The 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of the Month

Naked floor-moppers! Steve Jobs' terrible taste in brand names! Tina Fey's Ad Council porn joke! It all happened in the world of advertising in November 2009:

1. Y&R campaign suggests sunglasses make your face look like a butt Was this really the best creative strategy for this Italian brand of eyewear?
2. Cosmetic surgeons demand ban on their own ads Promos created unrealistic expectations among patients, trade group says in sudden attack of reasonableness and objectivity.
3. Will a half-naked dude mopping your floor make you buy Pine Sol? Cleaning product company hopes DDB ad will give the ladies a new fetish.
4. TBWA/Chat/Day persuaded Steve Jobs Out of Horrible Name for "iMac" Jobs had a name for the iMac but "it was terrible. It would 'curdle your blood,'" TBWA's Ken Segall refuses to say what it was -- no fair! -- and got Jobs to run with iMac instead.
5. All those ads for electric abdomen belts turn out to be true The FTC has filed claims against four ab belt sellers, but docs tell the WSJ they may actually work, with some caveats.

   

6. Admen inspired by old British WW2 poster: "Keep Calm and Carry On" Poster was intended in case the Nazis invaded Blighty. It was never actually published during the war.
7. Tina Fey makes porn joke at Ad Council dinner "They recently made a porn movie, this is true, about Sarah Palin, and then the same adult actress, Lisa Ann, played me in a porn parody of '30 Rock.' Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy. But I know the most about three-ways."
8. Mystery sculpture appears at Lamar billboard site Circle of lumber materialized overnight. "We may have to dispose of it," said Debbie Parish of Lamar Advertising of Altoona, which owns the property.
9. Glenn Beck endorses Sham-Wow's Vince Shlomi for green jobs czar No, it doesn't make any sense to me either.
10. Sound engineers get revenge on agency creatives and clients Weirdly compelling video dissects production minutiae: "We will be fucking about with the pictures pointlessly until the last minute. ... there will be five of us creatives turning up for no good reason? Yes there will be lots of us all talking loudly when the engineer is trying to listen for sound effects and mixing!"

• Want more?
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of October
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of September
• The Top 10 Weirdest Stories of August
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of July
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of June
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of May
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of April
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of March
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of February
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of January
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of December