Advertising

State attorneys general from across the country are stepping up pressure on Craigslist to shutter what they call the nation's busiest virtual street corner, where prostitution runs rampant. Craigslist says it has reduced by 95% the number of inappropriate listings on the erotic services section of its classified-ads website since November, when the San Francisco company reached an accord with more than 40 of the states' top prosecutors.

One of New York's best-known photo studios said Friday it will open a large branch in Hollywood to take advantage of America's changing tastes in magazine covers and advertising campaigns. Professional models based in New York were the first choice of magazine editors and big advertisers for decades, said Mazdack Razzi, creative director of Milk Studios. Now they demand celebrities. "Celebrities are the new models," said fashion photographer Alexi Lubomirski, who is himself based in New York.

The liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America sought to ratchet up the pressure on CNN on Monday with an ad slamming the network for allowing host Lou Dobbs to continue raising questions about President Obama's birth certificate. In the ad, set to begin running on cable today in three cities, the group spotlights Dobbs' recent focus on the so-called "birther" controversy, fueled by right-wing critics of Obama who question whether he is really a citizen.

When I watch the Carl's Jr. commercial featuring "Top Chef" host and mega-model Padma Lakshmi make hot sweet love to a Western Bacon Cheeseburger, I have many thoughts, some of which, I confess, are not entirely to my credit. The spot features the former Mrs. Salman Rushdie sitting on a brownstone stoop in a clingy sundress hiked up mid-thigh, cramming the giant burger into her educated maw and sucking barbecue sauce from her fingers and wrists.

Super-swimmer Michael Phelps returned to big-time advertising Sunday with a TV spot for Subway titled "Be Yourself." Oh, the irony. Surely Phelps -- 14-time Olympic gold medalist and endorsement juggernaut -- was being only himself, only human, when he was photographed in November hitting a bong at a party at the University of South Carolina.

When it comes to marketing movies to kids, fast food wasn't to Disney's taste. But 20th Century Fox sees nothing wrong with a Big Mac. The News Corp. studio has struck a partnership with McDonald's for five of its major movie releases through 2010, beginning with the summer sequels "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" and "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."

Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen, known for their grimly comic portrayals of human nature, are poking fun at a new target: the coal industry. The filmmaking brothers have directed a TV spot for an environmental coalition that's trying to demolish the notion that there's anything clean about so-called clean coal.

Jack has risen, hallelujah. After being hit by a bus in a Super Bowl TV/Web commercial Feb. 1, Jack -- the grand-tete CEO-mascot of Jack in the Box -- emerged from his coma March 4, newly inspired. At Jack's direction, the San Diego-based restaurant chain will undertake a brand makeover this spring, including a new logo (Duffy & Partners, Minneapolis), redesigned store environments and a new corporate website that launched Monday. Jack, I feel obliged to point out, is a fictional character.

McDonald's -- never known for a delicate marketing touch -- is about to drop the mother of all campaigns on you, an everywhere-you-look, invade-your-dreams ad campaign in support of its McCafe specialty coffee drinks that will be not so much viral as bubonic. An estimated $100-million mega-buy across TV, Web, radio, print, outdoor and social media, the McCafe push beginning today will be, according to the company, its biggest "menu initiative" since it began serving breakfast in the 1970s.

They're bigger, they're bolder, and soon they'll be covering up large swaths of some of your favorite Web pages. The Online Publishers Assn. on Tuesday released several new in-your-face advertising formats designed to be both more obtrusive and interactive.