2.14.01
Be My Concubine
-- OR --
With This Cockring, I Thee Wed
It's common knowledge that Cupid plucks his bow in the buff. Hey, he's obviously pretty comfortable in his natural state, so why shouldn't his victims, I mean recipients of his love-inducing arrows, be too? Apparently, some Valentine's Day sweethearts are more than willing to divest in honor of the love fest, but a bunch 'a' heavies wanna spoil all the fun.

All they want is to become man and wife under the eyes of the law and under a giant Corona-branded sun umbrella. They traveled to the Hedonism III resort to join in the sacred bond of matrimony, and maybe a little sadomasochistic sex. Is that really so wrong?

Oh, and they wanna be naked, too.

That's what's got Jamaica's government-owned Tourist Board's panties in a bunch. Hey, at least they wear panties. That's more than can be said for the eight uncouth couples who, on this sacred day honoring Saint Valentine, plan to tie the knot and then probably tie one on at the au natural pool's swim up bar. As noted in a 2/2 Yahoo! News story, Jamaica's Tourism Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, considers the Hedonism nuptials to be "not in keeping with our marketing strategy for Jamaica.'' I guess she must have been more comfortable with Hedonism III's October celebration, "Kink in the Caribbean."

Even the God squad has gotten hot under the collar just thinking about the disgusting, filthy, sweaty, lust-driven, glorious flesh fest. In fact, according to the article, "a dozen pastors from the Caribbean-American Clergy Coalition [were] demonstrating outside the board's New York offices…urging a halt to the nude weddings." I'm confused. Aren't clothes supposed to be satanically inspired? Ha -- and all this time I was under the impression that the naughty ol' serpent in the Tree of Knowledge had been the reason for our shameful cover-up.

Those men of the cloth and the tourism board hard-asses can't scare the soon-to-be-wed bare-asses, though. As mentioned in the story, an anonymous executive of Superclubs, the resort's owner, comments that "Hedonism III will go ahead with the weddings."

The thing is, isn't a little late for Jamaica's Tourist Board to be complaining about the arguably deviant behavior that these resorts endorse? The place is called Hedonism for chrissakes! If naked weddings don't coincide with Jamaica's marketing strategy, it's difficult to believe that a vacation club that refers to its non-nude beach as "the Prude side" would be acceptable at all. I'm sure Hedonism's property taxes and financial support of local services are pretty acceptable to Jamaica's Government though.

Question: without pockets, where the hell are these guys gonna store the wedding rings? Hmmm...now that I think about it, with all those naked chicks around, I figure someplace to set them will pop up sooner or later....

Snappy Sponsors for Stupid Sell-outs
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Has MAD Been Had?
Only a fool would refuse to run advertising in his publication! Now, even the fool has succumbed to the lure of the good ol' American Ad Dollar. MmmHmm...not only has a recent special edition of MAD Magazine been polluted with cheesy humor, it's been ad-contaminated!

That's only the beginning. As featured in a 2/6 Excite News story, the satirical adoptive-son of AOL Time Warner has been goofin' off for long enough. Now it's time for Alfred E. to set his priorities straight; and that means publishing in glossy color and accepting ads in all issues.

As the article mentions, MAD's advertisers will include "the popular Altoids mints produced by Philip Morris Cos.' (MO) Kraft unit, Corn Nuts, videogame makers like Namco and 3DO, and Wind Up Records…." The price of a full-page ad is $7,500, and "Opportunities exist for MAD's staff to come up with some customized ads…that might fit in well with the rest of the magazine's thumb-your-nose-at-it attitude." Hmmm…I always thought of MAD as having more of a pick-your-nose-at-it-attitude, but whatever. As long as the oh-so-irreverent gang of idiots doesn't open up the sacred back-cover fold-in to advertisers, I won't stress...much.

Not surprising, MAD fans (a.k.a. 30 and 40-something geeks with all the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes on tape) aren't taking the news too well. The 2/7 coverage on "The World's Biggest Comic Book Convention," Comicon.com, regrets MAD's ad-acceptance: "[Founder of MAD, William M. Gaines] was always adamant about not accepting advertising, as he saw it as a threat to the foundations of the magazine and its peculiar bond with its readers."

Even one of MAD's editors, Dick De Bartolo, chimed in with a guilty-conscience-inspired post to Collectmad.com in which he "channels" the deceased Gaines: "With the sky rocketing costs of paper, ink and distribution, if I were still publishing MAD, I would take ads…. If anyone at Time Warner asked about the ads, I would claim they weren't ads, but a gentler sort of satire!"

I don't get it. Isn't MAD all about mocking commercial enterprises, be they advertising, Hollywood blockbuster schlock, or pointless products? Sure, the magazine has never been known for its integrity per se, but in essence, what's enabled it to survive this long is just that. Granted, like most everything else, MAD ain't what it used to be, but this ad embrace marks a clearly defined crossover from free-form artistic expression to bottom-line banality.

It's obvious that the mag's creators and publishers see no way to boost profits and circulation numbers without the financial support of sponsorship. The situation is lamentable, yet the decision is understandable to some extent. I wonder, though, could MAD be cutting off its pimply nose to spite its goofily grinning face? Will the stealth parameters of advertiser concerns prove to compromise the content so greatly that Alfred E. actually begins to worry? Will loyal readers shun the pub as a result of ad infiltration? If MAD in fact allots ad revenue to its own advertising, wouldn't that only serve to sink the magazine into the commercial abyss it's so heartily hazed all these years?

Here's the ultimate irony in all of this: MAD's venture into the commercial realm will finally make the childhood dreams of ad agency creatives and copy writing hacks a reality. That's right: finally, their work will be seen within the covers of MAD magazine! Now, if only they could adopt the chimp from BJ and The Bear and touch Christie Brinkley's breasts just once, they could die happy!

Enlighten Us, Oh, Spike
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Was Rosa Parks Benched?
Imagine an America with no history of blacks whatsoever. Sure, disturbed folks like David Duke may delight in the thought, but most of us realize that the very notion is tragic. Or do we?

Spike Lee thinks we need a reminder of just how devastating that would be, and he's dead set on exposing our ignorance. As featured in a 2/8 USA Today piece, his ad agency, SpikeDDB, has produced a series of public service announcements to run throughout February on ABC in honor of Black History Month. Apparently, a play by Douglas Turner Ward entitled "Day of Absence" was his inspiration for the campaign's theme which "brings attention to current contributions of blacks as well as those from the past."

Opines Lee in the article, "I don't think we've rightfully been acknowledged for the contributions we've made to this great country….We're still not present in a lot of history books."

In this case I think he's got a point. I'll admit, on the whole I find Spike Lee to be a bit of a rabble-rouser, someone who's thrived on the currency of class and color-envy. He's also someone with a lot of talent who's made some pretty kick-ass flicks. Most people can name but a handful of famous black Americans, although endless numbers have contributed to American life, as well as life around the world. Certainly the ads will cause a stir and probably garner attention. I hope, however, that they will run during shows that are viewed by either a highly diverse audience, or shows that statistically attract few blacks, otherwise, the ads run the risk of preaching to the converted. I also hope that in these ads, Lee has not fallen into the trap of alienating viewers by proselytizing, as some would argue he has in the past with his long-form film work.

The USA Today coverage depicts the first ad which features a "breaking news report announcing the disappearance of African Americans…. Quick cuts show people puzzled by the absence of doctors, soldiers and even members of Lee's beloved New York Knicks."

Hmmm… I wonder why Lee didn't focus on Baltimore Ravens' linebacker Ray Lewis, Philadelphia 76ers' Allen Iverson or OJ for that matter. After all, Lee seems to gravitate towards the controversial. Seriously though, is featuring popular sports figures really the best way to celebrate the contributions of blacks in America? Does scoring the most points in a game or scoring the most chicks after a game really make an impact on American society one way or the other? I mean, while he's at it, why not feature Magic Johnson in a spot that highlights his sexual prowess and amazing ability to evade full-blown AIDS?

National Advancement of Disenfranchisement
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Much Ad-do About Nawtin'
If you're a fan of commercial radio, be it watered-down smooth jazz or easily digested alterna-rock, you know there's one thing you can count on hearing: ads. As you scan the dial, do you ever notice a difference in the types of products advertised depending on the station? Of course you do. Think about it: you're about as likely to hear a spot for arthritic pain relieving cream on the local hip-hop station as you are to hear an ad during Rush Limbaugh's radio show for a sale on DJ mixing equipment at the local music store. The question is, is this really such a bad thing?

Some folks seem to think so, or at least they'd like to see advertisers acknowledge the purchasing power of supposedly overlooked demographic groups. As noted in his 2/3 appearance on National Public Radio's On the Media, Kofi Ofori, a research consultant to the Federal Communications Commission, media buying discrimination is alive and well across the radio waves.

He concedes that "blacks and Latinos have a lower per-household income;" however, he believes that this does not necessitate "that minorities will not buy high, upscale, brand-name types of products and services."

So, who's to blame for this apparent lack of luxury product ads on stations targeting the "urban" market? Well, according to Ofori, the problem lies at the media buying level. He claims most media buyers are white, female, young and "tend to execute buys based on their limited exposure to minorities," and so, there is a need for the media buying collective to reflect the nation's diversity. Ya know, it's too bad Jesse Jackson is so tied up with the whole baby-daddy thang, otherwise I'm sure he'd come to our aid with some rainbow-licious revamping.

Also interviewed in the broadcast is VP for diversity and strategic programs for the American Advertising Federation, Heide Gardner. She believes, "The best thing that can happen to the ad industry is that…the advertisers, make a decision that they want to seriously evaluate where their best opportunities are in the marketplace, and that is going to drive the change." Puleeze… the ad agencies that service brand-name advertisers and in-house marketing departments have developed endless ways to research potential markets for their products. It's naïve to think that they wouldn't exploit each and every opportunity to sell, sell, sell and brand, brand, brand. When it comes to making a buck, big-name advertisers don't discriminate.

Don't get me wrong. I'm confident that this research is quite valid and representational of the situation. The thing is that, as the AAF's Gardner notes, ultimately the onus falls on the advertisers themselves. I refuse to believe that a bunch of wide-eyed college-grad media buyers are afforded the authority to determine whether some droopy-drawer-ed hip-hop kid feels empowered enough to buy a Lexus as opposed to an item on McDonald's Dollar Menu. C'mon, isn't that what this whole discussion seems to be masquerading in the first place: the notion that advertisers, or media buyers, do minorities a disservice by not promoting luxury goods to them?

Besides the fact that the determination of an ad campaign's target market is made long before the media buys are made, the whole theory of media buying discrimination strikes me as warped from the start. Must there always be a scapegoat? Don't the ad salespeople at radio stations play a key role in the types of advertisers they attract? Have these stations been unjustly disenfranchised? Couldn't they do more to enlighten potential advertisers as to the benefits of pushing high-priced products to left-behind listeners?

Overall, I guess I just don't grasp the reason behind government funding of this sort of study, much less how its results can lead to a change, or why there should be a change in the first place. Is there really a need to incite class-warfare over something as silly as what types of ads people hear? What's next -- FCC regulations demanding ad-buy-neglect reparations or minority media buying quotas? Hey, I've got a solution: change the station, or better yet, turn the damn radio off and listen to a record!

Magna Cum Unclean
-- OR --
A Putrid Pad for Bubba?
We all know the best way to attract college students is to offer them free stuff. So, if it's illegal in your country to giveaway booze, bong hits or evenings with buxom babes, why not try the next best thing: bucks.

That's how Apartments.com aims to drive college kids to its site. The contest winning prize: $10,000.00. The hitch: uptight clean-freaks need not apply. As featured in the 2/5 coverage on The Register, for the second year in a row, the real-estate rental site is challenging contest entrants to put Oscar Madison to shame by competing in its "2001 Messiest College Apartment Contest."

Student slobs shall rejoice, if Apartments.com's misguided encouragement has anything to do with it. Assures the site, "Don't worry - we don't blame you for being a slob. We know you've got too much going on these days to worry about washing dishes, doing laundry or taking out the trash. In fact, we're going to reward you for being so disgusting."

There's no doubt that slothful scholars will flock to enter, causing great distress to roommates, visiting parents and most important, landlords. That's the trouble with this cute li'l contest. By luring messy kids to its site and embracing their blatant disrespect for property that is not owned by them, Apartments.com could manage to annoy the very customers it needs to survive: the apartment owners. I'm amazed that this contest didn't piss off the paid listing placers enough last year to prohibit its re-run. Could it be that they are comfortable with the thought of tenants leaving their property in stained and sticky disrepair? Hmmm… in that case, maybe they ought to rent their places to the Clinton White House staff vandals who made such an effort to leave a mess for the Bush brigade. Better yet, they could rent a place to Bubba himself; he's been known to have quite a knack for leaving stubborn stains.