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Perfect Polly Will Give You Nightmares

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Perfect Polly Will Give You Nightmares

Perfect Polly, the $18 plastic bird with a great informercial.

Warning: Objects in Mirror Are Later Than They Appear

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Warning: Objects in Mirror Are Later Than They Appear

If I ordered the book on a Friday with one-day shipping, what day would you expect it to arrive?

Puffery – A Marketer’s Right To Lie

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Puffery – A Marketer’s Right To Lie

Ads can legally lie to you as long as the lie is so obvious an exaggeration that you know not to take it seriously.

Popeye Says Eat Your Spinach

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Popeye Says Eat Your Spinach

Something amazing happened at our dinner table. My daughter got into a fight with her brother (that’s not the amazing part) about who could eat the last of the –…

Are All Alcohol Ads Misleading?

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Are All Alcohol Ads Misleading?

I was surprised when I learned that there are no specific rules or regulations governing alcohol advertising on television. While tobacco products are prohibited from advertising on TV altogether, it’s…

The Real Cost of Getting a New Mets Cap

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The Real Cost of Getting a New Mets Cap

What happens when a giveaway cap costs more than just a ticket?

Is it Art or Advertising?

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Is it Art or Advertising?

In today’s world it is getting tougher all the time to distinguish between marketing materials and art or entertainment.

Craigslist Apartments Double as Credit-Score Traps

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Craigslist Apartments Double as Credit-Score Traps

Craigslist, an online classified section with ads for jobs, love, severely over- and under-priced furniture, and apartments, among other things, can be a font of opportunity for the Internet savvy.…

Goodbye Pork Butt

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Goodbye Pork Butt

The beef and pork industries are renaming 350 cuts of meat. What do these new meat monikers make us think of?

Baseball everywhere, unless you live in Iowa

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Baseball everywhere, unless you live in Iowa

Sometimes you just can’t watch the Mets in Roswell, New Mexico.

Toying with Gender Marketing

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Toying with Gender Marketing

Not all girls like to play with dolls. What’s a race car girl to do when her favorite toys are marketed towards boys?

Week in Review

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Week in Review

Oil, heating pads, rugs, razors, and drinks – no, this isn’t about preparing for a romantic interlude, but rather the products featured in the I-think-you’re-lying-to-me category during the week of…

My Confusing Hunt for a Leather Couch

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My Confusing Hunt for a Leather Couch

Plenty of furniture is labeled as leather, but not everything called leather is exactly that. What are you really sitting on?

Were Gauguin’s Paintings Part of a Deceptive Marketing Ploy?

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Were Gauguin’s Paintings Part of a Deceptive Marketing Ploy?

By the time Paul Gauguin left his wife and five kids to pursue a painting career in Tahiti, Polynesian women were not wandering around the island half naked. In fact,…

Argo-nomics: the Commercial Value of Oscars

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Argo-nomics: the Commercial Value of Oscars

The Oscars: merit award or money maker?

Weekly Legal Roundup

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Weekly Legal Roundup

Diamonds, energy supplements and cholesterol reducing drugs made legal headlines in the I-think-you’re-lying-to-me category during the week of February 11, 2013. Two new false advertising actions were filed: It’s a…

Weekly Legal Roundup

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Weekly Legal Roundup

During the week of February 4, 2013, digestion, food, and make-up bubbled to the top of the legal I-think-you’re-lying-to-me landscape. Three new false advertising class actions were filed: Maybelline was…

Should Best Lip-Sync Be a New Grammy Category?