Going to the movies is already way too expensive. In Manhattan, two tickets, a large popcorn, and a drink will run you more than $30. And since most movies suck, it's a hefty gamble. But "the price of movie tickets is expected to skyrocket by as much as 30% this year." What? Shouldn't competition from the internet and Netflix be driving the price of tickets down? How the hell can this happen? Besides the fact that Adam Sandler ain't getting any cheaper, this cinematic economic time bomb all comes down to one thing: precious, precious corn.

Apparently it's 1987, because MTV feels it is very important to educate everyone about how you can't tell from looking at someone whether he or she has HIV. Oh, but it can't be 1987, because only in the 20 years since then have we developed the technology necessary for the Viacom music channel to create a cringey viral (literally!) website designed to communicate this message. Guess whether people have HIV, find out how they got infected, and when they found out! Decide everyone in the world looks HIV positive! Feel guilty if you notice something funny! Hours of awkward edutainment await. [Times, PosOrNot.com]

A Brazilian newspaper is running a series of ads with the slogan "Understand the real value of money." So what's the real value of a dollar? Apparently it's terrorism, pollution, the Challenger disaster, war, and tornadoes. Oh, and weed. They didn't forget the weed. I won't pretend to be able to identify the underlying philosophy here, but I will point out that even dumb people have figured out that using 9/11 in ads is a bad idea. The takeaway: Give all your dollars to me. Below, the full ad from the Brasilmofascist menace:

Middling Queens neighborhood Jackson Heights (whoa now, Queens residents) is taking on fancy Brooklyn writer's enclave Park Slope in some provocative ads! "More Park Less Slope" they say, mystifyingly. "Queens Is The New Brooklyn." They also made themselves a neat little "JH" logo shaped as a man resembling Mr. Peanut. Break out the checkbooks, home buyers! Jackson Heights is preferable to Park Slope, based on arrogance levels alone. But the established lowest-to-highest rankings of NYC boroughs (Staten Island- Bronx- Queens- Brooklyn- Manhattan- Philadelphia) will never change. Bigger picture of the aspirational ad, after the jump.

TV networks continue to come up with new and better ways to morph their shows into continuous advertisements. MTV is already selling ads that are designed to be mini-shows in themselves, and ABC has gone subliminal. Not to be outdone, Turner Entertainment is now telling advertisers that it can strategically insert their ads into commercial breaks directly following part of a broadcast that relates to their product. I'm not sure how this is supposed to make us more disposed to buy crap, but it will certainly make watching movie reruns that much more annoying:

Ethiopia doesn't have the world's most sterling reputation. Many people think of "famine" and "drought" when the country's name is mentioned. But the Ethiopians are lucky, in the sense that Starbucks has forged a connection between the parched and war-torn nation in northern Africa and yuppie coffee swillers across America who just adore the subtle fruity undertones of the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe blend. So the country went to a branding firm to come up with a logo to stick on all of its coffee, to make people think of it as more of a luxury item. The logo is pictured. It looks like it should be in lime green on the side of can of a new and exotic type of energy drink. Instead, it's on the oldest energy drink ever. The kind that comes from Ethiopia (and is not qat)! We wish the country well in its yuppie-swindling mission, but we would have gone with a logo that's a little more cutting edge, with both hipster appeal and a strong connection to Ethiopian history. Like this:

Turner Entertainment is experimenting with bringing contextual advertising to television. We all know and love contextual advertising on the internet—it's how Google controls your mind, after all—and we're excited to see the concept finally ported to the idiot box. Just think, the utterly inappropriate and often offensive juxtapositions of content and ads we know and love online will soon be an inescapable reality on our TVs. [NYT]

Hey, remember Miley Cyrus, the sultry teen temptress in Vanity Fair? It turns out she's actually a chaste little girl completely lacking in demon sex hormones! She can still help Disney make hundreds of millions of dollars from young girls, yay. The Hannah Montana star is featured in some new ads where she drinks milk like a baby. She's very excited about her part in the "Got Milk" campaign and is plugging away on one of her official websites. Miley, you can't just jump between sex icon and infantile little girl so quickly like this. Pick an image. You're flitting around like some kind of god-damned 15 year old or something. [E!, Body By Milk]

The Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" photo retouching controversy was left as an unresolved disagreement between truth-in-advertising purists and photo professionals who say retouching is a necessity. Television and movies may be moving in the opposite direction; a lighter touch with makeup is needed in the face of exacting HD cameras. But for print ads of all kinds, the wonders of Photoshop manipulation will prevail. James Danziger, the photo gallerist who represents celebrity image producer Annie Leibovitz, weighs in with a cogent postscript to the Dove controversy and its legacy: "We are living in both the digital age and the age of hypocrisy.":

Gold Bond is more than just a powder that old, decrepit men put on their feet; it's a powder that young, virile men can put on their balls, for fun. The medicated powder, and its cream brethren, produces a pleasing sensation in the male nether regions, according to Gawker videographer and ball-experimenter Richard Blakeley. But this off-brand use isn't just some underground deviant fantasy; Gold Bond has now picked up on it for its own advertising. The company has a site called PowderMyEquipment.com with several videos of guys powdering their... EQUIPMENT ("air quotes"). We would take this as winking corporate encouragement of self-pleasure, if we didn't know better. Click to watch an ad from the site, with a guy taking care of his EQUIPMENT, if you know what we mean.

Viral marketing: an ostentatious and mysterious way to grab buzz, but ultimately futile when it comes to measurable results that benefit you in the real world. Which makes it exactly the same as luxury clothing. Which may be why luxury brands from Cartier to Prada are now trying to make cute little viral YouTube videos, just like every other company in the world. Do rich, exclusive consumers, who are the prime targets of these brands, really spend their time clicking on YouTube links of amusing commercials? We think not. Which makes this entire trend a mystifying waste of time and resources, just like luxury clothing. Full circle and all that. After the jump, a Sergio Rossi viral video of shoes from different social classes making sweet, sweet love. Luxuriously!

How many times have you gazed out on the subway tracks during your daily commute, wishing only for the sweet release that hurling yourself upon them would provide? Plenty of times; you're reading this site, so we know your job sucks. Some people do throw themselves in front of trains, which represents not only a wasted life, but also a hugely inconvenient municipal clean-up job. So Washington, DC has ordered up some stuff to keep your mind occupied while you're on the platform—games like Hopscotch and "I Spy." The slogan on the games reads "Life is fun. Keep on living. Use caution around the tracks." Perhaps hopscotch was not the wisest choice, then? And let's be honest—the slogan of this campaign should really be, "Anything to Momentarily Distract You From Suicidal Thoughts." After the jump (ha), one of the "I Spy" games. This would only cure a very minimal level of depression:

Out of a Vienna ad agency comes this abomination of a Playstation 3 ad that, were there truly a God, would never have shone its dark light on world. Let me try to paint a verbal picture for you: it's a guy with a thumb for a penis. Plus-ten points to the ad agency for the excellent Photoshop work here; but minus-eight-billion points for ever letting this thing come into being. I never want to touch another Playstation as long as I live, much less another thumb. The full and uncut ad is below: beware.

How popular are menthol cigarettes? Popular enough to reverse logic. The government is set to pass a bill that will ban "flavored" cigarettes, but menthols will be excluded. Because menthol, of course, is not a flavor. What menthol is is close to $20 billion in sales for the tobacco industry. As well as an important part of African-American culture! Tobacco companies advertise menthol brands disproportionately to minority communities, and it obviously works, although nobody really knows why. What we do know is that this bill is perfect—it protects my precious Kools, while saving America from the strawberry menace:

During my very brief stint at a fashion magazine, my boss sat me down one rainy morning and said, "I'm about to give you the most important advice you're ever gonna hear from me." I listened, soaking wet from the morning commute. "You're gonna need to buy some rain gear," she continued. "I don't care if you think it looks ugly. You gotta do it. And get some rain boots." Haven't done it yet, but... may we interest you in the next generation of rain gear? It's like an isolation-pod for your head. Staying out of the rain? Great. Looking like a total control-freak dork? Um... priceless.

An entire car or cars on the New York subway's S line are reportedly done up in advertising for Cottonelle toilet paper, including this: "the very walls are sheeted with faux toilet paper wallpaper." A terrifying precursor to covering the outside of the train in toilet paper as well? Or merely a thoughtful nod to subway poopers? Either way, everyone now knows what the "S" stands for. (Too easy?) [Guest of a Guest/ Earlier]

The aftermath of last week's Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" photo retouching scandal remains unclear. It all started with retoucher Pascal Dangin telling the New Yorker that he had cleaned up photos for the campaign featuring ostensibly "Real" women, which would be a hugely hypocritical move. Dove, their ad agency, and celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz all denied it, saying they did nothing to the pictures except "to remove dust and do color correction." Today, Ad Age tries to decide whether or not the fiasco will hurt Dove—and the company is still stonewalling, while the New Yorker is standing by (most of) its story.

When massive corporations decide to come up with a new slogan, they almost always end up with something short, trite, and massively expensive. Citigroup just unveiled its earth-shaking new slogan "Citi Never Sleeps," which is a reworking of its classic "The Citi Never Sleeps" tagline. But didn't they just spend $30 million last year launching a different slogan? Well yes, but that one didn't work out, because it sounded like it came straight from the mouth of bottom-rung redneck comedian Larry the Cable Guy. Derisive laughter is appropriate here:

Adweek got its hands on a leaked copy of an internal investigation from Hunter College about the school's shady Coach-sponsored PR class teaching kids how to be dishonest corporate shills, which we covered earlier this week. They say it was a bad idea! For a more detailed summary, go read the story. [Adweek]

Beauty product purveyor Dove has finally responded to allegations, first reported in a New Yorker story, that the company retouched photos of the "Real" women in its "Campaign for Real Beauty" ads. Which would make them big hypocrites. But according to a statement from Dove this morning (via its PR agency, Edelman), the New Yorker was wrong. The company even got a quotable refutation from controversy-courting celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz! Their full denial is after the jump.