Commentary

Real Media Riffs - Monday, Oct 31, 2005

  • by October 31, 2005
HOWARD STERN SURE CAN-SPERM -- By now, we've gotten used to receiving loads of spam in our in-box, but we were surprised last week to receive a load of sperm. Doubly so, by its sender: Howard Stern. It was the first time we'd received an email of any kind from the King Of All Media, so we didn't hesitate to open it only to find a link contained inside, which read: "Coming soon." As it turns out, it should have read, "cumming soon," because that's exactly what it did when we clicked on it - the link, that is.

To the unmistakable tympani beat from the theme of "2001: A Space Odyssey," the Web screen filled with a nighttime graphic of the heavens where an array of stars quickly formed into a constellation we don't ever recall seeing before, but was one we're sure ancient Greek astrologers would have dubbed Phallus. The constellation, which appeared to rise from the earth's horizon, aimed into the sky, and suddenly ejaculated a shooting star.

Immediately, it occurred to us that we didn't recall actually opting into Stern's email, and since it clearly was unsolicited, and commercial in nature, would seem to have violated the federal CAN-SPAM act. That, of course, made us wonder whether the law shouldn't be further amended to prohibit unsolicited, commercial ejaculations, and we can think of just the name for such a bill.

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CBS' PRESS DEPARTMENT KEEPS ON SPINNING, AND SPINNING, AND SPINNING -- In all our years, we've never seen the networks embrace anything so rapidly and with such fervor as they have product placement. So it's no surprise that branded content deals are popping up everywhere: in reality series, dramas, sitcoms - both scripted and "non-scripted" programming alike. But now CBS appears to have crossed a new branded frontier: finding a way to work brands into the press bundles it distributes each day to the news media. At least that's the way it seemed when we received an electronic bundle from CBS on Friday with the subject line: "CBS Thursday Like The Energizer Bunny... It Keeps Winning, And Winning, And Winning."

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