Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Sure, this new marketing strategy for 75 Wall Street isn't quite as posh as its website (or the campaign envisioned when the project was first announced), but at least they didn't scribble "Designed by David Rockwell!" in chalk. [Flickr] 

Remember those controversial Calvin Klein commercials from the early '80s featuring Brooke Shields? The heroin chic ads with Kate Moss from the late '90s? How about last year's commercial for Calvin Klein Secret Obsession starring Eva Mendes, which was censored by the networks? It looks like the brand is returning to the usual tricks. WWD reports the new commercial for Calvin Klein Jeans "is so provocative it initially was banned from even late-night cable TV." Conveniently, the Steven Meisel creation will now be the "main attraction" when the company's new e-commerce site debuts on Friday. You can take a peek at the "banned" commercial below, but don't expect to see anything racier than what you'd find on your run-of-the-mill MTV reality show. More

Kenneth Cole Billboard Pays Tribute to US Airways Flight 1549 [WCBS]

Consumerist's Biggest Business Debacles [AdAge]

♦  Graydon Carter says Vanity Fair plans to go ahead with its annual Oscar party, but "the party will be a much more intimate affair than in years past; we're going to scale back the guest list considerably." [DH]
♦  No replacement is planned for Alan Colmes: Fox News plans to have Sean Hannity serve as solo host of the nightly show. [NYT]
♦  Ted Koppel is parting ways with the Discovery Channel. [NYT]
♦  Looks like OK! has been cutting back on copy editors. The cover of the new issue misspells Ashlee Simpson's name. [HuffPo]More

The Morgans Hotel Group has no plans to stand idly by as the economy crumbles and overpriced, miniature hotel rooms go unsold! The boutique hotel conglomerate launched a new ad campaign, the super-simple tagline for which is on your left. The company started up a new website, too, recessison.com, which, it turns out, is not a reflection on the grammatical abilities of Morgans' marketing staff, but because it stands for "Recess Is On"—or please, please book rooms at our dimly-lit, Philippe Starck-designed hotels and put it to your credit card, even if means you won't be able to pay your AmEx bill at the end of the month. After the jump, two of the videos Morgans uploaded to YouTube to get the silly marketing campaign off the ground.More

There you were thinking that seeing celebrities with ten-piece sets of Louis Vuitton luggage, or people with more money than style attired in outfits emblazoned with Versace medusa heads, was merely an assault on one's fashion sensibilities. But it turns out that fashion emblems may be worming their way into our consciousness and influencing our behavior without us even knowing about it. Rob Walker reports on a study in which subjects were more likely to choose a certain brand of bottled water after being shown photos of people drinking it, even though they weren't aware of having noticed the brand.   More

Wipe Your Ass with Alec Baldwin | Are you close personal friends with Kim Basinger? If you are, and you're still looking for a perfect (and really inexpensive!) holiday gift to give her, you can head over to Europe where an ad agency is distributing Alec Baldwin-themed toilet paper as part of a promotion for 30 Rock. [AdFreak]

The national debt now stands at $10.6 trillion and the federal government needs to borrow at least $1 trillion a year to keep the country in business. What's the Treasury Department going to come up with that kind of cash? Maybe Hank Paulson was on to something when he delivered a press conference this morning and positioned himself next to a gleaming bottle of refreshing Dasani water. Now Barack Obama just needs to tap a marketing guru and cut a few high-profile endorsement deals. The giant image if the Geico gekko on the side of the White House won't be pretty, but at least you'll have a job to go to tomorrow!

So Starbucks announced a few days ago that it would give away free coffee today to anyone who voted. It turns out that doing so constitutes a felony under election law in many states: Apparently, it's illegal to offer a gift to someone to induce them to vote. So the coffee at Starbucks is now free for everyone today, not just those who assure the barista they waited an hour on line at the polls this morning. If you want to finish off your coffee with some ice cream, Ben & Jerry's is giving away free scoops between 5pm and 8pm.

If you happen to spot a Metrocard on the ground and there's a picture of a half-naked woman on it, it is not because the MTA is now using sex to sell the New York Subway system. It's an escort service that is now littering trains with fake Metrocards. Just so you know! [NewYorkShitty]

Desperate Times, Etc. | Talk about taking backstabbing to a new level: "On Thursday, the owners of Castlewood, a gothic castle in West Orange, N.J., hosted a live jousting competition to generate buzz among real-estate brokers..." [WSJ]

What has Mark Penn, the scandal-plagued strategy guru for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, been up to as of late? He's back to doing what he does best: conducting useless marketing research. The "2008 Presidential Image Power Survey," conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland and Landor Associates, asked voters to associate the presidential candidates with various brands, including "fictional spies, retail outlets, snack foods and cars." The answers? Voters connected Obama to BMW, Google and Target, while Mr. McCain was compared to Ford, Wal-Mart, and AOL. Translation: Obama is associated with cool stuff; McCain makes people think of a car company about to go bankrupt, a big-box retailer that abuses its employees, and an Internet company that peaked 11 years ago. [AdAge]

Yet Another Palin Ad Campaign | It's not just porn companies, beauty salons, hotels, action figure makers, and costume manufacturers cashing in on Sarah Palin: Manhattan Mini-Storage has managed to find a way to get into the act, too. [Politico]

Coming Soon: Plane Bathroom Ads | They're already wrapping subway cars with ads and covering tray tables with marketing messages. Why not just cover every square inch of planes' interiors with pitches for Claritin and Tide detergent? Why not, indeed. A handful of US carriers are now planning to increase revenues by putting ads on bathroom doors and overhead bins. [AP]