Wolves vs. Bears: Glenn Reynolds is pointing to the Daily Recycler where a new Bush campaign TV spot using wolves as a metaphor is compared to the famous 1984 Reagan ad known as “the bear” (same year that’s famous for the “morning in America” spot). No comparison in my opinion. Hal Riney’s voice (and I’m guessing he also wrote the copy) in the Reagan ad is so powerful, it not only makes me want to vote for Reagan, it makes me want to run out and rent an Alamo car and buy some wine from Ernst & Julio Gallo. (Sorry, 1980s ad joke.) What’s more, the comparison shows that no contemporary television spot will ever match earlier ones due to that goofy “I’m the candidate and I approve this message” disclaimer requirement. It may be helpful for some reason, but unlike, say, the Intel audio logo that gently punctuates ads, the political disclaimer is as intrusive (creatively speaking) as the legal spiel at the end of a car dealership radio ad. (There are some funny comments on Roger Simon’s blog about the wolves ad, however, including one that suggests one of the wolves favors Bush’s opponent.)

Insert pun here: Nylon magazine will launch a bi-annual Nylon for Guys next year. (via Trendcentral.com)

Outing deadbeats: When you’re like Rafat Ali (PaidContent.org) and you’re a budding media mogul creating a whole new form of business-to-business business, you think, “If I have advertisers from big household name companies, chances are they’ll pay for the advertising they’re purchasing. Right?” But, nooooOOOooo, in the words of John Belushi. So after seven months of politely and privately dunning an advertiser, he does what anyone pioneering a transparent media empire like his would do: He publicly invites them to pay-up.

Quote (I’ve redacted the name of the advertiser, but its initials are CQ.):

Friday Payup Warning: Anyone Know Anyone At xxxxxxx?: If you know who’re the right Web business people at xxxxxxxx, let me know…they have not paid me (a relatively minuscule amount, at that) despite repeated reminders in the last 7 months, and don’t return my phone calls, e-mails etc…I’m very frustrated…(Mr Product Development Director, xxxxxxxx, please pay up…)
Warning: all of the main advertisers and classifieds jobs advertisers…I’ll be doing a similar “Hall of Shame” for non-payers soon…I have no choice…I’m a small guy trying to make a living off this, and if you don’t pay up, this is the only way I can make sure you do that…
(Well, I’ve started asking for advance payment for the last few months, so this is less of a problem now…)

You go, brother.

Old news: I’ve been e-mailed a question asking why I haven’t mentioned the vaporzine from American Media called Sly which may or may not have a picture of Sylvester on the cover of each issue. It’s because I blogged it on October 1, granted buried in a post that no one read:

The first one has no link, but comes with this quotation from somewhere: “American Media is developing Sly, a new health and fitness monthly aimed at older men, which would feature Stallone on the cover of each issue.” (Wait, this is October 1, not April 1, right?)

Why a press release (continued)? Today, I am starting a new rexblog feature. I will point to press releases that publishers send out regarding how much advertising they’ve sold. I’m calling it “Why a press release (continued)?” because I haven’t quite figured out why they are sending out a press release. My first “Why a press release (continued)?” link is to this press release from the NYT Magazine.

Welcomed irony: Whenever possible, I do not blog news requiring me to link to an article at a daily newspaper website that requires me to register. So, I’d like to thank the Des Moines Register for not making me register. (Although the story I was going to link to isn’t really worth linking to.)