The BadAds Weblog: August 2001

A Wok in the Park for Advertisers

We already wrote about the unfortunate trend of ads in fortune cookies. Well, it seems that advertisers are gung-ho to destroy the Chinese dining experience in any way they can. Hence, the latest form of intrusive advertising: ads on Chinese takeout containers.

These are ads that just keep on giving, going from the restaurant into your home. "Whether the containers are used for leftovers or to go or are delivered, the containers have a repetitive audience because they sit in the refrigerator for a week or so," says Marc Friedman, president of PromoMedia, the company that brings you ad-laden takeout containers.

Please e-mail the advertisers below and ask them to stop advertising on Chinese takeout containers. You can also e-mail PromoMedia at marcfriedman@promocup.com. Another company that offers advertising on takeout boxes and other restaurant paper goods is Offline Promotions. You can e-mail president Adam Salacuse at adam@offlinepromotions.com.

Kenneth Cole
Online feedback form

Techs.com (now called Staffing Corp)
Online feedback form

August 27, 2001

Airport Ad Glut

If you've ever had a drink at an airport bar, congratulations! You're now a target market.

According to Media Life magazine, "Ad-imprinted glassware is being tested in airport restaurants and lounges, so when customers order a beer or soda, it's delivered in a logo-laden pint glass." Add this to ads on luggage carousels, advertising posters at the gates, and in-flight sports TV laden with commercials, and traveling by air is turning into one big advertising fiasco.

So far, the only company to advertise on airport glassware is Yahoo!. Please write, call, or fax Yahoo! and ask them to stop contributing to the ad glut in airports.

Terry S. Semel, Chairman and CEO
701 First Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Phone: 408-349-3300
Fax: 408-349-3301

August 20, 2001

Kids Need Privacy, Too

Many corporations see schools as nothing but free market research facilities. Companies like Channel One and ZapMe violate school children's privacy by gathering personal information from them for commercial purposes – without parental consent.

Finally, somebody's doing something about it. The information below is from the Commercial Alert Web site.

On June 14, the U.S. Senate passed the Student Privacy Protection Act, which would require parental consent before a corporation or person could extract personal information from a child in school for commercial purposes. The Senate approved the legislation as an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education bill (S.1). It is now pending before a House-Senate conference committee, where it faces strong opposition from the anti-privacy lobby, advertisers, some publishers, and Primedia Inc., which owns Channel One.

The legislation would require schools to tell parents to whom their children's personal information would be disclosed, how that information would be used, and the amount of class time consumed.

Read the full text of the Student Privacy Protection Act. (This is a PDF file.)

What you can do: The main opponent to student privacy amendment is Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and the lead Senate conferee. Please contact Sen. Kennedy and ask him to protect schoolchildren from privacy invasion by supporting the Student Privacy Protection Act. His email address is senator@kennedy.senate.gov, and his education staff's phone is 202-224-5501.

Please also ask any education conferees (listed below) from your state to support the Student Privacy Protection Act. The Congressional switchboard phone is 202-225-3121. Find the local phone numbers and e-mail addresses of your Members of Congress.

Senate conferees:
Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Dodd (D-CT), Harkin (D-IA), Mikulski (D-MD), Jeffords (I-VT), Bingaman (D-NM), Wellstone (D-MN), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Edwards (D-NC), Clinton (D-NY), Lieberman (D-CT), Bayh (D-IN), Gregg (R-NH), Frist (R-TN), Enzi (R-WY), Hutchinson (R-AR), Warner (R-VA), Bond (R-MO), Roberts (R-KS), Collins (R-ME), Sessions (R-AL), DeWine (R-OH), Allard (R-CO), and Ensign (R-NV).

House conferees:
Reps. Boehner (R-OH), Petri (R-WI), Roukema (R-NJ), McKeon (R-CA), Castle (R-DE), Graham (R-SC), Hilleary (R-TN), Isakson (R-GA), George Miller (D-CA), Kildee (D-MI), Owens (D-NY), Patsy Mink (D-HI), Andrews (D-NJ), and Roemer (D-IN).

August 16, 2001

Stadium Still a Mile High

Three cheers for Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and The Denver Post!

Last fall, Mayor Webb spoke out against the idea of selling the naming rights for the city's new football stadium. Unfortunately, he had no say in the matter, and in the end Invesco Funds Group put up $60 million to christen the stadium with the hideous title "Invesco Field at Mile High."

Mayor Webb lobbied to keep the stadium's old, non-commercial name – Mile High Stadium – and The Denver Post has decided to do just that, promising to refer to the stadium only as "Mile High, New Mile High, or the new stadium."

The stadium itself will still bear the Invesco name, but at least Denver taxpayers – who paid 75 percent of the stadium's $400 million price tag – won't have it rubbed in their faces each morning while they read about their Broncos.

The New York Times' George Vecsey wrote a nice column about the naming debate, but you can read it for free only until August 17, 2001 and only after registering with the Times.

August 13, 2001

Billboards Get In Your Face

As if billboards weren't bad enough when they merely ruined the view from the highway... Now, in an ever-increasing attempt to get into consumers' faces, billboards are being mounted on bicycles and pedaled through crowds of pedestrians. These billboards are three-sided kiosks that mount over the back wheels of a three-wheeled bike.

Some of the advertisers that have tried this type of mobile billboard are:

Xdrive Technologies, Inc.
E-mail: info@xdrive.com

Business 2.0
Lisa Bentley, President
E-mail: Lisa_Bentley@business2.com

The company responsible for bringing billboards from the side of the highway into the streets where you live is Olympus Enterprises:

William Neusteter, COO
E-mail: info@olympusent.com

What you can do: Contact these people and other companies you see advertised on bike-mounted billboards and tell them that billboards should stay out of consumers' way.

August 8, 2001

Take Me Out to the Ad Game

"The best-run [sports] leagues understand that what they should be marketing primarily is the game itself. It's fine to pitch whatever you want between innings, but if you're a baseball man, the only thing you want fans thinking about when Randy Johnson faces Chipper Jones is Randy Johnson facing Chipper Jones, not the behind-the-plate advertising rotating from batteries to beer."

The quote above comes from Bob Costas' book Fair Ball, in which he explains what's gone wrong with baseball over the past decade and what should be done to fix the sport.

As Costas writes, "During the game is not the time to sell anything but baseball.... Television and radio can do their part by resisting the urge to freight every piece of information it gives fans, from starting lineups to statistical roundups to scouting reports, with corporate advertising."

Television and radio can indeed do their part, but if you really want to eliminate the "Dishwater Beer starting lineup" and the "Beef Jerky play of the game," you need to protest these breaches of taste to the folks who can really do something: the leaders of Major League Baseball themselves.

When MLB sells broadcast rights, it has the power to set conditions for broadcasting and that can include a prohibition on the use of digitally inserted advertising and sponsored lineups, innings, plays, and pitch outs.

Contact Major League Baseball:

Bud Selig
Office of the Commissioner of Baseball
245 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10167
E-mail: fanfeedback@website.mlb.com

August 3, 2001

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