Marketing

The Pro-Junk Mail Lobby: Fighting to Sustain the Unsustainable?

by Anne Landman — April 9, 2008 - 5:31pm
  • Topics: Advertising, Corporate Campaigns, Front Groups, Third Party Technique, Corporations, Environment, Ethics, Marketing

    • Junk mail kills trees, clogs mailboxes, packs landfills, wastes natural resources, and everyone would be glad to be rid of it. Right?

    Well, maybe not.

    Whether out of environmental concern or sheer annoyance, legislated efforts to reduce junk mail are on the rise, but companies that have vested interests in its continuance have started organizing to save it--in a big way. Of course, they don't call it junk mail. Their preferred euphemisms are "advertising mail," "direct mail" or even "standard mail."

    New Participatory Project: Maximum Weirdness: Tobacco Industry Brainstorming Documents

    by Anne Landman — April 7, 2008 - 2:25pm

    A rock cocaine cigarette filter? A cigarette that delivers birth control and sexual stimulant drugs to the smoker at the same time? A geriatric brand? All of these are actual ideas for new products and promotions that were recorded at cigarette company "brainstorming" meetings.

    Main Source: 
    Tobaccowiki.org, April 7, 2008

    Medialink's 'Fake News' Financial Woes

    by Bob Burton — April 2, 2008 - 12:30am

    The giant of the fake news business, Medialink Worldwide, has fallen out of favor with investors. In the last year the company's share price has plummeted from $5.81 to its current level around the $1.70 mark. In its latest annual report, the company glumly states that sales in 2007 in the U.S.

    Main Source: 
    Medialink Worldwide Annual Report (pdf), March 31, 2008

    Lavishing Doctors with Drug Money

    by Bob Burton — April 1, 2008 - 10:16pm

    Medicines Australia (MA), the peak drug industry lobby group, has unveiled details of how much its 42 member companies (and one non-member) spent in the last half of 2007 on each one of over 14,000 events that were designed to promote their drugs to doctors.

    Main Source: 
    Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), March 29, 2008

    Pricing Doctors

    by Bob Burton — March 25, 2008 - 2:39pm

    A proposal before the Massachusetts state Senate to ban drug company gifts to doctors is generating controversy. "To imply that doctors who have invested years and tens of thousands of dollars in their profession can be bought with a dinner or a package of Post-its is beneath contempt," wrote the husband of one doctor. But Dr. Daniel J.

    Main Source: 
    Boston Globe, March 19, 2008

    This Is Your Brain on Logos

    by Diane Farsetta — March 20, 2008 - 2:21pm

    Subliminal advertising may be "more effective than regular advertising, because people don't have time to raise their anti-ad defenses," according to a new study.

    Main Source: 
    CNET News, March 19, 2008

    A Star Is Born: Spitzer's Downfall Gives Rise to Ashley Alexandra Dupré

    by John Stauber — March 13, 2008 - 10:21am

    In the brave new world of seemingly everyone having a MySpace page, publicity over alleged prostitution gave rise to a new online star at MySpace.

    Main Source: 
    MySpace.com, March 13, 2008

    Group Blogging for the Man (and Fleishman-Hillard)

    by Diane Farsetta — March 5, 2008 - 4:07pm

    Under the banner "a marketplace of ideas," major industry groups are blogging together, to "build influence and drive policy." The BizCentral blog includes the American Petroleum Institute, Business Roundtable,

    Main Source: 
    Politico.com, March 3, 2008
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