The 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of the Month

These were the stories that didn’t make BNET’s headlines in December 2008, but were nonetheless too odd to be ignored.

1. Brits invent “eyelid advertising”
   Decals and messages are written onto participants’ eyelids, who then go around winking at potential customers. Billed on a pay-per-wink basis.
2. Saatchi restaurant gets clean bill of health
   NYC health inspectors checked out a restaurant carrying Saatch & Saatchi’s name and address (possibly the office canteen?) and found no violations. The year before it had eight, including failure to display the classic “Choking Victim” poster.
3. Decline of Western Civilization: Under-funded teacher forced to sell advertising on school test papers
   When high school calculus teacher Tom Farber was told that his photocopying budget was being cut to a point where he wouldn’t be able to repro a year’s worth of tests, he decided to start selling advertising space on the test sheets.
4. Don’t cry in front of Alliance CEO Jarrod Moses
   Moses, who heads an entertainment marketing firm that is part of Grey Global Group, dislikes it went people weep at work.
5. Pretentious “3D” social media site for ad creatives is nonfunctional
   Facebook isn’t good enough for the agency crowd. They need something hipper. You know, over-designed and difficult to use — to keep the plebs out. So they created SohoMuse.com, an alleged “3D” networking site for the “creative nomad.” Judging by the front door, which is decorated entirely with images from New York, these “nomads” will be travelling the length and breadth of several blocks of Manhattan. The site is non-operational at the time of writing.
6. TBWA invents “teabag dangler” ads
   You know those labels on the end of the piece of string on a tea bag? They’re now ads. They’re called “teabag danglers.” Don’t Google that if you’re at work.
7. JWT celebrates Xmas with giant cockroaches
   According to this blogger, here’s a list of creatures that showed up at JWT’s Xmas bash: a baby Siberian tiger, a baby cougar, a wolf, a big snake, big disgusting cockroaches, a tarantula, a scorpion, a lemur.
8. How the Energizer bunny influenced presidents
   A list of presidents and presidential candidates — and the inspiration they drew from the Energizer Bunny.
9. Church’s anti-gay ad offends gays
   A newspaper ad placed by Sandown Free Presbyterian church in Belfast breached advertising codes, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled. The ad might cause “serious offense” because it calls homosexuality an “abomination.”
10. WPP’s Sorrell joins U.K.’s World Cup bid board
    Because, obviously, what football needs is a Harvard-educated adman.

• Want more?
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of November