Hump day news

+ Rheingold beer goes after NYC policies and ticks off the mayor. From adweek.com: "If there is a company that has license to speak out and give commentary, it would be Rheingold because they've been here such a long time," says Neil Powell, founder of the New York shop and art director on the campaign. "They're speaking out against issues that affect New York City nightlife. Rather than doing a conventional campaign about low carbs or how great their hops are, we decided to use the advertising campaign as a platform for objecting to these laws."
From the suntimes.com: "On Monday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg blasted the beer maker after it announced it would begin airing television ads this week poking fun at various city laws, including the mayor's smoking ban in bars and restaurants."

+ The state of the advertising industry lately seems to be frantically trying to throw out as much as possible at consumers, including product placement in magazine text. It doesn't look like this would be a good idea (not that it ever could have been), especially after this article from the NY Times: (exerpt)

As the kingpins of Madison Avenue gather for a major annual meeting, there is further evidence of the growing challenge they confront in seeking to break through the cacophony of advertising that surrounds - and increasingly annoys - consumers.

At the 2004 management conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, which begins today in Miami, senior executives will learn the results of a survey of consumers conducted on behalf of the organization by Yankelovich Partners, the market research company. The survey, to be presented tomorrow at the opening general session of the conference, shows that the effectiveness of campaigns that agencies produce for marketers is deteriorating, said J. Walker Smith, president at Yankelovich, because "negative perceptions about advertising have substantially increased."

The survey findings are significant because industry executives are frantically searching for ways to forge more emotional connections with fractious, and fractionated, consumers that differ from conventional methods like running 30-second television commercials and print advertisements.

The risk posed by some of the new approaches, like placing sponsored brand messages or products in the entertainment content of programs or publications, is that consumers will consider such selling strategies even more obnoxious.

So apparently, something needs to be done. Consumers don't like being bashed over the head with marketing and unrelevant advertising messages. Something is going to have to be done to change the current way in which many marketers and advertisers view the role of advertising. There's been a lack of "integrity" in advertising, overall, for a while. It's time to make changes to fix the problem.

+ Adweek takes a look at commercials playing up on consumer's sense of smell. One they omitted in their list is the campaign for Fabreeze. Lots of sniffing going on in those ads.