AntiFriday: Popcorn hoax; product placement ban; etc.

After skipping last AntiFriday, I’ve already shared some anti-ness and backlashing on Murketing this week: complaints about a new means of show-interruption on TBS, and mixed feelings, at the least, about street artist Fauxreel’s Vespa work (see The Aesthetic Poetic for an earlier take on that). Here’s what else I can offer from the week in dissent and critiques and complaints and like that.

1. Advertising & Marketing Made Easy and Wired both address the recent cellphone-radiation-pops-pocorn viral video — which has apparently been viewed 4 million+ times, and which turned out to be an ad. In truth, I haven’t personally seen a ton of backlash about this, but people have asked me about it. The answer is: I’m not a fan of this kind of thing, at all. But it does seem to have gotten this company’s name around. Whether it does much for the client or not, I’m guessing the marketing firm that made the thing will get some new business as a result.

2. “On July 1st, the Anti-Advertising Agency and Rami Tabello of IllegalSigns.ca will give a free workshop teaching you how to identify illegal advertising and get it taken down. You will leave this workshop equipped to have illegal signs removed in your neighborhood.” Details.

3. Variety:

The U.K. media minister has attacked product placement in TV shows and said he will not allow the practice on British broadcasters even though it has been approved by the European Union.

The news is likely to infuriate TV companies, including beleaguered terrestrial giant ITV, which are all trying to find additional revenue streams as new media continues to make inroads into traditional advertising.

Andy Burnham, secretary of state at the Dept. of Culture, Media and Sport since January, dropped his bombshell Wednesday in his first big policy speech on broadcasting.

He said product placement would undermine the status that British TV enjoys internationally and “contaminate” programs.

Does it mean anything to consumers in the U.S.? The Guardian says: Not really.

Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, may have given product placement the thumbs down in Britain – but in the US Jack Bauer still wants you to use Dell Computers and Ford cars. Although, if that’s not quite your style, you could always turn to Michael Scott, American boss of The Office, who only uses Hewlett Packard. Or the casts of Heroes and Desperate Housewives, who would be disappointed if you drove anything but a Nissan.

In a country where even the subtitling is sponsored and the running time of most shows is almost one-third commercials, no opportunity to sell is missed. Which is why there were a massive 117,976 individual product placements across America’s top 11 TV channels in the first three months of this year, according to Nielsen Media Research. And the phenomenon is growing – the top 10 prime-time programmes alone were responsible for an increase of 39% in product placement in the last year across the six biggest channels.

4. Ad Age:

Under pressure from Washington, top drug makers including Merck, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer are agreeing a six-month moratorium on advertising new drugs to consumers and will limit how doctors are used in their ads.

5. Wake-Up Wal-Mart points to news of an Atascadero, California, effort to keep the famous chain out of that area. Story:

An initiative that would block a Wal-Mart Superstore proposed for Atascadero’s north end has obtained enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

The petition for the measure, called the Atascadero Shield Initiative by its proponents, contained at least 1,511 valid signatures, enough to satisfy the requirement that 10 percent of registered voters sign it, City Clerk Marcia McClure Torgerson confirmed Friday.

Tom Comar, a leader of the anti-Wal-Mart effort, said the measure is intended “to protect local businesses, to ensure that the General Plan is maintained and to protect the rural, small-town character and the feel of this unique city on the Central Coast.”