Salon.com > Advertising http://www.salon.com Thu, 23 May 2013 19:07:10 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 How to screw up Tumblr http://www.salon.com/2013/05/20/how_to_screw_up_tumblr/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/20/how_to_screw_up_tumblr/#comments Mon, 20 May 2013 16:25:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13303457 In her announcement of Yahoo's purchase of Tumblr for $1.1 billion, CEO Marissa Mayer promised "We won't screw this up." Rhetorically, that's almost always a bad move. For a CEO, not screwing something up should be the default position, the operating assumption. The possibility of failure need not, and should not, ever be voiced. As soon as you make a promise like that explicit, you sow more doubt and uncertainty into an already fertile territory of fear.

Mayer was trying to be hip, trying to reassure Tumbler's young userbase in the same language that the blogging service's founder and CEO, David Karp, uses to communicates with his audience. Karp signed off his announcement of the deal with a gleeful "Fuck yeah." But note the difference: Karp exuded confidence while Mayer projected massive corporate low self-esteem.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/20/how_to_screw_up_tumblr/feed/ 9 The illusions of advertising http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/fedexs_hidden_arrow_and_other_visual_advertising_tricks_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/fedexs_hidden_arrow_and_other_visual_advertising_tricks_partner/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 21:35:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13300901 Scientific American

Ancient philosophers were far from alone in their musings about time. Playwright Tennessee Williams wrote in 1944 that time is the longest distance between two places. And the years since have proved him right. Fast travel, instant communications and express deliveries between opposite ends of the world mean, more than ever, that time is not only relative but also an illusion.

But time is also money, or so the axiom goes. Certainly both time and money are precious, exist in limited quantities and can be intimately intertwined. Have you ever longed to get away but lacked the money or time to take your ideal vacation? In our travels we have noticed that airports, surprisingly, are a favorite location for high-end watch displays. It is as if travelers commonly must decide before imminent takeoff whether to pop into the newsstand to grab some gum and a copy of Scientific American or stop by the adjoining jewelry counter for a $10,000 Rolex. Who chooses the latter? We can't, unfortunately, although we do like to window shop. Next time you do, pay special attention to the watch displays and see if you notice anything unusual. You may see how advertisers exploit the intersection of time and illusion to sell their products.

Accurate Twice Each Day

Search for the term “watch images” on your favorite Internet browser, and you'll find something bizarre. Almost every watch is set to 10:10. What belief, what powerful insight, what shared brain mechanism could cause salespeople to hock their clocks with that setting? Is it that shoppers preferentially like to make purchases just after morning tea? Or, as conspiracy theorists have suggested, because 10:10 is the hour when John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln or John Lennon was assassinated? Or when Fat Man and Little Boy burned the sky above Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Nope. All such proposals are factually incorrect.

According to the New York Times, the Hamilton Watch Company was among the first to set its products to 10:10—in the 1920s. The previous standard setting was 8:20. Some advertising executives now assume that the switch occurred to turn the watches' 8:20 “frown” upside down, into a “smile.”

But to visual neuroscientists like us, all this speculation begs the question as to why clock hands were set to oblique 8:20/10:10 positions in the first place. It seems unlikely that pre-1920 watchmakers wanted their watches to frown. One possibility is that oblique watch-hand orientations are best at keeping company logos uncovered—but, if so, horizontal positions such as 9:15 or 2:45 would be even better. Because horizontal orientations have never been popular in watch advertisement, we can rule this idea out.

Could it then be that oblique orientations result in higher watch sales than do cardinal—or vertical and horizontal—orientations? The answer may well be affirmative, and the neuroscience of perception and cognition reveals why. Scientists have long known that we can detect cardinal orientations more easily than oblique orientations. The visual cortex, moreover, responds to oblique orientations more weakly, as if they had lower contrast than cardinal orientations of the same physical brightness. In addition, fewer neurons are sensitive to oblique than to cardinal orientations. As a result, obliquely oriented watch hands are a bit more difficult for us to see.

At first, this fact may seem like bad news for marketing timepieces, especially if you think that watch hands should be as visible as possible in ads. But neuroscience tells us why it is actually a benefit. To maximize the potential for sales, you really want your customers to rivet their attention on your product—and the visual challenge of seeing the oblique position draws that attention. Visual attention has the effect of enhancing the perception of low-contrast image elements in perception. As it happens, the enhancement is most valuable when those elements are difficult to detect because attention is stronger when the object of interest is hard to see—such as watch hands that are oriented obliquely.

If Mad Men (and Women) intuited that obliquely oriented lines are attention getters, people in other fields may have arrived at similar conclusions. We looked for prominently featured clocks in fine art paintings and—violà!—Marc Chagall used the time 10:10 in his famous series of clock paintings dating as far back as 1914, before the watch industry's own 10:10 preference.

Time's Arrow

Watch manufacturers are not the only companies that have toyed with the interaction of time and illusion in commercial advertising. When you use FedEx courier services to buy yourself some time, you may overlook the clever illusion hidden in the company's iconic logo: time's arrow, pointing toward the future. You can see either the white arrow or the FedEx letters, but not both at once, because one is always the background to the other.

The current FedEx logo was shortened from the earlier company name Federal Express and given a new snazzy illusory design element, the background arrow between the “E” and the “x.” Did the company shorten the name to reduce the amount of paint needed for signage on its planes and trucks? That explanation makes no sense, unless the painters could use only one font size. Once the name was shorter, they could just paint the letters larger to take up the same space and use about the same amount of paint. In fact, according to Linden Leader, the graphic artist who designed the new logo, the FedEx CEO specifically requested that the logo be easily legible on every truck from five blocks away.

Instead the change resulted from a thorough analysis of the company's name recognition in the market. Why might the new logo be more effective? One reason is that the arrow, a symbol that has special meaning to our cognitive system, helps to draw attention to the logo as a whole. Arrows indicate what scientists call “implied motion.” Visual neuroscientists Anja Schlack and Thomas Albright of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have shown that neurons that respond preferentially to specific directions of motion in the world are also activated by arrows pointing in the corresponding direction, even though the arrows are not themselves moving but just represent the concept of motion.

The FedEx arrow pointing to the right signifies motion toward the future for those who write in English and other left-to-right languages. Moreover, because our motion areas also have more neurons that prefer cardinal rather than oblique directions, here the arrow invokes a powerful competition with the FedEx name itself, so our perception vacillates between “FedEx” and forward momentum. In languages read right to left, the FedEx arrow points toward the left, such as in the Arabic version of the logo, consistent with the corresponding cognitive representation of time's arrow.

This same left-to-right effect works to express temporal order of pictograms grouped in sequences, such as in the famous representation of human evolution from prehominin to Homo sapiens. The direction of the sequence is fundamentally arbitrary, yet if you grouped it the wrong way, it would look like a time reversal.

So time may fly like an arrow, but it is your attention to time that advertisers care about.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/fedexs_hidden_arrow_and_other_visual_advertising_tricks_partner/feed/ 8 How Facebook could blow it http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/facebooks_impossible_dream/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/facebooks_impossible_dream/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13288262 I received an email from a Facebook public relations person just a little before midnight Wednesday, or about 10 hours after I posted my rant about Facebook mobile advertisements and giant-breasted zombie-stalkers. The spokesperson sought an opportunity to chat about the work Facebook was doing "to improve the controls people have over the ads they see on mobile."

So we chatted. The big news: Facebook promises that within just a couple of weeks mobile users will get new controls that will allow us to block specific advertisers. These controls will be similar to those that currently exist for the desktop Facebook experience. Individual Facebook users can decide for themselves how excited they are by this pledge. As I wrote on Wednesday, Facebook's track record on the desktop advertising experience leaves something to be desired. (To be fair, Facebook's spokeperson acknowledged that the company's ad-delivery algorithms are not "perfect.")

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/facebooks_impossible_dream/feed/ 7 Alex Jones: Conspiracy Inc. http://www.salon.com/2013/05/02/alex_jones_conspiracy_inc/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/02/alex_jones_conspiracy_inc/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13287148 It’s good to be Alex Jones. Matt Drudge, the conservative Web entrepreneur and news aggregator, proved prophetic when he predicted that 2013 would be “the year of Alex Jones.” The longtime conspiracy broadcaster is finally breaking into the mainstream consciousness after a buzzy interview with Piers Morgan and his Boston bombing conspiracy, and traffic to his websites has never been higher. The conspiracy business is booming.

And make no mistake, it is a business. That’s not to say that Jones isn’t a believer -- there are easier ways to make money -- but Jones has built a multi-platform new media empire in his Austin, Texas, Free Speech Systems LLC that reaches millions of believers and promises advertisers that it will “direct lucrative buyers to you from our daily audience of active enthusiasts.” And all told, Jones is very likely raking in millions.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/02/alex_jones_conspiracy_inc/feed/ 156 Facebook is blowing it http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/facebook_is_blowing_it/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/facebook_is_blowing_it/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 20:24:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13287044 While waiting for my coffee to brew this morning, I checked my Facebook News Feed on my iPhone. But instead of amusing updates from friends and family, in the space of just a few flicks of my thumb, I was assaulted by not one, not two, but three different advertisements for online dating sites. Worst of all, there she was, again! That giant-breasted zombie stalker from Mate1.com who has been chasing me across Facebook for years!

I know she's not real. I know she's just an advertisement. But I'm still terrified of that woman. I have nightmares of getting crushed by her mammary glands, squeezed to death like a boa constrictor kills a wild pig. I don't ever want to see her again, but no matter how I try, I just can't quit her.

When first we met, in my pre-smartphone days, she flashed her soulless come-hither eyes at me from Facebook's right-hand column. I swiftly learned how to click "hide this ad" and "hide all from Mate1.com." I'm a social media take-charge kind of guy -- tweaking privacy and ad settings comes naturally to me. But then, a couple of years later, not long (and not uncoincidentally) after Facebook's IPO, she invaded my News Feed. Once again, I dutifully clicked "hide this ad" and "hide all," albeit this time with a little less faith in the honorable intentions of Facebook's ad-targeting algorithms.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/facebook_is_blowing_it/feed/ 44 The most racist commercial of all time? http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/the_most_racist_commercial_of_all_time/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/the_most_racist_commercial_of_all_time/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 16:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13286613 Oh, it's weird, all right. It's aggressive and provocative -- two qualities you don't usually expect from a soda commercial, but not surprising at all coming from the minds behind Odd Future. But does this new series of Mountain Dew ads actually reinforce ugly stereotypes? Or are its critics completely missing the point?

The story begins back in March, when Tyler, the Creator cheerfully announced on Twitter that "They Let My Stupid Ideas Come To Life, Thanks Dew!" He followed up by unleashing the first spot he directed – a surreal vision in which Errol Chatham finds himself distracted by a fellow restaurant patron – the "nasty," rampaging, Dew-chugging Felicia the Goat.

Now, in the third and newest spot, Felicia's terrified waitress, now bruised and hobbling on crutches, is led into a lineup at a police station. And there's the goat, flanked by a tough-looking group of young minority men. The white cop tells the blond lady to make an identification, but the goat ominously warns, "Ya better not snitch on a playa," because "snitches get stitches."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/the_most_racist_commercial_of_all_time/feed/ 12 Breast cancer awareness is big business http://www.salon.com/2013/04/30/the_business_of_breast_cancer_awareness_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/30/the_business_of_breast_cancer_awareness_partner/#comments Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:49:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13285720 FeministingEd. note: This is a guest post from Verónica Bayetti Flores. Verónica is the Assistant Director of the Civil Liberties and Public Policy program (CLPP) at Hampshire College. She has worked to increase access to contraception and abortion, fought for paid sick leave, demanded access to safe public space for queer youth of color, and helped to lead social justice efforts in Wisconsin, New York City, and Texas.

Yesterday the New York Times featured an article in its Sunday magazine about breast cancer awareness initiatives, and what the real effects these initiatives have had on the lives of women. It’s on the longer side, but one that’s framed around the personal narrative of the author – a breast cancer survivor herself – and well worth a read:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/30/the_business_of_breast_cancer_awareness_partner/feed/ 1 Hyundai’s shocking ad: You can’t kill yourself in our car http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/hyundais_shocking_ad_you_cant_kill_yourself_in_our_car/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/hyundais_shocking_ad_you_cant_kill_yourself_in_our_car/#comments Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:50:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13282801 The good news is that Ford is no longer the front-runner for the most tasteless, boneheaded ad campaign of the year. Sorry, America! South Korea’s largest automaker, Hyundai, and its advertising agency Innocean Worldwide Europe, has utterly stolen your glory.

In the spot, hilariously titled "Pipe Job," a grim, middle-aged man is seen in his garage, methodically taping and running a pipe into his car. He then sits inside stoically, breathing deeply, his face a mask of weary woe. Cut to nightfall, and the man emerging from the garage very much alive. The tag line? "The new iX35 has 100 percent water emissions." Apparently someone thinks Hyundai's target demographic is the depressed, unsuccessfully suicidal car-buyer market. Way to own it!

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/hyundais_shocking_ad_you_cant_kill_yourself_in_our_car/feed/ 39 Stop posting that Dove ad: “Real beauty” campaign is not feminist http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/stop_posting_that_dove_ad_real_beauty_campaign_is_not_feminist/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/stop_posting_that_dove_ad_real_beauty_campaign_is_not_feminist/#comments Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13275125 Unless your Facebook friends are completely preoccupied right now with Gabrielle Giffords' Op-Ed and Science Bros, you’ve seen multiple teary re-posts of Dove’s newest “Real Beauty” video this week, in which a forensic sketch artist draws portraits of “real women” without ever seeing them. The artist asks each woman to describe herself, and they all oblige with damning self-criticism like “I kind of have a fat, rounder face” and “I’d say I have a pretty big forehead.” Take-away: Women are our own worst critics!

Except we’re not — at least, not naturally. All of that body image baggage is internalized by growing up in a society that enforces rigid beauty standards, and since the target demographic for this ad is clearly women over 35 with access to library cards (which is to say, women who have had some time to figure this reality out), it is baffling that Dove can continue to garner raves for its pandering, soft-focus fake empowerment ads.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/stop_posting_that_dove_ad_real_beauty_campaign_is_not_feminist/feed/ 67 Rape lyrics cost Rick Ross a Reebok deal http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/rape_lyrics_cost_rick_ross_a_reebok_deal/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/rape_lyrics_cost_rick_ross_a_reebok_deal/#comments Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:56:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13268984 Guess Rick Ross' assurances that he doesn't "condone" rape were not enough for him to keep his gig as a sneaker salesman. Late Thursday, Reebok announced it was dumping him as a spokesman.

At issue were the lyrics to the new track "U.O.E.N.O." – in which Ross brags that "Put Molly all in her champagne. She ain't even know it. I took her home and I enjoy that. She ain't even know it." ("Molly" is slang for Ecstasy, non-partiers.)

The song has been scrutinized ever since writer Rosa Clemente noted the "problematic" line last month on her YouTube channel. Soon after, Ross told New Orleans radio station Q 93.3, "I would never use the term 'rape' in my records and as far as my camp … Nobody condones that. So I just wanted to reach out to all my queens that’s on my timeline, all the sexy ladies, the beautiful ladies that have been reaching out to me with the misunderstanding: We don’t condone rape, and I’m not with that. I want to make sure this is clear, that woman is the most precious gift known to man. It was a misunderstanding with a lyric, a misinterpretation where the term rape wasn't used."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/rape_lyrics_cost_rick_ross_a_reebok_deal/feed/ 31 Google’s war against fake news http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/googles_war_against_fake_news/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/googles_war_against_fake_news/#comments Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13266975 (NOTE: This post has been updated since it was originally published.)

An outfit called "NewsCred" sent me an email this morning with the subject: "How Google's stance on branded content could impact marketers." It provided a link to an unbylined piece titled "Why Google Should Rethink Its Approach to Sponsored Content."

Haha, I thought. This should be fun. On March 27, Richard Gingras, Google's senior director for news and social products (and formerly, Salon's CEO), warned in a blog post that Google News strongly disapproved of news outlets that were passing off sponsored content as the real thing.

If a site mixes news content with affiliate, promotional, advertorial, or marketing materials (for your company or another party), we strongly recommend that you separate non-news content on a different host or directory, block it from being crawled with robots.txt, or create a Google News Sitemap for your news articles only. Otherwise, if we learn of promotional content mixed with news content, we may exclude your entire publication from Google News.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/googles_war_against_fake_news/feed/ 23 “Mad Men” recap: A veteran in paradise http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/mad_men_recap_a_veteran_in_paradise/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/mad_men_recap_a_veteran_in_paradise/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13264264 WARNING: Don't read this recap if you haven't watched the 6th season premiere of "Mad Men."

"People will do anything to alleviate their anxiety." – Dr. Arnold Rosen

Whenever a wise and heroic character appears on "Mad Men," you know that Don will find some way to destroy him. That's how Don alleviates his anxiety, after all – by crushing all truth and beauty to dust under his shiny black wingtips. So when Dr. Rosen, Don Draper's charming new friend and neighbor, explains Don to himself right before skiing off through the snow to save someone's life, it's obvious that Don's not going to stand for it.

Enter Silvia Rosen, who's chosen a rather literal interpretation of her husband's instructions to "keep it in the building." Don's cheating again – no surprise there. But thanks to show creator Matthew Weiner's knack for sly storytelling and creepy omens, Don's infidelity lands like a baseball bat to the gut. If Weiner opened the episode with the doorman's heart attack, then showed us how Don and the surgeon's wife met and began flirting, not only would that feel too familiar to offer as much dramatic impact, but it would obscure the real object of Don's strong feelings: Dr. Rosen. Ever the paragon of imperialist greed, longing and envy, Don can't handle sharing oxygen with a true hero. This is Don's life-long undoing: He's all hero on the outside, and fraudulent, covetous worm on the inside.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/mad_men_recap_a_veteran_in_paradise/feed/ 22 Facebook wants to steal your soul http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/facebook_wants_to_steal_your_soul/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/facebook_wants_to_steal_your_soul/#comments Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:57:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13262035 The home screen of your smartphone, Mark Zuckerberg told the world on Thursday, is the "soul of your phone." Zuckerberg then proceeded to demo "Home," Facebook's bold new plan to take over the prime real estate of all Android mobile devices, everywhere.

Q.E.D: Mark Zuckerberg wants to steal your soul. I'm surprised more of the reporters who attended the great unveiling at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday morning haven't led with this tidbit in their coverage of the event.

Or maybe, considering how many reporters were actually applauding at various stages during the presentation, the truth is that quite a few members of the tech press have already surrendered their souls to Zuckerberg. Tsk tsk.

The basics of "Home" seem slick, as best I could tell from the streaming video of Zuckerberg's presentation. Think of Home as the uber app that displaces all other apps -- the one app to rule them all! After installing Home, when you turn on your Android phone (or soon, your Android tablet) the first thing you will see is a visually striking "Cover Feed" that occupies all your screen space. The Cover Feed is a gussied-up version of the familiar old Facebook news feed, filled with whatever your friends are up to in the moment: their photos, videos, status updates.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/facebook_wants_to_steal_your_soul/feed/ 24 Ingenious Craigslist ad goes viral, then mysteriously disappears http://www.salon.com/2013/03/29/ingenious_craigslist_ad_goes_viral_then_mysteriously_disappears_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/29/ingenious_craigslist_ad_goes_viral_then_mysteriously_disappears_partner/#comments Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:58:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13256080 It's up and then it's down, and then it's up again and then it's down forever.

Nate Walsh wants to sell his 1999 Toyota Camry, lovingly nicknamed "The Tanry." Craigslist won't let him.

The Daily Dot

Walsh, a St. Louis-based copywriter with a knack for DIY art projects, popped into the national spotlight last week when his Craigslist advertisement for a $1,500 Camry redefined what was possible in the world of online classifieds.

The listing, which is entirely outrageous and looks like it could have been put together by South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone, got attention from such outlets as AdWeek and Jim Romenesko before being flagged and unceremoniously removed from Craigslist altogether. Walsh told the Daily Dot that the site offered no explanation outside of a reference to its robust Terms of Use page, which didn't help Walsh one bit.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/29/ingenious_craigslist_ad_goes_viral_then_mysteriously_disappears_partner/feed/ 3 Prada releases short film by Roman Coppola and Wes Anderson http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/prada_releases_short_film_by_roman_coppola_and_wes_anderson/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/prada_releases_short_film_by_roman_coppola_and_wes_anderson/#comments Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:38:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13254720 Chanel, which released a much-parodied ad starring Brad Pitt last year, may want to take a cue from Prada, which last year released a well-received short film by Roman Polanski for the brand. This year, Prada has teamed up with "Moonrise Kingdom" indie film duo Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola to deliver another round of engaging ads featuring Léa Seydoux, Owen Wilson's fantasy woman from "Midnight in Paris."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/prada_releases_short_film_by_roman_coppola_and_wes_anderson/feed/ 1 Ghost towns of the Web http://www.salon.com/2013/03/20/ghost_towns_of_the_web/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/20/ghost_towns_of_the_web/#comments Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:31:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13246916 In this week's installment of slimy games that scamster Web publishers play, AdWeek's Mike Shields delivers a fascinating bit of reporting that fully delivers on its great headline: "Meet the Most Suspect Publishers on the Web: The rise of ghost sites, where traffic is huge but humans are few."

It's a lesson in state-of-the-art online flimflam, the generation of billions of advertising impressions and clicks through bot-generated traffic.

Increasingly, digital agencies and buy-side technology firms are seeing massive traffic and audience spikes from groups of Web publishers few people have ever heard of. These sites -- billed as legitimate media properties -- are built to look authentic on the surface, with generic, nonalarm-sounding content. But after digging deeper, it becomes evident that very little of these sites' audiences are real people. Yet big name advertisers are spending millions trying to reach engaged users on these properties.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/20/ghost_towns_of_the_web/feed/ 11 Google’s latest privacy attack http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/googles_latest_privacy_attack/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/googles_latest_privacy_attack/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13229471 On Tuesday, Google agreed to pay a $7 million fine as part of the settlement of a case arising from massive privacy violations incurred during the rollout of its Street View mapping project. The announcement generated a wave of approving press.

The New York Times quoted Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen lauding the "new Google":

"This is the industry giant," he said. "It is committing to change its corporate culture to encourage sensitivity to issues of personal data privacy."

But less than 24 hours later, Google kicked Adblock Plus, a popular app that blocks ads and prevents third-party tracking, right out of its Google Play app store. There are obviously some clear limits to Google's privacy sensitivity, particularly when it comes to protecting advertising revenue on mobile devices.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/googles_latest_privacy_attack/feed/ 7 “Mad Men” Season 6 poster gives a nod to the 1960s http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/mad_men_season_6_poster_gives_a_nod_to_the_1960s/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/mad_men_season_6_poster_gives_a_nod_to_the_1960s/#comments Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:33:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13225723 Gearing up for season 6 of AMC's "Mad Men," the series took a note from adman Don Draper and commissioned a poster from famed illustrator Brian Sanders, a nod to the 1960s-era setting of the season.

The New York Times reports on the vision:

"Matthew Weiner, inspired by a childhood memory of lush, painterly illustrations on T.W.A. flight menus, decided to turn back the promotional clock. He pored over commercial illustration books from the 1960s and ’70s and sent images to the show’s marketing team, which couldn’t quite recreate the look he was after.

'Finally,' he said, 'they just looked up the person who had done all these drawings that I really loved, and they said: ‘Hey, we’ve got the guy who did them. And he’s still working. His name is Brian Sanders.’ ”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/mad_men_season_6_poster_gives_a_nod_to_the_1960s/feed/ 6 I have seen the future of retail and it looks like an Oreo http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/i_have_seen_the_future_of_retail_and_it_looks_like_an_oreo/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/i_have_seen_the_future_of_retail_and_it_looks_like_an_oreo/#comments Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:06:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13225364 When B. Bonin Bough leaned toward the microphone in a standing-room-only meeting room at 9:30 Monday morning, his voice crackled as if his lungs were clearing out a pickup truck's worth of rusty nails.

"Sorry," he apologized. "It was a long night last night."

It was only the first of multiple occasions on which Bough, the V.P. of Global Media and Consumer Engagement at Mondelēz International, sparked raucous laughter from the crowd. I don't know if I'd normally expect an audience that came to hear a panel on changing demographics, retail sales and ad budgets to be so approving of late night carousing, but that, I guess, is SXSW in a nutshell.

Once his voice cleared, Bonin proceeded to show why there wasn't an empty seat in the house with his incisive analysis of how social media, mobile technology and personalization data were remaking the retail landscape. As he did so, he solved a minor mystery for me: Why Oreo was such a huge presence at SXSW 2013. Yahoo and Esurance, sure. Pepsi and Doritos -- they're everywhere, all the time.. But Oreo? At a tech conference?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/i_have_seen_the_future_of_retail_and_it_looks_like_an_oreo/feed/ 1 Japanese ad firm turns women’s thighs into billboards http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/japanese_ad_firm_turns_womens_thighs_into_billboards/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/japanese_ad_firm_turns_womens_thighs_into_billboards/#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:12:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13222249 Most people have seen men donning costumes to hand out palm cards for pawn shops or women draped in sign boards plastered with deals for discount suits, but a new trend in Japan is taking human advertising in a slightly more risqué direction.

A Japanese marketing firm is recruiting women to wear sticker-like advertisements -- wait for it -- on their thighs.

Wit Inc. is paying women to wear advertisements on their upper legs and a skirts short enough to show them off. Requirements for the job include being over the age of 18, having a significant number of followers on various social media accounts, a willingness to wear miniskirts and, well, lady parts. The firm is not currently enlisting men to show that kind of skin for cash.

Once hired, women can make up to $121 for the day. Besides just walking around, they also have to post at least two photos to the Internet of themselves, posed with the logo clearly visible, at different locations around their neighborhood. (See, that's where the social media following comes in!)

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