Aug
25
Plusnet: Bad data
Posted in: Uncategorized
Aug
25
Tiger Beer Turned Air Pollution Into Ink, and Had Artists Try It Out
Posted in: UncategorizedImagine grabbing a tube of paint, dipping your brush in the black goop and gliding the brush across a canvas. Pretty normal, right? Now image that black goop is made entirely of air pollution emitted from vehicles across Asia, and you can actually use that polluted air to create a masterpiece.
Tiger Beer, working alongside Marcel Sydney and MIT spinoff Graviky Labs, did just that, creating the first line of ink made from air pollution. The brand created 150 liters (roughly 40 gallons) of Tiger Air-Ink in pens, markers and spray cans so that different types of artists could experiment with it.
Aug
25
Warren Hinckle, Ramparts Editor Who Embraced Gonzo Journalism, Dies at 77
Posted in: UncategorizedMr. Hinckle, the flamboyant editor who made Ramparts magazine a voice for the radical left, championed the work of Hunter S. Thompson.
Aug
25
No Longer Anti-Advertising, WhatsApp Opens to Marketing and Sharing Data With Facebook
Posted in: Uncategorized
Facebook is getting ready to bring marketing messages to its WhatsApp messaging app, which was founded with a no-ads ethos, as well as tap user data from WhatsApp to inform ads on the social network.
WhatsApp announced the changes in a Thursday blog post on upcoming privacy-policy changes that impact users’ personal data and open them to the potential for marketing on the platform. The revisions mean that user data will get sucked into Facebook and help it serve more relevant ads in the News Feed, too.
The data could also go toward targeted marketing on WhatsApp. “We will explore ways for you and businesses to communicate with each other using WhatsApp,” a description of key changes said, “such as through order, transaction, and appointment information, delivery and shipping notifications, product and service updates, and marketing.”
Aug
25
Startup Unlockd Cutting Phone Bills If Users Watch Ads
Posted in: Uncategorized
An Australian startup is getting some traction with a proposition for mobile-phone users: Watch our ads, and we’ll cut your wireless bill.
Called Unlockd, the company has reached half a million customers through deals this year with two carriers to offer users a discount on their rates if they agree to view ads when they unlock their handset screen. In the U.S., Boost Mobile, a brand of Sprint, gives customers with Android phones a $5 credit on prepaid plans that cost from $30 to $60 a month.
Unlockd also operates in the U.K. through a deal with Tesco Mobile, and plans to expand into five more countries by October, and an additional eight before year-end. It’s raised more than $20 million from investors including two heavyweights: Sol Trujillo, former chief executive officer of Melbourne-based phone company Telstra, and Lachlan Murdoch, co-chairman of 21st Century Fox. It’s seeking to raise as much as $40 million more this year, said Matt Berriman, the startup’s CEO.
Aug
25
Only Three Olympics Partners Really Helped Their Brands, YouGov BrandIndex Says
Posted in: Uncategorized
Aug
25
EpiPen Maker Mylan Is Airing Fewer Commercials for Its Pricey Product
Posted in: Uncategorized
Amid the rising controversy surrounding price increases to $600 or more for its allergy-combatting EpiPen, owner Mylan has drastically decreased the frequency of airings of its “Face Your Risk” commercial, according to research compiled for Ad Age by media research firm iSpot.tv.
The 30-second spot, which debuted as part of a larger campaign in late April, features a terrifying scene in which a woman with a peanut allergy accidentally eats a peanut-butter-filled brownie at a party. Since the spot is filmed from the perspective of the victim, viewers see the horrified expressions of other partygoers before glimpsing the bloated and blotchy face of the allergy sufferer in a mirror. Interestingly, the spot makes no mention of the EpiPen, but directs consumers to an awareness website which then leads to a separate EpiPen information website.
Mylan has spent $14.7 million running the ad44% of the company’s total 2016 TV spending so far this year — on the campaign, according to iSpot. The ad ran 326 times the week of July 31. Yet in recent weeks, as the public outcry against Mylan has grown, the spots are appearing less often. Mylan ran the commercial 292 times the week of Aug. 7, 66 times the week of Aug. 14, and has only aired it twice in the last four days, iSpot found.
Aug
25
David&Goliath Will Probably Not Pay Ransom for Its ‘Hostage’ URL
Posted in: UncategorizedIn case you missed it earlier this week, a Dallas-based agency called Slingshot has been playing a limited time prank on David&Goliath. We wouldn’t call it mean-spirited. It’s more … mischievous.
Right now, davidandgoliath.com looks like this:
Here’s the first in a series of daily videos from Monday.
The new season of Mr. Robot is kind of uneven, but you have to stick with it until the big reveal! Now, a brief Panda Mask Explainer.
They are really into this, we can tell.
As promised, they’ve released a video every day this week and brought it to David Angelo’s attention via the social media. According to some sources on the inside, uh huh, they want him to donate an unspecified amount to their charitable foundation, or else the website gets it.
@_DavidAngelo @DEFYyourGOLIATH If you ever want to see your precious https://t.co/1TaMDIHfPm, watch this: https://t.co/DZZcq2tMgh #URLRansom
— David N. Goliath (@urlransom) August 22, 2016
THE BACKSTORY: For reasons that are no longer a deeply held secret, the URL davidandgoliath.com never belonged to the agency Angelo launched in 1999.
As we hear it, Slingshot could not secure its own preferred URL when it first opened more than 20 years ago. Since this particular shop’s narrative was all about taking on The Big Guys, its principals went with davidandgoliath.com hoping that slingshot.com could eventually be theirs.
David&Goliath came to be four years later and, according to our extra-secret sources, Angelo has been angling to score that URL ever since. But since slingshot.com was not yet available to facilitate a trade, D&G has had to make do with dng.com for the past 17 years.
That all changed when Slingshot scored their own dot com and proceeded to leverage the existing URL for maximum effectiveness and, possibly, media coverage.
Our colleague Tim Nudd reached out to Angelo before running his Tuesday post, and Angelo hasn’t responded. He did, however, get back to Slingshot via D&G’s Twitter account yesterday:
.@urlransom By holding someone else’s URL hostage, you’re just holding yourself hostage. #LoveNotHate -DA
— David&Goliath (@DEFYyourGOLIATH) August 24, 2016
We agree that love is way better than hate in the long run. But sometimes, in the moment, hate can be kind of fun, says the internet. See: Trump, Donald J.
@DEFYyourGOLIATH How philosophical. Zen Panda says, “The price just went up.” #namaste #URLransom pic.twitter.com/iijzk4nx8c
— David N. Goliath (@urlransom) August 24, 2016
.@urlransom Ok, you asked for it. Now we’re going to shower you with even more love. #morenamaste #savethepandas
— David&Goliath (@DEFYyourGOLIATH) August 24, 2016
LOL. A Slingshot spokesperson wrote: “Since Tim’s Adfreak article on Tuesday, we’ve had a great back and forth with David Angelo and his agency through Twitter. Their strategy is to shower us with love. We prefer they shower us with cash.”
This madcap caper will end tomorrow, and we hear that some URLs may change hands in a spectacular display of generosity.
But we feel like maybe Slingshot should distance itself from the Foundation. Not that there’s anything unethical going on there, but when you’re such a publicly visible figure running a national campaign, even the slightest implications of impropriety can be very damaging. Or so we hear that many people are saying.
Aug
25
Domino's Pizza Survives First Drone Delivery With Only Minor Damage to the Cheese
Posted in: UncategorizedIf you want the best pizza, you’re not going to order Domino’s. But if you want your pizza delivered in the most innovative way, well, Domino’s may have that market cornered.
The chain took four years to modify a car to become the perfect delivery vehicle. And now it is testing drone delivery in New Zealand. And by all accounts, its first drone test went well, with the pizza landing gently and without major damage—save for a little cheese stuck to the top of the box.
Aug
25
The Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity: Outdoor cycling
Posted in: Uncategorized
Aug
25
Common Sense: How Philippe Dauman Lost the Battle for Viacom
Posted in: UncategorizedThe daughter of Sumner Redstone achieved almost total victory in her fight to control the vast media empire, and Mr. Dauman was the biggest casualty.
Aug
25
Should Donald Trump Go After Hillary Clinton's Weird Hair, Orange Skin and Tiny Hands?
Posted in: Uncategorized
The 2016 presidential campaign, marked by schoolyard-bully-level taunts and name-calling, is suddenly taking on some unexpected nuance. It now looks like we’ve got an “I know you are, but what am I?” situation on our hands. Perhaps this is progress?
At a rally on Wednesday night in Jackson, Miss., Donald Trump declared that “Hillary Clinton is a bigot.” Already widely branded a racist for his campaign trail commments about Mexicans and Muslims, Trump has been newly under fire on the racism front for naming Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen Bannon as his campaign CEO given that site’s association with white nationalist/white supremacist movements (see: “Alt Right Rejoices at Donald Trump’s Steve Bannon Hire”). Trump’s words in Jackson in context:
Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future. She’s going to do nothing for African-Americans, she’s going to do nothing for the Hispanics. She’s only going to take care of herself, her husband, her consultants, her donors. These are the people she cares about. She doesn’t care what her policies have done to your communities. She doesn’t care. Remember this: You’ve had her policies, Democrats, running some of the inner cities for 50, 70, 80 — even over 100 years. And look what you have right now. Poverty, no education, crime. You can’t walk down the street with your child. We’re going to fix it, we’re going to fix it.
Aug
25
The Science of 'Hate-Watching:' What Trump Is Teaching TV Execs
Posted in: Uncategorized
For decades, TV networks have tried very hard to generate viewer loyalty. A common, simple formula: Make them love the characters and plotline and the audiences will come (and keep coming back).
But that strategy overlooked a lot of unlovable characters, including many who have captured viewers’ imagination — from Archie Bunker on “All in the Family” to Eric Cartman on “South Park” to Walter White on “Breaking Bad” to about one in every two reality-TV characters.
Donald Trump, a veteran reality-TV character himself (complete with a trademark catchphrase, “You’re fired!”), seems to know exactly how to push not only the “love” buttons but the “hate” buttons. No matter how you feel about the former “Apprentice” star turned presidential candidate, he’s clearly connected deeply with his diehard fans, while also provoking outraged responses from his detractors — which is making for an explosive cycle of comments, controversy, walk-backs and general media spectacle.
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