Talking Retail reports Tango has launched a new limited edition drinks can which uses temperature sensitive ink to reveal a series of jokes once cans have been properly chilled.

Appearing in fridges across the country from last Monday (15th Feb) the gimmick features across 20 million cans built on the ‘too much Tango causes side effects’ theme, which launched in 2009. The theme will continue through Tango’s 2010 plan and strap lines will run across orange, apple and cherry Tango varieties.

Strap lines will include such witty gems as:

“Chilled Tango Froze my Peel Off”
“Chilled Tango Made My Stones Shrink.”
“Chilled Tango Made My Pips Go Hard”

The limited edition cold effect can will be supported by a cash and carry 24 for 20 promotional deal, which will run for 12 weeks while retailers’ POS kits will also be available upon request and include wobblers and chiller stickers to raise awareness and drive trial say Tango’s maker, Britvic.

Flash mob advertising once used to be fresh, innovative and fun. Now they’re just boring.

But that didn’t stop Dr Pepper from creating a flash mob advert for their new campaign, says Bitterwallet. – but unlike previous flash mob ads, Dr Pepper didn’t even stick to the rules!

A true flash mob is where dozens or even hundreds of strangers descend on a given location to carry out a pre-planned act, such as to sing a song or perform a dance routine. But Dr Pepper instead hired some singers and dancers and plonked them onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange to sing the Dr Pepper theme tune – badly – as traders looked on in bemusement.

Watch the advert and let us know what you think of it in the comments. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

None of the problems Pat mentions are anything specific to do with the iPhone. They’re all AT&T issues and yet it’s Apple’s brand that’s being used in the spoof.

It really hasn’t been a good day for AT&T today. This morning the news was out that the service provider had started to block some of 4chan. In response the hacking literate 4chan community readied the dogs of war. After only a few hounds had been released AT&T dropped the block. Pete Cashmore, himself, has the write up over at Mashable.

Could this be the end of this bizarre turn of events? If AT&T is smart, it will be.

Tech.blorge.com’s John Lister, however, reminds us that;

It’s hard to assess the case without knowing why exactly AT&T blocked the site. It’s possible there was a valid technical reason for doing so.

That’s a comment worth baring in mind. A reader of Erling Løken Andersen’s blog noted that;

It was blocked because it’s been a DDoS target for weeks. This had nothing to do with content.

Blame the idiots who run javascript embedded images.

It seems almost certain that 4chan would have begun to pressure Apple to drop At&T had their battle with the network continued. Even without 4chan pushing the iPhone Hell video it seems all too possible that the spoof will be seen by thousands.

The cartoon, as shown in the image, shows a soldier (who looks oddly similar to Hitler) saluting planes flying overhead (using what appear to be a Hitler salute).

The questionable garments were called into question by shopper Ben Radomski, who commenting on Next’s decision to remove the remaining 5,200 pairs said he was happy the product had been withdrawn.

According to the Sun’s report on the ‘Swastnickers’ – once the complaint was put in – the complete line of underwear was withdrawn on the same day.

Upset by comments that Next might be promoting Fascist garments, bosses at Next have taken the stance that the underwear features Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin instead. No comments have been made as to whether Mussolini briefs or Stalin boxers are in the pipeline.

The study which was run earlier this year compared the use of online marketing methods against brand mentions in online articles with the result of being ’somewhat likely’ or ‘very likely’ to take action after viewing. The online marketing methods that were compared were e-mail offers, sponsored search engine listings, banner ads and pop-up ads.

It comes as no surprise that pop-ups (13%) and banner ads (25%) were featured at the bottom, what is surprising is the trust put into online articles (51%)

The ARAnet report also detailed how the response to advertising might vary depending on certain demographics. While gender was not a significant factor, age and race were.

It seems the younger an internet user is (18 being the youngest in the study) the more likely he or she is to take action. Race also showed that African-Americans and Hispanics were more open to any of the online advertising forms than someone with white skin.

What does this mean for retailers? According to Scott Severson, president of ARAnet, “More than two-thirds of the respondents between 18 and 34 said they conduct internet searches for products or services they read about in online articles either very frequently or somewhat frequently.”

PR, if done right, has a very low financial barrier to entry as discovered by Naked Pizza who have been using Twitter as an online PR tool for their New Orleans pizza company. Since rapidly gaining local followers and changing their billboard to include their Twitter handle, the company have been featured in a number of newspapers and publication including AdAge.com and TechCrunch.

Of course, for those companies who are too afraid to experiment with PR there is also the option to send e-mail offers which, with 47%, receives almost as much response as online articles. The only problem is you need a way of getting the list of subscribers first.

This is the news that Myleene Klass has extended her contract with retailers M&S. According to the Daily Mail, the former Hear’Say singer managed to keep her job by agreeing to a 25% pay cut.

While such a significant pay cut may not be ideal for Klass, it is a step up from other models such as Elizabeth Jagger and Lily Cole who will not be extending contracts with M&S. Of course, Klass does have other modelling contracts with companies such as Pantene Shampoo which should top up the shortfall.

The news of Klass’ extended contract comes as M&S make final preparations for their 125th anniversary celebrations.

The British retail group made its first appearance back in 1884 as a market stall in Leeds. Since then M&S have expanded to become a major supermarket chain, clothing retailer and more recently insurance specialists – offering products such as home, wedding and pet insurance.

The M&S 125th Anniversary campaign will focus on the company’s commitment to innovation and style and will be displayed throughout the month of May.

This is a finding that nearly a third of all those who were unknowingly entered into the 118 directory enquiries prize draw rejected the £118 prize for fear that it was a scam. In a desperate effort to actually give people their winnings, 118 have posted the winners on their website and ‘warned’ people that they will be giving away more money next month.

The story follows the revelation that we Britons are being constantly harassed by scamsters and prank callers all looking to take our money and waste our time. Research group MORI recently revealed that a staggering 70% of British residents have been subject to a phone scam at least once in their life. These figures do not take into account the 1.5 million malicious calls and 1.5 billion silent calls that occur in these isles every year. It is statistics like these that have spurred ex-telemarketers Steve Smith and John Price to develop the scam-resistant Truecall device.

The Truecall device interprets phone calls, only allowing phone numbers from pre-saved ’safe’ numbers to ring through. Unknown phone numbers or numbers which have been blacklisted are directed to an answering service, meaning the phone never rings and the owner won’t need to be harassed by unwanted phone calls.

Users can add ’safe’ numbers to the true call device at any time ensuring relatives or friends can still get through. Inventors Price and Smith also have plans to link the device onto a national network via the internet which will create a central hub where the device can update itself with all of the latest blacklisted numbers.

Although the 118 prize draw was a genuine competition, the statistics suggest there are far more scams than genuine competitions. While a phone-barring device may not be necessary for everyone, a little discretion goes a long way. In any situation simply remember the old adage; “if something is too good to be true, it probably is”.

Many pundits have declared that social networking is going to be the downfall of actual personal interacting skills in the real world. Bring that element together with one of women’s’ favourite pastimes, stir and pour, and out comes popular US fashion site ShopStyle; poised to land in UK waters, I mean desktops, this September.

The fashion site combines the ease of shopping at your favourite online retailers’ website with the social element found in popular social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace. Essentially you can still chat with your (online) friends to get their opinion on a pair of hotpants (or whichever item of clothing) you were considering.

But, the grey area begins when the questions you need to ask are: “Do I look fat in these (whatever)?”

In addition to being able to shop, users can make their own Photospiration (not to be confused with the controversial Thinspiration) pages, which serve as a place where they can plan outfits and assign them themes. Popular users even have followers who check to see what trends their fashion idols are choosing at the moment and comment on the outfits.

The UK ShopStyle, as reported by Brand Republic, will feature the wares of popular stores from the High Street, such as House of Fraser, French Connection, Net-a-Porter, La Sensa and Miu Miu with more probably queuing up in hopes that this site is as popular as the American version.

MaxConsole and Aviran’s Place have coverage from the wires.

Microsoft/Bill Gates has said that the battle between HDD and Blu-Ray is something of a non-starter as the next real generation of storage for TV will be the hard disk and this is a step towards that prediction. Sports are an especially good example of a TV product that owning on disk is often unwanted and unwelcome – you just want to see the game, when you want, and pause/rewind/fast-forward as needs demand.