National Post

npostlife:

When mayonnaise went mainstream: 100 years of Hellman’s history rolls out in largest-ever ad campaign
Mario Batali is taking us back in time with some blue ribbon recipes that include Hellman’s, including the odd but amazing super moist chocolate cake.
[Photo credit: Handout/AP]

New Bic pens ‘for her’ spark online ridicule: “ask your husband for some extra pocket money so you can buy one today!”
Consumer product giant Bic, which has long differentiated its razors by gender, has discovered that marketing differently to men and women doesn’t necessarily go quite as smoothly when it comes to another signature product: Pens.

The company’s “Bic Cristal for Her” line of writing instruments — which boast a “sleek pen silhouette and jeweled accents [that] add style,” plus a thinner design “for a better handling for women,” and come in bright colours including pink and purple — are drawing criticism and ridicule from women who consider the campaign condescending and reliant on outdated concepts of femininity.

The products were introduced to the Canadian market in late 2011, but the growing number of derisive customer reviews of the gender-specific pens on Amazon.com are turning Bic’s marketing brainwave into a mockery.

Jeannie Marshall: The pervasiveness of junk food advertising to children
In an excerpt from Outside The Box, Jeannie Marshall describes her efforts to shield her son from the lure of ‘packaged cakes, chocolate bars, cookies, yogurt-like products and ice cream’:

We have to be on guard to protect our children against so many potentially destructive intrusions into their lives, yet food marketing that goes directly to children often slips in at their level, where we don’t even see it. Even when we do see it, it’s astonishing how little we can do about it. If a well-dressed man in the park persistently offered sweets to your child, ignoring your requests for him to stop, I’m sure you would scoop up your child and leave the park. I’m fairly certain everyone in the park would run the man out. Yet there are men and women offering candy and food products to our children all day long. We let them into our houses through the television, radio, Internet and DVDs we let our children watch instead of commercial TV. They beckon our children to follow them, they offer them sweet and savoury delights and they promise never to say no the way that grouchy old parents do. (Illustration by Andrew Barr)

Photos: United Color of Benetton’s Controversial Unhate Campaign
Benetton said on Wednesday that it was pulling a photo montage of the pope kissing Egypt’s Sheikh al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb that was part of a new global ad campaign and that had outraged the Vatican.

nationalpostsports:

London Rippers baseball team denies reference to serial killer
And the worst sports team name of the year goes to …

Team president David Martin announced on Tuesday that their new (Ontario) Frontier Baseball League franchise, scheduled to start play in 2012 at Labatt Park, will be known as the London Rippers. As in, Jack the Ripper. They even have a shiny new mascot who looks like Jack holding a baseball bat. Photo: AM980 in London

The selling of OxyContin
While opioids had long been reserved primarily for terminal cancer patients, ads in medical journals touted OxyContin — with up to twice the potency of morphine — as a safer alternative to even Aspirin and Tylenol and good for anyone who needed pain relief for “several days” or more.

It was not long before OxyContin was being widely prescribed in the Vancouver area, notes Dr. Thomas Perry, a local physician-pharmacologist, in an affidavit filed in a Nova Scoita class-action lawsuit against Purdue. Sales accelerated across the country, soaring from $3-million in 1998 to $243-million last year, according to IMS-Brogan, which tracks drug trends.

“The biggest surprise for us in Canada at the time was how fast it took off,” said Dwain May, a former Purdue executive in Alberta.

“This campaign was amazingly successful,” said Dr. Mel Kahan, a University of Toronto addiction expert. “It was probably the most successful marketing campaign in history as far as I know for any class of drug.”

What happened next is now common knowledge, though the full extent of the “Hillbilly heroin’s” dark side has only recently become apparent. Addiction to the “low-abuse” drug — and other, similar opioid painkillers — has reached near-epidemic proportions, with 140 people a year in Ontario alone dying from overdoses related to the drug, more than are killed in drowning mishaps, according to the province’s coroner. Victims include street users, people taking what their doctor prescribed and those getting OxyContin from both legal and underground sources. (Photo: Jeff Siner/Chartlotte Observer)

Paint colours given masculine makeover
Real men don’t paint their basements in Butterscotch Tempest. They colour the walls with Beer Time.

The original names were geared toward women, just as nail polishes are marketed with witty shade names (Essie’s “Ballet Slippers,” “Not Just a Pretty Face,” and “Sole Mate,” for example).

“When it comes to paint names, it’s all about the emotional connection and our research shows that men and women tend to relate to paint names differently,” Alison Goldman, a spokeswoman for CIL Paints, says.

‘‘Studies show that while a larger percentage of women tend to choose paint colours for their home, it’s often men who give the colours a final nod.”

The Michelin Man walks with other advertising mascots after being inducted in the New York Advertising Week’s Walk of Fame as its “Icon of the Year”, on its 113th birthday, in New York, October 4, 2011. (Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

TTC rejects cheeky ad featuring Moses in a revealing position
The TTC has rejected a mischievous Toronto Jewish Film Festival ad that depicts Moses inadvertently flashing pixilated genitals while exiting a limousine.

The ad, an ersatz homage to Britney Spears and other underdressed celebrities, is part of a series of Moses-themed ads for the festival, which runs May 7-15.

Mad Men on the rocks as AMC, Weiner spar over contract
Negotiations between AMC and Mad Men creator Matt Weiner have been so tough that the show may not see a fifth season, according to reports.

UPDATE: Deadline Hollywood is now reporting that AMC has greenlit Mad Men‘s fifth season, despite still not having reached an agreement with Weiner over the below stipulations. Because AMC, and Mad Men producers Lionsgate TV, have not yet reached a deal with Weiner, the show’s premiere has been pushed from its usual late-summer date to early 2012.