The BadAds Weblog: July 2002

Chokin' on Coke

We all know to view everything on the Internet with scepticism, right? The Blair Witch Project, Nigerian trust funds, and Bill Gates' generosity towards those who forward chain letters are all proof of the Net's extraordinary power of deception (not to mention the gullibility of the surfing public).

With that level of success, it's only natural that legit companies want to harness the power of deceptive Net marketing for their own purposes. Thus was born the VC Lounge, a site created by Coca-Cola to promote its new Vanilla Coke product. The Web site offered a story, told from an outsider's point of view, detailing the twisted 20-year-long development process of Vanilla Coke with hints of conspiracy and feats of derring-do by brave flavor researchers. A sampling from the VC Lounge site:

You've probably heard that Coke is launching a new flavor - Vanilla Coke. What you haven't heard is the REAL story behind this product, and why Coke HAD to launch the product when they did. There's a long story behind why I'm building this website and you can find it all out here. What you do need to know is that the new launch of Vanilla Coke is shrouded in controversy and Coke is trying really hard to keep the real story under wraps.

Needless to say, this story is phony, a wild tale from the marketing department of Coca-Cola to stir up some buzz for their new brand of sugar water. As Susan McDermott, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman, said in an article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinal, "It's just creating some lore and myth behind the brand to get people talking. It's not to be taken too seriously."

Now that media outlets have exposed the VC Lounge for the sham it is, the old conspiracy text has been replaced by a message that's somehow much more disturbing: "The time has come to leave our smooth little Vcoke Lounge adventure – Coca Cola has now put Vanilla Coke in the mouths of millions." Think about that statement a moment.

One further directive from the VC Lounge: "Whenever you see Vanilla Coke think 'Vcoke.'" No, thank you, we won't. This is akin to McDonald's adoption of the "Mickey D's" slang that normal people used to use (before McDonald's adopted it, that is). These attempts by multi-billion dollar worldwide firms to ingratiate themselves with the consuming public and seem buddy-buddy are pathetic.

You can direct your complaints to:

Douglas N. Daft, Chairman and CEO
1 Coca-Cola Plaza
Atlanta, GA 30313
Phone: 404-676-2121
Fax: 404-676-6792

Coca-Cola tries really hard, we'll grant it that. If only it used its powers for good instead of evil....

July 30, 2002

Cinema Sins

We've already talked about the horrors of advertisements before movie screenings. More importantly, we've written to the major movie chains in our area and told them that we're avoiding their premises unless we can be assured of ad-free features. None of the chains responded to our requests, we stopped going as promised, and many of them have since declared bankruptcy. The cause and effect isn't quite as clear as we might like to think, but it is comforting to imagine these guys having to become more customer-friendly to regain solvency.

Faithful BadAds reader JD Thompson also likes the idea of making TV-like commercials disappear from the start of movies, and he'd love to have your John Hancock on his petition to the Regal Entertainment Group, the largest movie theater chain in the U.S., to show them that "we're mad as hell etc." Thompson details his protest at CaptiveAudience.org and asks that you sign the petition as a show of support. Better yet, of course, call Regal Cinemas at 877-835-5734 and speak to them directly.

If you have found theaters in your area that refrain from inflicting ads upon your weary eyes, be sure to share that information with others, both in person and online at ShinyBlueGrasshopper.com, so that we can share the joy that you already possess.

After all, complaints do work if delivered with enough volume, but shifting your dollars to ad-less theaters can solve the problem even faster.

July 22, 2002

Let's Put a Hurting on These Celebs

The celebrity sob story has been with us for decades: Elizabeth Taylor gave us something to cry about with her multiple failed marriages; Drew Barrymore lived off stories of her alcoholism while still in junior high school; and the entire Diff'rent Strokes cast provided entertaining copy for whole seasons of A Current Affair.

Over the past few years, though, the celebrity sob story most in vogue has been one of medical woe rather than divorce, parental abuse, or drug addiction. Celebrities in magazine articles and on TV talk shows eagerly describe their shaky arthritic hands, their battles against fat or cancer, their tireless struggles to overcome the shame of (gasp!) erectile dysfunction – and if they're not talking about their own troubles, they're detailing the suffering of a parent, sister, child, friend and how that pain has affected their own life.

Turns out some celebs aren't merely looking for sympathy from the unwashed masses. They're also cashing in on their medical difficulties thanks to behind-the-scenes sponsorship by pharmaceutical firms and manufacturers of medical equipment. Lawrence Goodman, in an article titled "Celebrity Pill Pushers" on Salon.com, explains how this hidden sponsorship has evolved and why Rob Lowe, Kathleen Turner, and Carnie Wilson can command fees as high as $1 million from these firms.

In many cases, the celebs don't even mention their sponsoring company by name, only a Web site or 800-number that "will provide valuable information for sufferers of Affliction X," but that's enough to get the job done. As Goodman relates, when Olympia Dukakis spoke about her mother's post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN) on Fox News, she said, "In fact, there is one solution. It's called lidocaine or lidopatch." That sounds s ufficiently vague to be real, spontaneous conversation – but it turns out there's only one drug approved by the FDA that contains lidocaine, Lidoderm, and that drug's manufacturer, Endo Pharmaceuticals, was in fact paying Dukakis to appear on Fox News and increase awareness of PHN and, by default, Lidoderm. Mission accomplished.

Why do celebrities do this? Apparently because they want to improve the health of their fellow Americans. As Carnie Wilson told Goodman, "I don't need the money. That's not why I do it. Every day of my life I am committed to people and helping them get healthy." She may not need the money, but she does take the money, right? Right.

Concern for others is also the approach taken by Spotlight Health, a firm that helps facilitate celebrity/pharmaceutical relationships which was started by Carnie Wilson's former manager. From the company's Web site: "We harness the magnetic attraction of celebrities' intimate personal health stories to generate strong interest, promote enhanced awareness and motivate positive behavioral change.... These compelling stories of celebrity health challenges serve as a unique platform for delivering understandable expert medical advice."

Expert medical advice from actors and singers? Sure, except that since these plugs don't qualify as advertising under FDA rules, no mention of a drug's drawbacks or side effects need be made.

Responsible media and news operations neither pay for celebrity interviews nor allow celebrities (or anyone else) to shill products or services from which they receive compensation. In their quest for celebrity interviews, and the accompanying ratings boost, many organizations have neglected to investigate the financial ties between interview subjects and their topics of conversation. Please drop a line to any news organization that you believe has neglected their responsibility to the public. The URLs below will help get you started:

ABC
(includes e-mail links for Good Morning America, Nightline, World News Tonight, and more)

CBS
(click on "feedback" at the bottom of the page and a separate window allows you to send comments to The Early Show, 48 Hours, CBS Evening News, and more)

FOX
(includes links for At Large with Geraldo Rivera, Hannity & Colmes, FOX Magazine, and more)

NBC/MSNBC
(includes, at the bottom of the page, e-mail links for Today, Dateline NBC, Imus in the Morning, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and more)

July 19, 2002

Searching for Mr. Goodhits

What's the difference between a search engine and an online catalog? You know you're being sold to when you click through an online catalog, but that's not always the case with a search engine.

That was the complaint that Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group in Portland, Oregon, affiliated with Ralph Nader, filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last year against eight major search engines including Ask Jeeves, AltaVista, Look Smart, and iWon. A search for "baseball" on iWon.com, for example, first brings up seven "featured listings" for sites that sell tickets, gloves, and memorabilia, followed by ten listings labelled as "Web sites." The featured listings are paid ads, although they are not labelled as such, while the generic, non-featured "Web sites" include such also-rans as the official Major League Baseball site and the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

After a year of investigation, the FTC concluded that search engines do sometimes blur the line between advertisement and search engine result, and recommended to these businesses that they need to make "clear and conspicuous disclosure" of paid ads in search engine results.

Some search engines have already changed their labelling practices in the past year, but fuzzy lines still remain – and that's definitely a concern when a Consumers Union survey reveals that 60% of Internet users are unaware that search engines sometimes receive fees to feature certain sites more prominently.

An article by Danny Sullivan, editor of The Search Engine Report, gives more detail about the FTC decision, including his discussions with FTC officials about how they reached their conclusions. Of even more interest is Sullivan's piece on the myriad ways that companies can buy their way into search engines and whether the search engines accurately rate these ads. His finding: only Google and Netscape come out unscathed in terms of labelling their paid placements.

In the buyers' market of search engines (in which consumers have a choice of free services), paid placements will surely increase in the future. Just remember that the "search" button represents a company's search for new customers as often as it represents a service for you and you'll always find what you're looking for. Caveat venator.

July 15, 2002

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