On-Screen Smoking Down (But Still High)
From a new CDC report: “To monitor the extent to which tobacco use is shown in popular movies, Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! (TUTD), a project of Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails, counted the occurrences of tobacco use (termed “incidents”) shown in U.S. top-grossing movies during 1991-2009. This report summarizes the results of that study, which found that the number of tobacco incidents depicted in the movies during this period peaked in 2005 and then progressively declined.” Read More »
What Are the Limits of Unbranding?
Celebrity endorsements have been popular for a long time, but fashion experts are repotedly now practicing a new marketing strategy loosely known as “unbranding”: “Allegedly, the anxious folks at these various luxury houses are all aggressively gifting our gal Snookums with free bags. No surprise, right? But here’s the shocker: They are not sending her their own bags. They are sending her each other’s bags! Competitors’ bags!” Read More »
Overcoming Lego Bias
Lego has been christened the most popular toy ever made, despite — or maybe because of — its bias toward males over females in its Minifigures. But Lego has at least one other bias: the company produces a full line of Star Wars sets, but not a single set for Star Trek fans. Read More »
Never Pay a Speeding Ticket Again?
A couple weeks ago, Ian Ayres became briefly fascinated and somewhat appalled by the appearance of a new Internet business that offered a sort of insurance against speeding tickets. In return for an annual fee of $169, ticketfree.org promised to reimburse you for the costs of up to $500 in moving violations. Then, the site suddenly disappeared. Why? Read More »
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