Advertising and Related Services

The Magic of Making Food Look Good on Television

Here's a fun video -- well, more of an ad/promo reel -- showing how German advertising company The Marmalade creates special effects for food television commercials. The shots involve a special high-speed camera and fake food props (we want to see more of the studio that creates fake food, by the wa ... More >>

Breast Friends

Smoked Out: Will Puffing Pot at Concerts Get You in Trouble?

Super Bowl: San Francisco, Baltimore Urged to Beg for Wheat Thins

The Super Bowl will be quickly upon us -- and with it a bevy of head-scratching corporate tie-ins. We were, admittedly, caught off-guard by this big-game ad campaign from Wheat Thins.  Our confusion starts right at the beginning. The campaign is titled "Must Have Wheat Thins." Now, nothing agai ... More >>

Danielle Ate the Sandwich: Show Preview

EDC 2012: Coachella or Electric Daisy Carnival: Which One is Better?

See also: Our Complete Coachella Coverage Dance music is coming to an arena near you: Kaskade will be the first DJ ever to play Staples Center (July 27). And mainstream concert promoters such as Live Nation are diving into the electronic dance explosion. Electric Daisy Carnival, which is being hel ... More >>

I Love That City: An S.F. Mega-Rave Moves to Shoreline

I Love That City

A huge new rave moves from S.F. to the Peninsula -- before the first beat even drops.

Concert Fans: Nob Hill Residents Would Like to See Less of You

Over the last few years, concert promotion giant Live Nation has hosted an increasing number of concerts at San Francisco's Nob Hill Masonic Center. The seated, 3,500-capacity venue doesn't usually hold crazy rock shows (unless you think Weezer is crazy), but Al Green, Yanni, and Roxette are all sch ... More >>

Skream and Benga: Show Preview

Mad Blokes

Supermarkets No Longer Treat Generics as the Shame of the Cart

​Grocery chains have been rebranding their generic store brands for a decade or two now with flashier packaging and better names -- Whole Foods' 365, Safeway's O Organics -- but a new story from Bloomberg Business Week/SF Chronicle reports that the chains are now initiating large-scale marketing ... More >>

Top 5 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Respectable Career, Featuring Kings of Leon

Is it really so hard to be Kings of Leon? That's a question that countless arena-rock sobsters have been asking themselves in the wake of the Followill clan's tour cancellation, a move which disappointed fans, upset beer manufacturers, and may damn near bankrupt Live Nation. Rather than revel in the ... More >>

H1-B Visa Program Creates Caste System for Silicon Valley

Groupon Google Ads Pulls a Bait And Switch, Lawsuit Says

Bait and switch​Groupon is being accused of defrauding consumers by purchasing advertisements on Google for services the company did not offer, according to a federal lawsuit filed in San Francisco. A Google search for "San Francisco Tours" on Feb. 24, for example, purportedly returned the followi ... More >>

Claim: Limewire's Shutdown Reduced Music Piracy by 7 Percent

​The nationally-recognized market research nerds NPD Group just released their latest poll, which suggests the shutdown of the file-sharing application Limewire this past October reduced peer-to-peer-based music piracy in the U.S. by a significant 7 percent. Wait, that many of you were still ... More >>

Commercial Interests

Burger King Finds New Way to Make You Fat

Burger KingThe Jalapeño and Cheddar BK Stuffed Steakhouse burger: digusting or brilliant?​It didn't take long for the creative geniuses behind fast-food marketing to come up with a new way to make you fat in the New Year. Earlier this week we noticed a new menu item at our local Burger King, ... More >>

Google Pays Kickbacks -- Or So Say TechCrunch's Anonymous Hearsay Sources

If anonymous hearsay says it, it must be true.​Is Google today's incarnation of Alan Freed, the 1950s R&B disc jockey accused of taking payments to play certain songs? TechCrunch cites anonymous sources suggesting something like that.A major agency "is pushing a ton of advertising dollars thro ... More >>

Yes, You Really Are Paying More for Concert Tickets Now

www.economist.com​As recorded music sales slide, at least among the young, artists and promoters are charging you more (lots more) money to go to concerts.How much more? Check it out after the jump.

The Exotic Erotic Ball ditched the Cow Palace over ticket fraud

Zynga Off the Hook for Mafia Wars Vandalism, S.F. City Attorney Says

​It looks like Zynga is not going to face legal or financial consequences for alleged sidewalk vandalism carried out as part of a marketing campaign for the San Francisco-based company's new online game, Mafia Wars: Las Vegas.Instead, according to Matt Dorsey, spokesman for San Francisco City Atto ... More >>

Fast Company Influence Project Pisses Off Online Influencers

You can add another entry to the annals of botched social media campaigns; Fast Company and San Francisco based digital marketing agency Mekanism turned Fast Company readers into digital guinea pigs this morning with The Influence Project, an ornate marketing rickroll where users had to register the ... More >>

DOJ Approves Live Nation-Ticketmaster Merger

​On Monday, the David and Goliath of concert ticket promotion and sales -- Live Nation and Ticketmaster -- joined forces to become Live Nation Entertainment, a music industry behemoth that promises to force other music labels and promoters to rejigger their business plans to accommodate. The U.S. ... More >>

List: The Chronicle looks on the bright side

Local Eco-Conference Swaps Press Passes for Ad Placement

Being forced to trade adspace for media coverage of an event is not the current journalistic norm. Sadly, it may become commonplace in the future.​ In the impending newspaperless world dreaded by journalists, and glowingly touted by futurists, we'll all be glorified ad-salespeople, burnishing our ... More >>

Summer Fruit is for More Than Just Salads -- Learn How It Can Get You Seriously Hammered

rrrarchPotential cocktail mixers on display at Ferry Plaza.​The hottest bartenders in town are partnering with the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture(CUESA) and the S.F. chapter of the United States Bartenders Guild tomorrow, 5:30-7:30 p.m., at the Ferry Building to make ... More >>

Newsrack fee hike could create more empty boxes

Back In Court

Video: Adam Werbach Describes New Job

Attention Faux-Hawks: Top Chef Casting Call

Examiner Offers Free Advertising!

The Demise of Hyphy

Thizzle, bling, and blunts may have helped bring down the overhyped hyphy movement. But KMEL pulled the trigger.

The Guardian Gets a Reality Check from The New York Times

So Does That Mean Weeklies Were Ahead Of Their Time? Shit, They've Always Been Free

Blood Feast

Lotus Vodka Filled with Life-Giving Vitamins ... and Cirrhosis-Causing Alcohol!

Unfair Lawsuit Act

SF Weekly moves to dismiss the Guardian's lawsuit, which is light on witnesses and evidence

Unfair Lawsuit Act

SF Weekly moves to dismiss the Guardian's lawsuit, which is light on witnesses and evidence

Letters to the Editor

July 5, 2006

Sloganeering

For years the city has been using racy ads to sell HIV prevention. Do they work?

Real to Reel

Jesse Kipp's job in the emerging field of commercial ethnography could make you the star of your very own advertisement

Horse Pay

An enterprising volunteer gives Sonoma State University a unique solution to its athletics-funding problem: a stable of thoroughbreds

Best Local Film and Video Preserve

San Francisco Media Archive

Smaller

Tensions mount in an ad agency as two men wait to see who's getting the ax, in this skillful play by Malachy Walsh

Reel World

Sails Pitch

Born to sell, would-be America's Cup skipper Dawn Riley puts her birthright to work

Mulch

Dish

Webbing Out