The BadAds Weblog: March 2001

Cell Phone Spam

Marketers are beginning to abuse cellular Short Message Service (SMS) messaging by sending unsolicited advertisements to cell phones, pagers and wireless e-mail devices.

In January, a Phoenix, AZ mortgage company sent spam to a block of AT&T cell phone numbers. Then, this week, they spammed three AT&T npa-nxx's, two Verizon blocks, and two Nextlink blocks – an estimated 70,000 cell phones. They also spammed a Nextlink paging block.

On March 27, 2001, Minnesota Public Radio interviewed the Arizona spammer as well as two anti-spam activists. The spammer fairly gloated over how cheap this new form of advertising is – failing to mention that his spam costs consumers money, as AT&T charges extra for text messaging, including per-message charges over a certain amount (depending upon your plan).

U.S. Representative Rush Holt recently introduced HR 113, legislation that would "prohibit the use of the text, graphic, or image messaging systems of wireless telephone systems to transmit unsolicited commercial messages."

Here's what you can do to help: Please urge your representatives to support HR 113, the cell phone spam bill. Just enter your zip code at this site and you'll get contact information for your two senators and one representative. Click on your representative's name, and you'll be taken to his or her Web site, where you may find additional contact information such as an e-mail address or fax number.

Too busy to write your own letter? We wrote one for you that's ready to paste and send.

Dear Representative X:

I'm writing to ask you to support HR 113, the cell phone spam bill. As anyone who has used the Internet knows, e-mail spam is an intrusive annoyance that eats up bandwidth and costs consumers money in the form of higher ISP bills. Spam on cell phones is just beginning, and we can stop it now before it becomes as much of a problem as e-mail spam. Besides the annoyance factor, cell phone spam costs consumers money directly, as many cell phone companies charge extra for text messaging, including per-message charges over a certain amount. Please protect consumers from this cost-shifting and intrusive form of advertising by supporting HR 113. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your response on this matter.

Sincerely,

Your name, address, e-mail address, and phone number

Please let us know if you get any response from your representative.

March 28, 2001

Ads for People "On the Go"

Nowhere are you more of a captive audience than when you're waiting in line for the bathroom. Hence AdCans: full-color, full-size branding messages on port-a-potties. AdCans recently broke into the market with a campaign for Miller Beer.

What can you do to stop advertisers from targeting you when you're "on the go"? Well, you can write a letter to Adrenaline Products, the creators of AdCans, and Miller Beer, its first advertiser. The contact information is below.

Adrenaline Productions
633 Battery Street
Second Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
Phone: 415-773-2326

Miller Brewing Company
3939 W. Highland Blvd.
P.O. Box 482
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Phone: 414-931-2000
E-mail: feedback@millerlite.com

March 27, 2001

Good News for Sports Lovers

In its most recent TV contract with four networks, the National Football League barred sponsored highlights and other "enhancements" from its telecasts. No more "Bud Light play of the game" or "Ford Truck starting lineup"!

The NFL had already prohibited advertisements on the computer-generated first-down line, but apparently league representatives felt broadcasters had gotten away from the game itself and wanted to make their feelings known. If only Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and all other major sports organizations felt this way....

But instead of complaining about the ads while watching your favorite teams, write the leagues and let them know how you feel about digitally inserted ads, sponsored replays, and sponsored seventh inning stretches.

While you're at it, be sure to write the NFL and thank them for a policy that puts the game first and the advertisements where they belong.

Major League Baseball
E-mail: fanfeedback@website.mlb.com
Online Feedback Form

NASCAR
E-mail: nascar@turner.com

NBA
E-mail: nba-letters-l@nba.com

NHL
Online Feedback Form

NFL
280 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017

WNBA
E-mail: WNBAMail@nba.com

March 21, 2001

Ads at the Dry Cleaner

As you drive to the dry cleaner, you're inundated with billboards, ad-wrapped cars, and other forms of advertising. As you walk from your car to the dry cleaner, you're accosted by a digital ad on a pay phone plus several signs. You reach the cleaners – whew! Finally, a place where you can escape advertising, if only for a few minutes while you run your errand.

Or so you think. The newest form of advertising is ads on the plastic bags that protect freshly-cleaned garments and the paper jackets that cover the metal hangers. This gives the ads double exposure: Once in the dry cleaners, and then again in your home when you see the ad in your closet.

In an article in Media Life Magazine, the president of Look Worldwide, the company responsible for dry cleaner ads, says, "You want to hit consumers when they're in the errand-running mode, picking up dry cleaning, shopping, getting groceries. You want to hit them at that point in time. You want to be the last impression before they go into the supermarket." Yes, God forbid you should be treated to an ad-free moment while you run your errands.

March 15, 2001

Ads on Pay Phones

Just when you thought you couldn't possibly be subjected to more ads in a single day, here come pay phone ads.

Baltimore-based ATM Advertising is working with AT&T to place ads on built-in screens on its public phones. Full-color static video images are delivered digitally over the AT&T/ATM Advertising network. Ads appear while the phones aren't in use, an average of 21 hours per day.

The ad on the screen changes to telephone instructions when the call begins. Along with the instructions, buttons to the right of the screen identify advertisers. Just in case you can't wait to shell out your money to the intrusive advertiser, these buttons provide a direct connection to the advertiser and can be activated before or after the consumer makes a call.

Being subjected to ads while you're about to make a call on your own dime (or quarter, nowadays) is intrusive. What can you do about this? Write a letter to AT&T asking the company not to install ads on its phones. Here's the contact information:

AT&T
CEO: C Michael Armstrong
32 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10013-2412
Phone: 212-387-5400
Fax: 212-387-5695
Online Feedback Form for Chairman & Officers

March 6, 2001

Back to the Main Page

Get the BadAds Weblog updates via e-mail! We'll keep you up-to-date on news in intrusive advertising, changes to BadAds.org, and new ways you can fight "ad creep."

You are the
[an error occurred while processing this directive] visitor
to draw the line on
intrusive advertising.

sunny-clams knoll Feel free to reprint
any of the text on
this site - just
include a link to
www.BadAds.org.

- - - - - - - - -
Web design
by NewsJobs.Net
Perl CGI & HTML Code
by LServ