ColemanMedia Report

The Center for the Misrepresentation and Distortion of Statistics reported today that the one millionth web site or online publisher claiming to be “Number 1″ for some specific audience or media segment launched in the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier to great fanfare early Monday.  According to the CMDS, Ridiculclick.com is already marketing itself as “the Number 1 site claiming to be Number 1,” despite existing in a live environment for less than 72 hours.  ”The claim seems kind of ridiculous to me,” said CMDS President Ronald P. Calliguia.  ”But since they have a sales PowerPoint claiming it, the CMDS has no choice but to blindly ratify their claim.”  The owners of SocialEZE.com, a site claiming to be the “#1 post-tweet mid-roll video distribution platform that integrates across all social networks” missed the one millionth “Number 1″ site status by approximately 17 seconds.  SocialEZE.com’s claims are still being investigated by the CMDS.

Representatives of the IT department in the Little Rock office of Klein, Barter, & Schnook confirmed reports from several co-workers that junior account planner Ryan McBrubin was caught “Twooping” at approximately 10:15 a.m. local time.  According to company log files, McBrubin posted two Twitter updates from his Blackberry Pearl while using the company restroom on the third floor.  ”We suspected for some time that McBrubin might be texting while using the restroom,” said IT manager Richard Rhindglass.  ”But when he sent two Tweets about a song playing over our intercom radio, our worst fears were confirmed.  As a company, we don’t have an official policy against Twooping, but as a person – even an IT guy – I think it’s just plain gross.  I won’t be answering Ryan’s phone if it rings, that’s for sure.”  Ed. Note: Junior Commode Correspondent Travis Volk contributed to this story.

The Center for Disease Control reported late Tuesday that the number of cases of ad rep overdose has skyrocketed this month, putting health and government officials on high alert and preparing for a potential pandemic in the online advertising industry.  According to the CDC, emergency room visits for media planners shot up 225% over July and 719% over August 2008.  ”This is an alarming trend nationwide,” said LA-USC County Hospital spokesperson Hal Hogenwinkle.  ”But locally it’s reached epidemic status.  We’ve seen media planners and buyers being admitted who have been exposed to nearly fatal levels of sales calls and emails.  Many of them can barely speak, save to scream ‘for the love of God, make it stop!’”  Officials with the CDC could not confirm the cause for the epidemic, but pointed to a 600,000% increase in sales calls and emails over the last three weeks as the probable culprit.

Jenny Williams of Exageraclick.com delivered the 16,000th cupcake to the San Francisco office of Publicist & Hal Whiney in less than one week late Tuesday, according to Tiffany, the receptionist at the front desk.  The twelve cupcakes, neatly wrapped in light purple box from Sweetiecups, were destined for the desk of Joan Radcliffe, who sent out an RFP for the Huggies account last Thursday.  According to Radcliffe, she sent out the RFP to approximately 16 publishers and has received 24 proposals, 4 bottles of wine, and exactly 16,008 cupcakes to date.  ”I’m only halfway through the proposals,” said Radcliffe, “and I think I’ve already gained like 6 pounds.  I mean, I like red velvet as much as the next person, but this is getting a little ridiculous.  Can’t someone send an assistant over?  I mean, what the hell am I gonna do with 27 boxes of Sprinkles cupcakes?  Besides, I’ve always been a Kara’s Cupcakes girl.”

In an exclusive interview given Tuesday to popular gossip site and intellectual vacuum TMZ.com, Yahoo! revealed that its budding relationship with the much younger search engine Bing may not be as picture perfect as initially reported.  According to Yahoo!, the much more juvenile Bing is carelessly wild with its search queries, regularly leaves the toilet seat up, and watches TV into “ungodly hours” while texting its friends.  ”I’ll admit that I was attracted to Bing’s youthful energy and boyish good looks,” said the more mature search engine.  ”But the more time I spend with it the more its starting to bug the hell out of me.”  For its part, Bing fired back in the comments section of TMZ later that day, claiming that Yahoo! “nags way too much, chews its food loudly, and still won’t admit to deleting my episodes of Venture Bros.”

A study released late last week by the John J. Apathee Center for Excuses and Laziness revealed that project and campaign accountability within the advertising industry could be reduced by 37.4% – and the chance of getting fired reduced by up to 72.9% – simply by blaming one or more other parties involved in the process or project.  ”The results of this study are potentially game changing,” said lead researcher Alfred P. Nowittal.  ”Agencies can reduce their accountability 42.5% by blaming their clients for bad campaign briefs, media companies see a 28.5% reduction by blaming the agencies for RFP’s that lack detail, and marketers drop 47.3% by blaming their agencies for overburdening cost structures.  Media directors can blame ineffective creative, and creative directors can blame the media mix for dwindling audiences and framentation.”  The study found that once a full circle of blame is completed, accountability for the entire advertising industry could be redirected entirely to Joan in HR.

According to several witnesses at the scene, western regional sales director Derek Noklass began a media capabilities PowerPoint presentation during the DrinkLA Summer Mixer event Wednesday evening, shortly after purchasing a round of drinks for three members of the Hyundai marketing team.  The 52-slide presentation was reportedly given standing up, after handing two vodka sodas and one Amstel Light to the three members of the team at approximately 8:30 p.m., nearly two hours into the industry networking event.  ”We were like, what the hell is he doing?” said Jill Blakesly, a media buyer on the Hyundai team.  ”He asks us if we want refills on our drinks, and we’re like ‘sure, why not?’  Then he comes back 5 minutes later with drinks and a laptop, and starts going to town on his retargeting capabilities.  I mean, really?  It would have almost been less inappropriate to accidentally touch my boob or something.  Almost.”

The CEO of wingnut manufacturer Wing-It, Inc. was reportedly given the wrong directions to the blogosphere Monday afternoon while attempting to navigate the vast and sometimes confusing social media universe.  Jessup Scranton, 55, read about the blogosphere in an April 2009 Mediapost article, which reportedly claimed that a presence in the blogosphere was mandatory for any brand that wanted to survive the Web 2.0 “revolution.”  According to Scranton, Internet mapping service Mapquest informed him that the blogosphere was only 14.2 miles, or 31 minutes from his West Poughkeepsie, NY office.  ”According to the directions, the blogosphere was just across the street from the old Bennigan’s on Maple,” said Scranton.  ”But when I got there, there were no blogs, comments, or any social media to be seen, save for the three suspicious looking fellas who looked like they could have scored me some smack.  It got me thinking this whole blogging thing is just a load of malarkey.”

Hoping to capitalize on the highly-publicized release of two American journalists, the North Korean Ministry of Tourism and Torture launched a multi-platform ad campaign late Tuesday promoting the nation-state’s scenic mountain lakes, sweeping urban vistas, and new, shorter prison terms for American and western tourists.  The campaign, executed by the Chicago office of Draft FCB, has an estimated measured media spend of $175 US dollars, and features several prominent government officials extolling the benefits of the unprecedented new travel incentives.  ”With prison terms as short as four months, now is the time to visit North Korea,” said Travel Minister Kim Il-Nana.  ”The Amnok River cruise this time of year is gorgeous, and the views of Kumgangsan from our prison transport skiff are second to none.”  According to one 30-second spot, the country will allow up to a 2-week early release for tourists willing to denounce Paramount’s Team America: World Police.

A Study released last week by the Linotype Center for Design Epigrams revealed that nepotism is far more rampant that previously thought in the design and advertising community when selecting font faces for print, online, and broadcast graphic designs.  According to the study, preferential treatment was given to font faces within the same family 6 out of 10 times, with the Helvetica family being the grossest offender.  ”We always thought nepotism was the norm for Hollywood or Chicago city government,” said lead design researcher Jurgen Akzindenz-Grotesk.  ”But there were several instances where Helvetica Neue or Helvetica Neue Condensed were given the job when Avenir 35 Light Oblique or Univers Extended 53 were clearly the better choice.”  As a result, the OpenType Society has launched an investigation into undue bias, and promises to publish the results exclusively in Frutiger Serif Light Condensed.