Kay Nietfeld/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Trojan has a come up with a unique promotion this Valentine’s Day, a day when, according to Nielsen, prophylactics sell best.

Part of Trojan’s National C*ndom Month promotion, the brand will put special Trojan cabs on New York City streets on Valentine’s Day and the following day, February 15, from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. During the cab ride, a Trojan representative will administer sex quizzes, kind of like Cash Cab meets Glamour magazine. The ride will be free, as long as the passenger travels within a designated area.

The company is hoping this year’s campaign goes better than last year’s, when in August, Trojan gave out adult toys from hot-dog-style carts. The program was temporarily suspended by the city for lack of necessary permits, prompting a front-page New York Post story with the classic headline “Buzz Kill,”  reports Ad Age. This year, they’ve taken all the appropriate precautions. Appropriately.

Do you think this is a good idea?

Stop the track, let me state facts. Bey told you give her another minute and she’ll be right back!

Though it’s already been annoyingly obvious that neither pregnancy nor motherhood has managed to slow Beyonce down, it’s clear the 31-year-old self-proclaimed female version of a hustla is gearing up to make 2013 her year. On top of being slated to earn $4 million for a New Year’s Eve concert in Vegas,  landing the Super Bowl Halftime show in New Orleans February 3, and reportedly gearing up for a new album release, let the Dream tell it, oh yeah, and that HBO documentary, Pepsi has just launched images of it’s latest campaign and it’s got Bey’s face all over it— literally.

See what I mean.

According to the New York Times, “The multiyear campaign is estimated at $50 million, the bulk of it for media placements and promotions around the world, and the remainder split roughly equally between Beyoncé’s fee and what Pepsi calls a creative content development fund.” In a statement, Beyonce spoke on her ever-developing relationship with Pepsi, which kicked off way back in 2002, saying:

“Pepsi embraces creativity and understands that artists evolve. As a businesswoman, this allows me to work with a lifestyle brand with no compromise and without sacrificing my creativity.”

Backing up that thought, Brad Jakeman, president of PepsiCo’s global beverage group, told the NYT:

“Consumers are seeking a much greater authenticity in marketing from the brands they love. It’s caused a shift in the way we think about deals with artists, from a transactional deal to a mutually beneficial collaboration.”

This mutually beneficial collabo is supposed to kick off sometime in 2013, the year of the Bey apparently, but no official date has been established. All that’s known so far is that sometime after her superbowl halftime show, Beyonce will appear in a TV ad for Pepsi which will be her fifth with the cola brand. After that, you can probably expect her face to follow you all throughout the grocery store, as it will be plastered across Pepsi cans for who knows how long. All I have to say is for people who are already sick of seeing and hearing about Beyonce wherever they go, 2013 is going to be a rough year for you.

What do you think about Baddie Bey’s new Pepsi campaign?

There are no shortage of stories about people who are using crowdfunding to jump start a wide assortment of projects, hobbies and business ventures. On this site alone, we’ve recently written about an actress who’s using a Kickstarter to finish her album; a fashion designer who’s used crowdsourcing funds to finish her fashion line; and a bookstore that’s trying to stay put with help from the community.

According to The New York Times, 30,000 projects have been helped by three million donors on crowdfunding sites. The article notes that, because this is a new method, there are still some kinks.

“The backers play the role of philanthropists, investors, customers — or all of the above. And when promised rewards are slow to materialize, eager backers can get cranky,” the article says. Not to mention the issues with manufacturing and distribution that can come up with certain projects.

But by and large, what we’ve been seeing on the topic is positive. At a time when dreamers and entrepreneurs are turning to alternative funding sources, we thought we’d ask Indiegogo, one of the biggest crowdfunding sites out there, for some advice. Below is an email Q&A with Danae Ringelmann, founder and chief operating officer of Indiegogo, covering some of the crowdfunding basics.  

Madame Noire: Are there some projects that tend to do better than others?

Danae Ringelmann: On Indiegogo thousands of campaigns are receiving the money they need and accomplishing their goals. The most important things include being proactive, having a good pitch, and finding an audience that cares. The campaigns that find the biggest challenges are the ones that believe you can just post it and funders will come. No one wakes up in the morning and says “I wonder what zero-funded campaign I can go give money to today.”  A successful funding campaign will take effort and the more effort anyone puts in to it, the more Indiegogo will amplify them even further.

Source: Schoolbullyingcouncil.com

When you hear about someone being bullied, you usually picture the victim as a child—unless of course we’re discussing an episode of “Basketball Wives,” and even then, the victim and the perpetrator are at least in the same age group. But the case of Karen Klein has turned all of those commonalities on it’s head. The 68-year-old school bus monitor who was verbally abused and bullied by a group of seventh-grade students last week has not just gotten the entire nation in an uproar, she’s sparked action. What was at first a tiny campaign geared at sending this working woman on a much-needed vacation after the verbal abuse she endured has grown into a massive outpouring of financial support to the tune of $650,000 courtesy of 16,000 random Americans who don’t know this woman at all. They’ve only heard her story as it’s been reported in the media or contributed to one of the 7 million views on the Youtube video showing her being taunted on that school bus that day. The question is, why has her story resonated so much more than all of the other countless instances of bullying in this country?

There certainly have been other high-profile bullying cases, Tyler Clementi’s suicide at Rutgers most notably. That situation certainly gave way to the anti-bulling video campaign that launched around that time, but even then, the circumstances surrounding Tyler’s death had people on the fence about whether he was really bullied and what, if any wrong, had really been done. When it comes to Karen, the distinction that I think has garnered so much support is the fact that this woman was berated by kids more than 50 years younger than her. That time of realization doesn’t allow for the “kids just being kids” excuse so many teachers, parents, principles, and school officials use to justify the same behavior when it goes on between two seventh graders. When you hear the things these kids were saying to Karen and how they poked her stomach and called her names, you see this is far more than a kid being picked on on the playground. There’s more than an air of mean-spiritedness and an obvious lack of respect for one’s elders that suddenly doesn’t make people want to sweep this under the rug.

This situation also doesn’t allow for the dismissal of that type of taunting as just being “apart of life.” So many adults are bullied by their superiors every single day on the job, particularly in competitive, male-dominated industries, but subordinates are told to take it, to pay their dues, and to play the game if they want to excel. Mark C. Crowley of Fast Company says it’s the fact that Americans see themselves in Karen when they watch her cry on that bus, that has brought on this type of collective support. He says there’s rarely a person who can’t identify with being put down on the job, often by the very people you are serving and sometimes even protecting, as she was—and not to mention for a measley wage. Karen Klein earned just $15,000 a year monitoring those Upstate New York kids on that yellow bus.

“[M]any of us feel disrespected and under-appreciated for the work we do everyday,” Mark wrote. “Consciously or unconsciously, we’re projecting our feelings about our own jobs onto the experience of Mrs. Klein. We’re hurting at work and are suffering Mrs. Klein’s pain as that of our own.”

If that’s the case, then this story of support is much less about bullying and much more about the general state of unhappiness among the American workforce. One could easily argue that’s a far greater epidemic than bullying, but I don’t think the fact that the perpetrators in this case were children should be lost on the fact that this type of thing goes on every day. The thing is, little bullies grow up to be big bullies and so the motivations behind this fast-growing initiative are one in the same. If we want to stop adults from being berated on their jobs, we need to stop children from bullying one another (and even adults) while they’re young. What’s seen as harmless at 12-years-old looks quite different at age 40 in a seat of authority inside of a fortune 500 company.

There’s obviously an element of group thinking and peer pressure evident in this bus bullying situation, as evidenced by the fact that several children engaged in the taunting and not one came to the woman’s defense or thought to tell his peers to stop. But that type of behavior was learned before those kids got around each other on that bus and I think actually seeing and hearing the type of behavior that goes on among teens, pre-teens, and even younger is making people realize sticks and stones break bones but words hurt a lot too. For many, the reality of bullying just got real for the first time and if people are willing to put their money behind Karen Klein to right these kids’ wrongs, hopefully they’ll put their mind behind their own words and curb the examples of bullying they support consciously or unconsciously—and stand up against the real-life instances they witness every day.

Why do you think so many people are showing support for Karen Klein in this situation?

Brande Victorian is the news and operations editor for madamenoire.com. Follow her on twitter @Be_Vic.

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Source: The Hollywood Gossip

We know Barack Obama is smooth on the campaign trail, but from the sounds of things the President’s swag was in full effect long before he set his sites on the oval office.

In a new campaign video, “Dinner With Barack and Michelle,” The President and First Lady share a meal with the winners of the 2012 President’s Dinner Contest held earlier this month and they open up about their personal and family lives. When President Obama talked about his first date with Michelle, who was his supervisor at a Chicago law firm at the time, he admitted to knowing just how to get her.

“I took her to the Art Museum at the Art Institute, I was trying to impress her, to show her I was a real culturally sensitive guy. And it worked!”

Not denying the effect President Obama’s date choice had on her, Michelle chimed in with confirmation at the same time, saying “It worked.”

In an effort to help clueless men everywhere, the President said:

“Just trying to give a tip for the young men out there.”

These men might just want to listen up too because the couple’s story about the sparks that flew during their first outing has not changed. In a 2009 interview with CNN, Michelle said when she first met Barack he was cuter than she thought he’d be, and it didn’t take long for her to become completely smitten. “Probably, by the end of that date, it was over. I was sold.”

In the short 6-minute video, the couple also talks about their parenting experiences—like the president failing miserably at doing Malia’s hair for a dance recital—and what motivates them to lead the country.

Check out this clip of dinner with Barack and Michelle here. Don’t you just love this couple?!

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City.Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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No more than a week after I saw Wendy Williams throw shots at Jennifer Lopez for her lack of talent and numerous endorsement deals, saying “Mariah Carey would never be caught in a Fiat,” news broke that my favorite singer of all time was the newest spokesperson for Jenny (Craig that is). My heart sunk a little because I knew the sort of gimmicky promotions that come along with the territory, and her first “Make it Happen” campaign confirmed my worst fears.

But Mimi is hardly alone in the new trend of black celebrity weight loss spokespersons. Jennifer Hudson set the stage for this, and undoubtedly crushed Weight Watchers’ competition with her catchy tunes, slim physique, and more publicity than the Southside Chicago native could’ve ever dreamed of. So what were Jenny and NutriSystem to do? Hire even bigger celebrity names like Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson to draw in the masses.

My main concern with the latest weight loss campaigns was how they would affect each divas image. While the opportunity boosted J Hud’s career to unexpectedly new heights, for Mariah and Janet, I’ve likened the endorsement deals to offers to appear on “Dancing with the Stars” or any other reality TV show. It’s a sign that they’ve lost their spark and are vying for ways to stay relevant in the media.

Fred Mwangaguhunga, editor of MediaTakeout.com, expressed similar sentiments in an interview with The Daily Beast. “I was really surprised when I saw Janet Jackson doing a weight-loss commercial, he said. “I don’t think this is something she would have done five years ago, given her personality. But times have changed and the way you have to sell yourself has changed, so you use what you have.”

More important than these star’s careers, which have had an excellent run thus far by all industry standards, is the question of what these campaigns mean for black women. Presumably, seeing three black female celebrities successfully shed pounds with these programs would serve as a role model for black women as obesity continues to stake its claim in our community. Kirstie Alley and Marie Osmond may not be relatable to us but these women should be, right? Not necessarily.

Many have criticized Jennifer Hudson as being disingenuous about the way she dropped 80 pounds, but while her story is believable to me, I can’t say the same about Janet Jackson. Janet may have struggled with her weight as a young woman first on the music scene but it’s been some time since we haven’t seen the singer without chiseled abs (sans her appearance in “Why Did I Get Married Too”).

By Charlotte Young

Pro-life activists have launched another billboard campaign to gain attention and support to their cause. This time, the board puts the blame on African American leaders.

The Christian Post reports that the billboard campaign, entitled “Betrayed,” blames African American politicians for their lack of concern in addressing the high rate of abortion in the black community. The billboard’s goal is to urge black politicians to begin to give serious attention to the issue and do something about it.

President of the Restoration Project in Georgia, Catherine Davis, tells The Christian Post that “something is wrong when those elected to protect the interests of their constituents turn a blind eye to the horrific impact that abortion is wreaking on the black community.

The billboard, placed in downtown Atlanta, is supported by Restoration Project, National Black Prolife Union, the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), Priests for Life, Missouri Blacks for Life and 818 The Sign. In addition to the billboard, the project also started the website www.abortioninthehood.com.

Davis feels that black women and children are being targeted. Although she can’t give any reason as to why she believes this, she says the major culprit in the situation is Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading provider of abortions. In the organizers’ view, black politicians are doing nothing to stop them.

“If there is a racial motivation to abortion, then they should sponsor some legislation to ensure that the black community is not being purposefully targeted,” Davis tells The Christian Post.

Recently the women of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), wrote a letter to the Democratic women in the US Senate thanking them for their work in defunding Planned Parenthood. The same letter also urged lawmakers to make certain Washington DC’s low-income women have “affordable access to abortions.”

Georgia’s congressman, John Lewis, believes that the organizers of the “Betrayed” campaign want to create division in the black community.

His spokesman, Brenda Jones, informed The Christian Post in a statement that “African Americans have the intellect, the capacity and the power to set their own agenda and to determine the most central issues affecting their own communities. With a rate of 16 percent unemployment, jobs is their primary focus.”

Davis, says she simply prays that people take a look at the abortion numbers. She cites that 1,489 black babies are aborted in New York City, for every 1,000 black babies born alive. In Washington, she says, 165 black babies are aborted, for every 100 black babies born.

She says that if something is not done on the matter, “there will be no black community.”

(Chicago Sun Times) — Rahm Emanuel can run for mayor.  The Illinois Supreme Court ruled 7-0 Thursday that Emanuel qualifies as a Chicago resident and can remain on the ballot for the election, which is now less than a month away. “I’m relieved for this. I’m relieved for the city. I’m relieved for the voters because they need the certainty that’s important for them,” Emanuel said after the ruling was handed down late Thursday afternoon. Emanuel said he immediately called his wife and parents upon hearing the news — and also took a call from President Obama.

Read More…

(Chicago Sun Times) — Rahm Emanuel was thrown off the ballot for mayor of Chicago Monday by an appellate court panel. But Emanuel — who has led the other candidates in fund-raising and in public opinion polls — cautioned he won’t get off the ballot without a fight.  “I have no doubt, at the end we will prevail at this effort,” Emanuel told reporters at the Berghoff Restaurant. The Chicago Board of Elections planned to start printing ballots without Emanuel’s name unless Emanuel’s lawyers can get a “stay” of the appellate court ruling. Emanuel’s lawyers filed their request for a stay just before 5 p.m. Monday.

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(Chicago Tribune) — Jennifer Hudson headlined a fundraising concert for mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel tonight at the  House of Blues.  He introduced the Chicago native, Academy Award winner and new face of Weight Watchers, but Emanuel did not appear on stage with Hudson. She wore a svelte black dress and opened the brief show with her hit single “Spotlight.”  Tickets to the sold-out fundraiser cost from $30 to $500, according to the campaign, and more than 1,200 people were expected to attend.

Read More…