Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho was the FIFA World Player of the Year back in 2004 and 2005, but the 32-year-old is starting to show his age a bit and didn’t even get placed on the nation’s Olympic team. He left his last club team, Flamengo, and sued them, only to be countersued.

Now he’s got another problem. He has a sponsorship deal with Coca-Cola that paid him $750,000 annually through 2014. That should be a good thing, right? Well, it was until Ronaldinho was spotted having a cola at a news conference. A Pepsi cola. Not his strongest move.Continue reading...

Bank of America just can't get out of the limelight. We noted late last year BofA's questionable decision to introduce monthly debit card fees during the much-hyped Occupy Wall Street protests. Now, months after the OWS movement has died down, BofA is again facing populist scrutiny with this week's launch of a parody website: YourBofA.com.

The website has been attributed to The Yes Men, who have been credited for other satirical websites for the likes of George Bush and the WTO.

The mock BofA website opens with a fake letter from CEO Brian Moynihan acknowledging that the bank “isn't working anymore” and suggesting that the American taxpayer will ultimately own the company. Further, the website offers a forum to visitors to suggest ideas for how to improve the bank and its policies.

The site even hits below the belt by bringing grandmas into the mix, prominently displaying an elderly woman next to the quote “I want my bank to let grandmas stay in houses they've owned their whole lives.” And if all of that wasn't enough, another section of the spoofed site allows visitors to create fake BofA ads online or by downloading Photoshop templates. Customers, beware.

The people have spoken! A P&G spokesman confirmed to the Associated Press today that Isaiah Mustafa will return as the Old Spice Guy, after the brand introduced cheese-tastic romance novel cover icon Fabio as his replacement this week in a cringeworthy series of spots on a pop-up New Old Spice Guy YouTube channel, leaving its "old" Old Spice video channel up.

To quote AP, "P&G spokesman Mike Norton says Fabio’s Old Spice TV commercials are running now, but Mustafa will be back to pitch for the brand."

As we noted when the New Old Spice Guy campaign broke, the whole thing was likely an elaborate joke to incite instant negative reaction on social media and on YouTube resoundingly against Fabio. In that case, the whole exercise was a resounding success.

Check out the latest Fabio spots below.Continue reading...

As Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark finally officially opens this week on Broadway (to a less than glowing review from the New York Times), Sesame Street presents its ode to Disney, Marvel and U2's troubled Broadway production — SpiderMonster, the Musical — as a promo for its own return in September.

Occasionally, even a retailer as savvy as Wal-Mart steps in it. That may be what’s happening with the chain’s decision to develop its own beauty line aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds — the fledgling fashionistas marketers call tweens.

GeoGirl, which debuts in February, replaces the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen cosmetics line. It's designed for young skin, with natural ingredients such as white willow bark and chamomile. Sold in recyclable packaging, natch, the items are named in tween-speak texting slang such as J4G (Just For Grins).

“GeoGirl is about teaching this generation about beauty care in a responsible way,” stated Carmen Bauza, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s vice president and divisional merchandise manager of beauty and personal care. “This [line] is a great learning experience for us to determine how to communicate with this generation.”

That may be Wal-Mart's corporate rationale for encouraging kids to wear makeup. But it didn’t take long for outraged moms and others to take shots at what seemed to them like child exploitation by Wal-Mart.Continue reading...

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has approved KitKat's tennis spot, above, following a handful (six, to be exact) complaints that children would imitate it. Brand owner Nestle's response, according to Marketing Week, was that the tennis ball-spitter "was so nerdy and uncool that no one would want copy him, pointing out that he wore out-of-date clothes and was clearly not enjoying himself."

The Importance of Being Earnest Censored. Image from The Big Money

Apple’s in another kerfuffle, this time accused of homophobia. An iPad adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde apparently raised eyebrows in Cupertino, where Apple deemed the graphic novel as pornographic and censored until the author agreed to black out men kissing with bars across the offending images.

Previously, Apple blocked a comic adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses, called Ulysses Seen, until nudity was removed. Both blocks have now been lifted by Apple, with a spokesperson telling TechCrunch: “We made a mistake. When the art panel edits of the Ulysses Seen app and the graphic novel adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest app were brought to our attention, we offered the developers the opportunity to resubmit their original drawings and update their apps.”

Media brands and content creators, meanwhile, are scratching their heads trying to parse what Apple finds pornographic.Continue reading...

Having coined the term jiapers to describe Huggies' new faux denim Little Movers diapers (at least KISS-FM in Charlotte, NC, appreciates a pun...), we were bemused to see that Kimberly-Clark's mildly risqué commercial for the limited (summer-only) product hasn't won over at least three U.S. TV networks.

Despite being accepted by 13 channels, the New York Times hears that the Disney-owned ABC and its offshoot ABC Family, as well as the Comcast-owned preschoolers' Sprout network, balked at the innuendo-heavy spot because of the language. For this trio of networks, the tagline was changed to "When you gotta go, go in style."

Watch the spot and let us know if you think they're being overly sensitive (and if we're being overly punny!)