Stunts: Colonel Sanders Goes To The UN, Fake Meteorite Goes Down In Flames

KFC’s Colonel Sanders and the UN
Apparently, if you dress like Kentucky Fried Chicken‘s Col. Sanders, you can get in anywhere. An actor wearing “the fast food icon’s familiar white suit and black bow tie” was able to “gain access to the restricted areas” of the U.N. headquarters in New York and even meet Ali Treki, president of the U.N. General Assembly. KFC is “lobbying” the U.N. for “the fictional Grilled Nation to be accepted as a member state” as part of its campaign promoting its new menu. Officials attributed the fake Sanders gaining so much access to a “lapse in security.”

Meteorite stunt goes down in flames
A publicity campaign involving a hoax meteorite in Latvia has backfired spectacularly with the Swedish telecoms company behind the stunt losing a government contract. Tele2 has admitted that it staged a meteorite crash in the Latvian countryside, resulting in a 10-metre wide crater. Emergency services attended the scene followed by scientists, who quickly identified that the meteorite was a hoax.

Penguin Hardcover Classics

Penguin books senior cover designer Coralie Bickford-Smith’s intricately patterned hardback classics will hit the U.S. tomorrow. The series was originally released in the U.K. last fall and distributed exclusively through Waterstones.

Icons: Lee Clow, Marge Simpson

Lee Clow’s Had Enough?

It seems that Agencyspy is never in short supply of TBWA drama lately. As an addendum to this morning’s news of Jason Nichols and (possibly) Joe Shands’ exits, the latest scoop from Chiat LA-la-land is that Lee Clow himself is now stepping in to sort out the Nissan/Infiniti account, leaving GCD Kerry Feuerman “relegated to retail style ads for Nissan” according to tipsters. AgencySpy is hearing that Clow is intent on “cleaning up the lackluster work of the GCD and mass exodus of top Nissan creatives because of lack of confidence.”

Marge Simpson Playboy centrefold hits the newsstand

A special edition of Playboy, celebrating 20 years of The Simpsons, goes on sale today featuring Marge Simpson on the cover, the first time the magazine has featured an animated character as a centrefold. The Playboy cover illustration is designed to emulate a famous cover from 1971, while the feature inside takes the familiar form of standard centrefold images. There is also a “handwritten” resume in which Marge lists her turn-ons as “enough saucers for your cups”, while “men who work out regularly and take care of their bodies” are included in her turn-offs.

Marge Simpson is on the cover of Playboy next month (tvsquad.com)
Marge Simpson bares all for Playboy (network.nationalpost.com)
Marge Simpson on the Cover of Playboy (manolith.com)
Marge Simpson graces Playboy cover (cnn.com)
Marge Simpson Poses For Playboy (entertainment.slashdot.org)
Marge gracing Playboy mag cover (news.bbc.co.uk)
Playboy’s newest cover girl: Marge Simpson (inquisitr.com)
The Simpsons: The Great Wife Hope (tvsquad.com)
Marge Simpson Shows Her Ta-Tas In ‘Playboy’ Magazine (pinkisthenewblog.com)
Marge Simpson In Playboy (mediabistro.com)
Marge Simpson, Playboy Centerfold? (takepart.com)
You’ll Never Guess Who’s Going To Be On The Cover Of Playboy Next Month!! (perezhilton.com)

Charmin – Enjoy The Go

Charmin “Enjoy The Go” … are they taking the piss? Charmin are building their customary toilets in Times Square, and adding a Social Media spin. They are seeking staff to “Greet and entertain bathroom guests then blog about the experience. All candidates must really, really enjoy going to the bathroom”. Christ!

Do I detect the hand of Ryan at Gigunda in all this?

Books: Stephen King’s Treasure Hunt, Publishers’ Digital Aspirations

Stephen King’s Treasure Hunt
Stephen King’s latest epic is not due to be released until 10 November, but his UK publisher Hodder & Stoughton working with Unity London has launched what it describes as the biggest ever game of literary hide-and-seek. This enables hardcore horror fans to get their hands on it early… as long as they don’t mind a bit of interweb and real world treasure hunting. The 335,114 word novel has been broken down into 5,196 pieces, and, using clues given on the homepage participants are encouraged to hunt them down and deliver them back to the site. These extracts have been scattered across hundreds of websites and locations throughout the UK, including fan, horror, thriller and lifestyle websites. As pieces are found they will appear on www.stephenking.co.uk enabling fans to move them around and link them together, gradually forming bigger sections of the book.

Off the Page

The Kindle may not necessarily be the e-reader to bring the technology into the mainstream. That said, publishers seem increasingly certain that the print medium may be in jeopardy, and so many are already experimenting with new multimedia technological enhancements, including FLIPS and Vooks

Stephen King’s New E-Book To Cost $35 (huffingtonpost.com)

Alcohol: Kraken Rum Gets Integrated, Absolut Goes Logoless, puts you in the Band

The Kraken Rum

The integrated campaign for rum brand Kraken from Brooklyn-based agency Dead As We Know It includes these web films that bring viewers face to beak with the rum’s legendary namesake. The campaign also includes a web site, book and print components.

ABSOLUT Vodka Goes Logoless for a New Campaign
ABSOLUT is going with the ever popular brandless branding for a new limited edition series of bottles. The Swedish vodka maker is going nearly labelless for new campaign against sexual prejudice. The bottles maintain their signature shape, with only a tiny removable sticker at the bottom to identifying alcohol content and volume.

Absolut: You’re with the band

Absolut is one of the brands that some people think better understands the concept of branded content, and this new site for their “Rock edition” vodka bottle, called “You’re with the band”, is another proof of that: a documentary made by Danny Clinch on how’s the life of a rock band such as Wolfmother (site by Great Works)

Brands & Marketers: Newcastle Brown departure, Kelloggs etchings, Microsoft clueless, DDR Nostalgia, Etsy’s Worst

Newcastle Brown Ale to move oot of Toon
In the same year that Newcastle United FC lost its top flight status, the Geordie Nation has suffered another blow with the announcement that the production of Newcastle Brown Ale is moving away from Tyneside after 82 years. Heineken, the Dutch brewer and owner of the iconic brew — affectionately nicknamed Dog — is shifting operations from Gateshead to the John Smith’s brewery in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, as part of a cost-cutting exercise that will save between £13-£14m. While the brand is synonymous with Tyneside, sales in the US now eclipse those in the UK. Exports of the distinctive 550ml bottles with the blue star logo account for about 105m pints a year, while around 55m pints are sold in the UK.

Kellogg’s to laser-brand individual Corn Flakes in fight against fakes
Kellogg’s is to start branding individual Corn Flakes with the company logo in a bid to protect against imitation products. The food giant plans to burn the Kellogg’s signature on to individual flakes using a laser and will then insert a proportion of these branded flakes into each box. If the system proves successful, it could be used on Kellogg’s other cereal products, including Frosties, Special K and Crunchy Nut.

Microsoft a “Bunch of Clueless Idiots,” Says Danger Source

“No one really grasps how dysfunctional Microsoft has become,” the source continues. “Yes Microsoft did spend half a billion dollars for, as near as anyone can tell, absolutely nothing [ie, Danger]. Not exactly the first time. Asserting that it’s a ridiculous supposition is in no way disproving it.”

East German Brands Benefit from Nostalgia

On Nov. 9, Germans will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and many of them will be raising a glass of the country’s most popular sparkling wine, Rotkaeppchen, as they toast the achievements of 1989. The name means Little Red Riding Hood, and the brand is one of many former German Democratic Republic products that have survived and thrived in a unified Germany, helped along by a wave of nostalgia — or “ostalgie” — for all things associated with its communist past, but maintained in the long term by good old-fashioned capitalist marketing principles.

RegrETSY: The 3 Worst Items on Etsy.com

Regretsy catalogs some of the worst pieces to found on Etsy.com, the online marketplace for would-be craft mavens. Etsy has created an online marketplace for crafty geniuses–small-time makers of beautiful objects who’d otherwise remain unknown. But not everything on Etsy is great. Not by a long-shot. And that’s why there’s Regretsy. Tagline: “Handmade? Looks like you made it with your feet.” Here’s just three of the gems they dug up, and their comments, in italics.

Apparel: Hipstery Mystery T-Shirt, Madmen Suits

Hipstery Mystery t-shirts

There are no t-shirt designs to choose from on Hipstery’s site. Instead, customers select a size, pay EUR 17 (plus shipping) and answer a series of questions about themselves. The Hipstery’s ‘style scientists’ run the responses to this quiz through their ‘innovative style algorithm’—both concepts which the site’s irreverent tone would lead us to interpret loosely—to select the right t-shirt from their exclusive range of designs, many of which are out-of-print shirts from small suppliers.

Be as Dapper as Draper in Your Own ‘Mad Men’ Suit

You can’t drink Patio diet cola anymore and you probably shouldn’t smoke in your office, but you can still live the “Mad Men” lifestyle by dressing in a new Brooks Brothers suit that is officially endorsed by that hit AMC drama. On Wednesday, Brooks Brothers announced that it would begin selling a limited-edition “Mad Men” suit, designed with the help of the show’s costume designer, Janie Bryant, and inspired by the tailoring favored by Don Draper and Roger Sterling.

Brooks Brothers Launches Mad Men Suit (shoppingblog.com)

Demographics: No such thing as Average American (but Boomers aren’t happy)

No More John Q Consumer in America

The 2010 Census is expected to find that 309 million people live in the United States. But one person will be missing: the average American. “The concept of an ‘average American’ is gone, probably forever,” demographics expert Peter Francese writes in 2010 America, a new Ad Age white paper. “The average American has been replaced by a complex, multidimensional society that defies simplistic labeling.” The message to marketers is clear: No single demographic, or even handful of demographics, neatly defines the nation. There is no such thing as “the American consumer.”

Baby Boomers in 50s Among Least Happy Americans

Young adults in their late teens and early 20s report the highest levels of happiness among all Americans, while their counterparts in their 50s and 80s are the least content, according an analysis of more than 600,000 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index interviews from 2008 and 2009. The research, which examined study participants’ answers to a series of questions about how often the feel happy, experience enjoyment, smile and laugh, found that while highest in early adulthood, happiness drops among Americans in their 30s and 40s, and – in particular – among those in their 50s. It then rises among Americans in their 60s, drops among those in their late 70s and 80s, and then rises again among those older than 90.

Possibly related:

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs Hot (myventurepad.com)
Tall people are happy (marginalrevolution.com)
Study finds people residing in poor communities not benefiting from recent drop in colorectal cancer (scienceblog.com)
Women, Boomers, and Growing a Careforce Through Healthcare Reform (healthcommentary.org)

Social Media Steak: Maloney & Porcelli Expenseasteak, Mo’ Bettah Facebook

Maloney & Porcelli Expense-A-Steak

Genius idea … definitely struck a chord with someone who worked in media in the 90s. (Neal Southwell, your tolerance was appreciated). Go to expenseasteak.com and fill in the obscenely large amount of your Maloney & Porcelli meal. Out will come a PDF of receipts for exactly that amount — innocuous (and extremely realistic) proof of purchases for taxis, panini lunches, office supplies, business books and so on. Accounting doesn’t ask why you’ve bought $700 worth of anti-static floor mats and toner? That’s their problem.

Steakhouse’s Facebook Success

Utah’s Mo’ Bettah Steaks restaurant opened a second location this year only because of Facebook. “It clearly increased our business,” says the co-owner, who initially joined social media to monitor his daughter. He now uses it to promote events and menu additions: “It was like a brick hitting me. I just realized it could be a powerful tool for the business.”