Have you guys seen the new ads for Hellman’s mayo and Nutella? The ads position the products as natural and healthy via word trickery and warm, pleasing imagery.
Hellman’s latest campaign is all about how “real” their mayo is, with its real eggs, real vinegar, and real oil (no mention of the real cholesterol and fat).
The Nutella ads, aimed at children, talk about how Nutella can be part of a healthy breakfast. Just spread it on your favorite healthy treat! Kinda like butter!
The ad highlights all of the delicious hazelnuts and skim milk that are present in Nutella. It fails to mention that the #1 ingredient is sugar and that a single serving (2 tbsp.) contains 11g of fat.
A few years ago 7UP got into some trouble because they reformulated the beverage and started describing themselves as “100% natural” despite containing high fructose corn syrup. They eventually had to drop the claim, since, you know, it was false.
I know that, technically, Hellman’s and Ferrero are just presenting misleading facts and allowing the consumer to jump to their own conclusions (and that this is nothing new in advertising) but it takes balls to market mayonnaise and chocolate spread (sorry, hazelnut spread) as ingredients belonging in a healthy diet.
The Hellman’s ads don’t bother me as much because the natural angle is slightly different than the healthy one (though clearly it’s implied that real=healthy=eat a tub of mayo) and they point you to their site where you can find several healthy recipes. And well, I just really love mayo. But the Nutella ads are a bit much, especially since they are aimed at children who are going to see those ads and say, c’mon Dad, gimme more, it’s healthy!
It would be so refreshing if a brand like these came out and said, listen, our stuff is the shit, it tastes good and makes other stuff tastes good too. But that awesomeness comes at a price so learn how to control yourself and not get type-2 diabetes. Gravy: Perfect for cheat day!
Google and the WPP Group have launched the 2nd round of the research program they jointly created to improve understanding and practices in online marketing, and to better understand the relationship between online and offline media. The Google and WPP Marketing Research Awards Program expects to support up to 25 awards in the range from $50,000 to $80,000. Awards will be in the form of unrestricted gifts to academic institutions, under the names of the researchers who submitted the proposal. Award recipients will be invited to participate in a meeting highlighting work in this area and will be encouraged to make their results available online and in professional publications.
Google’s comprehensive approach to their business is brilliant. They don’t stop at hiring only the best and the brightest to address their current needs and develop new solutions but they also reach out to academia to fund research into the future of their industry. Google and WPP won’t own the research outright but they will obviously have a leg up on everyone else when it comes to leveraging the results and funding further research.
Topics they expect to cover in the first round include:
Online and offline media interaction
Relevance and effectiveness measurement
Audience types and engagement
Verticals & New Media
Google and WPP are making a huge amount of proprietary data available to the researchers to aid in their exploration of these issues. What a dream for data junkies.
A list of the projects, researchers, and institutions being supported in the first round of the program can be found here.
The video below introduces the program and some of the research that is going on:
Who would have guessed that Amanda Seyfried was going to be the big winner out of the Mean Girls cast? Her career has been building in the last couple years, what with Mama Mia and Big Love among other things, but apparently her ish is blowing UP in 2010.
Ms. Seyfried stars in two of the films that were previewed before New Moon, Letters to Juliet and Dear John. Aside from the risk of being next year’s Anne Hathaway (generally delightful but overexposed), I’m happy for her. She’s adorable and gorgeous yet not in a way that usually makes me hate really pretty blonde girls. And while this is based on nothing, it does seem like Mandy lacks that certain something that make some people loathe A-Hath.
She might even have the level of success Rachel McAdams would have had if she hadn’t fallen off the face of the earth. Seriously, where is that girl? I’m sure she found it just as hearbreaking as I did that Ryan Gosling is no Noah Calhoun, but c’mon, get back on the horse and make some more movies, lady! I thought we had something!
But I digress.
The Juliet movie looks sort of cute and has Gael Garcia Bernal and Vanessa Redgrace, so yes, I will see it and probably cry quite a bit. But Dear John involves a summer romance and some kind of messed up army hottie with a sensitive side? With daddy issues? Who surfs? SOLD! It even looks like Channing Tatum can act, sorta. Plus, it’s based on a Nicolas Sparks book, and while his writing makes my eyes bleed, his stories do make for some compelling romantic movies. I’m not sure these kids are going to give Noah and Allie a run for their money but I’m looking forward to seeing them try.
Forbes.com looks at the ratio of compensation to operating income for today’s top actors to determine who offers the best return on investment and future fathers of my children Shia LaBeof and James McAvoy top the list! Nerdy dreamboat Michael Cera is #3, horse lover Daniel Radcliffe is #4, and Robert “RoRo” Downey Jr. rounds out the top five. Batman, Two Face, and Deadpool also make the top ten.
The list isn’t all that surprising. Most of these actors are either just getting started or have been around but haven’t positioned themselves to be as broadly appealing as the Will Smiths and Denzels, which keeps their asking price down.
Social experiments! A father in Minnesota with a Ph.D. in computational linguistics tried to teach his son Klingon for the first three years of his life.
Confession time: I once owned the Klingon Language Dictionary. And the books on cassette. And belonged to a Klingon fan club in which I had a Klingon name. And was member of the month for distributing flyers at a Con. Man, 2007 was a wild year.
This is Hawkman from the upcoming Smallville TV movie about the Justice Society. I’ve really been enjoying Smallville this season but I’m a bit concerned about how this fellow above is going to look on screen. Then again, I can’t help but love anything involving super powers and comic books.
I saw 2012 (awesome, mindless fun, btw) this weekend and was reminded by how annoying and rude people can be when they get together in large, anonymous groups. I thought I’d put together a list of basic movie theater etiquette that, really, you should already know if your momma raised you right.
No Talking! This is not your living room so please refrain from making comments, asking questions, and cracking jokes to the friend sitting next to you. No matter how quiet you are the people sitting next to you can hear and are distracted by it.
Silence your phone! There’s really no excuse for this one, especially since most theaters run a reminder about it before the show.
No texting! The screen on your phone is bright and it is distracting and if you, unlike the rest of us, didn’t come here to watch a movie, then please go somewhere else.
Don’t answer your phone! This one just boggles my mind but I have seen it happen. Just, please. Don’t.
Pick up your trash! To me, this is the worst one. The inherent rudeness involved in leaving your trash on the floor or in the cup holder is astounding to me. And I’m sure that if asked these people would say, oh that’s why they pay the ushers to do. Well, yes, I suppose one of their job duties is to clean up the theater but it’s only a duty because of rude, dirty, disrespectful people who don’t clean up after themselves. I’m not saying get on your hands and knees and pick up some spilled popcorn. But how hard is it to pick up your drink and candy wrapper and drop it in the trash can that they leave out for you at the exit?
OK, I have to go do some deep breathing exercises now and take a Valium. Did I miss anything? What rude movie behaviour bugs you the most?
Had a really great experience with Tmobile. Cancelled account due to relocation to UK and they waived the $250 ETF. Took all of 5 mins.08:19:48 AM January 23, 2010from TweetDeck
I have seen the face of evil and it is the Metropolitan Line. Thank God for the fast train out of King's Cross03:20:52 PM January 15, 2010from Seesmic
At one of my favorite places: airport bar waiting for flight to UK. Yes I will make that a double for $2 extra04:32:09 PM December 28, 2009from Seesmic
Sherlock Holmes was kind of awesome. He and Watson make a very cute couple. Rachel McAdams was oddly flat in this though... no?10:22:40 PM December 25, 2009from TweetDeck
Have you guys seen the new ads for Hellman’s mayo and Nutella? The ads position the products as natural and healthy via word trickery and warm, pleasing imagery.
I saw 2012 (awesome, mindless fun, btw) this weekend and was reminded by how annoying and rude people can be when they get together in large, anonymous groups. I thought I’d put together a list of basic movie theater etiquette that, really, you should already know if your momma raised you right.
