The BadAds Weblog: March 2002

Grave Concerns about Advertising

You may have heard of the term "cradle-to-grave marketing." Well, here's a company that really means it. The following is from the article "Game publicity plan raises grave concerns," by Mark Oliver, which appeared in The Guardian:

A computer games firm has been accused of pushing back the frontiers of bad taste after it announced that it was seeking to advertise its latest title on gravestones.

Acclaim Entertainment said yesterday that it would pay relatives of the recently bereaved in return for placing small billboards on headstones, and that the offer might "particularly interest poorer families."

The Church of England said that there was no way it would allow any of its graveyards to be used in such a fashion. A spokesman said: "There was enough fuss with plastic flowers in churchyards."

A spokeswoman for the company, which bills the game as a "journey to the Deathside," said: "It's a dark, gory type of game and we thought it was appropriate to raise advertising to a new level."

What you can do: Contact Acclaim and let them know what you think of their tasteless, intrusive advertising plans.

Smithsonian Sells Out – Again

In July 2001, we reported that the Smithsonian – an historic, non-profit, taxpayer-supported institution – offered General Motors the right to name the museum's new transportation hall for $10 million. The New York Times reported that one name being considered for the hall is the "General Motors Hall of Transportation."

Now, according to the Washington Post, The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has quietly removed the name of aviation pioneer Samuel P. Langley from its movie theater and renamed the facility for the Lockheed Martin Corp. The change comes weeks before the global technology company is scheduled to give the museum a gift of $10 million. Last week, the sign on the 487-seat theater was changed without fanfare, and on the museum's Web site references to the facility have been changed to "Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater."

"I don't think we are selling off a piece of history," says John R. "Jack" Dailey, the museum's director. Well, we do.

Please e-mail Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small and as k him not to sell the naming rights to any part of the Smithsonian. You could also contact the following members of the Smithsonian's 17-member Board of Regents about saving the Smithsonian from a plague of advertising and firing Secretary Small:

– Alan G. Spoon
– Hanna H. Gray
– Senator Pat Leahy

Beads for Branding

Well, yet another previously ad-free item has been co-opted by marketers: Mardi Gras beads. Advertisers are going where the fun is – parades, celebrations – and tossing beads that include medallions printed with marketing messages. "One way that advertisers are getting their branding images into revelers' hands, or literally around their necks, is with giveaway Mardi Gras-style beads," says Media Life magazine. (Marketers hands around our neck? Surely that's not the image they envisioned.)

"If an advertiser wants to promote their product at the Mardi Gras, they can throw beads out from a float," says Joe Webb, president of Adpower Media Group, the company that sells ad space on the beads. "They create a frenzy." Just what the world needs: a branded frenzy.

Adpower Media is also responsible for selling ad space in bathrooms. You can contact them at info@adpowermedia.com.

Here are the companies that are forcing their advertising on revelers:

SoBe: info@sobebev.com

Busch Gardens: Online Contact Form
(Be sure to uncheck the box so they can't use your information for marketing purposes.)

B-a-a-a-d Advertising

From an article on Ananova:

A company boss who paid to advertise on the side of lambs has hailed the idea a huge success.

Tony Raynor, managing director of a telephone business, bought more than 50 mini raincoats three weeks ago for new-born lambs belonging to a struggling farmer.

The animals were then allowed out in a field near a busy road in Lancashire with the name of Mr. Raynor's new Internet venture printed on each of the jackets.

More than 1,500 peo ple visited the company's website because they had seen the lambs, according to Mr Raynor, who says he is overjoyed with the success of the coats.

What you can do: Contact the Web site involved in this intrusive advertising and educate them about the misuse of nature's wooliest mammal.

Thanks to J. D. Falk for the tip.

Bad "News" for Students

Bad news for students: CNN Student News, which Ted Turner launched in 1989 as a non-commercial news source for schools, will now carry ads for the first time, thanks to demands from new owner AOL Time Warner. CNN Student News is currently shown in about 18,000 schools each school day.

Schools are a place for kids to learn to become better citizens, not compliant consumers. Here's what you can do to help:

1) Find out whether CNN Student News is played in your children's schools. If it is, then encourage your children's principal and teachers not to use the program.

2) Ask Lucy Levy at AOL Time Warner not to put ads on CNN Student News.

Good news! CNN St udent News received so many protests over their decision to sell ad-time to captive students that the station has dropped its plans. Here's an excerpt from an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article by Matt Kempner:

AOL Time Warner is backing off plans to sell paid sponsorships for a commercial-free, educational CNN news show used in 18,000 U.S. schools.

Critics had slammed the plans as an example of increased commercialism in classrooms. Ralph Nader, Consumer Reports publisher Consumers Union, and others recently sent letters to advertising agencies urging them not to take part in the program.

"We understand that this is a hot-button issue, and to put Turner Learning at the center of the controversy would be a disservice to its mission," said Brad Turell, a spokesman for AOL's Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System, which includes CNN.

CNN Student News has been commercial-free and financially unprofitable ever since Ted Turner launched it 13 years ago as a way to tell students about world events.

Earlier this year, executives decided to begin including paid sponsorships in the program, which would include only the sponsor's name and, perhaps, mention of their educational initiative or product, officials said.

AOL Time Warner executives said they don't anticipate the issue coming up again.

Secretary of State Spams Constituents – and the World

From the MSNBC article "California Candidate Spams Again," by Bob Sullivan:

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Jones, whose chances to win the state's Tuesday primary are apparently fading fast, sent spam e-mail across the Internet on Wednesday. The e-mail irritated anti-spam activists in part because it was sent by less-than-scrupulous means; the spam company took advantage of security vulnerabilities of a computer in Korea to launch the e-mails from there. This is Jones' second spam campaign – he sent out a similar e-mail in December.

Campaign spokesperson Darrel Ng admitted the campaign hired an outside vendor to send the e-mail, but said he couldn't identify the company. He defended the practice, saying it wasn't spam, but rather just the exercise of free speech.

But others were sharply critical of the mass e-mail campaigning. "Whoever sent this spam on his behalf used an open relay in Korea, essentially exploiting a security vulnerability, tantamount to hacking of a computer located in another country," said Neil Schwartzman, chair of the Canadian branch of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email. Schwartzman lives in Montreal, but received Jones' campaign note anyway. "How dumb is that?"

Bill Jones obviously doesn't know or care that spam costs Internet users money in the form of higher connection fees. ISPs pay to add server space and employees to handle the deluge of junk e-mail, and the cost is passed on to the consumer. Please write to him and let him know that a state official should know better than to use an intrusive, cost-shifting form of advertising. And please tell him that "Speech isn't free when it comes postage due."

Bill Jones
California Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-653-6814
E-mail: ConstituentAffairs@ss.ca.gov

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