Free Republic

Ryanair on Friday claimed Sweden's Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK) was out of touch with the "Britney Spears generation" after the agency accused the discount airline of running a sexist ad campaign. In defending the advertisement, Ryanair questioned whether the ERK accurately reflected the views of most Swedes. “We are sure that the anti-funsters at the ERK do not speak for the majority of the famously liberal and easy going Swedes,” the company said in a statement. “The ad simply reflects the way a lot of young girls like to dress. We hope the old farts at...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- John McCain may not know how to use e-mail, but his campaign apparently knows how to use search. It's one technology area where the Republican seems to be besting Barack Obama. In the back and forth on paid Google search ads, voters can find Mr. Obama challenging Sarah Palin's record of reform, Mr. McCain is pointing out Joe Biden's contradictory statements about Mr. Obama and Mr. Obama defending his Christian faith. Mr. McCain appears to be reaping the most benefit from search. He is aggressively buying Obama and Biden's keywords as well as issues such as...

Swedish clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz has been given the all clear to open an outlet on the swish shopping street Champs-Élysées. H & M beat off the vociferous objections of Paris city council. France's top administrative court, the State Council, rejected an appeal by Paris city council which moved in January to block a store licence granted to the retailer, according to deputy Paris mayor Lyne Cohen-Solal. "We are completely powerless" to stop the spread of big chain stores on what is touted as the most beautiful avenue in the world, she said. The city has now exhausted all...

Two Delaware residents are giving new meaning to the term "pushing" Obama, according to criminal drug charges filed Thursday. Fifty-two bags of heroin in bags stamped both with letters spelling out OBAMA and an image in the likeness of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama were confiscated following a routine car stop on Interstate 95 in Upper Chichester, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

Firm launches bottled water - from the same source as taps Last updated at 23:20pm on 23.08.08  Cambridge Water's new product comes from the same aquifer as its tap supply For years, utility companies have told us that we are wasting our money buying mineral water.But now a firm which makes millions from selling tap water has started marketing bottled mineral water – from the same underground source.The parent company of Cambridge Water has invested £10million in a bottling plant above a chalk aquifer.The new company, Iceni Waters, has already struck deals with stores including Tesco, Morrisons and the...

Say what you will about Rachael Ray, but the jaunty chef-next-door knows how to build a brand. She began winning audiences with catch phrases like "EVOO" (for extra-virgin olive oil) on her first Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals, in 2001. Today, she has four Food Network programs, including Tasty Travels and $40 a Day. Her nationally syndicated, Oprah-backed talk show, Rachael Ray, is averaging 2.6 million viewers this season, and her Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine has 1.5 million readers. She endorses Dunkin' Donuts too--all to the tune of $18 million a year. More established chefs also know...

Barack Obama is the most left-wing candidate the Democrats have nominated since George McGovern. If Obama wins the presidency, I think it is fair to postulate that it will be George McGovern's first term. Like McGovern, Obama staked out his territory as the antiwar candidate at the left end of the field of Democratic presidential candidates. His antiwar position, including his concocted critique of Hillary Clinton's purported "saber rattling" on Iran, was his signature issue through the Democratic primaries. One of the ironies of Obama's (sermon to the Germans) last week was his praise of the 1948 airlift that broke...

Executives from the state highway department are again defending themselves at the Capitol against people who say they are using taxpayer money to advance an agenda in favor of toll roads in Texas. At the heart of the issue are claims that TxDOT has hired lobbyists, using taxpayer dollars, to push in favor of projects like the Trans-Texas Corridor. Part of that is the "Keep Texas Moving" website. "Marketing is undertaken to inform drivers in the Austin area about the opening of new toll roads, toll road locations and incentive periods, and about the benefits of paying with an electronic...

Coffee giant Starbucks Corp. has released its first list of store closures since it announced a major downsizing July 1, and five of the eight California locations to be shuttered are in the Inland area.

In October 2000, at a whole-day conference in New York organized by the Association of Asian American Advertising Agencies (A5), the forerunner of the Asian American Advertising Federation (3AF), "the business case for Asian American marketing" was the focus of discussion. The organizers of the conference wanted to call attention to the importance of Asian Americans as a consumer market and to the fact that this was not reflected in the segment’s share of advertising dollars being spent by corporate America. Ironically, while speaker after speaker spoke in glowing terms about the buying power of Asian Americans, not one touched...

Top 10 Most Brilliant Marketing Screw Ups….1. Coors put its slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish, where it was read as “Suffer from diarrhea.”2. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.”3. Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick”, a curling iron, into German only to find out that “mist” is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the “manure stick.”4. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the U.S., with the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that...

I was looking at the Oakley site for sunglasses, and came across this : Looks like I'm not getting Oakleys. Oakley Contact Information

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2008 – Web-based social-networking and video-sharing sites such as “MySpace” and “YouTube” may be the best place to turn to entice the nation’s best and brightest young people to work for the Defense Department. That is among the conclusions of college business students who entered a contest to help the department increase its applicant pool for critical civilian jobs that require foreign-language abilities. The students, undergraduates at five U.S.-based colleges and universities, were recognized at a Pentagon ceremony today for their recruiting and marketing plans. “Sometimes we get down on young people,” Patricia Bradshaw, DoD’s deputy undersecretary...

Rush for 23-cent pizzas closes Papa John's stores Chain seeks police help at 6 local shops Thursday, May 8, 2008 9:34 AM Updated: Thursday, May 8, 2008 05:24 PM THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Overwhelmed by the response to a promotion offering 23-cent pizzas, Papa John's closed its Columbus stores before dinner today. Columbus Police officers were called before 5 p.m. to help close the pizza shops because of concerns that the large crowds could become unruly, said Amanda Ford, a police spokeswoman. She said there are about 20 Papa John's locations in the city, but officers were beginning by assisting at...

I'm Absolut Swedish but NEVER EVER again will I buy Absolut Vodka and I will, at least, TRY to avoid other products of V&S Group (their repertoire is a pretty broad one though and I kinda party from time to time..), a former Swedish company which recently was sold to French Pernod Ricard (for the sum of €5,626 billion). I've also managed to convince my father and some of my friends to join my initiative and I'll continue to campaign! The background is, of course, the already infamous Absolut Vodka ad with the words "In an Absolut World" slapped over...

Most of us recognize brands we use everyday. Picking coffee at Starbucks, visiting Trader Joe's for groceries or stopping by Home Depot for materials for the weekend home improvement project are things we often do without thinking. Yet the reason we buy something, visit a store or contribute to a particular effort is based on how we know about it, how we understand it, and how we value it - its brand. Even paying attention to something we know nothing about is a conscious decision and could be a rejection of known brands. Most brands we easily identify and use...

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. — As operators of sex-oriented Web sites gather at the Internext convention in Las Vegas this week, a major leak at a little New Jersey company is likely to be a big topic. Freehold-based Too Much Media, which sells accounting software for adult Web sites, told its customers last month that a security breach on its computers allowed hackers to access various adult Web sites' subscriber lists. Keith Kimmel of Norman, Okla., who runs two Web sites that feature porn, said the breach has the potential to embarrass. "Would you really want a record floating around the...

Video Professor? I remember seeing infomercials for The Video Professor years ago. He sells computer instructional material. I never would have guessed he's still in business. But after reading this, I know why: A Visit to the Video Professor's 'Classroom'. For 20 years, John Scherer, otherwise known as the Video Professor, has advertised on cable TV the wonders of his educational software. "I am so confident that I'm going to give you one free disc," he says on his "limited time offer" advertisements. But in actuality, it appears impossible to just get one free disc. Instead, it is a packaged...

Critics Wonder Whether Her Controversial Comments Are Calculated to Sell More Books She has referred to Sept. 11 widows as "self-obsessed women" who are "enjoying their husbands' deaths," and has even admitted that she wished Timothy McVeigh had bombed The New York Times building instead of the one in Oklahoma City. Late last week, conservative pundit Ann Coulter landed herself in national headlines, yet again, after an appearance on CNBC's "The Big Idea," where she said she thought the world would be better if everyone were Christian. When host Donny Deutsch asked her whether that meant she wanted to see...

AT&T has rolled out new Terms of Service for its DSL service that leave plenty of room for interpretation. From our reading of it, in concert with several others, what we see is a ToS that attempts to give AT&T the right to disconnect its own customers who criticize the company on blogs or in other online settings. In section 5 of its legal ToS, AT&T stipulates the following: " AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you,...

An armada of companies has descended on New York to brand Denmark as a hotbed of creativity When Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik rings the bell to start trading at Wall Street on Wednesday morning, he will also be making a symbolic wake-up call to America. As part of the Creative Nation trade delegation visiting the United States the Crown Prince and his wife, Crown Princess Mary, will spend the next week telling the Eastern Seaboard that there is more to Denmark than butter cookies and the Little Mermaid. Looking for an elegant evening gown? Danish design can be found at...

SAN FRANCISCO - Air New Zealand is delving into the gay and lesbian market with a special themed flight featuring drag queens, pink cocktails and a cabaret performed by flight crew. The destination for the airline's one-time "Pink Flight," on Feb. 26, ex San Francisco, is the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, Australia, one of the world's most well-attended gay events, said Jodi Williams, an Air New Zealand marketing director. "We're tailoring inseat entertainment with gay-friendly movies, contests, different music and things like that," Williams said. The airline also plans to throw a going away party for passengers,...

The following is the primary text of an e-mail I recently received from Amazon.com, from whom I regularly purchase conservative reading material. (Living here in the People's Glorious Republik of Seattlestan -- where the typical bookstore, whether chain unit or privately owned, is stocked on the presumption that it's next customer is most likely to be Hugo Chavez -- this is, quite literally, my only consistently reliable option, both cost- and availability-wise.) ********************* "Dear [xxxxx], "We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat by Zell Miller have also...

ATLANTA, Aug. 30 — In a stark departure from past practice, the American Cancer Society plans to devote its entire $15 million advertising budget this year not to smoking cessation or colorectal screening but to the consequences of inadequate health coverage. The campaign was born of the group’s frustration that cancer rates are not dropping as rapidly as hoped, and of recent research linking a lack of insurance to delays in detecting malignancies. Though the advertisements are nonpartisan and pointedly avoid specific prescriptions, they are intended to intensify the political focus on an issue that is already receiving considerable attention...

EVER since “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore has been the darling of environmentalists, but that movie hardly endeared him to the animal rights folks. According to them, the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined. The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions, but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with curbing greenhouse gases. Some backlash...

"As privacy experts, we are frequently asked about "opting out", and which opt outs we think are the most important. This list is a distillation of ideas for opting out that the World Privacy Forum has developed over the years from responding to those questions. The list below does not contain all opt outs that are available. Rather, it contains the opt outs that we believe are the most important and will be the most useful to the most consumers. Many people have told us that they think opting out is confusing. We agree. Opting out can range from the...

Israel, Sex And Tourism By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Tel Aviv Beach ----June 24......."The pictures aren’t anything you wouldn’t see at a pool or a beach. Israel is always mentioned in the context of wars and violence. We want to show there is a normal life. Among the beautiful things we have are our women. We came there from 120 countries. Anytime you have a mix from any continents, you get very beautiful people. We don’t see having beautiful women as a problem." These were the wise words of Ambassador Arye Mekel, Consul-General of Israel in New York, responding...

Our daughter (recent HS grad) received a letter today from Vector, a marketing company. They market knives from a company called Cutco. Apparently, people who work for them do telemarketing to generate leads, then make appointments to visit prospective customers to show and (if possible) sell knives. The student workers have to pay about $140 (as a deposit) for a sample set of knives that they show. The worker gets paid about $15-$18 per appointment they make, regardless of whether a sale occurs. If they do make a sale, they get a percentage as a commission. I have my suspicions,...

A large retail chain had a problem. It sold three similar power drills: one for about $90, a purportedly better one at $120 and a top-tier one at $130. The higher the price, the more the store profited. But while drill know-it-alls flocked to the $130 model and price-fretters grabbed its $90 cousin, shoppers often ignored the middle one. So the store sought advice from a new breed of "price-optimization" software from DemandTec Inc. What followed offers us a clue about important shifts that technology is bringing to retail shopping. After analyzing an array of variables, including sales history and...

An image campaign breaking this week prescribes a daily dose of the NBC Universal-owned Hispanic cable channel Mun2 [pronounced "Moon-dos"] to prevent bilingual, bicultural young Latinos from becoming too much like gringos. Like a lot of the irreverent work from highly creative U.S. Hispanic shop La Comunidad, Miami, the ads may offend some. Three humorous commercials ask the question, "Are you becoming too gringo?" and recommend Mun2's music videos and TV shows as a cure. But they also touch on Latin stereotypes. In one spot, two young Latino men operating an ice-cream truck pursue girls who run off with their...

Women must have control over their own bodies." "Safe and legal abortion is every woman's right." "Who decides? You decide!" "Abortion is a personal decision between a woman and her doctor." "Who will make this most personal decision of a woman's life? Will women decide, or will the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington?" "Freedom of choice – a basic American right." In one of the most successful marketing campaigns in modern political history, the "abortion rights movement" – with all of its emotionally compelling catch-phrases and powerful political slogans – has succeeded in turning what once was a heinous crime...

It's not often you can compare Internet addresses with clothing, but a growing practice comes close, contributing to a global shortage in good names. Entrepreneurs have been taking advantage of a five-day grace period to sample millions of domain names, keeping the relative few that might generate advertising revenues and dropping the rest before paying. It's akin to buying new clothes on a charge card only to return them for a full refund after wearing them to a big party. The grace period was originally designed to rectify legitimate mistakes, such as registrants mistyping the domain name they are about...

Queer eye for this Brady guy: Ladies man Tom is gays’ fave, too By Laurel J. Sweet Friday, January 19, 2007 - Updated: 12:28 AM EST Tom Brady still has a ways to go before celebrating a fourth Super Bowl title, but gay men across the country have already embraced him as their champion Gay-oriented sports Web sites from coast to coast are ablaze with desire for Tom Terrific. “It’s equal rights. We get to look at him the same way women do, we get to want him the same way women do,” said “Robert,” a 41-year-old gay South Shore...

TUESDAY, Jan. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Before you take to heart any research about the health effects of beverages such as milk, fruit juice or soft drinks, find out who paid for the study. If a beverage manufacturer or industry group funded the research, the finding may be biased, researchers report."When a food company sponsors a study, it is much more likely to be positive" about the health effects of the product, said Dr. David Ludwig. He's the study's senior author and director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston, the pediatric teaching hospital for Harvard...

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 16 — Wanted: investment adviser — the younger the better. In a nod to the wisdom of youth, many wealthy, highly connected and well-educated technology investors are taking counsel and investment tips from their children, summer interns and twentysomething receptionists. These venture capital investors say there is good reason to ask young people to help them assess new technology: as the investors themselves are aging, the technology — including social networking Web sites and mobile gadgets — is designed for, used by and sometimes built by people half their age. “Children are a secret weapon in my...

A PROFIT WITH HONOR Walk into any Gap clothing store this holiday season and expect to see red T-shirts, red hats and red bracelets. Of course decorating with red is nothing unusual this time of year, but the merchandise is meant to remind customers of something not often associated with the holidays: the global AIDS epidemic. Gap is one of a number of companies this year who are tapping into consumers' growing desire to do good deeds with their purchasing dollars. Other retailers selling products to benefit humanitarian causes include Bath & Body Works, a division of Limited Brands Inc.,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government's annual accounting of hunger in the United States reported no hunger in its last outing. Instead, it found "food insecurity." Likewise, no one is even considering retreating from Iraq. "Redeploying" the heck out of there is, however, an option. In Washington, words are a moving target that conceal at least as much as they reveal. Doublespeak runs through the discourse on Iraq, terrorism and domestic matters to a point where it's hard to tell what is going on. The libertarian Cato Institute recently took on the rising tide of fuzzy words in the fight against...

  A few minutes ago, Bill O'Reilly spent the first two segments of his Fox News Channel program, The O'Reilly Factor, condemning the upcoming Fox Network interview program featuring O.J. Simpson's quasi-confession to murdering Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. O'Reilly's guests criticized Simpson, Judith Regan, Harper-Collins Books, and the Fox Network. O'Reilly also criticized Simpson and threatened to personally stop buying any products of companies sponsoring the program. However, O'Reilly himself did not criticize Regan by name, nor did he himself make a single negative remark about the Fox Network for broadcasting the interview. Also conspicuous in its absence...

Greg is a 30-year-old regional manager for Rite-Aid, and he and his wife make about $60,000. They don't have any children, but they plan to soon. Greg shops at The Gap and Target. Phil, a marketing manager, is a little older than Greg and a little better educated. He and his wife pull in $85,000. Phil buys his clothes at Banana Republic and drinks Samuel Adams beer. When Ford unveils the redesigned Escape in Los Angeles next month, think of Greg - Ford designed it just for him. When you see a Ford Edge, a new car-like crossover SUV, that's...

'Che' Guevara's iconic image endures By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National Writer Sat Sep 23, 3:37 PM ET There's something about that man in the photo, the Cuban revolutionary with the serious eyes, scruffy beard and dark beret. Ernesto "Che" Guevara is adored. He is loathed. Dead for nearly 40 years, he is everywhere — as much a cultural icon as James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, perhaps even more so among a new generation of admirers who've helped turn a devout Marxist into a capitalist commodity. Of all the pop culture images that surround us, it is Guevara's face — immortalized...

Like many other baseball fans, Joe Kosa, 28, is spending his Sunday glued to a TV. But relaxed he's not. Instead, the ESPN (NYSE:DIS - News) production assistant is stationed in front of dozens of flat-screen TVs tuned to global sporting events at the headquarters of the Disney-owned network. He's furiously jotting down notes to weave into a storyline that will be read in 60 seconds flat on tonight's 6 p.m. SportsCenter broadcast. With the San Diego Padres leading the Chicago Cubs 9-0, the outcome is hardly in doubt, and writing the highlights should be easy. Then, Clay Hensley, who...

Wireless retailing is growing beyond mere point-of-sale service and inventory management, as new displays are coming to market that interact directly with customers in the shopping aisles, experts tell UPI's Wireless World. These systems, which integrate hardware interface technologies, application software and wireless infrastructure, are poised to play a direct role in the in-store shopping experience of consumers. These systems have the potential to improve store operational performance by influencing the purchasing behavior and buying habits of shoppers. By Gene Koprowski http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20060724-123351-3637r.htm

A group of stunning Brazilian stewardesses from the former airline Varig are negotiating a contract with the Brazilian edition of Playboy magazine for the publication of nude photographs. Sources from the magazine in Brazil revealed the idea is a repeat of the Playboy 2002 experience in the United States with former personnel from the scandalous bankruptcy of the Enron Group. According to ER Communications, which manages Playboy's public relations in Brazil "a negotiation is on" with Varig staff, but no agreement has been reached yet, and if an agreement is reached, "there's no timetable for the publication of the pictures."...

How Thirsty Are Consumers For New Ice Cubes? (CBS) CHICAGO -- There are designer shoes and designer clothes, but have you ever heard of designer ice cubes? As CBS 2’s Jon Duncanson reports, two companies hope you’ll warm up to a very cool idea. At a scorching $2, a liter of bottled water already takes more from your pocket than the cost of the gas you put in your car. So perhaps times are ripe for purified ice cubes. Canadian entrepreneur ice maker Jean-Jean Peltier flew in from Toronto just to show CBS 2 News his mineral Ice Rocks. “Right...

Anyone who thinks there is no such thing as a free lunch has never visited 3003 New Hyde Park Road, a four-story medical building on Long Island, where they are delivered almost every day. On a recent Tuesday, they began arriving around noon. Steaming containers of Chinese food were destined for the 20 or so doctors and employees of Nassau Queens Pulmonary Associates. The drug maker Merck paid the $258 bill. A deliveryman carrying trays of gourmet sandwiches sashayed past patients at Advanced Internal Medicine. The bill showed that Takeda Pharmaceuticals was picking up the bill. The doctors in the...

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday his movie-star celebrity and his boundless enthusiasm for all things California make him a great international salesman for the state's products and services. Speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California at the Herbst Theater, the governor said he will go anywhere to tout California's wares, "to go out there and tell our story" to buyers in any nation. "They want our products, they need our environmental know-how ... and our state-of-the-art technology." Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides' campaign Wednesday issued a pre-emptive memo outlining Schwarzenegger's foreign-trade failures: fewer exports now than in...

Turning Away Customers to Maximize Sales The glass door of Le plus Joaillerie, a jewelry shop in Seoul’s affluent Cheongdamdong, is always locked, though the inside is brightly lit. When a curious customer knocks on the door, a manager in a designer suit comes out and politely tells them to go away unless they have an appointment. Well-heeled Gangnam, the area south of the Han River, is seeing more of such snob appeal from savvy businesses. Instead of luring customers, they are more likely to turn them away, as if to say we don’t need you. Surprisingly, it works. Le...

More and more companies are developing ads with specific gay and lesbian themes -- at no small expense -- in a bid to capture a piece of a market with $640 billion in buying power. "Typically, companies would come in, run their regular ads to get their feet wet, the same ads (they run) in other consumer books," said Todd Evans, CEO of Rivendell Media, a New Jersey company that represents gay media companies. "As they get more comfortable with it, they realize they don't have backlash, and they go that next step to have specific creative (content). ... That's...

The next billion is the potential PC market in the developing world. We know they won't be buying MACS because Apple's Steve Jobs has admitted it won't be worth it to his company. A lot of different companies are trying to come up with affordable PCs that businesses, families, schools, and students in developing countries can buy. But everyone is having a hard time pinning down just what it is they will want. 1. What traditional features do they keep and which are kept out? 2. Will users be offended if they feel they are getting a dumbed-down version? 3....

DALLAS (AP) - Companies have been racing to attract business from the nation's fast-growing base of Hispanic consumers - but experts say many marketing tactics miss the point or are flat-out wrong. With an estimated population of more than 40 million, Hispanics held a buying power last year of about $736 billion, according to the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth. But those consumers represent a variety of populations, including U.S.-born residents, recent immigrants and a range of Hispanic nationalities. Grouping those segments into a single bloc makes it easy for businesses to fail in reaching many Latinos,...