It’s what PR agencies dream of; hoping against hope that whatever appallingly dull clients they have their roster, they can spin some sensational headline in the hope of catching a time-pressured editor and their underpaid hacks off-guard.

And this is what happened yesterday. Lots of credible tech and consumer outlets, and Bitterwallet, received a press release about GetJar, an online mobile app store. The company had commissioned research into the current sales of mobile applications and hypothesised on future revenues from the sector. Speculation is a great way for a company to attract press release, because it can be based on little more than guess work, but lead to sensational headlines that attract attention. But in this instance, GetJar’s PR company went with:

Read that headline again. What does it mean? What’s the connection between apps and CDs that leads to a direct comparison between sales? Aside from both being consumer products, there’s no relationship whatsoever. A press release about music with a headline comparing tracks downloaded to physical product sold – there would be some logic to that. But apps don’t deliver even a vaguely similar consumer experience to CDs, so what comparison is there to make? It makes as much sense as these headlines I’ve just imagined from previous years:

1995 “Mobile phones will outsell VHS tapes by 1998″

2000 “DVDs will outsell colouring books by 2002″

2001 “iPods will outsell tractors by 2003″

It’s an abstract comparison between two items that you wouldn’t rationally attempt to compare, unless you wanted to create a headline that sounds extraordinary but doesn’t mean anything. It turns out the research conducted by AppJar is reasonably interesting, and the real story -  that mobile apps will be generating $17.5 billion in two years time – is buried in the byline.

Fortunately, most of the tech press spotted this, and ignored the bullshit-baffles-brains headline. Quite right too – you wouldn’t catch a respected news operation simply cutting and pasting such a ridiculous statement into their article, would you?

Oh. Never mind.

Back in December, we stumbled upon a company called Customer Club - we’d begun receiving newsletters from them on behalf of Borders, shortly before the bookstore went into administration. Customer Club then requested those on the mailing list join them directly – it seemed that the parent company, The Marketing Innovation Group, had acquired Borders’ mailing list and were using it for their own purposes.

Their activity was previously ambiguous enough to warrant only suspicion – they were emailing addresses on the mailing lists about activities and subscriptions connected to Borders – albeit very loosely. Now it seems fair to say the Marketing Innovation Group are flat-out abusing the mailing lists with spam. Avid Bitterwallet reader Richard received a newsletter from The Customer Club yesterday, sent on behalf of Habitat – a newsletter he never requested (it can’t even be explained away as a relevant third party interest), and one sent to the email address he’d specified for his Borders newsletter:

We called The Marketing Innovation Group, and the phone went dead. We went to their website, and that wasn’t working either. Nor was the consumer-facing website for The Customer Club. We’ll keep trying to get in touch with them – they’re probably aware that buying up personal data for a use not relevant to its initial collection, is the sort of thing the ICO isn’t too thrilled to see.

Have you heard of Ellie Goulding? If you need your memory jolting into action, then she’s The Next Big Thing, mainly because she won some spurious award at the Brits the other week.

Anyway, it looks like she’s got some corporate backing (away from her Polydor record deal) from Microsoft. A few weeks back, Microsoft held an event which was an X-Box Reverb-sponsored Ellie Goulding gig.

Dizzyjam went down and landed in PR hell.

Now, people can get prickly about musicians making money from corporate activities, but y’know, musicians want to pay the bills off quickly just like anyone else. The Who Sell Out was pretty funny, right?

However, what is depressing is what bands and artistes are actually asked to do. Dizzyjam found a piece of A4 in the bogs which detailed all the things that Goulding should say about X-Box when speaking to the press.

It opens with this statement: “We would ask that Ellie Goulding try, wherever possible, to include these messages as much as possible when doing interviews.”

It continued with things that Ellie should try and casually drop into conversation with journalists:

“XBox is the home of great music experiences, along with great music games like Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero. You can also download 100s of music videos on XBox Live”.

“XBox 360 is more than just a games console – it’s an entertainment hub where you can enjoy great music, movies and of course games. Not to mention connect and communicate with your friends and family wherever they are”.

“XBox Live opens you up to a world of great entertainment simply by plugging your XBox 360 into your broadband. Play, watch and connect with your friends”.

How grim is that? Whoever wrote that shite up should be strung up and shot at. They aren’t words strung together like conversation, rather, it’s ‘copy’. Anyone who has read a press release will know how ‘copy’ is the worst prose in the history of human endeavour (apart from my clunky ramblings, granted).

Is this PR gone too far?

Right, where was I? Oh yes. So a couple of weeks have passed since your media-friendly nonsense about a man eating a winning scratchcard, and you need another excuse, any excuse, to whore your wares. What about an entirely convoluted survey that proves nothing whatsoever? Yes!

Ryanair, the world’s favourite most frequented airline, is gunning for the mums. It’s nearly Mother’s Day again (this Sunday, fact fans) so the budget airline has produced some vital statistics that demand you buy your mum a Ryanair flight or she’ll hate you forever. Fact. See, according to the budget airline who surveyed 1,000 mothers, “90 per cent of mums see Mother’s Day flowers as a waste of money and would prefer a (naughty) weekend away from the kids.”

Difficult to know where to start with this one. Let’s begin with the fact that Ryanair can’t read the results of their own survey, the results of which state:

Ryanair’s survey asked ‘What would you like to get this Mother’s Day?’:

• 55% a voucher for a (naughty) weekend away from the kids
• 20% Mother’s Day meal in a restaurant
• 15% Chocolates
• 10% Flowers

The statement “90 per cent of mums… would prefer a (naughty) weekend away from the kids” is an outright lie, so the number is only 55 per cent – the ‘news’ article’s byline gets the facts right, but lazy churnalists will cut and paste from the ambigious body copy, not the headline.

There’s then the fact that nobody was actually asked to choose which item they thought was a waste of money – they were asked to choose which gift they’d prefer to receive. So 90 per cent of mothers don’t necessarily think flowers are a waste of money. You can’t even state they wouldn’t want flowers on Mother’s Day, because that wasn’t the question asked.

Finally, given the choice between a weekend away and a bunch of flowers, of course people are going to choose the former. The most shocking revelation is that 45 per cent of mothers didn’t choose the free holiday. Predetermining the available choices is obviously going to define the response – if the list of possibilities had included free mortgage payments for a year, nobody would be choosing a couple of nights of yankee doodle in Lanzarote.

Yeah, it’s not that big a deal, it’s only another bit of fluff on nonsense from Ryanair – but it’s always worth pointing out what a lot of horseshit is blurted out in the name of you, the consumer.

In the past Ryanair has slagged off the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and called them “Monty Pythonesque” and “Absolutely Stupid Asses”. However, they’ve gone running to the ASA like wailing babies after EasyJet took the piss out of them in an ad campaign.

Ryanair have long moaned about the ASA after the regulatory board repeatedly smacked their legs over continued abuse of advertising rules.

Now they’re asking the ASA to tell EasyJet off after a poster campaign saw the light of day which claimed that Ryanair did not fly to airports customers believed they had booked.

The strapline on the ad ran: “Who loves flying you to the place you actually booked?”.

One the spots pointed out that Ryanair flights to Paris actually landed in Beauvais and a trip to Barcelona would see you touching down at Girona airport. Ryanair complained that the ad was misleading. The ASA agreed (although, I bet they would have loved to have stuck their fingers in their ears and pretended that they couldn’t hear Ryanair’s weeping).

“We considered the challenging tone of the headline “Who loves flying you to the place you actually booked?” combined with the implication that Ryanair misled customers and flew them to airports different to the ones to which they had booked was denigratory,” the ASA said.

[Guardian]

[@juicyformats]

Think about the way airlines portray themselves. If British Airways are ethereal choral music (’The Flower Duet’ by Léo Delibes if you’re wondering) then EasyJet are… well… Black Lace.

Or, in the case of a free promotional gig for the World’s Cruddiest Airline, two blokes who claim to be Black Lace despite not being that bloke with white Farah slacks and peroxide hair who you’ll recognise from the famous appearances on Top of the Pops in the ’80s.

The two blokes pictured right are Black Lace. You wouldn’t guess if they kicked you up the arse repeatedly, hollering the commands of ‘Superman’ in your ear.

Anyway, the depressing world of PR manifested itself in public yesterday, with ‘Black Lace’ performing songs which included a touching Eurodance version of ‘I Am The Music Man’… in front of, well, let’s put it this way – there were more people covering it and associated with EasyJet than there were people of the Great British Public there for a good time.

Performing in orange Hawaiian shirts and issuing people with a Fez or two, ‘Black Lace’ saved the best (or, most crushingly awful if you prefer) ’til last. Yep, not only have they reworked the lyrics to ‘Agadoo’ to incorporate a tale about one of EasyJet’s new destinations (you can hear that monstrosity here… be warned, your ears will go red with embarrassment even though you weren’t there), but they’ve written a paean to EasyJet with the Dylan-worthy lyrics of “From Paphos, Menorca and Sharm el Sheikh too… We danced, we danced… join the EasyJet crew.”

Mercifully, the assembled were issued with lyrics sheets that braced us with the line ‘PASSENGER WARNING! MAY RESULT IN FUN!‘

Sometimes, when art and commerce collide, even a grey day in Manchester can’t spoil the glorious outpourings of two men ready to embrace fame once more. Sadly, this little turn fucked any (slim) chance of that. All the forced fun of a swingers party where no-one fancies each other and the only game woman has a runny arse. God bless EasyJet and two men who aren’t Black Lace (apparently, we all get to be a member of the group at some point… a bit like jury service) who were kind enough to flick the vickies at me.

From mad ads in Denmark (albeit spoof ones) to mad ads in France. Worryingly, these ones are for real.

There’s generally no argument when it comes to the idea that smoking is bad for you and various shock tactics have been used in an attempt to get smokers to knock it on the head.

Now the French have gone all weird with the whole thing and are suggesting that if you smoke, you’re a slave to tobacco,  the slogan “Fumer c’est etre l’esclave du tabac” translating as “Smoking is like being tobacco’s slave.” Furthermore, they’ve illustrated the theory by creating a series of, erm, dubious images showing how that slavery might manifest itself.

Smoke a tab and you’re basically giving the tobacco executive and his ilk a blow job, and they don’t care if you’re a boy or a girl. But it does seem that they like ‘em young. Holy mother of ding dong.

On the one hand, this is funny. On the other, it’s pathetically tragic – we’re not referring to the guy who was idiotic enough to part with his cash, but the fact that the company involved gets away scott-free. Yes, it’s the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), that allows you to advertise anything – and this case proves it really is anything – without any comeback whatsoever.

So then. An advert is placed in an unnamed UK porno magazine that reads:

“Act out your fantasies on film, Earn Big Bucks. Adult movie xtras needed now! Call 08714 XXXXXX or 08714 XXXXXX www.xtreme-red.com”

Sounds like the perfect gig, we thought. In fact Andy already has his coat on. Just hold your horses, superschlong! There’s a problem, according to the ASA. Several, in fact:

A reader, who had answered the ad and paid several thousand pounds up front, objected that the ad was misleading because:

1. the ad did not make clear that obtaining work through the advertisers would involve significant financial outlay;

2. he did not believe the advertised work was available, as he had never been given the precise details of when and where shoots would take place.

The ASA challenged:

3. that the ad did not set out Xtreme Red’s full name and contact details and the fact that it was an employment agency, as required by the Code;

4. whether the charge for the premium rate numbers should have been included in the ad.

We’re not sure why you’d pay out several thousand pounds when the advert promised to pay you, so you’d be well within your right to chalk it up as a successful attempt in parting an idiot and his money. Surprisingly, the website actually responded to the ASA initially, stating the fees paid were for individuals to promote their services on their website, and the client hadn’t been guaranteed any work. However, when the ASA asked for their terms and conditions concerning the service, proof that the complainant had been promoted on their site, and proof that indeed anybody who had paid for promotion had appeared in a skin flick, the website didn’t respond.

Perhaps the company relied on a client’s embarrassment to keep them quiet – regardless, the they were unwilling to prove they were in the business of doing anything other than fleecing cocksure wannabes for thousands. So on the grounds that xtreme-red.com are misleading consumers, what happens to them now?

The ad must not appear again in its current form.

Brilliant. As always, the regulator has no power whatsoever to prevent the company from advertising again, even in cases when it appears that the company is ripping people off. Carry on, says the ASA! As long as ads stick by their rules, you can advertise whatever the hell you like. They won’t even tell their friends at Trading Standards! It reminds us of this textbook example of missing the point, an old Viz gag reproduced in the US and sent in by avid Bitterwallet reader Daniel:

Everyone, it seems, is still dribbling over Google’s three month-old Superbowl ad, touched by the simple story-telling and heartfelt romance. Google now has a site called Search Stories with other commercials made last year, telling similar tales of real life intersecting popular search-engine consumption. Here’s one of them:

The Google search box uses autofill, that common feature where a search box takes a crack at guessing what you’re searching for as you begin typing. This is what happens in the ad above – but according to AdFreak, when the user types “making friends” the autofill results seen in the ad are markedly different to those that actually appear online:

Presumably the results are for Google.com when used in the US, since Google UK results look very different. Nice.

We don’t understand American Football in the Bitterwallet office, so we all trooped into work late last night with a 24-pack of Heineken and watched Escape to Victory instead. While they was knacking the goalie’s arm all over again, the fuss in the US was over Google – they are rumoured to have spent up to $5 million on their Superbowl commercial.

After blowing all that cash on the airtime, they didn’t bother producing anything new – this ad was first seen in November last year. Not that they’d have spent much producing a fresh ad, given that it featured nothing other than a Google homepage and search results:

Slightly more cheerful than Hemmingway’s attempt at brevity but what’s interesting about this (and the recent domination of billboards across the UK for their Chrome operating system) is that Google has in the past refused to advertise its services, preferring instead to let word-of-mouth do the talking. But the last twelve months has seen new players emerge in search, in both Twitter and Bing, so Google to is moving to secure its market share – less Googling means less Google Ads.

The first rules of supermarket vegetable wholesale practises is you don’t talk about supermarket vegetable wholesale practises. At least not if you’re Sainsbury’s.

If years of Jamie Oliver’s mawkish cockney shenanigans have crushed your spirit and turned you into a Sainsbury’s drone, you might not question where the retailer sources its stock from – or why it sells what it does, at the price it does. Avid Bitterwallet reader and broccoli stalwart Russell did, however:

Last week I went to my local Sainsbury’s to buy some vegetables. Not having that much money on me I picked up a packet of Basics broccoli which, like most people, I automatically assumed was cheaper than buying the broccoli loose from the crate to the right of it. Then I checked the label. Basics broccoli was £2.63 per kg, while the loose heads in the crate next to it were £1.97 per kg.

I queried this in the store. The vegetable department manager told me the difference in price was because Basics broccoli (which is in individual florets in a plastic bag) comes from ‘plants that are perhaps not as good or perhaps thinner so it has to be cut up’. I suggested this should make it cheaper, not more expensive. She then changed her story and said the loose stuff originated in Spain, but was forced to change her story again when I pointed out that the ‘Country of Origin’ on the Basics bag also said Spain. She then said that she would take it up with ‘the buyer’ and walked off.

I phoned Sainsbury’s Careline, who were equally as evasive about why their supposedly cheaper range turned out to be more expensive than buying the product loose. When I found myself in Sainbury’s again yesterday, ‘British Broccoli… fresh and in season!’ shouted a sign in the vegetable department. Every bloody head of broccoli on that display had been flown in from Spain.

The Daily Express seemingly struggles to walk the tightrope of authenticity every day, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it can’t even get the reader’s offers correct. Specifically, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has upheld complaints against the Express six times in the past five months.

After somehow failing to identify the crucial difference between adverts and editorial, the Express went on to run a promotion in October offering free fireworks “when you spend £15 at participating Sainsbury’s stores”. Brilliant. Well, almost. For starters, the offer wasn’t available in Sainsbury’s stores in Northern Ireland. Bollocks, said the Express – customers can still use the vouchers, they’ll just have to swim to Scotland:

“Express Newspapers told the ASA that it was clear on the front page that the offer was limited to participating stores and it believed the claim was not misleading as every reader was still free to use the voucher at a participating store.”

Then there was the fact that readers had to spend their £15 on fireworks in the first place, rather than simply shell out £15 in-store – a fact that wasn’t made clear until you turned to page 31 and read the small print.

The ad was found to be in breach of the ASA advertising code, but despite the sixth screw-up in five month the ASA has no punitive powers to impose fines or restrictions, meaning the Express is free to continue increasing their readership by misleading consumers. Not that we suspect our readership of containing a particularly large subset of Express readers – we’ve got you pegged as the Razzle sort – but just so you know.

[Press Gazette]

Actually, we’re thinking this one might not be a current deal…

[Boing Boing]

Apple’s Mac vs PC ads – some piss funny, some duller than Doncaster. There’s 66 of them in total, stretching back over four years. It’ll pass the time until the previews start later on Sky.

[Adweek]