Plugging bin Ladin

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Have you heard the news? Osama bin Laden is dead, but his brand lives on. After his death this week, a number of ad blogs ran anti-tributes to the terrorist mastermind, compiling round-ups of some of his appearances in advertising through the years. The irony is, of course, that he attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, out of anger toward the West - but boy, would he have been upset if he saw the ads he later showed up in. (And not just because he didn't get residuals.) There were print ads for condoms, Range Rovers, anti-smoking efforts, cough drops, and a courier service. There was also at least one ad for a headhunter. The corporate kind, that is.

But Mr. bin Laden didn't just kill thousands of people, he also killed advertising. How's that, you say? Well, if you were one of the millions who searched the Web this week for information on his death, you might have noticed something missing from the search results: All along the right-hand margin of Google's search result pages, where the ads usually live, there was nothing but white space. Why? Apparently, advertisers wanted nothing to do with him: Nobody was bidding on his name as a search term in Google's AdWords marketplace system. As fans of clean Web pages, we'd give our thanks for that to him, but we're worried somebody might get the wrong idea.

Google's on our mind anyway because of a new campaign promoting its Chrome browser. Last year, the company famously bought some Super Bowl ad time at the last minute to air its heartwarming "Parisian Love" spot - marking one of the few instances the new-media company has dipped its toe into the old-media space. The success of that spot helped spur the company into trying TV time again with a pair of - yes - heartwarming spots for Chrome. But if the aim is to increase downloads of the speedy browser (and thus funnel more people into using Google's search), the ads also buffs the sweetly sentimental side of the company's brand. Which, as an added benefit, takes Google straight into Apple's territory.

But enough conflict for one day; we should turn our attention to jauntier things, such as ads with bikinis. Recently, we received word that Britain's Advertising Standards Authority slapped down a newspaper ad for Ryanair featuring a bikini-clad gal enjoying a cocktail on the beach. "Book to the sun now!" the ad urged readers. But after a complaint, the ASA determined the ad was misleading because none of the destinations on offer - including Rimini, Lourdes, Derry, Glasgow and Oslo - would have actually been suitable for beach wear in February or March. If only Ryanair offered flights to Abbottabad! Clearly, the terrorists have won.