Subject: Advertising

• Knock, Knock? Who's There? Banana-Seeker.

  A Houston, Texas, advertising agency called and emailed a couple of days ago. The art department somehow found a photo of slightly overripe bananas on my blog, Tupperware Avalanche, and wanted to use it. Turns out, they're an ad agency to the oil-and-gas industry with a client that buys assets off the books of such companies. My bananas were the ideal image for the copy, "Assets getting a little ripe? Maybe it's time to make some bread." It's true that I'm easily amused, but damn! That's a fu

  December 8, 2008

• Is the Economy So Bad You'd Endure a Hard-Sell Pitch for a Free Oil Change?

  So I'm surfing the Interweb last night and I come across this newly posted video ad for Downtown Nashville Nissan. As the extremely incredibly preternaturally perky and animated Jolene explains, you can get a complimentary oil change and tire rotation just for test-driving a car. Well wouldn't you know it, I'm due for an oil change, and I've personally felt the pinch brought on by our current economic meltdown. Not to mention, the new Tennessee unemployment figure (9.1%, as Pete Kotz noted e

  March 20, 2009

• The New Media Company

  A collection of The City Paper and other local publications are central to an ambitious publishing strategy

  April 17, 2008

• ‘You Come and See Us!’

  Conte pitches for Rivergate Toyota

  January 17, 2008

• Stop the Presses

  City Paper plans to move to an online-only model

  January 17, 2008

• High Fashion Folly

  A Nashville fashion magazine goes belly up, leaving employees and advertisers holding the bag

  September 27, 2007

• High Fashion Folly

  A Nashville fashion magazine goes belly up, leaving employees and advertisers holding the bag

  September 27, 2007

• Nice Guy Finishes First

  Dean beats Clement in electoral showdown between old and new Nashville

  September 13, 2007

• Inclement Bob

  Black leaders warn Clement attacks may backfire in the mayoral runoff

  August 9, 2007

• Big Mo in Mayor’s Race

  As Clement falters, Dean rises on strength of TV ads

  July 26, 2007

• Going for Broke

  Briley may put house on the line to keep campaign afloat while Gentry draws the race card

  July 12, 2007

• Anybody But Bob

  Should Dean or Briley drop out to save day the for progressives?

  June 21, 2007

• Howard’s End

  Lukewarm support from black preachers could doom Gentry’s candidacy

  May 24, 2007

• Mixing It Up

  In mayor’s race, Briley snipes at Dean and Gentry laughs at Clement

  April 26, 2007

• Money Chase

  Can anyone compete with Clement in TV ad wars?

  April 12, 2007

• Double Vision

  Dr. Wang is a respected physician, but the volume and substance of his advertising raises more than a few eyebrows

  January 30, 2003

• Public Art

  January 11, 2007

• WSIX Continues to Push Edge with Billboards

  Gerry House on a leash up next

  May 20, 2004

• Corker Detained by Border Patrol on Commercial Shoot

  Senate hopeful sent back to Tennessee under ‘catch and release politicians’ policy

  June 22, 2006

• The Hole Truth

  The Tennessean panders to conservatives and advertisers

  April 21, 2005

• Sex, Lies and Audiotape

  Metro Police arrest Scene employee after a yearlong undercover investigation

  December 23, 2004

• Dust to Dusty

  Candidate’s startling confessions good for the soul, maybe not the polls

  April 8, 2004

• State Parks Forced to Retool Ad

  “Risqué” imagery too similar to Levitra commercial

  February 19, 2004

• Crush of the Week

  February 19, 2004

• A Face In The Crowd

  September 26, 2002

• Bad Business

  The Tennessean plays hardball with clients and readers alike

  November 15, 2001

• Ad Infinitum

  BMW movies raise questions about commerce and film

  June 14, 2001

• Pop Quiz

  Herein, a test about the local media

  May 31, 2001

• Grading the Daily Part 5

  Making Money on the News

  May 24, 2001

• Smoke & Mirrors

  An internal Tennessean memo is riddled with lies

  April 19, 2001

• Taking ad-vantage

  June 22, 2000

• The Week That Was

  Woolly winter

  September 16, 1999

• Switcheroo

  December 17, 1998

• Watch and Wait

  October 15, 1998

• Racing downhill

  July 16, 1998

• The funnies

  April 30, 1998

• Name game

  April 16, 1998

• Hype-notized

  May 1, 1997

• Desperately Seeking the News

  November 14, 1996

• Political Notes

  October 31, 1996

• Desperately Seeking the News

  April 18, 1996

• Ladies, The Only Thing That Cooks Better Than These Pots and Pans Is You

  This Australian ad for cookware is getting a little play on the Internet for its clever viral marketing effect. But then when you visit the product's website, you see very quickly what it's actually an advertisement for.

  May 1, 2009

• Harmonic Convergence of Journalism and Advertising

  Among the many annoying forms of web advertising calculated to hijack one's browsing experience is the double-underlined text quasi-link that when hovered over pops up an ad related to the underlined text. The Tennessean's web site uses a service called Vibrant In-Text Advertising to make this happen within news stories. Fair enough -- newspapers will try just about anything for revenue these days. But it took me aback this morning when, without noticing the double underline, an unconscious cur

  June 26, 2009

• What The Young are Doing Abroad This Year

  In the Piccadilly Circus photo shot during my personal student days traveling Europe are two punks with incredible mohawks and a double decker bus in the background. A McDonald's billboard on Piccadilly Circus would have been cause for "industrial action" on the part of the Brits and monkey-wrenching by touring students. But billboards are funnier these days, and teh young take advertising as part of life. And as for me, I just passed along a viral ad for McDonald's. We're all just servants o

  July 6, 2009

• 'Fame' Flashes at the Farmers' Market

  It's not exactly a T-Mobile advert, but this weekend's display at the Farmers' Market by the Circle Players is impressive. Can any eyewitnesses testify?

  July 28, 2009

• Liberadio(!)'s Freddie O'Connell Launches New Internet Marketing Venture

  ​No stranger to the pages of Pith, Liberadio(!) has been informing, entertaining and infuriating Nashville listening audiences for five years now. Each Monday morning from 7 to 9 a.m. on WRVU-91.1 FM, co-hosts Mary Mancini and Freddie O'Connell offer an alternative perspective to the glut of right-wing talk radio shows clogging up the airwaves. McConnell has left his job as an Internet strategist at SouthComm (publisher of The City Paper, Music Row magazine, nashvillepost.com and several

  August 11, 2009

• Ad It Up: How Do You Decide Where to Dine?

  ​ While standing at the mailbox and ripping open my mail, I recently came across an intriguing flyer in the Valpak--you know, the blue envelope filled with ads for chimney sweeps and auto tune-ups. On the strip of paper that caught my eye was this message: Restaurant Owners... Right now consumers in you area are thinking about where to dine out. Don't you wish they had your offer or menu in their hands? Bullshit, right? Well, actually, no. It just so happened that I was checking the m

  August 14, 2009

• Special election breeds intraparty finger-pointing

  October 22, 2009

• Secular Life Billboard Brings Out the Kooks

  The organization Secular Life has been making waves over the last couple of weeks with its Green Hills billboard advertisement featuring the following: "Not Religious? You're not alone." The brainchild of Nashvillian Thaddeus Schwartz, the group seeks to provide community for folks who are nonreligious. Secular Life's credo can be summed up in this one sentence from its website: "We embrace a life free of superstition and full of inquiry." Inquiry? (Gasp!) No superstition? (Gadzooks!) The ab

  November 9, 2009

• The smart money's on Bill Haslam for governor, but not because he's got all the answers

  February 25, 2010