The quest for the male pill is, in many ways, the search for the holy grail of contraception. More and more people are clamoring for options that would allow men to share in the burden of preventing pregnancy. Having a birth control pill available to men will mean much more advertising in the pharm world that one could imagine. This is why it is best to explore the possibility of having such a pill in the near future.

A 2005 study showed that nearly 50 percent of men in the United States would be willing to try a new form of birth control, and up to 72 percent of men in other countries are interested in new forms of male contraception.

So why don’t we have a male birth control pill?

“Certainly, contraception has commonly been the responsibility of the woman in the past,” says Dr. Peter Schlegel, Professor and Chairman of Urology at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/ Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. “But there’s no reason that couldn’t change.” Standing in the way, however, are many factors that make it difficult to produce male contraception.

“Stopping all sperm production or disabling all sperm is a real challenge, when you’re making [millions of] sperm a day,” Schlegel says. Male physiology is a lot more complicated than female physiology,” says Daulat Tulsiani, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. “Initially, [it was] thought there was one molecule on the egg and on the sperm that played a role in their interaction.”

Talk about marketing innovation this holiday season. So you’ve got the special holiday themed tablecloth, plates, napkins, cups and everything else you could find but I bet you’ve still got boring old white toilet paper hanging in the bathroom don’t you? What will your guests think when they find out your Christmas spirit inexplicably stops at the bathroom door? Well you can avoid that embarrassment all together by stocking your bathroom with a selection of these holiday themed rolls of toilet paper.

That’s right, you can finally wipe that smug smile off Frosty the Snowman’s face by making him… well… you get the idea. Other toilet paper patterns include gold stars, reindeer, Christmas trees and even Santa Claus himself.

Of course you might want to tell your guests to go easy on the festive TP when the time comes since each roll will set you back $7.25 from Solutions.com.

The new Lexus vehicles will come badged with a giant “F” emblem which apparently stands for fast on the trunk. The “F” represents the company’s new found dedication to performance enhancement that will compete directly with rival AMG and M around the world. The first car from the “F” line is the 5 liter V8 engine producing over 420 horsepower at the wheels. It is going to compete head on with the BMW M3 which launches in 2007. The Lexus GS and IS coupe are expected to get “F’d” also.

Luxury products can be different – phones, cars, watches, and now finally there is a luxury laptop!

MSI announced that it’s launching Crystal collection – a unique crystal ring covers the lid of Crystal collection notebooks. MSI Crystal M677 has large 15.4-inch widescreen, AMD Turion 64 X2 processor, up to 2GB of DDR2 memory, 5400rpm hard drive and a DVD burner. The notebook also has a 1.3 mega pixel camera, wireless Internet and an independent numeric keypad.

Tired of battling hordes of shoppers for Tickle Me Elmo, the latest Xbox 360 game and other hot holiday items that feed your children’s rampant consumerism?

Eager for a present that gives your kids a financial jump on life and is still, well, fun? See what gifts can help your children learn how to save and spend wisely, with payoffs that last well beyond the season.

Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday
Price: $6.99 at most bookstores

Who it’s for: Four- to eight-year-olds

What it’s about: In this charming story by Judith Viorst, Alexander gets a gift of $1 from his grandparents. He has lofty plans to save the money for a big-ticket item but instead blows it all in the face of life’s temptations and regrets it. Read the rest of this entry »

Sony’s new TX Notebook computer will be the first ever notebook equipped with Wireless Wide Area Network in Mexico. Sony will begin its marketing strategy for the new product in Mexico with a series of outdoor and print adverts starting this fall. The purpose of the campaign is to convey to Mexicans that they will be able to access the internet wherever they are in the country with the WWAN. The ad spells out “connect anywhere in Mexico.”

The male ball bra has arrived. The really bizarre product was developed by Goto Int. and has been around since 2005. The company offers 3 colors of their ball bras for men including white, red, and crusty black (not kidding). They come in three sizes including original, bare, and g-string which looks a lot like saggy old man ball support.

Internet shopping knows no boundaries, not even for products made behind bars.

Maryland Correctional Enterprises, the manufacturing division of the state Division of Correction, has put its 182-page catalog online. Now anyone can see, if not buy, hundreds of items the agency offers for sale to government agencies and Maryland nonprofit organizations.

The products include institutional clothing, bedding, clocks, signs and lots of furniture. Nearly half the pages are filled with furniture, including the Slammer table, designed for correctional environments and named “because they put ‘em in the slammer,” said Jeff Beeson, executive director of Maryland Correctional Enterprises’ board of directors.

Topping the furniture offerings is the Traditional Veneer Line, with prices up to $1,885 for a U-shaped desk. The agency sold $42.8 million worth of goods last year, making it 10th among prison industries in sales in the United States.

I hope innovation isn’t getting as lazy as this invention from Rare Mono Shop.

Talk about innovation! Oh yeah, I hope that title caught your eye. Ad Rants points out that Betty Beauty is a brand new do it yourself dye kit for branding your pubic hair any color you want. Blonde, brown, pink or red you can have it your way. It was also reported that not only women, but men are secretly tearing these beauty-kits off the shelves! So when the holidays come around, rush out and buy your loved one a box of pink dye from Betty Beauty.

Pepsi - Cola has recently hired ad agency Element 79 to conduct marketing operations of its new lighter-carbonated beverage, Tava, to be launched early 2007. The Omnicom Group Shop will focus on branding, advertising, guerilla marketing, and other tactics as needed. Pepsi-Co hopes a grassroots marketing campaign and an untraditional approach to the brand will help drive success for the beverage. Read

In case you haven’t heard, the Lexus LS 460 sedan, starting at $61,715 and the longer LS 460 L at $71,715, will actually park itself. The magic behind the parking assist isn’t just the availability but making it user friendly. Lexus is really stepping up innovation and change with this new car. The car parks itself but here’s how:

But the car won’t do everything for its owner. Drivers must identify a parking space roughly 4 feet longer than the LS, pull up ahead of it and put the car in reverse. The navigation screen switches to a rearview camera image with a box and four arrows. The driver pushes the desired arrow for the targeted position, then hits the “OK” button on the screen and lets go of the wheel. If the driver touches the gas pedal or exceeds 2.5 miles per hour, the system will deactivate. The system won’t work on a sloped street.

Ohio Art Co. is betting that replacing Etch A Sketch’s familar red rectangle case with Nickelodeon’s most popular cartoon characters such as Sponge Bob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer will help boost sales. The makeovers were displayed at the Ohio Art Company in Bryan, Ohio last week.

Other popular traditional toys have been given recent face lifts as well. Monopoly is out with a new version that replaces Atlantic City Boardwalk with Times Square. The moves have come after traditional toys have been quickly losing ground to electronics in recent years. “Our challenge is to continue to make Etch a Sketch exciting for the next generation of kids,” said Martin Killgallon, marketing director for Bryan-based Ohio Art. “One way to do that is with licensing.”

Around the blogging community today, it was discovered that Wal-Mart is selling t-shirts (the cheap $10 ones) with a skull that very closely resembles the Totenkopf “Death’s Head.”

The Death Head symbol was widely worn by members of Germany’s Nazi SS. It’s almost an exact copy as depicted below.

Wal-Mart’s T-Shirt

Totenkopf “Death Head” Used By Nazi SS

I wonder if Wal-Mart is trying to sneak this by us. Then again, they won’t even sell cd’s with swear words in them. From my fairly good memory I can recall Adolf Hitler was very strict on creating the perfect race which wouldn’t use swear words. Wal-Mart is also busy taking over the world like the Nazis’ tried to do in Europe during the 1930’s - 1940’s. Coincidence? You decide!

Road rage will quickly follow up VW’s recent push for the electrophoretic bumper sticker. VW’s Electionics Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, CA is busy on the sticker which the company believes will be a sure-fire and popular add on. The sticker itself is “wafer-thin, highly flexible foil that can display text and images like a computer monitor.” I wonder when the company will start spending more research and development money on more aerodynamic and fuel efficent cars rather than this gimmick that will never gain in popularity. Read