Sorry if this is a repeat--I tried to look at all the previous bat boy threads...

I just read the Adages column in the Jan. 13 issue of Advertising Age. (My department shares a copy and it was specifically routed to me open to that page) It's not on their web site so I'll put the text here:

Here come the fuzz. Bat Boy crosses the line.

IS NOTHING SACRED? Advertising Age reported last week that 72% of consumers feel product placement is too pervasive and the line between commercials and content far too fuzzy. So wheat else is new?

Check out the dramatic front page of the Weekly World News: A moronic mutant figment called Bat Boy steals a Mini Cooper.

"This might be the most brilliant case of product placement of all time," says Pen Pendleton, director of strategic planning at Rubin Postaer & Associates, who discovered the issue in his local 7 Eleven.

The police, according to the story, put out an APB:"We urge all motorists to be on the lookout for this car; and to notify authorities if they see a Mini Cooper driven by a bat-like creature."

"No, this is not a promotion," says a spokesperson for WWN. "But let me check." He calls back later and gives this official comment from the WWN: "Ask Bat Boy if it's product placement."

Kerri Martin, Mini's marketing manager at BMW, is evasive about Bat Boy: "He's hiding in a donut shop I think, as the article says. We'll have to see where he turns up next week." But then she breaks down and cops to it, calling the WWN story a new "out-of-home" campaign.

Kerri says Crispin Porter & Bogusky put together a product placement agreement with the publication. However, she would not disclose terms. What next, the front page of The New York Times?

"I don't know if they would sacrifice their integrity for that," says Kerri.

Oh no?

"There is no more line to cross," says Pen, who works on Honda and Acura. "The bar cannot even be seen. The envelope, I'm afraid, has been mailed."

 

When I was watching Kingpin tonight, a tv was showing the Ronco Rotisserie commercial. Once Ron Popeil sinks that low....

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Bat Boy IS real, just like wraslin'.

 

If we can't believe in Bat Boy, then what can we believe in "The Great Pumpkin" I think not.

I'm crushed.....

 

i've seen bat boy

 

>>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Bat Boy IS real, just like wraslin'.

 

I kinda suspected this all along...can't fool a fool.

 

Bat Boy is on MCO. You just don't know who... Bob? maybe cooperation? L?

 

>>>>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Bat Boy IS real, just like wraslin'.
>>

"My grandmother was the only person in the world who thought that wrasslin' was real and the moonshot was a fake." --Lewis Grizzard

p.s. She wasn't the only one--mine felt the same way on both counts!

GE

 

If it's product placement, there really was no excuse for WWN to spell it "Mini" instead of "MINI".

 

>>If it's product placement, there really was no excuse for WWN to spell it "Mini" instead of "MINI".
>>
>>

So it wasn't as obvious that it was product placement maybe???

 

>>"There is no more line to cross," says Pen, who works on Honda and Acura. "The bar cannot even be seen. The envelope, I'm afraid, has been mailed."<<

Kind of sounds like they're talking about our president!

_________________
2003 Red/White Cooper - Brookline, MA