8.31.00
People for the Unethical Treatment of Cancer Victims
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Offensive Ads Milk the Press
Why has Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of New York City, made a point of guzzling milk during public appearances lately?

If the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) were to respond to that, the answer may be, "He just can't get enough of that...prostate cancer!"

You may have heard about the most recent, short-lived component of PETA's ongoing Milk Sucks campaign. First it was "got beer?" then came "got zits?" and now, "got prostate cancer?" ads have stirred up some curdled controversy.

In a nutshell (a vegan delight, by the way), PETA has created billboards that feature the frowning, milk-laden, face of Giuliani along with the text, "got prostate cancer? Drinking milk contributes to prostate cancer. www.MilkSucks.com."

Giuliani's statement, as featured in an 8/25 LA Times brief encapsulates PETA's overt disregard for his dignity: "It's tasteless and inappropriate to exploit my illness...."

Well, the ads will be taken down, according to a follow-up 8/26 LA Times story, "because Giuliani had not given permission to use his likeness in the campaign."

I'll refrain from rehashing my utter contempt for PETA's ongoing didactic propaganda pitches, and get to my point. These ads have been placed, not in NYC, but in Lancaster, Pa. and Appleton and Oshkosh, Wisconsin, as reported in an 8/26 New York Times article. One question: who the hell in Wisconsin would recognize the milk-mustached mug of Rudolph W. Giuliani? Could PETA be that blinded by the light of its awe-inspiring anti-milk missive?

"PETA targeted Wisconsin for the ad," as printed in the LA Times story, "because it's 'America's Dairyland, so it seems to be the perfect place to bring the message that dairy products are horrible for human health, catastrophic for the environment and a living nightmare for these cows and their veal calf babies," said Bruce Friedrich, the group's vegetarian campaign coordinator.' "

Potent Quotables: PETA Gets Stern Burn This Tuesday 8/29, Howard Stern's sidekick, Robin Quivers reported on PETA's inconsiderate usage of Guiliani's image and illness in its recent ads. In response, Howard giddily commented in regards to PETA, "They're animals. Someone ought to electrocute them and use their skins for jackets."

Perhaps PETA has failed to realize that moo juice is the livelihood of these communities in which the ethical treatment-promoting organization has chosen to preach. Suffice it to say that Wisconsin dairy farmers aren't exactly readily adoptive of anti-milk messages.

Why not place the billboards throughout NYC, where folks know the face of their controversial mayor, and where people may be a bit more open minded to the Milk Sucks campaign?

Well, the NY Times piece notes that "PETA said it had already been rejected by several companies that post ads on billboards in subways and on taxis in the city."

Maybe PETA should have taken the hint....

Anyhow, considering the overwhelming skepticism of typical New Yorkers, the prostate cancer claim probably wouldn't make much of an impact. However, a billboard depicting a haggard-looking, milk-beaked pigeon, featuring the copy, "got west nile virus?" -- now that would send Manhattanites to the nearest organic, vegan food joint -- pronto!

A Spike Lee Rant
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Black Face on the Big Screen
Let us now take this opportunity to thank Spike Lee for heightening our awareness of the misdeeds of the entertainment industry. Without him, we may have forgotten about the subservient roles of African-American actors during Hollywood's early years. Never fear: Lee has shocked us back to our senses with his ad campaign and component website promoting his latest celluloid venture into pedantry, Bamboozled.

"You Won't Believe What's Coming This Fall!" announces the promotional site, Step 'n Fetch It Pictures. The online extension of the fictional television network, CNS, highlights "The ManTan Minstrel Show," among other goofy sitcom spoofs. The ManTan Minstrel Show is the subject of Lee's Oct. 6 film, starring Damon Wayans, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tommy Davidson and others; it's "about a black writer who joins the writing staff of an all-black TV sitcom that's previously been written only by whites," according to the 8/24 Mr. Showbiz coverage .

"He's got the whole gang of hoofers lined up for some fast and furious tappin' " proclaims the Step 'n Fetch It Pictures site, "and the joint keeps a hoppin' courtesy of The Porch Monkeys."

Call me a narrow-minded crackah, but is all this "porch monkey" provocation really necessary?

Executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, Michael Meyers doesn't seem to think so. As mentioned in the Mr. Showbiz story, he opined, "It is obviously intended to shock and to generate free publicity about the next Spike Lee joint.... [T]he anger attendant to this recycling of racial trash, I bet, will not be worth the price of admission."

Ouch.

Why is Spike Lee so insistent upon dredging up negative cultural stereotypes? Do advertisements like this truly enlighten the masses? As for the film itself, the trailer is intriguing, however, sometimes I wonder whether Lee's insistent focus on racist concepts only serves to perpetuate them.

Interactive Repast
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Vegemite Delight
If Internet marketers could agree on one thing, it might be that people crave customized experiences. And a kosher dill pickle on the side wouldn't hurt either.

This could spell success for SandwichDirect.com. The online service "is aiming to become the dominant player in corporate catering globally," as reported recently in Australia's AdNews.

Are you tired of that dopey deli guy dousing your sandwich with mayo when you specifically requested a smidgen? No worries...SandwichDirect.com enables ravenous lunchers to choose from over 70 ingredients to concoct gourmet, and no doubt, exorbitantly priced meals. Plus, delivery and GST are free.

If they're so inclinded, folks can calculate the "fat and kilojoule count" of their decadent delights. And habitual regulars can even refer back to their "sandwich rolodexes" to expedite the order process.

The site's featured sandwich of sweet chili chicken, cucumber, grated carrot, snow pea sprouts and avocado on a Turkish roll seems damn tasty. I wonder, though, if SandwichDirect.com could create the sammy my taste bud-challenged dad used to ask me to fix for him: peanut butter and jelly smeared on whole wheat bread and topped with a slice of American cheese...eeewww....

SandwichDirect.com claims to be "the world's first interactive food experience."

Wow! Up until now, I've only dreamt of tasting, smelling and touching my meals.... But seriously, haven't these guys ever sculpted mashed potato men, or laughed so hard that their noses lactated? If those aren't interactive food experiences, I don't know what are.

The More You Know About Cookies...
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There's a Good Reason Why We're Following You
You know how that guy Sy Syms is always spoutin' off about educated consumers being the best customers? Well, now a slew of tech companies are subscribing to Sy's system. In this case, though, it's not about names you must know, it's about quelling online privacy qualms.

An 8/24 Newsfactor Network special report tells of recent discussions which took place at Aspen's Technology Summit regarding a proposed $80 million offline campaign to promote the benefits of personal data collection and online tracking.The conference panel included members of congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as well as the private sector.

In conjunction with blue chips like IBM and Dell Computer Corp., the Direct Marketing Association plans to "hail the benefits of [tracking] practices, including getting more personalized service online and providing advertisements more relevant to a person's tastes and buying habits...."

This could be a step in the right direction. Sure, until now, the industry has attempted to police itself somewhat successfully. The problem is that a few seemingly rotten eggs like toysmart.com, Verio, and the ultimate scapegoat, DoubleClick, have fed the media's need to incite fear among the Net's masses. Even the saviors of online privacy, TRUSTe have gotten their fingers caught in the cookie batter lately.

And yes, various members of Congress have put forth bills, yet usually they've been of the reactionary sort. For instance, in the midst of the toysmart.com proceedings back in July (Perhaps you recall the tale: toysmart.com filed for bankruptcy and attempted to sell the personal data it had collected online, which violated its own privacy policy.), Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Robert Torricelli (D-New Jersey) introduced The Privacy Policy Enforcement in Bankruptcy Act of 2000 which aimed to prohibit the sale of consumer information on the Internet. Around the same time, Representatives William Delahunt (D-Massachusetts) and Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama) proposed legislation to bolster the FTC's power to take action against naughty online privacy policy offenders. Even an Aspen Tech Summit panelist, Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Arkansas), has joined in with his Privacy Protection Commission proposal "to study e-privacy issues for the next 18 months," according to the Newsfactor Network story.

(For an in-depth look at the toysmart/privacy debacle, check out my BrandEra Times piece.)

Federal Trade Commission chief Orson Swindle "doesn't believe there's a need to regulate right now," as mentioned in the article. Somehow that's not surprising when one considers the FTC's ultimate decision to allow toysmart.com to sell its data.

So, the question remains, does the solution really require cooperation between both big brother camps -- the feds and the data trackers? Well, the industry's proposed public service campaign will be a good start. After all, an educated Web consumer does make the best cookie-acceptor. And anyway, how could the public possibly be expected to trust an FTC chief that goes by the name of Swindle?

Chief Creative Kook
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Di Sesa Delirium
"Women in advertising agencies are not really representative of women in general because we're surrounded by men and we live in a man's world.... We're in touch with our masculine side and so we find these things funnier than women who are not in this industry."

Have you ever felt your blood come to a rolling boil? Have your teeth ever clenched with such intensity that your jaw was sore for days afterwards? Have you ever wished you could transport your tightened fist via the airwaves? The other day, a pigeonhole-prone female panelist on a local New York public radio talk show invoked those very violent tendencies in me through a series of baseless statements like the one above.

Her name: Nina Di Sesa. Her occupation: chairman and chief creative officer of McCann Erickson. Di Sesa graced WNYC's On the Line listening audience on 8/23 with her misguided words of wisdom during a discussion on humorous advertising. Posing the question, "Do guys really have all the fun?" the show's host, Brian Lehrer wondered whether silly ads are targeted more towards men than women, and if so, why that is.

The marketing innovator, Di Sesa, who's also recently been referred to as "DiSensational" in one of the Wall Street Journal's "Adventures in Capitalism" executive profile ads, seems to think of herself as an expert on the apparently obvious distinctions between men and women. "It's very easy to make a man laugh," she commented assuredely. "You just have to be irreverant and have some fun with them. Women respond to charm and wit and a more classic kind of humor and men just like to make fun of things they can't deal with emotionally."

As a person who thrives on irreverance, and someone who strove as a child to master the art of sarcasm (OK, so I'm still working on it....), to say that this woman offended me is an understatement of great magnitude. To tell you the truth, though, it's not surprising that a brain like Di Sesa's that's been vacuum-packed in the airtight bubble of Madison Avenue for so long would forget that people are individuals, rather than mere demographic category-fillers.

I still can't deduce why it was that I couldn't pick up the phone and give that terribly tunnel-visional minister of stupid talk a piece of my fuming mind. Or, better yet, why couldn't I just laugh-off her grossly negligent soapbox stance? I guess it must have been that time of the month.