why a good media buyer is always best...part deux

Now, I know that advertising in newspapers is an entirely different and unique beast than most other types of print ads, in that you buy space blindly, not knowing what sort of story you will follow. The potential to have your ad placed under the feel-good puppy story of the year is as likely as falling under the world's greatest pedophile serial killer on the run.

But you have to wonder whether the newspapers take the latter option into consideration ever, and try juggling ads to proper suit both story and client.

Case in point: from the Toronto Star, June 20, 2009 edition:

After discussing the most hot-button issue so far this year (and likely for the rest of the year) at the very top of the page, with tensions between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi reaching a near-boiling point, the Star's coverage of their pending "Showdown" is followed by a showdown of a different kind below.

Bell vs. Rogers.

Really?

It's obvious neither side wanted to try and compare the "showdown" for the Iranian presidency to the "showdown" of network speed on your new BlackBerry. But let's try and think, people! Especially over a product the hard-line regime has essentially blocked any use for, use your heads. Let's just hope this truly was unintentional.

rage against the moo goo gai pan

Perhaps the only time I have EVER agreed with Glenn Beck, or will ever agree with him again (unless he's a Tampa Bay Bucs fan) is on the issue of the famed photo Guerrilla Heroico, the iconic shot of Che Guevara that has now come to symbolize not only communism, revolution and freedom, but now t-shirts, Warhol-copy prints, and just about every tool in the universe trying to make a rebellious statement...by wearing the most overproduced mass spread image in Western pop culture.

Beck, while still a heartless idiotic motherfucker, no doubt, hits on some good points in his July 2008 article, mainly about how considering that most idiot teens who wear his face proudly on their chest have no idea who he is or what he represents, and even if they do somewhat understand, his legacy is not all that heroic in the first place. (Perhaps I just agree with his preference to "go topless" instead of rocking the Che shirt, in which case, off with it Ms. Beckinsale!)

There is a great book by two Canadian writers, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, entitled The Rebel Sell: Why The Culture Can't Be Jammed, which discusses among other things, why counter-cultural rebellion doesn't really work in this day and age, and why such "revolutionaries" like Che and Naomi Klein's No Logo movement (and don't even get me started on Klein) are just brands themselves now. The book's cover even features Che on a Starbucks cup. Nice.

But I'm sure not even Heath or Potter could have seen this coming:

Che's grandaughter, Lydia Guevara, is posing for PETA.
Looking just like granddad.
In an advertisement.

While I know that this PETA ad is obviously pushing a more important message than toothpaste, just the fact in general that the blood relative of a revolutionary (and a communist one at that) would be posing semi-nude for the capitalist fat-cats in Buenos Aires is shocking, if not oddly hilarious.

That, and the fact they're trying to replace his bandolier of bullets with baby carrots. Now that's just stupid.

While it's good to see that the young (and much, much more attractive) Guevara isn't turning into her grandfather, one ponders who will be next to cross the threshold from political fundamentalism to advertising: perhaps young Zahra Ahmadinejad hawking the new Nintendo DS?

Mariela Castro twisting her gay rights advocacy to push Trojan condoms (grande size!)?

Or perhaps best of all, having new North Korean despot Kim Jong-Un restocking dad's life supply by stepping in front of the camera for Ray-Ban?

home sweet home...

I have never been as proud to say I come from Thornhill, Ontario as I am right now...in fact, usually I'm quite ashamed of it.

Case in point: check out who my local MP and MPP are bringing to town at the end of the month, pulled from Peter Kent's website:


This is also why I didn't vote for either of these guys last election...as I am an ardent, strong believer in keeping Doo-Doo off the streets of Thornhill.

yet another New Rule...but for us too

More infinite wisdom from his unholiness, Bill Maher...thought it was quite appropriate for our times, but as much as my bravado would like to think this only affects America, my better judgment reminds me that Canada is really not that far behind:


NEW RULE: In the upcoming sequel to Wall Street, "Wall Street 2: In Search of Curly's Gold Card," Gordon Gekko must say, "On second thought, greed isn't good." In fact, it's the common thread that runs through all of the problems this country faces, from financial meltdown, to health care, to climate change. Americans will do anything to each other for money.

Now, last week, we found out that American personnel in Iraq are being electrocuted in the shower because shoddy electrical work is cheaper. How can one American kill another American to save a little money on wire? Oh, I forgot, I'm sorry. We're the greatest people in the world. Politicians always tell us we are, and that's how you know it's a lie.

They say, "If only we had a government as good as the people." Unfortunately, we do.

Now, here in L.A., we've been having a little problem lately with hospitals dumping patients who don't have coverage on the street, on Skid Row. Who acts like this? Everybody doesn't act this way. This wouldn't happen in Sweden. Because they're just not as obsessed with money. I can't imagine ABBA putting out a record called "Get Rich Or Die Tryin'."

I mean, really, what is the health care system in America but insurance companies making money by fucking people out of coverage, even if it kills them? Which it does. At least 20,000 a year.

And now Congress has taken the single-payer option off the table. Why? Because competition from the government might make corporations sad. We can't have that. Health care is the biggest industry we've got. We need sick people.

And the food companies are doing their part to help. Oh, yes, they put the time in the lab to find out just how much fat, sugar and salt to load into a Happy Meal to make it more like crack.

Do you know that even our baby foods are now up to one-third sugar? Only Americans could develop comfort food for somebody who is already eating off a tit. I mean, what kind of people hook babies on sugar?

It's not a mystery why even one in five four-year-olds is obese. Four-year-olds!

The elephant in the room is your kid. Not only can't Johnny read, he can't see his dick.

If Al Qaeda slipped something into our food that did that to us, well, we would torture some Arabs and keep on eating.

Because we're not a good people. We mustn't be if prison population is any indication. We put more of our fellow citizens in prison than anywhere else in the world. Five times the rate of tolerant, benevolent China. Because jailing people, like people's health, also turned out to be, really, when you think about it, a for-profit industry. I don't know how we didn't see it all those years.

When is enough ever enough in this country? Credit card companies that charge 35% interest? Do you ever wonder why you don't hear about loan sharks anymore? It's because what they did, giving credit to unqualified people and charging them ridiculous rates, we made that legal. Like we made destroying the environment legal.

We do it all to each other, the killing and the keeping people sick and poor and in jail, and destroying their habitat. Because, a generation ago, Ronald Reagan and Gordon Gekko told us greed was good.

Humans have always been greedy, but they never convinced themselves it was good.

But, hey, I could talk all night about the over-the-top materialism of the American people: but I've got to catch a plane to Vegas!

Porno.

Say it again: Porno.

Gets some people's blood boiling; gets other people's blood to...nevermind.

But folks are now getting mad that porno has taken the next step up (or down) from XXX-rated spinoffs of The Office and Scrubs (since when does Neil Flynn look like the jumpsuit on the right?), and are now being tackled by ad agencies, as they try and get more risque and gain a competitive edge on clients. Regardless of the fact I find their product tastes like sour ginger ale, Bud Light does deserve some credit (or if anything, their agency, DDB Chicago) for their latest viral ad, if not for being a bit long and overly cheesy at times, at least for treading on this previously forsaken ground.

And of course, all the Jesus Freak groups are furious, acting as if ads are some sort of a revered institution that was not corrupted by alterior motives besides comedy and family values before...they do realize agencies work for money, right? Regardless, the Family Research Council is arguing that porn destroys families, and 43% surveyed said porno was a problem in their families...failing to realize that considering they likely only poll conservative Christians they represent, obviously they will see it as a major moral dilemna.

But as for saying that porn destroys families (the FRC's Cathy Rose is quoted as saying "their families have been devastated by it"), maybe so...but have they ever heard of alcoholism before? Do they fail to realize people can also become addicted to alcohol as easily (or perhaps easier) than pornography?

Its obvious this is more a shot at the war on traditional marriage and family values than anything else, but the fact that they would likely still only take offense to the porno mag even if the actor was carrying a case of Bud Light, the magazine, a pack of smokes and a handgun just goes to show what's wrong with the so-called "moral America" of today.

It is very true that our Western morals are in the toilet, and pretty much nothing is sacred anymore. But does that mean that advertising shouldn't catch on?

Isn't our job as admakers to catch on to the trends? And what's trendier than sex, drugs and alcohol?