This is a really old Rocky and Bullwinkle opening clip complete with a General Mills product placement. I love how products were made a part of these old shows rather than today's method of sneaking in product placements. Hell, we know you can't have a show without advertisements, you might as well make it blatant. I'd love to turn on the TV and watch Colgate presents: Lost. Or something like that. Both Rocky and Bullwinkle also appeared in television and print ads for General Mills cereals, including Cheerios.
So many dumb moments in business, so little time. But Business 2.0 mag has their picks for the 101 dumbest of 2006.
Wal-Mart is #1, for hiring a big firm to create their "Candidate Wal-Mart" campaign. #2 is Northwest Airlines, for giving their employees a "How To Save Money" booklet after laying them off. #3 is the contest McDonald's held in Japan, with the winners getting free mp3 players with a virus on them. The rest of the top 10 are GM, Kazakhstan, Steve Wynn, The New York Times, Spirit Air, Porter County, and Comcast.
There are 101 in all, so grab a hot beverage and get comfortable. You can't see the entire list on one page, which is a little annoying, but there is a handy scroll function at the bottom.
What do you do when you're a band trying to make a comeback? That's right, you advertise. At least, that's sort of what the recently reunited original lineup of Dinosaur Jr is doing with their very own Nike shoe that's set to be released sometime next month. I was never much of a Dinosaur Jr fan; I was more turned on by member Lou Barlow's other bands such as Sebadoh and Folk Implosion. Besides, those are some rather ugly shoes. Either that or I'm too old now and don't know what cool footwear actually looks like. To me they look like part of a spaceman costume. Then again, perhaps they are. Maybe soon they'll be releasing a Dinosaur Jr astronaut suit to complete the ensemble. Then when you see an astronaut walking down your street you'll know that said person loves himself some Dinosaur Jr. My god, that's genius.
The Office is my favorite comedy on television right now. Did you see last night's episode?
Last week, Dwight quit Dunder-Mifflin so his secret girlfriend Angela wouldn't get in trouble for something he did for her, and this week we find out that he got a new job...at Staples! Now, ordinarily this wouldn't be much of a plot to talk about (though on most shows the character wouldn't have gone to work at a real company, they would have gotten a job at some fictional company), but it comes a short time after the episode that had a subplot of one of the Dunder-Mifflin employees buying a special (and real) paper shredder. An episode that had a commercial for the shredder. And now Dwight gets a job at Staples?
Is this going to far, or is everything fair in love and product placement these days?
If you wake up and find yourself in Atlanta between February 1 and May 19, mosey on over to the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) and check out "Design at Play: The High Design and Low-Brow Humor of Cartoon Network," an exhibit dedicated to advertising and promotional work created by the men and women of Cartoon Network, which is also based in Atlanta. The exhibit will cover three galleries at the MODA and will include formal demonstrations of how the company creates ads for television, billboards and the Web. Some of the shows featured in the exhibit will include My Gym Partner's a Monkey;Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends;Camp Lazlo;Ed, Edd and Eddy and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. The exhibit will also feature a look at the work of Craig McCracken, creator of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
Just a quick thought: "I'm super, thanks for asking!" kept running through my head through this episode. I'm just saying.
This week the two teams competed to create swimsuits for fashion designer Trina Turk and, quite frankly, I'll never be the same after seeing the results. The teams were given access to materials, designers and such as they were asked to create the swimsuits, with success being measured by how much they sold to retailing buyers at a runway show at the end of the episode.
From the get-go Cary, a gay member of last week's losing team, dominated the design process as he created she shortest of short shorts for men. The designs he sketched out in the van after being given the assignment were so short and tight that the junk of whoever is wearing it is going to be curbside for everyone to see.
Kevin Dugan points to a study that shows nine of the top ten TV shows that contain product placement are, unsurprisingly, reality shows. "American Idol" tops that list and the soon to end "King of Queens" is the only scripted sitcom on the list. As Kevin points out, it could be worse. 2006 actually saw product placement instances decrease from 2005 to just 120 hours being devoted to the practice which, as he points out, you can't really TiVo through. Hence the attractiveness of the practice.
Nickland, a new section of Movie Park Germany opening April of this year, will be the first Nickelodeon-themed attraction in Europe. The new "adventure zone" will feature rides, attractions and costumed characters from such shows as Jimmy Neutron, My Life As a Teenage Robot, SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, The Backyardigans and Danny Phantom.
Nickland will also allow Nickelodeon and Movie Park Germany to create co-branded campaigns within the park, and to increase advertising on Nickelodeon's German network, Nick in Germany as the popularity of the Nickelodeon brand continues to grow in Germany.
While we're talking video games, here's the Nintendo Wii Fanboy's take on Nintendo's targeting of moms in their marketing of the new console.
Blogging Stocks wonders just how much faith investors will have in Google's sustainable growth as we enter 2007.
Slashfood lists the top 10 creepiest fast-food mascots and earns my everlasting respect by including the Domino's Noid, one of the first characters I remember ever getting his own video game.
TV Squad reports that ABC is running a campaign to recruit members of the "Knights of Prosperity" that's focused on reaching pre- and post-Christmas shoppers.
Also at TV Squad, there's word that NBC will be putting the young attractive players of a sport called "hok-eee" front and center in the network's marketing of their broadcasts.
Auto Blog says that General Motors will be carpet-bombing Times Square (I typed that just so I'd wind up getting an email from the NSA) on New Years Eve with hats, billboards and more.
Also from the Auto Blog is word that Ford chief Alan Mulally has a secret "war room" where all of the companies marketing and other initiatives are mapped out and charted.
PVR Wires passes on a report from Nielsen that says it's not actually reality shows that should be getting those big product placement dollars but scripted shows since they're better at avoiding time-shifted viewing.
Engadget Mobile has their own take on Verizon's plan to sell banner ads that will be displayed to wireless device users.
The other day I mentioned the results of a study that had been done on how people were discussing product placement online. The New Media Sense blog for New Media Strategies, the company that produced that report, has released some of the top-level numbers. 43 sites were involved in the study, all focused on film, entertainment, television and gaming. Those sites produced 862 product-placement discussions, 595 of which were either indifferent or positive. While gaming accounted for the least amount of discussions, the majority of those discussions were negative in tone. Most of the negatives, though, came when talking about product placement on TV. Click through to read a breakdown of these top-line numbers.
Well, that headline might not be completely accurate. A more realistic headline might be "When people are talking about product placement they don't seem to hate it" but I thought that was too long.
According to a new study from New Media Strategies almost 70 percent of online discussions of product placement are either neutral or positive. Overall consumers seem to be willing to tolerate product placement as long as it doesn't intrude on the entertainment they're enjoying or at least is done in a clever way. The one medium that acceptance seemed to be lowest in is video games.
Dial was on the list of companies I passed on earlier that would be placing their products in the upcoming sixth season of "The Apprentice". Some details have now been released on what the company will be doing to support that appearance. Dial will use their episodes to promote both its Renuzit Super Odor Neutralizer and the Soft Scrub Deep Clean Bathroom Cleaner by giving the contestants two separate tasks to complete, one per episode.
The first show will have the teams creating a webisode for the Soft Scrub product. Following that Dial will launch a product sampling and in-store promotions for the product. The second show will be for the Renuzit product. For that task, the teams will be creating a 60-second spot (that always works out well on this show) that will shown before the movies at AMC Theaters. There will also be significant other promotion for Renuzit after that show.
The video game "Atari Test Drive Unlimited" will have a bunch of Lexus models that players can download and drive within the game. That comes as a result of a deal Lexus has made to have the cars placed within the Xbox 360 title. Channel M brokered the deal, which will initially offer gamers the IS350 to drive followed by four more models this coming spring. Lexus is actually the third car brand to be in the game, with Audi and Nissan preceeding it to the virtual road.
When NBC debuts the new season of "The Apprentice" in January, here's some of the companies whose marketing efforts you can expect to be run into the ground by whiny fools who should be shot if they ever came within a mile of a real marketing plan.
Dial
AdSpace Networks
Adwalker
AMC Entertainment
Ell Pollo Loco
GNC
Home Depot
KB Home
Lexus
Priceline.com
Ralphs
Sue Bee Honey
Trina Turk
SmartMouth
Expect the eye-rolling to start soon. [via Stanley at Market My Monkey]
The braintrust that created LonelyGirl15, the fictional character who posted a series of video journals to the internet, are now trying to convince marketers to let Bree, the "real" name of LG15, do product placement for them. They're looking for partners whose products can be integrated into storylines of the show, a tactic that gets around YouTubes lack of pre-roll ads and revenue sharing. LG15 videos will continue to be hosted, though, by Revver, which does have revenue sharing. The team assures us that placement within the "we all sold this to you as real but it really wasn't and so ha-ha" episodes will be organic and natural but I'll believe that when I see it.
So many dumb moments in business, so little time. But Business 2.0 mag has their picks for the 
What do you do when you're a band trying to make a comeback? That's right, you 
The Office is my favorite comedy on television right now. Did you see last night's episode?
If you wake up and find yourself in Atlanta between February 1 and May 19, mosey on over to the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) and check out "Design at Play: The High Design and Low-Brow Humor of Cartoon Network," an exhibit dedicated to advertising and promotional work created by the men and women of Cartoon Network, which is also based in Atlanta. The exhibit will cover three galleries at the MODA and will include formal demonstrations of how the company creates ads for television, billboards and the Web. Some of the shows featured in the exhibit will include My Gym Partner's a Monkey; Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends; Camp Lazlo; Ed, Edd and Eddy and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. The exhibit will also feature a look at the work of Craig McCracken, creator of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
Just a quick thought: "I'm super, thanks for asking!" kept running through my head through this episode. I'm just saying. 
Kevin Dugan 
Nickland, a new section of Movie Park Germany opening April of this year, will be the first Nickelodeon-themed attraction in Europe. The new "adventure zone" will feature rides, attractions and costumed characters from such shows as Jimmy Neutron, My Life As a Teenage Robot, SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, The Backyardigans and Danny Phantom. 
Second Life Insider has a bit of 
The other day I 
Dial was on the list of companies I 
The video game "Atari Test Drive Unlimited" will have a bunch of Lexus models that players can download and drive within the game. That comes as a result of a deal Lexus has made to have the cars placed within the Xbox 360 title. Channel M brokered the deal, which will initially offer gamers the IS350 to drive followed by four more models this coming spring. Lexus is actually the third car brand to be in the game, with Audi and Nissan preceeding it to the virtual road.
When NBC debuts the new season of "The Apprentice" in January, here's some of the companies whose marketing efforts you can expect to be 
The braintrust that created LonelyGirl15, the fictional character who posted a series of video journals to the internet, are now trying to convince marketers to let Bree, the "real" name of LG15, do product placement for them. They're looking for partners whose products can be integrated into storylines of the show, a tactic that gets around YouTubes lack of pre-roll ads and revenue sharing. LG15 videos will continue to be hosted, though, by Revver, which does have revenue sharing. The team assures us that placement within the "we all sold this to you as real but it really wasn't and so ha-ha" episodes will be organic and natural but I'll believe that when I see it.
