Advertising

On today's show: 

• This Popular Donate Life Ad Was Made for Free - with Tony Case, Executive Editor of AdWeek
• Curate - Listen to this story again at PRX.org
• Why Fat Shaming Doesn't Work and Makes Losing Weight Harder with Alex Orlov from Mic.com
• The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan

All the annual hoopla about Super Bowl ad sales is a little different this year, since sales are way down. On today’s show we’ll look into what that says about media and politics.

Plus, time is money, it heals all wounds, it even flies. We'll speak with the author of a new book who investigates our perception of time, and how it affects our minds, our culture, and our bodies—often in ways you would never expect.

And, a new episode of the 10-Minute Writers Workshop with Caitlin Moran.

With every internet search come the annoying ads…popping up to obscure your view, streaming sound, or moving around distractingly in the corner. But can the internet survive without them? Today, what a new wave of ad blockers will mean for the future of the internet. Then, for a long time, being a Red Sox fan was to be an outsider, hardcore. That hard living, punk attitude motivated a group of teenagers to produce the most popular, and aggressive, T-shirt in Boston history. We’ll hear the Hollywood-worthy story behind the “Yankees Suck” t-shirt.

The first Star Wars film may have been released 37 years ago, but its hold on the popular imagination remains as strong as Darth Vader’s death-grip. On today’s show, a look at the role fandom has played in the success of the Star Wars franchise.

Plus, from data collection to the latest internet tracking technology, online advertisers go to great lengths to find out who we are and what we like. We’ll enter the world of intelligent marketing to find out just how much, or little, they really know about us.

Listen to the full show and click Read more for individual segments.

Here’s a statement about campaign advertising that may surprise you even if you’ve seen the influx of ads on TV and online video sites: “Candidates, parties and groups ran at least 10,300 TV ads in the New Hampshire U.S. Senate race.”

That statement comes from a project called “Who’s Buying the Senate?”

Think juice fasts are tough? Try blood-letting. On today's show, we’ll hear about some of the alternative medical treatments of the nineteenth century and how they laid the groundwork for modern medicine. Plus, we take a look at the funniest and most culturally resonant examples of product placement from the last ten years.

Listen to the full show and Read more for individual segments.

In a world filled with tough news, we’ve come to expect our weather updates to include a bit of comic relief. But is it time for them to sober up?  Today we’re challenging our expectations with the case against kooky weather-reporters. And, amid calls to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns, we’ll hear a challenge to the notion that health-care professionals can weed out America’s killers. Plus, we take a look at the funniest and most culturally resonant examples of product placement from the last ten years.

Listen to the full show and click Read more for individual segments.

The relatively unknown song "Daylight" by Brooklyn-based band Matt and Kim was featured in a 2009 Bacardi commercial, and by the following year went gold, selling over 500 thousand copies and sweeping Matt and Kim into the mainstream. Not so long ago, selling your music to ad agencies was considered the lowest form of selling out, a sure-fire way to lose hard-core fans. Today many musicians see it as the only way to make a living. And fans, for the most part, seem to be turning a blind eye. 

In 1978, a message about a new word processing system went out to about 400 users of Arpa-net…that’s the U.S. Government sponsored progenitor of the World Wide Web.  It was the first example of what we now know too well as internet spam. In 1978, the mad men era was snuffing out its last cigarette, the seeds of celebrity endorsements were bursting open, and dawn was about to break on digital. That same year, Ad Week launched.  The publication is marking its 35th anniversary with a look at some pivotal, shocking and subtle moments in the advertising industry.  

David Griner is a contributing editor at AdWeek.

Anthropology translates literally to the “science of humanity." We tend to think of it as a field that seeks to answer the big questions about what makes us human. A number of consultant anthopologists are seeking to answer queries that appear somewhat less profound. For example, consulting firms like ReD Associates use field research and ethnography to figure out (among other things) how people are drinking Absolut vodka at house parties.  Their services offer corporate clients a deeper understanding of consumer behavior through these anthropological methods, which presents a challenge to a traditionally academic arena with its own code of ethics and standards.

Personalized, addressable ads are finally hitting our televisions. Ad Age's Brian Steinberg explains how they're doing something that seems a little too Minority Report to be true.

And, some feedback about a listener about our coverage of the non-coverage of the Paralympics.

Independent producer John Lynch explores the increasing role of big-budget advertising in seducing the 30-something gamer generation to support the industry's Hollywood level profits.