Louis Armstrong was one of the greatest musicians in the short history of human entertainment. What few people know, though, is Louis was also a great advertising pitchman. His favorite product to shill was Swiss Kriss — a laxative he used daily. He would give Swiss Kriss to friends and new acquaintances as hello gifts.
Continue reading → Louis Armstrong and the Great Swiss Kriss Evacuation
This month, the Bloomberg mayoralty took a stumble on a massive morality blunder with the release of an absolutely incredible public health campaign aimed at the heart of healthy people; and it was perpetuated in a fake amputation of a man’s leg in order to make some sort of warped point in print advertising about the perils if Type 2 Diabetes:
Continue reading → Faking Diabetes Amputation to Scare Healthy People
The new, visual, warning labels on cigarette packs are both alarming and necessary. The graphic images demonstrate the results of smoking on the body, and if we ever hope to become a wholly healthy nation, we need to fight our tobacco addiction.
Continue reading → Have You Seen the New Cigarette Pack Warning Labels?
We are well aware of the excellent help that celebrities provide when the need is there — whether the help is for PR purposes or not, or whether other celebrities actively try to discourage you from helping, the help is there and can make the difference between a charity receiving hundreds of dollars versus hundreds of thousands of dollars — even if most of the money ends up coming directly from the celebrities themselves!
Continue reading → Do Celebrity Endorsements Sell More Product?
The man gathered everyone around in the town square.
I recently burned the second knuckle on my first finger — and that’s a spot that is hard to heal as you strum a guitar and while wearing gloves in cold weather. A knuckle is always moving and when that injured knuckle is on your dominant hand, the pain pulses reverberate throughout your body with ever grasp and squeeze, cracking open the wound again. Yesterday, I decided I couldn’t bite the cold bullet any longer and I bought a box of “Flexible Fabric” Band-Aids for “knuckle & fingertip” to protect my knuckle while roaming the world. I was surprised Johnson & Johnson made such a specific Band-Aid for general public sale — I can’t remember the last time I used a Band-Aid, so I may be majorly out of the loop here; when I cut myself I just spit on the open wound and rub it with a finger until the blood congeals — but what took me most by surprise was the innovative packaging.
I spent the weekend with a gang — yes, a Gang! — of rowdy nine-year-olds from the Midwest. I was shocked — yes, Shocked! — and disappointed by their crassness, overt sarcasm and apt insensitivity to those around them, and I blame antisocial, for-profit, children’s television programming for the damning result.
Continue reading → The Spongebob Effect: Immorality and Commercial Children’s Television Programming
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