Advertising Is Good For You

But where's the First Lady Barbie?

Barack Obama the action figure:

 

And the Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia dolls that maker Ty swears have nothing to do with Sasha and Malia Obama.

 

According to a Ty PR flack:

[We] chose the dolls’ names because 'they are beautiful names,' not because of any resemblance to President Obama’s daughters, said spokeswoman Tania Lundeen. “There’s nothing on the dolls that refers to the Obama girls,” Lundeen said. “It would not be fair to say they are exact replications of these girls. They are not.”

Sources: Blame It On The Voices, Collateral Damage and  CNN

Anyone for dominoes?

Bernard Madoff's $50 billion (!!!) Ponzi scheme came to light when a number of investors tried to take out their money at the same time. Presumably the investors' need for cash was the result of the lousy economy.

As a result, Ben Popken at The Consumerist predicts other scams are likely to come to light in the coming months. Would that be good news or bad?

Flog, a fake blog or one that purports to be organic but is in fact sponsored by a company.

For example, Working Families for Wal-Mart turned out to be a flog when it was disclosed that Wal-Mart had paid PR agency Edelman to create and maintain a pro-Wal-Mart blog under the guise that it was formed by a grassroots movement. Such a practice, while not illegal, is considered unethical; because of its role in the Wal-Mart blog deception, Edelman is currently on a 90-day probation with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

Source: MediaPost