So, BUZZWATER’s caffeine-laden product is still MIA from store shelves, but their website got an overhaul since last I checked up on them:

WWW.BUZZWATER.COM

The website actually doesn’t load for me, but there is some humorous scrolling text at the top of the screen:

The BUZZWATER Site Loading This Is An Audio And Spoken Narrative Site This Site Contains Music On All Pages From BUZZWATER “Times Eye To The Worlds Greatest Nervous Breakdown Of Our MInds” By CALAVATIVA GIGANTEiE “The BUZZWATER Co.” The Worlds Most Potent Beverages Ever Bottled On This Planet The Worlds Number 1 Healthier Choice

Anyone know? Like, is everyone getting a crap ton of wedding-related ads fed to them on their Facebook accounts recently, or am I because I’m 25 and female and they’ve implemented a ads system that knows that I’m likely to care about weddings around now? WeddingWire ads about name changes? MissNowMrs.com? Show of hands? It’s gotta be targeted. Boys? Am I right? I wonder what the parameters are, if it’s age and gender dependent… if having completed undergraduate or not makes a difference. The possibilities!

I strongly dislike when social networks are designed such that they allow for data mining. That was my problem with the Tribe redesign, that was my problem with MySpace, and now that’s my problem with Facebook. Basic personal information has never been self-proprietary, really, but a system through which it can be very easily accessed and sorted, I don’t like.

And a lot of Facebook is designed such that it makes it very difficult to un-provide information. I noticed a long time ago that content that is deleted doesn’t appear to actually get deleted, at least immediately, which could be just server lag or could be intentional… I know of other social network sites that stored deleted information just because the network designer was an OCD information nut. (Not that I don’t appreciate information hoarders.) Things like graduation are hard to take back without deleting your account. Name changes need approval. I don’t think it’s possible to change your birth year.

If anyone knows someone who works for Facebook and would be willing to talk to me, I’m not interested in publicizing anything, I’m just personally curious. I realize the information is sensitive.

I miss reporting a little. I want a distraction.

I’m fasting for 24 hours as of 7pm tonight. Tea is okay. I’m not 100 percent on why, but it felt like the thing to do all of a sudden.

My life is improbably, flukishly fantastic, really, and a surplus of privilege can cause a person to take the good things for granted. People sometimes focus on what’s missing or wrong, and I don’t want to let myself get sucked into that line of thought.

So I think that’s what’s up with the fasting. Even if that’s not it and there’s no good reason for this particular impulse, rolling with it hurts no one, so rock, awesome, here I go.

I noticed this week that a series of radio ads in Rochester pitch products as being ideal for my “lifestyle.” Which made me wonder, what kind of lifestyle is mine exactly? On-the-go? Modern? Active? Eco-friendly? Sure, and, of course, those are the ones from the ads. But those aren’t the ones I would have come up with unsupervised. If forced, the best I could do with a single word: experimental.

This is old news in the blogointernetoweb, but a clever publicist had the keen idea of transforming just under a dozen 7-Eleven convenience stores into Kwik-E-Marts to promote The Simpsons Movie. One of them is less than five miles away from me in Mountainview, but before I could get over there, Jensen blogged about his trip to the one in Burbank.

Check out Jensen’s blog post here and his photos below for details.

I saw this Burberry window display in Orange County’s South Coast Plaza and found it curious. It features two collegiate manboys lustily admiring a Burberry-wearing coed in braces.

I’ve read Nabokov and Ginsberg, and it’s not like I find the concept shocking or even entirely repulsive. Cheap? Sure. Distasteful? You bet. But mostly I find it confusing. Who is this targeting? Men who love girls? Girls who want to be loved by men?

I suspect this display aims to induce anxiety in female shoppers. I mean, what woman wasn’t insecure as a flat-chested, metal-mouthed scamp? I wonder if Burberry hopes insecurity might drive South Coast’s finest into ameliorating bruised egos with expensive scarves and purses. Just look, the awkward youth on the display is wanted! (Maybe you will be too, if you buy that coat.)

And South Coast’s patrons can afford it. South Coast Plaza, the largest mall in Orange County at 2.8 million square feet, has infamously prodigal patrons. It has the highest annual sales per square foot of any mall in California—an estimated $800—according to a 2006 Women’s Wear Daily article. The mall generates more than a billion dollars in annual revenue, making it the highest-volume mall in the United States.

South Coast boasts one or two of every store I can think of, and then a bunch more. Plus the South Coast Repertory Theater, three commercial art galleries, and the Orange Lounge offshoot of the Orange County Museum of Art. It’s huge. Monumental. Busses of Japanese tourists are dumped here daily. And they take pictures in front of it and then blow lots and lots of yen.

So I suppose Burberry’s use of manipulative advertising doesn’t hurt patrons financially. I also know Burberry’s advertising is all about the waif look (à la spokeswaif Kate Moss), and I know prepubescent girls are waif-like in nature. But braces? I feel like this ad is pushing it.

I’m actually surprised no one’s voiced concerns in conservative Orange County. There’s outrage over dinosaurs, but not over the eroticism and commodification of innocents in training bras?

I worry about the effect this sort of thing has on all the young girls who shop at South Coast. A bunch of South Coast’s teenaged regulars attend a nearby high school and, just last year, picked the theme “Moulin Rouge” for their winter formal. No one batted an eyelash. Related?

At least this gives Kyle one more reason to hate on the trademarked plaid.

Sick of shelling out a Lincoln for your favorite magazine only to find it packed full of more ads that content? Well, now you can fight back, with this simple and fun DIY jam!

Are You Generic has designed a snarky little insert for you to print out and stick into all your ad-heavy magazines. The printable inserts read:

“The confessions of a generic magazine: ‘We loaded this issue with more advertising than content. The content we did publish was edited, censored and manipulated to please our advertisers or as lame filler between the product pushing ads. We got paid quite handsomely to produce this issue and are glad you will pay to read what we already got paid to print.’ Are You Generic?”

Yeah, I know, you’re subtly advertising the anti-advertising group by using their inserts, but if you’re going to be that picky, you can design your own!

Link (via Are Your Generic?)

There are giant cups of coffee on the streets of New York! Or, at least, it looks like there are, thanks to design agency Saatchi & Saatchi New York. The ad campaign for Folgers Coffee utilizes steaming manhole covers and turns them into what appear to be steaming cups of coffee! How great is that?

Mmmm, coffee. In related news, coffee makes you smarter.

Link (via Coloribus)

Advertising agence DDB Canada designed a very clever ad campaign for Toronto Plastic Surgery that depicts beautiful noses on cups. The effect, of course, only works when the drinker holds the cup the right way to drink, but it’s a unique concept nonetheless.

Link (via Advertising/Design Goodness)

Another great ad from UNICEF, this one a commercial advocating education for women in Islamic countries.

From UNICEF’s website:

“UNICEF’s aim is to get more girls into school, ensure that they stay in school and that they are equipped with the basic tools they need to succeed in later life. As part of its on-going efforts to ensure every girl and boy their right to an education, UNICEF’s acceleration strategy is speeding progress in girls’ enrolment in 25 selected countries during the 2002-2005 period.”

Credits:

CD: Joachim Glawion, Patrik Partl
AD/Concept: Tolga Büyükdoganay
Text: Patrik Partl, Joachim Glawion
Director: Linus Ewers
Production Company: PPM Film

Link (via AdverBox)

This image is from a series of ads produced by UNICEF to discourage the purchase and wear of goods produced by children in sweatshops.

The ads are both clever and poignant. They depict clothing items with cartoon images depicting the child labour that made them possible.

For more information on child labour or UNICEF’s efforts to combat it, visit their website here.

Link (via AdverBox)

Best Rejected Advertising Vol. 3 is a web compilation of material from the books published by Klaus Zwangsleitner through Berlin Press, plus some new material.

A description of the project from the website:

“Best Rejected Advertising was the first book to publish ads that had been turned down. The previous two volumes selected only campaigns that were rejected by clients on aesthetic, commercial or strategic grounds. Volume Three is expanded by a section of campaigns cancelled by advertising standards authorities on grounds of decency rules and ethics. This website provides information about the Best Rejected Advertising competition, features examples from the earlier volumes and gives a look at material from the forthcoming Volume Three.”

Some of these ads are brilliant. The one pictured was part of a planned Body Shop ad campaign that featured a realistic-looking “Barbie” doll. The campaign was abandoned when Mattel threatened to sue.

Link