Tough Times Put Cheap Ads in Prime Time

Kotex commercials aim for a bit more reality

(NEWSER) - Tampon ads make your period seem downright fun, typically featuring girls clad in white, twirling around on the beach or perhaps doing yoga. One tampon company, however, is calling those ads what they are: ridiculous. “How do I feel about my period? I love it,” says the woman featured in a new Kotex commercial. “Sometimes I just want to run on a beach,” she continues, as clips from old, stereotypical Kotex ads are shown. “Usually, by the third day, I really just want to dance.” More»

Heiress' behavior actually tame, but ad that may be pulled

(NEWSER) - Apparently Brazil hasn't seen many photos of Paris Hilton, because an official has objected to a commercial that's surprisingly tame—for her. View the ad for Devassa beer, which features a fully clothed Hilton vamping provocatively in a high-rise window, in the gallery. For the sake of contrast, you can also watch a bikini-clad Hilton washing a car and eating a burger…an ad Brazil’s Secretariat for Women’s Affairs must not have seen. More»

From crapping bears to creepy wind-up dolls, these ads flopped

(NEWSER) - If Hollywood makes a successor to Mad Men is set in this decade, some ads are going to seem really strange. For example, our prescription medicine spots, which already seem comical, will absolutely dumbfound people of the future, writes Seth Stevenson for Slate . And that’s before we get into the pooping bears. Watch some of the worst ads of the year, as selected by Slate readers. Enjoy? More»

Advertisers to paste commercials on sides of screen

(NEWSER) - A new strategy aims to grab the attention of viewers now using DVR to skip commercial breaks: in tests, so-called “in-show ads” are run on the top or bottom of the screen—and even on occasion in the middle—during the action, Advertising Age reports. Execs are betting that Americans today have the “capacity to accept multiple messaging all at once.” Early results are encouraging, they say: ads run in a crawl at the bottom of the screen during NASCAR coverage did significantly better than spots. More»

(NEWSER) - Many of the As Seen on TV goods hawked by the late Billy Mays were reviewed in the pages of Popular Mechanics; Harry Sawyers runs down the bellowing talent's top five infomercial products.

1. Hercules Hook: A heavy painting and a sack of books were no match for a hollow-wall anchor that Mays touted as "super strong."
2. Mighty Putty: Despite its innocent appearance as a two-part plumber’s epoxy, Mighty Putty managed to pull an 80,000-pound trailer, as demonstrated by Billy.