• A combination of cheap kid's meals and Xbox games means increased same-store sales for Burger King compared to last year, which has executives in the company doing a more than a little embarrassing happy dance in the corporate hallways. While busting a move they're also prepping for the launch of their breakfast value meal, which they're hoping will lead to more happy dancing.
• Saatchi went a courtin' they did right....hambone. Saatchi went a courtin' they did right...hambone. Saatchi went a courtin' they did right, the Wendy's account is out of sight, Saatchi went a courtin' they did right...hambone.
  
• Pampered pups get park promotion. The story about high end canine fashion earns my eternal gratitude for including the phrases "doggy style" and "rich bitch."
  

• If you rub some of the ads the Wall Street Journal is planning to run then you'll be able to smell them. The paper promises that the scented ads will be much classier than the fragrance inserts in glossy magazines.
• It's hard to figure out what the actual advertising angle is to this story about the tabloids coverage of Jennifer Aniston's rumored nose and boob job. Seriously - can anyone tell me how this is news?
• If you like to shop in New Jersey (and who doesn't) you're probably looking forward to the 2008 opening of the Xanadu Meadowlands retail complex (read: mall). To finance the construction it's offering $2.5 billion in naming rights to different areas within the mall.

So many dumb moments in business, so little time. But Business 2.0 mag has their picks for the 101 dumbest of 2006.

Wal-Mart is #1, for hiring a big firm to create their "Candidate Wal-Mart" campaign. #2 is Northwest Airlines, for giving their employees a "How To Save Money" booklet after laying them off. #3 is the contest McDonald's held in Japan, with the winners getting free mp3 players with a virus on them. The rest of the top 10 are GM, Kazakhstan, Steve Wynn, The New York Times, Spirit Air, Porter County, and Comcast.

There are 101 in all, so grab a hot beverage and get comfortable. You can't see the entire list on one page, which is a little annoying, but there is a handy scroll function at the bottom.

You might recall a post I wrote earlier this month about the British band 7 Seconds of Love. Lead singer Joel Veitch, he of the odd little Web site RatherGood.com and the mind behind those fun but creepy "sponge monkey" commercials for Quiznos, was upset about a South American ad for Coca-Cola that copied the band's song "Ninja" and the music video Veitch himself created for it.

Well, the band sued and Coca-Cola is now going out of business. Wait, I'm sorry, that's not what happened at all. Actually, the band and Coca-Cola settled out of court, and the ad for Coke Light has been pulled from television. If nothing else, this was a nice little bit of publicity for the band.

• Miller Brewing Company has gotten tired of waiting for the "Man Laws" campaign to turn around sales and has decided to ditch the effort. It was originally created this past Spring by Crispin Porter & Bogusky but did not manage to turn around declining sales numbers.
• TBWA/Chiat/Day has decided not to keep going in the review process for Sprint's creative work. The agency will continue to handle some work for the cell phone company though. Incumbent agency Publicis & Hal Riney is still in it.
• A number of agencies are moving away from the "get paid by the hour" billing format and instead are working with their clients to structure compensation around creative work and other, more partnership oriented arrangements. The approach was first adopted by CP&B.
  

• VNU is no longer VNU. It's now going under the name of Nielsen as a way to more closely associate the company with its best known for. All the various business units will adopt the re-branding over the course of this year.
  
• The question asked in the title of this article is Will Google/CBS Start an Online Media-Buying Auction? The answer, of course, is yes. When Google's system goes live it will give online media buying for TV legitimacy and will lead to more adoption.
• The Chandler Family, which sold the Times-Mirror Co. to Tribune Co. seven years ago, has now put in a bid for the Tribune as the company seeks to...I'm not even sure what their goal is. The $31.70/share they're offering is just barely over the $30.95/share the company is currently trading at.
• Wow. 289 staffers were laid off at Time today.

• The commute into work for Time staffers had to be nerve-wracking to say the least. That's because today is the day that between 150 and 250 of those staffers are going to be told they've been let go as the company seeks to trim operating costs.
  
• Even though they named "The Consumer" as their Agency of the Year, AdAge takes some time to recognize some of the great work actual agencies did in 2006. That's very nice of them, I think.
  
• 2007 is going to be a rough year for marketers who target kids. That goes for food marketers especially but a number of other industries are going to wind up being scrutinized as well.

• Behavioral targeting networks are just going to get bigger as advertisers look to, well, track how people are behaving across a network of websites. For example, Dow Jones has switched to Tacoda to handle its profiling.
• Yes, the web is for entertainment as well as info and search. Anyone who has spent hours on YouTube watching "Robot Chicken" clips could have told you that.
• Memo to Apple: The iPhone still needs to have a marketing campaign behind it in order for it to be successful.

Continue reading AdAge In Another Couple of Minutes

There's not a lot in this world that's funnier than one language loosely translated into another language. If you've ever purchased a toy produced in Japan, you know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you can guess what the instructions are saying, and other times something just gets lost in the translation.

Here's a great example of what I'm talking about. Zompist hilariously dissects the packaging on what appears to be a plastic train set for preschool-age kids. It has the same bad translation from Japanese to English, which is understandable, but what's a little harder to explain is why the cover includes a laughing demon and dripping blood. I can only guess, but I think the package is telling children to appreciate their precious youth, for the twisted face of death peers over their shoulders at all times. Heavy, yes, but kids should know the edge of the Great Abyss is always just a heartbeat away, and no plastic train set is going to change that.

[via Boing Boing]

First there was Cocaine the energy drink. Now there's Meth coffee. The new coffee shop in San Francisco offers high-caffeine coffee that includes yerba mate, a natural stimulant used by shamans in the Amazon for increased energy and more of a philosophical buzz.. I'm not sure I buy all that, but I don't drink coffee, either.

"Meth Coffee" was created by an anarchist and conspiracy theorist who goes by the name "The Roaster." Seems somewhat silly to me, but I guess we'll see where the concept takes him.

• CBS is negotiating with Google about a variety of things, including how the network might put their content on Google Video and how CBS radio stations might begin using Google Audio to sell ad inventory.
• Hearst Magazine president Cathleen P. Black says that while the company might have made some early mistakes in terms of web strategy there's still time to right the ship and make progress online.
  
• The Parents Television Council once again is warning advertisers to shun the increasingly violent programming on TV or, I don't know, the group will glare at them or something.

Continue reading AdAge Consumes 60 More Seconds of Your Life