Today’s la_observed has an interesting observation:
Anna Nicole Smith was not an important actress, model or American pop icon, but she was big in tabloid celebrity culture. Foul play is not suspected. So where do you play her death? The LAT puts Smith’s story prominently on page one, apparently after some internal discussion. So does the Washington Post. The New York Times gives her a small mention in the front page refer box. The WSJ takes a pass.
I’ll add that the Daily News put the story at the front of their online edition. I find this fascinating, for it shows how media works. For example, driving home last night, our local all-new station (KFWB) was all over the Smith story. NPR? Didn’t even mention it.
So what did your local paper do with the story?
The New York Times, while not giving prominance to the Smith story, does have another interesting story online. This relates to how advertisments are getting racier and racier. I’m old enough to remember when feminine hygene products weren’t advertised on TV, there were no condom ads, no ads for “personal lubricants” (although I do have vague recollections for products related to smells — I seem to recall some advertising for a personal deoderant spray). Nowadays, you have ads for almost everything; I wince everytime I see the one for a “warming personal lubricant”. The article does, however, discuss one of my favorite racy ads: the one for the Norelco Bodygroomer (warning: contains audit NSFW innuendo, not language), which is absolutely hilarious (do go watch it, if you’ve never seen it before). Evidently, this online-only ad tripled sales for the product from the original forecast.
Of course, there are the miswritten ads on TV. Last night, during Survivor: Fiji, there was an ad for Bud Light that showed the family picking up hitchhikers with axes or chainsaws, simply because they had the right beer. I think it should have been captioned “Bud Light: It kills your brain cells”, but it wasn’t. There was also the ad for the Carl’s Jr. $6,000 Value Meal, which was hilarious.
Again, your opinion: Are there products that shouldn’t be advertised on TV. Are there particularly great ads?
