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I'm Being Followed: How Google -- and 104 Other Companies -- Are Tracking Me on the Web. Just read it. It's great.

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Errol Morris announces the greatest commercial of all time.

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how did you celebrate the 25th anniversary of New Coke?

i drank a tab and reminisced with friends about ok cola.

and then felt smug because i guess such a foolish mistake would never happen now. -- FB

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Looking at this kinda cool thing, when i noticed a banner for "The Happiness Exhibit: A photo project to document happiness across America."

It's sponsored by Lay's, who insists that Happiness is simple. It's a flickr-powered micro-site for sharing happy photos. If you upload a happy photo, maybe it will appear in an ad (for potato chips, natch) in People magazine.

There must really be that Internet Niceness I keep hearing about if I can go from Joy Division to simple happiness in only one click. -- FB

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okey dokey. you get to watch me completely muck up rex's blog this week. let's begin. According to Ad Age, nicknames are The New Hot Thing in branding. Belevdere Vodka wants you to just call it "Belve". Because, y'know, you're such close pals. Arnell Group is behind this 'thinking' for Belve. If they are to be believed, having a nickname creates a sense of intimacy between consumers and brand. Alternatively, Arnell's planning process includes looking up client names in urbandictionary, googling some lyrics, and getting this video. Jay-Z? Belve & Cris? PURE MARKETING GOLD. By the way, not to be outdone, Keystone Light (whozawhatnow? Is that a real thing? Oh, it is.) wants all the bros to call it "Stones." As in, "He's got one helluva pair of Stones." By the way, their tagline is "Always Smooth. Even When You're Not." So I guess we already know how they feel about you. --FB

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Defaced, a new tumblr celebrating the defacement of subway advertising. (via.) -JM

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I doubt anyone really remembers how controversial the BMW Films project was in 2001. There was an immense amount of chatter about whether the future of filmmaking would be consumer brands paying filmmakers to produce movies. Beyond the occasional foray of an auteur into 30-second commercials, this dystopia hasn't happened at all. But here's something new from Spike Jonze, brought to you by Absolut: I'm Here.

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American Apparel + Lookbook = an actual clothing catalogue? Crowdsourcing - the butts? -- DG

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French Connection wants you to be a man and wear bunny ears. Check out the images/videos from their Spring 2010 campaign that was inspired by "the absurdity of french cinema." --MM

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It occurred to me watching this Jay-Z commercial that The Blueprint 3 is his first album not to have his face on the cover. (Okay, The Black Album didn't either.)

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I actually like the Bing ad campaign (or at least I think they could be somewhat effective), but those new IE8 ads really are a big mistake.

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Online video ads are now, in some cases, getting higher CPMs than television. [via]

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New iPhone 3GS ad, directed by David Fincher: Break In. [via]

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Because it was Internet Week here in NYC, I ended up missing most of what happened... on the internet! But I'm sure Digg Ads got some attention. I was intrigued by this nice bit of counter-intuitiveness: "The more an ad is Dugg, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, pricing it out of the system." I like the idea of being punished for bad ads.

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Forbes has a decent little story about what NYTimes.com is doing with advertising innovation. Three bullets: they have an in-hour creative advertising team, they are developing non-standard ad units, and they are going after brand advertising rather than direct response.

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New Gawker Media Promo Reel. Replete with self-critical media snippets, that MGMT song from last summer, and a "Welcome to the Future" slogan (in futurist font)!

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Surprise! TechCrunch post sorta worth reading: Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet. While we're at it, AdAge: Media Giants Want to Top Google Results.

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Tipping point? Skittles.com. The homepage is nothing more than a search for "skittles" on Twitter.

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On today's I'm Just Sayin Show: Whopper Sacrifice. The girls discuss Burger King's online campaigns and Facebook's widget bloat.

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Today, I coined a new word: rapromo. Whaddat? Exhibit A: Gossip Girl rap from the Southern Mothers. Exhibit B: The Wire rap from Mad Skillz. Both quasi-parodies appear to be solicited by the producers of the show. Is this an interesting new marketing trend? Banal brand extension? The death of hip-hop? And ends to a means? The weakest attempt to create a meme you've ever seen?

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Heffernan on online ads: "An ad that keeps telling you how unobtrusive it is like a friend whose greatest virtue is that she leaves you alone. Her absence might be appreciated, but it doesn't make her much of a friend."

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Today on the I'm Just Sayin' Show, the girls discuss sexist ads.

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NYTimesConversations.com.

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Girl Talk does an "I'm a PC ad." As in, Microsoft.

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10 Embarrassing Product Placements.

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Without irony, Apple's response ad to Microsoft's recent ads is to insinuate that they spend too much money on ads. The marketers always win.

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The New Yorker interviews Randall Munroe, the creator of the XKCD.

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As a follow-up to my product placement post, a new idea: Product Displacements.

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Anyone read that Fast Company cover story a few months about about how Crispin Porter + Bogusky were going to save Microsoft? It didn't occur to me until just now, but the realization of that has been the Seinfeld / Gates ads. If I had some extra time, I'd write about these commercials as an attempt to do some creative class warfare with Apple's "I'm a PC" campaign. Update #1: Microsoft is dropping Seinfeld from the next ads. Update #2: Pic of "PC Guy" for new campaign. Update #3: Techcrunch posts the new ads.

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New Found Glory covers Simple Minds in the ad where J. C. Penney co-opts The Breakfast Club. Your youth is now bad sartorial fodder. Don't you forget about me, indeed. [via]

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Not sure how to feel about this video, which is actually a Converse commercial: "My Drive Through," Santogold, Julian Casablancas, and Pharrell.

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It's the new Rickroll.

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How many online ads do you think you see per day? My guess: 3000. When was the last time you clicked on one? Me: 1999. However, I've been noticing those little Facebook ads in the lower-left of the page. I'm not sure why -- targeting? placement? paucity? Anyway, my bestie Jackie sent me a screengrab of an advert that she just saw. Recognize the image? Yep. I wish I had seen it, cuz it would have been the first ad I clicked on since 1999. (It links to some blog called The New Anti-Social.)

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This "how to practice speed dressing" video is pretty funny, but was it actually a JC Penney advert? (Update: as I suspected, it's not.)

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A list of every brand mentioned in the Sex and the City movie. [via]

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Tom Ford's deliciously/ridiculously NSFW ad campaign.

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Google introduces Google TV Ads. Demo. But as TechCrunch notes, Spotrunner is significantly more robust.

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Meme mash: someone should write a comparison of the Montana Meth Project print campaign and the OMFG Gossip Girl ads.

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Go to NYTimes.com or WSJ.com right now. See that Apple ad on the right? OF COURSE YOU DO. Man, that's big. (Also, I wonder if NYT has any problem with WSJ being name-checked?) Update: Adweek story on the campaign.

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John Hodgman talks about his newfound life as a PC on last week's This American Life.

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Photographs: every ad in Times Square. [via]