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Super Bowl Commercial Week: Leapfrog for a Beer with Bud, Weis, and Er

It's Day 2 of Super Bowl Commercial Week and today we're revisiting those famous, late night pond-hoppers, the Budweiser Frogs. Way back in 1994, when the San Francisco 49ers and the San Diego Chargers met up in Miami for Super Bowl XXIXX, Bud featured the CGI swamp creatures in an ad for their be ... More >>

OUR BODIES, OURSELVES

A new Village Voice policy on "adult" advertising

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

Britney Spears' New Ad Campaign: What Think You?

It's the ad for Britney's fantasy twist perfume, which is two scents in one, and that's why we get no fewer than two Britneys in the ad. Can you handle two Britneys? Can you even handle one? What's more, they seem to be popping out of each other's torsos, one of the Britneys being an upside-down ... More >>

LISTEN UP!

The art of the Black Power Movement lives on

Here's the "Tan Mom" Skin-Care Infomercial Your Brain Doesn't Want You To See

We just watched all four minutes of a new skin-care infomercial starring New Jersey "Tan Mom" Patricia Krentcil, and we've come to one conclusion: Krentcil is either in a perpetual state of drunkenness, or she just acts like she's in a perpetual state of drunkenness.Either way, the infomercial -- wh ... More >>

Joe

Angelo Carusone, Tweeter Behind @StopRush and @StopBeck, On Rush Limbaugh's Implosion

Angelo Carusone is the Director of Online Strategy for Media Matters for America. Even prior to that gig, he's been known in the Twitterverse during the past couple of years as @StopBeck, an online campaign to let Glenn Beck's advertisers know where their advertising dollars were going. The Voice sp ... More >>

Radio Hits One: fun.'s "We Are Young" Brings Indie Pop To The Super Bowl And The Hot 100

Last week Billboard published the Hot 100 chart covering the post-Super Bowl week, and unsurprisingly the most notable leap on the chart was made by a song featured on the telecast. The surprise was that it wasn't "Give Me All Your Luvin'," Madonna's new single, performed during her halftime show pe ... More >>

The Most Hyped TV Show In History!

​There were commercials for it all through the Golden Globes, and two of the presenters were stars from the show. Every Broadway site has large wraparound ads for it on the homepage. The trade magazines are brimming with ads and articles about it.

Junk Food Might Kill Kids with Video Games: Report

​New British research suggests that junk food companies really don't have kids' best interests in mind, as they knowingly shill unhealthy eats to unsuspecting minors, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The "Otis" Video Debuts Tomorrow Night; Get Ready For Lots Of Smoke And Broing Down

The press release announcing tomorrow night's debut of the "Otis" video (on MTV, MTV2, mtvU, BET and Centric, at 8:56 p.m. ET) has a bit of a boxing-ring flair to it; Watch The Throne, the Jay-Z and Kanye West collaboration that the track comes from, gets dubbed "the Undisputed Number One Album in ... More >>

Useless

Nick Sacco, New Jersey Mayor, Reps North Bergen in Budget Political Ad

"The streets are clean and the parks are beautiful," says a citizen in a thrilling last-minute political ad for Nick Sacco of North Bergen, New Jersey, the mayor (and state senator!) aiming for reelection tomorrow. But the spot's real star is Tyler "TyAlaxandar" Griffin, a young rapper whose infecti ... More >>

Women's Funding Network Sex Trafficking Study Is Junk Science

Schapiro Group data wasn't questioned by mainstream media

Angela Di Carlo: Just to Be Polite

Taco Bell Employees Speak Out, Placate Angry Consumers with 88 Cent Crunchwraps

It's been a hard few months for Taco Bell, with consumers (Our Man Sietsema included) angry about the lack of beef in the company's products. So what better way to lure back customers than with a cheap deal and new ad campaign? Except this one is still sending the wrong message.

Nursing Is Gay, and Other Things Marketers Know About You Via Facebook

​Online advertisers target Facebook users based on information Facebook claims not to share, according to two new research papers reported on in today's New York Times. The most jarring of the findings indicates that online marketers "cater" to users based on criteria like sexual preference, d ... More >>

The Ten Very Worst 9/11-Themed Ads

Click to Enlarge.Via CopyRanter.​Yesterday, Copyranter caught an advertisement (pictured right) for French weekly Courrier International. The conceit of the advertisement, by Saatchi & Saatchi France, as put by Copyranter: "The World Trade Center architects should have stopped at about 50 floo ... More >>

The James L. Dolan Honorary Scholarship for Media Reporting: A Kickstarter Project

​Prolific blogger, re-blogger, and columnist Anthony "SoupSoup" DeRosa is trying to harness the awesome power of KickStarter - a website that helps facilitate people who are looking to source out funding for their own projects - for the power of "good."

Media Mogul James Dolan Elects to Use 'Nuclear Option' on Village Voice, Yet Again Pulling More Advertising Than Ever!

​Back in March, a blog post we published regarding a potential media acquisition by Cablevision, MSG Entertainment, and Rainbow Media owner James Dolan -- compounded by a vaguely worded, ominous legal threat from Dolan's corporate office, which was ignored and then published in a naive showing ... More >>

Twitting and Twatting

A brief public service announcement to remind you that you can follow us at ForkintheRoadVV, where we're twitting away every day.

CREATURE COMFORTS

Peter Fischli and David Weiss resurrect their animal avatars

Restrospective: Bad Celebrity Ads

Slashfood rounds up the weirdest celebrity food commercials, including the famously botched frozen pea voice-over by Orson Welles and a cringe-worthy Pringles ad starring a young, shirtless Brad Pitt. As a rule of thumb, the best in celebrity ad weirdness can be found in those commercials filmed a ... More >>

OutHistory Chronicles the Voice's "Contemptuous Attitude Toward the Gay Community" (in 1969)

Pride Week, already? We have to thank the Times for pointing out the OutHistory site and its latest historical findings on the Stonewall Riot -- including the first confirmed name of a female arrested in the fracas (Marilyn Fowler), and a record of a Stonewall biting ("Biting has not earlier been do ... More >>

YouTube Treasure: Crazed Endorsement for Grand Hotel

VV: Now Texting You

Just in case you really cannot get enough of us, you can now subscribe to our text messaging. You'll get a restaurant recommendation texted to your phone three times a week: one for brunch, one for lunch, and one for dinner and drinks. They'll be real recommendations from me, not sponsors or adverti ... More >>

Fuck vegetables? Hell, yeah!

'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad PETA's banned video advises: Once you go broccoli, you never go back. Is that a carrot in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? NBC won't let PETA even try to ask that question, banning the animal-rights group's proposed Super Bowl ad campaign. FO ... More >>

Mmm…(In)tolerance! The Post's "Jihad Train"

Clip Job: In Defense of Madison Avenue

Adventures in Google's Contextual Advertising

A Sobering Plan to End Subway Alcohol Advertising

Publishers vs. the Censorbot

As Google becomes more crucial to the revenues of online news sites, its practice of withholding ads from edgy stories threatens Web journalism.

When You Can't Make it on The O.C . . .

Bloc Party and the Hold Steady shill for Target

Blue Chipping

In 23 million years, Google will fall to the rebellion. And no, we don't mean 'Ask Jeeves'

iTunes, yr Tunes

Napster revives the freedom to explore, but will it dent Apple's now iconic market hegemony?

Brown-Skin Lady

Suede magazine wants advertisers to see its true colors—and spend some real green

Iraq the Vote!

U.S. Wants Help in 'Branding' Its Colony's Elections

Green and Greener

Village Voice Media Shows Its Colors

Hip-Hop Goes Commercial

Rappers Give Madison Avenue a Run for Its Money

Losing His Religion

Roy Andersson's Panic Rooms

Political Ads Shot Down

Arab Americans See U.S. Media Bias

The Spy in the Gym

Club Members Ripped About Electronic Surveillance

Ad Nauseam

Do Explicit TV Commercials Make You Want to Pay Up or Throw Up?

Rise of the Vaccine Nation

'The New Yorker' Joins the Campaign for a Disease-Free America

Marketing Speak

This Phone Call Is Brought to You By...

Ad Nauseam

The Cozy, Corrupt World of Fashion Magazines

Licensed to Sell

Why Jingles Died and Licensed Pop Rules

Why Advertising Won't Ask Why

Or, Why Buy Nikes? Because you can!

Network Not Funny

ABC Celebrates Cerebral-Free TV