Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Dear Dr. Ads,
There I was, minding my own business and tooling around MediaPost, when I came across this Todd Wasserman piece about a new Apple ad that addresses data privacy.
Watch Data Buyers Go Up In Smoke
Apple has taken a public stance in favor of the privacy of its users, but rarely has it made that stance as understandable as in this new ad.
The ad, via TBWA\Chiat\Day Media Arts Lab, shows a young woman at a record store (remember those?) who hears music through a door (“Fantasy” by Esquivel) and runs toward it, only to see her picture on the door with the words “Ellie’s Data Auction.”
She enters an auction room with a life-sized hologram of herself as an auctioneer announces, “Lot Number One: Her emails.” Next up, her location data — again sold to a suspicious-looking data buyer. “It’s not creepy,” the auctioneer says. “It’s commerce!”
Eventually Ellie gets her revenge thanks to an iPhone, but is that really what happens to our digital data, Doc? Seems totally creepy.
– Android Al
Dear Double A,
Gotta agree with you there. Here’s the Apple ad in full.
The ad suggests that an iPhone puts all your data in a – shoutout to Al Gore – digital lockbox. But Sara Morrison at Vox says, not so fast.
The [privacy update], called App Tracking Transparency, doesn’t stop all the ways companies follow you around the internet and in your mobile apps because Apple can’t stop all tracking. Nor does it want to. Your data is still being collected, but what’s being collected and how may have changed. The end result, however, is roughly the same: You’re being targeted with ads . . .
From a user privacy standpoint, App Tracking Transparency seems like a good thing. It’s just not as good of a thing as you might have thought, or perhaps as Apple wanted you to think it was.
Memo to Ellie: Maybe you want to look into some other vaporizing tools. Just saying.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Dear Dr. Ads,
There I was, minding my own business and reading Punchbowl News AM, when I came across this item about an ad attacking Kathy Barnette, a super-Trumpy candidate in the Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary.
→ USA Freedom Fund, which is funded, at least in part, by Club for Growth Action, has a new ad running in Pittsburgh slamming Kathy Barnette for being a “woke Republican” who wants to build a statue of former President Barack Obama. This is ironic since Barnette has a long history of attacking Obama, including repeated false accusations that he’s a Muslim.
What the hell, Doc – are we totally through the looking glass at this point?
– GOPsmacked
Dear GOPsmacked,
We’re not just through the looking glass, we’re deep into Queen of Hearts Off With Their Heads territory.
That’s what’s going on in Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary right now. Medical fraud Mehmet Oz (the Doc, of all people, should know) and MAGA fraud Dave McCormick have spent a combined $28 million on ads blowtorching one another, as WHYY’s Katie Meyer has reported.
[McCormick] has raised nearly $16 million — $11 million was a loan from himself — and spent more than $14 million, chiefly on big ad buys.
That doesn’t count money from Honor Pennsylvania, a super PAC spending on McCormick’s behalf — primarily funding ads attacking Oz. The PAC has spent more than $11 million . . .
[Oz has] loaned himself more than $12 million, and he’s pulled in another $3 million or so from donors. He’s also supported by a PAC, American Leadership Action, that has spent nearly $3.5 million to oppose McCormick.
Also like McCormick, Oz has spent around $14 million, primarily on ads.
It’s a campaign classic: 1) Candidate A spends all his time telling voters Candidate B is a bum. 2) Candidate B returns the favor. 3) Voters believe them both and turn to Candidate C. (See Carol Moseley Braun’s improbable 1992 U.S. Senate victory in Illinois for further details.)
Beyond that, Barnette is surging in the polls, despite having spent a paltry $137,000 on campaign ads so far and despite Donald Trump’s endorsement of Oz. New York Times reporter Jennifer Medina captured the current dynamic in this piece.
Many voters said they were choosing who they believed would carry out Mr. Trump’s ideals, even if they and the former president disagreed on who could best accomplish that. And interviews showed how effectively Ms. Barnette, who has never held public office, had used her life story as a poor, Black child of the South to connect with white working-class voters in western Pennsylvania. At events and in her ads, Ms. Barnette often invokes the phrase “I am you.”
Other conservatives, however, are attacking Barnette. The super PAC USA Freedom Fund is running this ad accusing her of being a “woke Republican” for proposing a statue of Barack Obama in D.C.
[USA Freedom Fund] claimed “Kathy Barnette wants to build a statue of Barack Obama right next to the one of Abraham Lincoln on Capitol Hill.”
Barnette said she did propose a statue of Obama and his family, but she never voted for him, or backed his policies. Her idea was to use three statues to show how far Black people have come since the time of slavery.
The statement is accurate but needs clarification. We rate this claim Mostly True.
But the “woke Republican” label is a joke, given Barnette’s anti-Muslim, homophobic, Big Lie track record.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Dear Dr. Ads,
There I was, minding my own business and scrolling through Ad Age’s Media Buzz when, I came across this piece by E.J. Schultz.
MIKE TYSON POISED TO GROW ‘MIKE BITES’ CANNABIS BRAND THAT RECALLS EAR-BITING INCIDENT
Mike Tyson seems intent on building a brand around one of the most infamous moments of his career—when he took a bite of Evander Holyfield’s ear in a boxing match 25 years ago. Tyson’s cannabis brand recently came out with ear-shaped marijuana edibles, called Mike Bites. And now a trademark filing indicates the boxing legend wants to expand the brand into a range of products, including keychains, pillows, rolling papers, vape pens and more.
What the hell, Doc? Is this guy high on his own supply?
Granted, that was decidedly not Tyson’s finest hour, but in no way does it eclipse his 1992 conviction for raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington in an Indianapolis hotel room.
(Just FYI: Tyson’s highest-profile defender at the time was – wait for it – one Donald J. Trump.)
Regardless of all that, a couple of months ago Tyson launched Mike Bites, as CNN’s Zoe Sottile reported.
Mike Tyson is selling ear-shaped cannabis-infused edibles called ‘Mike Bites’
(CNN) – More than two decades after Mike Tyson bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear at the 1997 WBA Heavyweight Championship fight, the legendary boxer has released a line of edibles — in the shape of ears.
The cannabis-infused gummies are called “Mike Bites” in homage to Tyson’s most notorious moment.
Again – not Tyson’s most notorious moment. Rape is way worse than ear-biting, yes?
Anyway, also from the CNN piece: “Tyson hasn’t been shy about his strong relationship with cannabis. The former heavyweight champion admitted in 2019 that he spends $40,000 a month on weed at his 40-acre cannabis ranch.”
That’s almost half a million dollars a year up in smoke. How many gummies would you have to sell to feed that habit?
Then again, not everyone has found Mike Bites palatable, as Matt Audilet noted last month in The Spun.
Tyson’s product is already on sale in California and his company, Tyson 2.0, has plans to expand to other states around the country. But, one state has already outlawed the “ear shaped” gummies. “Mike Bites” aren’t able to hit the shelves in Colorado because of a law against selling “human-shaped” edibles.
Tyson’s fans, according to Audilet’s piece, bit back at the ban: “The sports world took to Twitter to react to this news. ‘Boooooooooooo. Let the people eat Eardibles,’ one wrote. ‘This just keeps getting funnier with each new word you read,’ another added.”
The Doc doesn’t think that anything about Mike Tyson is in any way funny. (You can see his latest spasm of violence here.)
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Ask Doctor Ads 