Issue Advertising

Peggy Conlon is, as she puts it, "tragically timely." Just hours after 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams allegedly killed two Santana High School classmates and wounded 13 others, anti-violence ads by Conlon's nonprofit were sharing the airwaves with breathless reports from news anchors. Distributed by the New York City-based Advertising Council Inc.

Billboard advertisements that New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani criticized for using his cancer diagnosis to parody the popular "Got Milk?" ads are being removed, according to the animal rights group that sponsored them. The company that put up the billboards informed People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that it would remove the group's ads, PETA said Friday.

Advertisements that parody the dairy industry's popular "Got Milk?" ads have outraged New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Two billboards by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals depict Giuliani wearing a milk mustache and asking: "Got prostate cancer?" The ad claims a connection between drinking milk and prostate cancer, for which the mayor is being treated.

Teenaagers have plenty to say about the attention-grabbing anti-smoking ads on TV today. They'll grimace and tell you the name of that smoker, Debbie, who appears on TV with a deep hole in her throat. They wrinkle their noses when they think of Bob, who talks about his emphysema. But they're not sure whether those ads actually deter them from smoking. "You make your own decisions," said Carrick Railsback, 17, who was visiting Southern California from San Francisco earlier this month.

With no small amount of flourish, Gov. Gray Davis convened a news conference nearly a year ago to declare that he was renewing California's war on tobacco use by launching a series of tough television ads attacking the industry. "It's time," Davis proclaimed last May, "for this state to stand up for our children against the Joe Camels and Marlboro Men, and other seductive messages of addiction. Our ads will tell the truth in a plain, unvarnished fashion."

MTV has premiered its first Spanish-language ad, joining efforts with the Assn. of Hispanic Advertising Agencies to increase Latino voter registration, the industry group said. MTV's decision to run the Spanish-language public service announcement makes it the first English-language broadcaster to join AHAA's pro bono nonpartisan voter campaign.

Pudgy or gaunt, with stubble, with biceps, the death row inmates posed for photos in their prison scrubs. Then they talked: about their moms, bass fishing, pizza. About how they fear execution. The photos and interviews filled a magazine--a 96-page plea for compassion. An attempt to show that the killers our courts condemn to death are people just like us. The magazine's producers call it social commentary. But is it crass commercialism as well? Missouri's attorney general thinks so.

Banners with words and images confronting stereotypes and promoting diversity and respect were unveiled Thursday morning outside Grant High School, where ethnic tensions erupted in violence last year and students signed a "peace treaty" in January.

Banners with words and images confronting stereotypes and promoting diversity and respect were unveiled Thursday morning outside Grant High School, where ethnic tensions erupted in violence last year and a "peace treaty" was signed by students in January.

Chances are your daily routine includes getting stuck in traffic or idling at a red light, all somewhere within sight of a billboard. And that's exactly what Silver Lake artist Janeil Engelstad is banking on. Through her project, "Visualizing Violence," she's hoping motorists in six locations throughout Los Angeles will look up and focus on billboard art that decries how easy it is for young people to acquire guns.