By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/21 6:34pm

The Transom

Ad Man George Lois.

The CLIO Awards: What’s The Big Idea?

The 54th annual CLIO Awards ceremony, held last week, seemed to straddle some kind of line between innovation and industry nostalgia—much like the ads they were celebrating. Instead of The Waldorf Astoria, they were held at the Natural History Museum. Instead of Paul Newman, who gave the keynote speech on a recent episode of Mad Men, the ceremony was hosted by Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet. And instead of dinner, there were hors d’oeuvres during a pre-ceremony cocktail hour.

But some things never change.

“What this night is really about is getting through these awards as fast as we can so we can all go drink again,” Mr. Stonestreet said, to cheers. Read More

By The Editors 10/09/12 7:39pm

Editorials

Bright Ideas

Government agencies have to become more creative, and they have to get out of the way of small business. How many times have you heard that argument?

Well, apparently somebody is listening.  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 9/24/12 3:37pm

Backpage

A sampling of print sex ads from the pages of the Village Voice circa 2007.

Print Sex Ads Will Remain at Newly-Formed Voice Media Group

Backpage.com may be gone, but sex ads are here to stay at the alt weeklies formerly owned by Village Voice Media. Over the weekend, Village Voice Media announced it had reshuffled and separated its 13 newspapers from Backpage.com, the classifieds website with the controversial “adult” advertising section. Backpage may not be part of the newly-formed newspaper company, Voice Media Group, but that doesn’t mean its doing away with the highly profitable print sex ads.

“Voice Media Group will continue to support the current adult classifieds in Village Voice,” a spokesperson for Voice Media Group told the Observer this afternoon. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/19/12 12:44pm

Street Fighters Too

8 Photos

Here's Looking Out for You, Kids

Look Out! DOT Creates Crosswalk Decals, Ad Campaign to Prevent Pedestrian Accidents

What are you looking at?

When it comes to crossing the street, the city’s Department of Transportation hopes the answer is oncoming traffic—and not your smartphone or your beautiful European model boyfriend.

As any good three-year-old could tell you, always look both ways before crossing the street. But harried, hurried and distracted New Yorkers (and perhaps not a few New Yorkers) are ignoring the rules they learned in preschool, so the department has launched a new campaign to nudge as all into paying more attention when crossing the street. Read More

By Foster Kamer 8/20/12 4:34pm

Badvertising

rich kids romney

Know Your Ad-Demographic: Romney Campaign Advertising on ‘Rich Kids of Instagram’

Maybe you’ve heard of the buzzed-about Tumblr known as Rich Kids of Instagram? It’s a blog that chronicles the comings and goings of some of the world’s uber-rich children. It’s an unapologetic, hilarious display of extravagant wealth, the teenagers who have done little to fall into it, and the way they live their very-moneyed lives. Some people see it as voyeurism, others see it as a despicable celebration of undue wealth, and others see it as a others see it as a problem (like some of the parents of these children, who have found their own personal security compromised by their kids’ aggregated “contributions” to the blog).

But if you’re working the ad buys on a presidential campaign, you see it as an opportunity to reach a certain demographic. Read More

By Foster Kamer 8/09/12 4:58pm

MEDIA ETHICS

shame project adam davidson

NPR Planet Money Host Adam Davidson Under Fire from Rogue Media Ethicists [Updated]

NPR’s Planet Money—which was born out of the Peabody award-winning This American Life episode about the financial crash in 2008, “The Giant Pool of Money”—is the financial news digest of choice for plenty of people who enjoy their finance explained to them in a generalist, Ira Glass-approved tone. Now, the show and Davidson are coming under fire for some perceived standards and ethics breaches. Let’s break this down. Read More

By Foster Kamer 4/10/12 1:30pm

RADVERTISING

133555005

The Buffett Rule: A Slice of Advertising and Marketing Genius

President Barack Obama is set to roll out his backing of The Buffett Rule, which will be at the center of his campaign, reports the Financial Times. The Buffett Rule is being pitched as a “simple principle” of American tax codes inspired by Warren Buffet’s now-famous claim that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than himself because of the voodoo implicit in capital gains tax rates and the like that benefit the country’s top earners. It is brilliant, if only for already being one of the most well-branded pieces of politics in the history of legislation. Think about this less as a political play, or a piece of propaganda, and more one of brilliant advertising work.

Consider: Read More

By Drew Grant 3/24/12 3:17pm

Twitter Fail

Belvadere's blowjob ad blows up on Twitter

Update: Belvedere Vodka (Sort of) Apologizes for Using Rape Jokes to Sell Alcohol on Twitter, Donates to Women’s Charity Person on Facebook

UPDATE: Scroll down for statements from Belvedere

We almost dismissed this as a case of Twitter falling for a Reddit mock-up, but no: Belvedere Vodka actually posted this ad earlier this morning on Twitter.

See? The joke is that the woman is not smoothly “going down” on her gentleman friend. Probably because it looks like he’s about to rape her. Read More