• Slashfood is creeped out by an Xbox game from Burger King that features The King sneaking around forcing hamburgers down the throats of passers-by.
• Sony, according to TUAW, has co-opted Apple's "Mac Vs. PC" style and added a third character, the Vaio, in an effort to differentiate itself from the rest of the personal computing market.
• Joystiq raises a couple of issues with the latest ad from Circuit City promoting the Playstation 3.
• Joystiq also puts in their two cents on the Double Fusion/Take Two ad placement deal.
  
• Our friends at PVR Wire are pointing out how TiVo, by adding more and more advertising to the user experience, is actually drifting away from the whole point behind people's purchase of a TiVo.
• Break.com and their plan to pay people for short films gets some press on DVGuru.
• TV Squad mentions Comedy Central has picked up the animated series "L'il Bush." The concept started out as a series of shorts produced by Amp'd Mobile.
• Also at TV Squad comes word that the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" will be holding a contest asking viewers to name the baby of a main character.
• According to Blogging Stocks, KISS guitarist Paul Stanley is selling signature guitars at Target.
• Blogging Baby weighs in on the issue of pediatricians calling for a ban on fast-food advertising to kids.

"Put some music on" is the theme of Apple's new iPod shuffle ads. It features people putting on and taking off various jackets and other items, but in each case, putting their iPod shuffle onto their jacket or whatever. First off, I think the ad is interesting. Not quite as interesting as the "Hi, I'm a Mac" ads, but still it catches your eye. Amazingly, the ads strike me as one of a long line of copycat commercials in the grand style that HP started with the whole picture-in-a-picture theme. I have seen several with a TV-in-a-TV, and a few others, but it seems that HP started something bigger in the ad world than they tried to originally. Apple's ad is very well done, but reminds me of the HP one just the same. I personally don't really like the iPod shuffle, especially the new one, but that aside, the ad was good, interesting, and will make people wonder about it. The video is fun to watch. NOTE: The video will start playing when you hit the page. This ad in a word is, well, strange.

I've held jobs as a copy editor and paginator, just two of many, many jobs I've been fired from... or from which I've been fired. Anyway, I became quite adept at using QuarkXPress, the layout program used by many newspapers. So I found it interesting that their new logo is exactly the same as that of the Scottish Arts Council. I'm not entirely sure how both places managed to use the same design, which is basically a tear drop shape with a hole in the middle, but there you go. They should get a team of detectives on this case.

So if everyone - literally - has spoofed your ad campaign or jacked it for their own benefit, is that the sign of a successful model? First, "Got milk?" was turned into a "Got anything" by organizations high and low, left and right. Now, Apple's iPod "shadow" advertising has been used for everything from political groups making light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal to proclaiming the work of Jesus Christ.

adland points out that Homer Simpson is even in on the act, where an episode of FOX's The Simpsons featured a sign with the trademark green background with a haloed individual (presumably Jesus) rocking out with his iPod device. The ad even has "iGod" in the corner, as if you didn't know where they were going with it.

Advertising trends come and go just like television programming. Sometimes, things get a bit overdone when they return and everyone jumps on the bandwagon. Will that happen with the use of game show-ish themes in advertisements these days? Surely you've caught one of the four or five spots currently running under the guise of faux game shows - are they cool or fool?

Based on what a GSN (used to be the Game Show Network) exec told the New York Times, game shows are so "close to home" for most people that "everyone gets it immediately." That's probably valid for the 20 and up set, but what about the younger kids who maybe catch one or two game shows at all, as most of them have left early morning broadcast TV for either cable in reruns or the early evening in some areas? We might lose this comeback trend in a decade or so, and not just because all the game show hosts have gone.

It's not just automotive ads that may have copycats, of course. Check out this site, which features pages upon pages of potential "coincidences" for print advertisements.

Some seem blatant, some are simple concepts that multiple people could surely have come up with. But the question is whether a big agency jacking another big agency's ad is a sign of lack of creativity or just an idea that was too good to pass up. This site speaks for itself. Oh, and it helps if you can read French.

Hey Ford, what's with your "borrowed" concept for the latest commercial for the Focus?

Jossip sez that during last night's American Idol on FOX, an ad for the Ford Focus came on that showed a driver refusing to go back to the car dealership while on a test drive. Sure seems familiar, right? It should. Volkswagen has been running a spot called "Autobahn" where a guy loves how the Jetta "holds the road" while driving on the highway, and makes a point to stick to the left lane to keep from having to return the car.  You can see the original ad on the Volkswagen website. 

It's confirmed. It looks like the hallucinogens have gotten out of control with advertising campaigns. 

This time, it's Moen (the faucet folks) who have bought the colorful silly bug with their "Wowie Zowie" spot. Though Moen is throwing a bit of a jab at other advertisers in various genres who try and only take hold of what is new and trendy, it's still somewhat copycattish. The ad, by MARC USA, features people wearing all sorts of clothing and accessories that were cool once, but have since dropped off the planet. I hestitate to believe that huge white leather chaps were ever "trendy" with the public, but what do I know.

But seriously - Moen is trying to point out that while others might stick with trend and flash in order to make a sale, they are sticking to comfortable designs that make your life better - not trendier.

During last night's "The Apprentice" on NBC, Papa John's participated in a bit of guerilla marketing via a traditional means - a TV spot.  The product placement reality show had contestants coming up with novel pizza ideas for Domino's, who ended up kicking off their new "American Classic Cheeseburger Pizza" with new advertisements - people can purchase this pizza today from Domino's locations (where available, probably).  But let's leave Domino's alone for a moment.

The folks from Papa John's seized the show's content to launch a new product of their own - the new "Spicy Meatball Pizza."  The chain's website currently features text that states "Why eat a pizza made by APPRENTICES when you can call the PROS at Papa John's?" on the front page, plus a few comments making a dig at the "other national pizza chain."  You can view (it's not downloadable) a WMV file of the :30 spot, which features founder John Schnatter sitting in a leather chair in a boardroom telling you to "fire" the other pizza place.

[Thanks, Kevin!]

SiliconValleyWatcher's Tom Foremski posted Monday about what looks to be a "competitor" for Google AdSense out of the Yahoo! shop.  The proof at this point is in ads that are coming up on a Yahoo! staffer's weblog, sourced from "ypn.overture.com."  This all originated from Andy Baio's waxy.org, where he wrote about this back in February 28 - but based on some of the back and forth in the comments and knowledge that he and others have, it looks like a distinct possibility.  It only makes sense, right?