Vaporpolitan: In vaporzine news, The Pittsburgh Metropolitan, a monthly glossy dedicated to “fashion, culture, dining and lifestyle” will debut in January, according to the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Quote:

The publication is the brainchild of Tara Rieland, the corporate director of marketing for the Oxford Development Co., one of the city’s largest development firms. While continuing to work with Oxford on a reduced schedule, Ms. Rieland will serve as the publication’s editor-in-chief. It will publish on a monthly basis 10 times a year, with double issues scheduled for January/February and June/July. Ms. Rieland plans to launch the magazine with an initial print run of 20,000. She plans to build a high-income readership by mailing 16,000 copies of the first issue to residents throughout the region who have a household income of more than $100,000. The remaining copies will be sold on newsstands and offered at Downtown condominiums and other area businesses.

Yet another magazine targeting the nouveau niche.

America, * * * * Yeah: Raymond Snoddy (I know this sounds like it’s from The Onion, but I can’t make this up), writing for the UK website, MediaBulletin, suggests American brand managers should fear a Bush victory because the USA needs a “rebrand.”

Quote:

“The Pugh ([sic] note: I guess that’s the way they spell “Pew” in the UK) Global Attitude survey, which closely monitors such things, shows marked declines in positive attitudes toward the US. The hostility, so far at least, is mainly aimed at Bush and his government rather than US brands. But is this about to change?”

Snoddy posits that most Americans don’t realize (although, he spells it realise) just how much the rest of the world, “Europeans in particular,” think “Bush appears plain stupid.” (I suppose it’s because we’re cut off from all international news sources.) Snoddy’s column is a stunning misunderstanding of the attitudes of Americans who live at least 100 miles inland from the Pacific or Atlantic oceans (this rule doesn’t apply to the Gulf of Mexico). Do you have any idea, Mr Snoddy, how “fly-over” Americans — even many who lean towards Kerry — will respond if they think their vote is about (rather than choosing a leader) whether or not Europeans will like them better?

As much as I hate commercial country music, reading something like this makes me want to turn-up the speakers on some Toby Keith music. Or, better yet, it removes all satire from this instant (but explicit) classic from the movie, Team America, which is this post’s bumper music.

Update: Those silly American media buyers obvioiusly haven’t read Snoddy’s column yet, as MediaPost.com is reporting an uptick in advertising demand from planners “who support Bush.”

Quote:

Interestingly, demand for media time and space appears to be strongest among supporters of the Bush/Cheney ticket vs. the Kerry/Edwards ticket. Forty-seven percent of Bush’s supporters said their demand for all media has improved relative to a year ago, while only 39 percent of Kerry’s supporters felt that way. Kerry’s supporters, however, had a far more stable view, with 57 percent saying their demand remained the same vs. 49 percent of Bush supporters. Only 4 percent of supporters of both tickets said demand had diminished.

It’s like I’ve always said, if you find there are media planners with hope and there are media planner with fear, go with the media planners with hope.

(via iwantmedia.com)