For all the anxiety surrounding the spread of swine flu, some of the most effective flu countermeasures are also the cheapest and simplest: social distancing (keeping about three feet away from potentially infected people) and washing your hands.
North Korea has come out with its first beer commercial for Taedong River Beer, “the pride of Pyongyang,” which shows both Western businessmen and a sweaty worker in uniform enjoying a cold one.
This ad demonstrates that T-Mobile has a deep understanding of human nature.
Either that or they have been reading the economics literature.
Photo: DeusXFlorida Coke has a new ad that declares that only two people know Coke’s secret formula, and if something happened to one of them, the formula would be lost forever. It then goes on to talk, facetiously, about all the terrible things that would happen to the world if something bad happened to one of the two men and . . .
According to NPR, recession-themed marketing is a way to “rais[e] money from lower expectations” and “turn bad times into glad times” by selling thrift, good value — and, as Gawker claims, more sex and alcohol. This photo, taken in a New York City subway station, then, is the perfect recession-ad sampler: Photo: Ryan Hagen
In my last post, I argued that (the truly excellent show) Friday Night Lights might unwittingly be exacerbating the mistaken idea that the vast majority of high-schoolers have sex. I worried that this discrepancy between what adolescents believe (virgins are rare) and the truth (high-school virgins are the norm) is a dangerous combination. Here’s why I’m concerned (and what it . . .
Why are these ominous British posters (photographed by David Byrne) informing you of your rights? Photo: David Byrne A stylistic riff on the “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters from the Blitz, these new posters are a publicity campaign for a promise by police to be more engaged with their communities. The evidence is mixed on whether or not community . . .
| To ring in the new year, Tropicana rolled out a weird, minimalist, futuristic redesign of its iconic orange juice cartons. Sales immediately plunged 20 percent, and after just two months on the market, Tropicana scotched the redesign. The quick rollback is all but unprecedented. Why did people react so negatively? After all, the design switch, from an image of . . .
| Earlier, we asked blog readers whether an Israeli arms firm could actually sell missiles to India with a Bollywood song-and-dance number. Apparently, they’ve sold quite a few — but despite, not because of the commercial, which reportedly evoked “incredulity and derision” from the Indian public and defense establishment. One senior defense officer told the Times of India: “We are . . .
Toronto-based Hilco Consumer Capital won what many call the “holy grail of advertising,” reports NPR: the right to sell Bob Marley‘s name. The company partnered with the Marleys to begin rolling out Marley-branded products like salad dressing and a video game.
The obvious issue with the brand, as NPR‘s Katia Dunn puts it: “Marley was a major stoner.”
| Banking on Bollywood’s ability to sell almost anything in India, an Israeli arms firm thought it might work for weapons as well, and presented this song-and-dance missile commercial at an Indian trade fair. We already asked what Indian blog readers thought of the Bolly-infused, Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, so what about this commercial? Will it actually sell missiles? (HT: Mayur . . .
Is the message of this Barclay’s ad: “The banking industry is going down the tubes anyway, bringing all aspects of society with it, so you might as well have fun on the way down”? (HT: Andrew Sullivan)
I finally got around to viewing the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) ad that NBC decided to ban from its Super Bowl coverage. I had imagined a rather sordid broccoli-loaded affair. But it turns out it was just like a Victoria’s Secret spot, only a bit more nutritious. The point of the ad was that “Vegetarians have . . .
I saw my sister Linda when I visited Minnesota over the holidays. Linda is the one who came up with the title Freakonomics. She was complaining how unfair it is that everywhere she looks, she sees people ripping off her idea. I asked her what she was talking about, and she offered up lame examples like “Obamanomics.” I reminded her . . .
We’ve been following James Altucher‘s continuing social experiment around the idea of ad-agency disintermediation — JungleSmash, a cash contest where people compete to make the best commercial for a product of James’s choosing. The submissions are in for the latest product: Monster Energy Drinks. It’s a little graphic, but “Garage Can-Opener Massacre” is definitely worth a watch — as are . . .
I love my TiVo. And like a good economist, I’ve been trying to quantify this love. Here’s what I came up with. I watch about six hours of television programming per week. The miracle of the “30-second skip” button means that I haven’t watched an advertisement in years. Consequently, six hours of programming only takes me four hours to watch, . . .
Cigarette advertisers generally don’t mention cancer, although Silk Cut seemed to use it (in the form of an alligator) to tell smokers they’re cool for tempting death. Playing up your product’s risk isn’t a new strategy. This whiskey ad from the 1990’s, sent in by Freakonomics reader Douglas Kysar, makes vice look pretty sexy. Photo: Douglas Kysar The ad, from . . .
While advertising may try to mislead you, this piece of marketing — which a Freakonomics reader named Matthew Limber found on his milk cap — takes a completely honest (and apparently self-sabotaging) approach. Photo: Matthew Limber So did Listerine’s TV ads from 2005, which claimed that “Listerine’s as effective as floss at fighting plaque and gingivitis,” but cautioned, “There’s no . . .
Hats off to economist Roland Fryer, Joel Klein, the rest of the folks in the New York City Department of Education, and Droga5 for taking home the Titanium Lion prize at the Cannes Lions advertising festival for their work on “Million.” Million is the innovative NYC schools program that puts a specially designed cellphone into the hands of every NYC . . .
Elizabeth Royte‘s new book is called Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. I haven’t read it yet, but I gather that it ably summarizes the growing economic and environmental backlash against bottled water. So maybe the world is ready for the Xziex Atmospheric Water Generator, a tiny machine that makes “fresh clean water from thin . . .
My vote is for the companies that design closets. The photos in their ads routinely show closets that are drenched in sunlight while the owners of those closets always seem to possess exactly three pairs of (identical and very clean) pants or skirts but not a single accordion, hockey stick, papier-mache dragon, or any of the other stuff that actually . . .
Ralph Steadman, self portrait from Stop Smiling magazine. Last week we solicited your questions for British cartoonist and caricaturist Ralph Steadman. He graciously fielded your questions about his friendship with the late Hunter Thompson (a “partnership and provocation,” he called it), why his work can be found on beer labels, and why an artist should constantly imitate himself. He also . . .
Ralph Steadman, self portrait from Stop Smiling magazine. British cartoonist and caricaturist Ralph Steadman is best known as the late Hunter Thompson‘s collaborator. Starting with their first assignment together — illustrating the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan’s (Steadman forgot his “colors” and drew with a friend’s makeup samples) — Thompson and Steadman invented a genre of narrative storytelling that may (or . . .