Marketing

Liz Magic Laser Assumes the (Poll) Position

Mad as hell, and shilling brilliantly for the Armory art fair

The Charitable Industrial Complex: "Charitable" Telemarketing by Professional Fundraisers Mostly Funds Professional Fundraisers

If you're thinking of giving to charity this holiday season, you might want to take a second to find out where your money is going. A report released today by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman found that a staggering amount of the money raised by charitable telemarketing winds up going to ... More >>

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS

Warning: these toys may 
give you nightmares

NYC Chefs Modeling For J. Crew, Uniqlo

Fashion brands like J. Crew and Uniqlo are recruiting NYC chefs as models for their brands, according to the New York Post. Mission Chinese Food chef Danny Bowien is modeling for Uniqlo, the culinary team behind The Fat Radish is in a new ad for the prepster label Gant, and Michael Chernow of the ... More >>

SUPER CUTS

Scissor Sisters hit the Bowery Ballroom

The Fat Wars, Animal vs. Vegetable

There's a story behind vegetable oil taking over the American pantry and it has nothing to with health or flavor. In the early 1900s, Procter & Gamble found a way to market excess cottonseed oil and it forever changed the way we shop, cook and think about food.

James Bond Becomes a Beer Man, Fans Not So Impressed

James Bond will no longer be ordering martinis "shaken, not stirred." The Bond franchise has sealed a marketing deal with Heineken, rumored at $45 million, to have the spy sip on the Dutch beer instead of the usual martini in the upcoming Bond film, Skyfall.

THE STYLISH ’60S

Music infiltrates the fashion world, 
like always

Cymbals Eat Guitars

More Americans are Buying Lotto Tickets, Should You?

​With unemployment rates at a standstill and the economy still withering, one financial sector just had a banner year: lottery tickets. According to USA Today, 41 state lotteries saw a sales increase from the last fiscal year, with 17 states recording record-high ticket sales. A 2004 Cornell U ... More >>

Television Show Marketed to Hampton Jitney Riders During Precious Jitney Time

​In an attempt to build "buzz" for their upcoming drama Revenge, ABC will hand out pilot scripts to passengers on the Hampton Jitney this weekend. The show, which is set in the Hamptons, is based on The Count of Monte Cristo. Will Hamptons residents enjoy reading a tale about someone planning ... More >>

David Letterman Threatened By Jihadists

Middle East Media Research Institute​Are jihadists becoming a bit out of touch? Their latest target is David Letterman, of all people, because he made a joke about the deaths of Osama bin Laden and OBL's successor Ilyas Kashmiri. On the al-Qaeda forum Shumoukh al-Islam, someone by the name of ... More >>

Today's Three Signs That The Concept Of "Punk" Has Reached An Awkward Age

These riches could be yours. ​ 1. The CBGB brand is up for auction. Not all that surprising a development given the financial woes suffered by the company that used to hold the trademark had. But still a little sad? Especially because of the high odds that Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters wins o ... More >>

UFO Video Proves Existence of YouTube

The above video of a supposed "UFO Mothership" over London was posted onto YouTube Monday and has already garnered over two million hits. It briefly captures a group of glowing lights passing by overhead and is similar to another popular UFO video shared months ago from Jerusalem. Whether you belie ... More >>

Gay Marriage Gets an Ad Campaign, May Fix the Economy

​Following Friday's passing of same-sex marriage in Albany, the office of the mayor has already updated NYC.gov to provide some new info on nuptials, including the heartening headline: "New York City to Welcome All to Marry Here." It continues, "We look forward to welcoming all couples who wan ... More >>

BLACK-TIE OPTIONAL

Bands, beer pong, and a dance-off await

Wu Lyf

Woman Needs a Million People to Join Her Facebook Group So Her Wretched Fiancé Will Marry Her

​Imagine if you got engaged. Imagine if you waited a loooooong time, like maybe even 10 years, for your wedding. Imagine if, after those 10 years, your would-be lazy-ass husband tells you that the only way he'll actually marry you is if you create a Facebook Group and get a million people to j ... More >>

The Red Cross's Accidental Drunk Tweet Is Adorable

The Red Cross has won us over, not just because they're a nonprofit that does good things for people, but because they actually have a sense of humor, and they might, every so often, like to booze -- responsibly! On Tuesday night, a Red Cross social media specialist accidentally tweeted this from th ... More >>

BLANK SURROUNDINGS

The new hot dance party gets local help

Chris Batty and Michael Cascio, Dark Siths of Sales at Gawker Media: Out

Chris Batty, via Facebook. Not Business Insider.​Sales, right? Normally, the Mamet-esque figures of the media world wouldn't get the time of day on this here blog, because all they do is get in the way of us writing things about their clients (when they're not, you know, subsidizing our jobs). ... More >>

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 Downward Spiral of TVT Records

How the ambitious NYC indie nearly brought artists from Ambulance LTD to Lil Jon down with it

Today in Non-Shockers: That Berlin Cannibal Restaurant Is, Indeed, a Hoax

Remember the cannibal restaurant that we told you about, the one that was angering Berliners with requests for body parts, but was probably a hoax? It's a hoax! Apparently, the whole marketing campaign was a tone-deaf hoax perpetrated by vegetarian activists trying to draw a moral parallel between ... More >>

Grassroots Effort Gets Zynga to Remove Ugly-Ass Stickers in East Village

via East Village Feed​Have you seen random fake dollar bills glued to city sidewalks downtown? Apparently they're part of a new ad campaign from San Francisco-based online game developer Zynga to promote their new game "Mafia Wars." The stunt started in San Francisco, where a steam cleaner had ... More >>

Ashton Kutcher Has Been Put on 'Bros Icing Bros' Notice

​After the New York Times linked to our piece about Bros Icing Bros - a game/form of urban sabotage involving the worst malt liquor drink on the planet that is not, as far as anyone can tell, a viral marketing campaign - we'd figured that the worst of it had been pushed through relatively earl ... More >>

Chipotle Expands Into Europe; Jet Dustin Keller Names Katz's City's Best Dog

​The Indian yogi who claims to have not eaten a thing in 70 years baffled scientists who studied him for 15 days. The hope was that information gleaned could help soldiers survive without food and drink or save people trapped in natural disasters. [FOXNews] Chipotle Mexican Grill has opened i ... More >>

Molson Canadian Hopes the Olympics Will Make Canadians Patriotic; Diageo Is Up to Its Old Tricks

​They say wine is good for you. But which wines are best for your health? Research suggests that wines higher in procyanidin, which helps prevent heart disease, are those that undergo a long fermentation. In other words, more traditional wines. [Wall Street Journal] A roundup of the city's to ... More >>

Follow the Fooderati on Gastrobuzz

Josh Friedland, who runs the blog The Food Section, has introduced a new website called Gastrobuzz that tracks the tweets of the food world. Follow the twitterings of hundreds of chefs, food writers and bloggers, and other culinary personalities in one place by visiting the site or following @Gastro ... More >>

Streaking Past Viacom Offices in Times Square Now Legitimate Path to MTV Video Music Award Nominations

Hey, so the downy elf with the dilated pupils who dwells inside the padded confines of MTV's viral marketing campaign closet did good today! The MTV Video Music Award Nominations are out, and boy, look at that Breakthrough Video category: the ninja-filled, Underworld-vibing video to Bat For Lash's ... More >>

In the New New Economy, You Work for Free!

BusinessWeek looks at a popular internet business model in which readers contribute the content, for free or for cheap perks, resulting in "an outpouring of creativity" and a thin trickle of labor expenses. One company, Communisphere, uses social marketing tools to lure "volunteer marketing consulta ... More >>

Could Fort Greene be Home to a Really Good Flea Market?

Kenna's Make Sure They See My Face

Make sure you hear the urban legend marketers couldn't kill

Reality Czech in Aisle Nine

Doc dupes entire nation, makes trenchant case against consumer culture

E-thics

Morals get fuzzy as biz tries to embrace the blog world

Spin Cycle

Crisis filmmaker shows all politics aren't necessarily local

Get Eaten

Changing Lanes: From Mullets to Crotch Chops

The Jean Genie

Product-designing whiz Marc Newson does G-Star proud

Morning Report 2/23/05
Wead to Bush Beat: Yeah, The Tapes Made Bush Look Good

Film

Message In A Bottle

Indian telemarketers learn it pays to mimic TV's Friends

Focus Queens

Marketing Yourself to Marketers

Workers Ask Judge to Stop Enron's Shredding

Meanwhile, Dems Get Their Share of Blame

A Study in Synergy

Nike Money Buys a WNYC Talk Show

Baseball's New Pitch

The National Pastime Finally Reaches Out To Its International Fan Base

Hocus Focus

Focus Groups Move Out of the Office

Spy Commerce

The Surveillance Society: Part Three

Shopping Spies

Why is this Man Staring at Me?

Modern Art

A Museum Goes Digital