Sex and the City of Jerusalem

We told them, the way you don't remove the word "Coca" from "Coca-Cola" and just leave "Cola," we can't do it in this case.

- Arye Barak, spokesperson for Forum Films, distributor of the movie Sex and the City in Israel

In Associated Press, "Sex and the City ads Banned in Two Israeli Cities," MSNBC.COM, May 20, 2008

Traditional sensibilities collided with modernity with the release of the movie Sex and the City in two Israeli cities. Municipal officials in the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and Petah Tikva asked the outdoor advertising company working for Forum Films not to use the word "sex" for ads about the movie. Those cities have large "religious" populations, the officials said, and they would be offended by use of the word. (Cities in the rest of Israel had no problem with the ad campaign.) Executives did not go forward with outdoor ads in Jerusalem and Petah Tikvah because they felt it would be "ludicrous" to show the name of the movie without its key word. An alternative, somewhat subversive way to have proceeded would have been to play with the first word: Six and the City or --- and the City. That might have alerted people in those cities who would know the show that the movie would be playing there. It might have led to widespread word-of-mouth advertising among the target audience. And presumably religious segments of the population would have less reason to complain. Non-religious people who use popular media in those two cities are likely to still see ads, though: The movie is heavily advertised on TV, the Internet and in newspapers.

US Lags In Mobile Marketing

The trajectories are all headed in the right direction.

-Dag Olav Norem, a senior analyst with M:Metrics

In Erik Sass, "Mobile Banner Ads Have Same Brand Recall As TV Spots," Mediapost's Media Daily News, May 15, 2008.

When it comes to marketing via mobile phones, Norem noted that the US lags far behind other parts of the world in terms of penetration by mobile marketing. While 20% of U.S. mobile users receive an SMS marketing message at least once a month, versus 75% in Europe. But, he argued, there is also an "opposite correlation between penetration and response rates": Of people receiving SMS marketing messages in Europe, 4.9% respond, compared with 12.4% in the U.S. Maybe that's because Europeans have become used to getting the messages and are therefore more annoyed with them than the Americans are (so far).