.

Even though you might think First Flavor, the company responsible for bringing this idea to life, sound like a bunch of stoners, their approach to make this the next big thing in advertising actually seems legit.

Their lickable ads, which are produced on edible films, have so far been sent out for Welch’s grape juice, acai-berry juice, lime-spiked rum and baking soda toothpaste in stores, magazines and via direct mail campaigns.

Awful-flavoured cigarette ads were even sent to schools to deter kids from smoking, a move that was likely to spawn the first line of, “Mommy, is this what Courtney Love tastes like?” questions in history.

Now, First Flavour wants to tackle newspapers by stuffing them full of edible ads the way they’ve been with coupons and fliers for years.

The ads would be delivered in sealed pouches and First Flavour wants to see them attached to the front pages of newspapers to accompany corresponding food and drink promotions.

Naturally, papers approached with the idea have been skeptical, but the way the Economist puts it, First Flavour thinks they’re onto something.

They presume “the collapse in newspaper advertising revenue, as a result of the recession and the rise of the Internet, provides an opportunity. Internet advertisements can do all sorts of the things, but so far there is no way to transmit tastes electronically. Edible ads would allow newspapers to offer something the Internet cannot match.”

Sounds fair, at least, yet whether papers will actually go for the pitch is another matter. Though profits in print advertising can’t get much worse, can they?

If this does someday become a reality – and you find yourself making out with your watermelon-flavoured sports page while you walk down the street in 2012 or something – let me offer you one piece of advice.

Please, Watch out for this man!

Ice-Cream ads using Obama spark racism complaints

Obama ice cream, anyone? Chocolate-vanilla ice cream is one of several Russian products being marketed using America's first black president, even as critics call the ads racist.

Other ads featuring US President Barack Obama have promoted tanning salons and tooth-whitening services.

But the creator of one Obama-themed ad -- for ice cream bars which have a chocolate-flavoured centre embedded in a layer of vanilla -- insisted Friday that it was not racist and should be seen as a joke.

The ad for Duet ice cream bars features a smiling, cartoonish black man flashing a V-for-Victory sign in front of the US Capitol, along with the Russian slogan: "Everyone's talking about it: dark, inside white!"

Some blasted the ad as insensitive after it surfaced on English-language websites this week. "This is just racist," said one visitor to the Ads of the World website, while another asked: "Is the ice cream as tasteless as the ad?"

Andrei Gubaidullin, who created the ad, told AFP that it was not racist and that Russia simply had a different attitude to race than Western countries.

"For Russia, this is not racist. It is fun and that's it," said Gubaidullin, creative director at Voskhod advertising agency, based in the Urals Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.

"We don't consider teasing ethnic groups racist. It is just seen as a joke," he said by telephone, adding that he personally liked Obama.

In another ad to play on Obama's race, a leaflet recently seen in Moscow used a photograph of the US president to promote a tanning salon.

A leaflet circulated in Moscow last fall showed a smiling Obama with the slogan "Full Dental Democracy!" to promote the MeraDent chain of dental clinics.

People of African descent are relatively few in Russia and those who do live in the country often complain of racism.

Google starts tracking browsers to target ads

Google is getting to know you a little better in order to send you ads you'll more likely like.

The Mountain-View, Calif.-based internet company is starting to gather information about the websites people visit using an individual web browser in order to target ads to their interests, Google has announced on its blog.

"By making ads more relevant, and improving the connection between advertisers and our users, we can create more value for everyone," the company said. "Users get more useful ads, and these more relevant ads generate higher returns for advertisers and publishers."

"Interest-based" advertising was launched Wednesday as a beta test on third-party sites that carry Google ads, as well as the YouTube video site that Google owns.
Demand from partners

The blog entry called advertising "the lifeblood of the digital economy" and said Google's advertising and publishing partners have been asking it for a long time to offer interest-based advertising, which is already used by some other companies.

Google's system will be able to infer users' interests based on the sites they visit, which will be associated with their browsers using a tracking file called a "cookie."

For example, each time a user visits an adventure travel site that carries Google advertising, a cookie will be placed in the browser. If the user visits many such sites, he or she will be flagged as someone with a strong interest in adventure travel and more ads for activities like hiking trips to Patagonia or African safaris will show up in the browser even when:

- The user is on a Google partner site that doesn't involve adventure travel.
- When someone else is using the browser.

"This kind of tailored advertising does raise questions about user choice and privacy — questions the whole online ad industry has a responsibility to answer," Google acknowledged, adding that other companies that provide interest-based advertising deal with this in different ways.
Won't add 'sensitive' interest categories

However, the company promised that:

- It will not collect the user's name or any other personal information.
- It will not use sensitive interest categories such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation, health or "sensitive financial categories."
-Users will be able to view, delete and add interest categories associated with their browser.
- Users can opt not to accept advertising cookies from Google partners.

In addition, users will be able to clear the cookies used by Google's targeted advertising the way they usually clear cookies from their browser.

Until now, Google's ads have been targeted based only on the site that the user is currently viewing. For example, the user would receive adventure travel ads only while on an adventure travel site or reading an email about adventure travel.

However, other companies have been offering personalized advertising for some time. For example, social networking sites MySpace and Facebook have targeted ads to individual users based on their profiles since 2007.

Wanna make $5,000?

Wanna make an easy $5,000? Tattoo your face.

There's an interesting story on the New York Times website about a group of 30 Kiwis from New Zealand shaving their heads and getting temporary tattoos to promote a local airline.

For a round-trip airline ticket or $777 in cash (a nod to the Boeing airplane model), participants – who were men and women – lost their locks and plastered an Air New Zealand slogan across the backs of their skulls:

“Need a change? Head down to New Zealand. www.airnewzealand.com,” the tattoo reads.

The airline’s marketing company calls these “cranial billboards,” and while this idea isn’t totally new, it’s pretty remarkable how prevalent the trend has become.

At leaseyourbody.com, you can actually solicit advertisers on the web to take up ad space on you by posting a profile picture and becoming a member.

Alex Fisher, the site’s founder, says she got the idea for the site after seeing the attention a woman got when she started an eBay auction for the rights to buy space on her forehead for a real tattoo.

GoldenPalace.com ended up paying her $10,000.

"I thought, why not make a company where advertisers can find thousands of people and pay a lot less money to do this kind of advertising?" Fisher said.

There’s a few catches to Lease Your Body. First, there’s a nifty little user fee of $19.99 to become a member, cash which is pegged to “ease the costs of operating” the site.

Second, the standard contract for advertisers to buy space on your body is 30 days. But to confirm you’re not just washing the tattoo off, you have to send in updated pictures of it on your body throughout the month to get the full payment. No word on whether they make you hold up that day’s newspaper to the camera like a bad Cuba Gooding Jr. movie about Central American kidnappers or something.

From there, though, seems like you might actually be able to make some cash. You can pick which body part you want to use for different payments, but a forehead tattoo, for example, can earn you up $5,000.

So, is having a person walk around with a Future Shop flyer on their face a blatant blitz against our personal space? probably. But come on, ads are already a part of everything we do and everyone knows it. You don’t think of a place like Times Square without the bright lights and store signs, and no one even bats an eyelash at those billboard cars that roam the downtown cores of major cities anymore.

Advertising tattoos on someone’s head then? Why not? and why didn't I think of it first!!!

Thoughts?

$3 million gets you 30 seconds

NBC says advertisers are still buying the $3 million spots for the big game, despite a tough economy.

Despite record prices, a grinding recession that doesn't seem like it's going to end anywhere in the near future and the absence of two big advertisers this year, NBC says it's having no problem filling spots for Super Bowl XLIII.

The network has sold about 90% of its 67 spots for the championship game scheduled for Feb. 1 in Tampa, Fla., according to NBC spokesman Brian Walker.

Walker said advertising is "on pace or ahead of past Super Bowls," adding that NBC is "in active negotiations with about a dozen potential advertisers."

FedEx and General Motors will not be buying spots this year.
FedEx blamed the economy, while GM said the timing was just wrong.

NBC is charging, on average, $3 million for a 30-second spot. That's more than the $2.7 million average price for Super Bowl XLII in 2008, when the New York Giants' narrow victory over the New England Patriots was broadcast by Fox of News Corp.

The average price of a 30-second spot crossed the $1 million mark in 1995 and passed $2 million in 2000, according to TN'S Media Intelligence. But industry experts say that it's worth every penny.

"You have a better chance of reaching people with the Super Bowl than with any other media buy that's available," said John Ferret, professor of advertising at Boston University.

Some 97.5 million people tuned into the game last year, according to the Nielsen Company.

Only the World Cup can compete in terms of size and scope, but that's for a different type of "football" that doesn't generate much excitement among North Americans.

"The Super Bowl is completely unique in its ability to reach everybody at the same time," said Tim Calkins, marketing professor of the Kellogg Super Bowl Advertising Review. "There's nothing else that's even close."

Many of last year's advertisers will continue to run ads for the 2009 game, including soft drink makers Coca Cola and PepsiCo; auto industry companies like Audi, Hyundai and Bridgestone; online marketplaces like GoDaddy.com and E*Trade Financial, the pet food company Pedigree, and the National Football League, which advertises for free.

Iconic Super Bowl advertiser Anheuser-Busch is running 4.5 minutes worth of spots, a half-minute more than last year (for all of you trying to calculate that, and looking around for calculators, that's $27 MILLION dollars!!!)

"We're obviously the game's single biggest advertiser and have been for some time," said Bob Lachky, chief creative officer for Anheuser-Busch. "It's the one time when you can get, in one setting, the biggest concentration of adult beer drinkers at one time. This is a huge, huge selling platform for us."

The Super Bowl may be synonymous with beer for many Americans, but the spots are coveted by advertisers of all stripes, because of the unusually ad-friendly culture.

"What makes the Super Bowl unique is that this is the one time every year where, instead of complaining about advertising, we celebrate advertising," said Peter Blackshaw, chief marketing officer for Nielsen Buzz Metrics. "You can't really beat the reach and you don't have to worry about people flipping on the DVR fast forward button, because people like to watch the ads."

Super Bowl and the recession

But not everyone believes that Super Bowl spots are worth the money, and the recession has taken its toll on at least a couple of long-time advertisers.

FedEx won top ratings from the Kellogg School of Management for its 2008 Super Bowl spot, which showed a gargantuan carrier pigeon wrecking havoc on city streets. But for 2009, the shipping company refrained from buying a spot for the first time in 12 years.

"As a country, we are in unprecedented economic waters," Steve Pacheco, managing director of advertising at FedEx, wrote in a corporate blog. "A Super Bowl ad buy is not where we should put dollars at this time although, in the past, the value of doing so for FedEx has been indisputable."

General Motors, the official Super Bowl sponsor, used an animated, 60-second spot during last year's game to unveil its GMC Yukon Hybrid. But the automaker will not be airing a commercial this year. GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato said the company made that decision back in September.

"It just wasn't a good enough return on the investment for that, because we didn't have a major vehicle launch that aligned with the timing of the Super Bowl," said Cusinato. "Then we went to Congress, and the economy got worse and we started scaling back a lot of other sponsorships."

When auto executives went hat in hand to Congress last December, GM was strongly advised not to run a Super Bowl ad this year.

But not all automakers are shunning Super Bowl air time. Audi and Hyundai have both bought spots for the 2009 game.

Audi plans to run a 60-second commercial for the second year running, following its well-received "Godfather" themed ad for the R8 luxury sports car. Hyundai plans to unveil its 2010 Genesis Coupe with two commercials, featuring a race course run choreographed to the playing of cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Stuck with an expensive spot

Calkins of the Kellogg Super Bowl Advertising Review said that much of the air time was sold in September, and that some advertisers might regret their purchases, given the worsening state of the economy.

"Early in the fall, most of the spots were sold out," he said. "That, of course, was before the economy really went south. The advertisers were stuck with them. There was a very strong initial demand, and there's a very different climate right now."

But for GoDaddy.com, a domain name marketplace that keeps censors on their toes with its risqué ads, there is no time like the present. The company has purchased a Super Bowl spot for its fifth consecutive year.

"Our theory on advertising is that when the economy is having some issues, that is not the time to cut your advertising budget," said GoDaddy.com executive vice president Barb Rechterman.

No proof that so-called detox products work

According to scientists who have studied the topic, there is no proof that detox products actually work

Many products that claim to detox the body may not actually work, British scientists warn, as the companies that manufacture them can provide little, if any, research to support their claims.

A report issued by Sense About Science, a British charity founded to protect the public from bogus science claims, compiled data on products ranging from shampoos to cleansers to so-called detox patches.

When they tried to compile scientific information for 15 products that make detox claims, the researchers found that the manufacturers could not provide research to prove the efficacy of their products.

"In fact, no one we contacted was able to provide any evidence for their claims, or give a comprehensive definition of what they meant by 'detox,'" the report said. "We concluded that 'detox' as used in product marketing is a myth."

For example, Garnier's Clean Detox Anti-Dullness Foaming Gel claims it "detoxifies by cleansing the skin's surface."

When researchers called the company to find out how the cleanser detoxifies the skin, they found out that the company defined toxins as dirt and oil, which any cleanser can remove.

The researchers found that similar products like shampoos that claimed to detoxify hair were simply washing hair much like any other shampoo.

The evidence wasn't much better for health products that claimed to detox the body.

The researchers found that Vitabiotics, a daily vitamin that promises to remove toxins and pollutants from the body, was never tested to prove that it works and may only provide the body with nutrients that can be acquired through a healthy diet.

Other products, such as detoxifying waters and smoothies, did not have any scientific evidence to back up their claims of being able to flush toxins out of the system. Some even promised improved functioning of the liver, which processes liquids and neutralizes toxic chemicals that are both produced within the body and come from environmental sources, such as a poor diet.

"Companies use the word 'detox' as a trendy attention-grabber to sell products," said Harriet Ball of Voices of Young Science, the group of researchers that conducted the study.

"This is misleading, suggesting there is something additional or special about the product. Many people would buy face wash with the 'detox' pretense anyway, but the more companies make such claims, the less shoppers really know what they are paying for, nor understand what detox is and whether they even need it."

People should not get confused over the concept of "cleansing" or "detox" itself, as these are valid scientific concepts and natural processes of the body (of all organisms, in fact). The thing is, though, that only the body can cleanse and detox itself through its own natural healing abilities. All a person needs to do is provide the conditions in which the body can perform the detoxification and healing process.
This is done by eating a raw food (fruit and veggie) diet followed by a water-only fast of a few days.

The raw food diet should be followed for 3 weeks before commencing the fast, and then raw food should be used to break the fast and continued that way for another 2 weeks. You'll be feeling years younger after this, and will also be at your ideal body weight. A great part about the diet? There's no money to be spent in this natural process! It's free, and only requires nutritious natural food.

But of course companies will try to exploit people's lack of knowledge on this point and try to sell us whatever they can..(why pay for something, when you don't have to??)

As with all forms of diet and exercise though, Consult a physician before beginning anything..

With these detoxification "diets" you'll feel great at first since it will give you a 'high' as your body enters starvation mode and gives off endorphins so that you can keep functioning to find food. Further, the starvation mode will also tell your body to store fat as rapidly as it can once food is reintroduced. This goes for fasting diets, the maple and lemon diet, and all other fad diets.

Eat a balanced diet and exercise. Then your body will be healthy enough for your liver and kidneys to detoxify itself.