Depending on what kind of family you were raised by, you either have lovingly wonderful or horribly debilitating memories of the iconic board game, Monopoly. If you had the type of sister who lent you money, you probably think life is fair. If you had the type of brother who spit in your mouth, you probably think Monopoly is the root of the global recession. That game brought out the best and worst of our siblings.

Nevertheless, few would argue Monopoly needed to be kicked up a notch, particularly considering the public ill will towards soulless megabrands and the corrupt state of our financial institutions. Making Monopoly any more corporate—particularly now—would just be tone deaf and greedy far beyond taking your brother’s money and fanning yourself with it, right? Well, you may want to sit down for this. Read more

Who knows, maybe this is exactly what Fox News wanted all along. The brand is seemingly incapable of internalizing bad PR the way giraffes don’t feel any need to apologize for the economy in Greece. It just doesn’t register.

How else could you explain Fox News willfully arranging an interview between author, historian, academic, religious scholar and expert on Christianity Reza Aslan—who is also a practicing Muslim—and the network’s feckless “Spirited Debate” correspondent Lauren Green. It was a mismatch. Not like a plaid shirt and striped pants, but like Paula Deen and southern history.

Watch the video above. It’s self-explanatory. And it’s sad. Saying a Muslim could never be qualified to write about Christianity is like saying a Mexican chef couldn’t possibly cook Italian food. Perhaps Ms. Green should go out to dinner more and visit the kitchen. She and Paula Deen could go together; they’d probably love each other’s company.

Once again, the public voted its sentiment with its money. So it’s no surprise, at Fox News’ chagrin of course, that the very book the network tried to demonize is riding a wave of public support and enjoying rising sales. But that doesn’t mean the confrontation surrounding Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth is over. Its value is being debated in that most academic of theological platforms: the Amazon comment section.

Sigh.

This week, Red Bull Media House is hiring a communications manager, while Stunman PR needs an account executive. The Skin Cancer Foundation is seeking a communications manager, and ID Public Relations is on the hunt for a digital account executive. Get the scoop on these openings and more below, and find additional just-posted gigs on Mediabistro.

• Communications Manager – Culture Red Bull Media House (Santa Monica, CA)
• Account Executive The Skin Cancer Foundation (New York, NY)
• Communications Manager Stuntman PR (New York, NY)
• Digital Account Executive ID Public Relations (Los Angeles, CA)
• Public Affairs and Marketing Specialist Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)

Find more great PR jobs on the PRNewser job board. Looking to hire? Tap into our network of talented PRNewser pros and post a risk-free job listing. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

Are you an ambitious, street-smart young scribe eager to expose L.A.’s seedy underbelly to the world at large? Do you decry the decline of quality reporting and live to shame the lamestream media? Most importantly, do you know your current thetan count? If you answered yes, duh, and “praise overlord Xenu!” to these questions, then The Church of Scientology wants you…to write for its in-house magazine, Freedom.

Freedom promotes “investigative reporting in the public interest,” with “the public” meaning Tom Cruise, David Miscavige, and whoever else runs the world’s most secretive tax-exempt organization. In what can only be the most incredible coincidence in history, every single article in said magazine amounts to a little piece of the church’s never-ending damage control campaign.

The most common subject is the fact that church apostates are all a bunch of fat, stupid-head liars who like to tell lies just because they are mean and evil for no reason at all except that every one of them is addicted to drugs and doesn’t get enough vitamins. For what it’s worth, the website does make good use of some strange pop-up animation.

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Can a woman really be completely satisfied in only seven minutes? Liquid-Plumr promises she can.

Turning mundane daily routines into hyper-sexualized hunk-fests seems to be the tactic of choice for some female-targeted brands like Kraft’s salad dressing and Clorox’s Liquid-Plumr. The latter’s latest spot, titled “Quickie“, leaves behind the double entendres of their “Double Impact” ad (two sexy plumbers clean out your pipes for the price of one!) in order to market its Urgent Clear formula — for women who “need it now.”

The ad (below) depicts a busy woman selecting a bottle of Urgent Clear from a hardware store shelf, and then immediately lapsing into a fantasy about a hunky plumber arriving at her door as she is on her way out. “I hear you need it now,” says the dreamy handy man. “I only have ten minutes,” giggles the rushed woman, to which the plumber seductively replies, “I only need seven.”

The viewer is then informed by a Barry White-esque voice that the formula “penetrates…to leave you satisfied in only seven minutes.” Read more

In case you’re one of the sad, deprived few who missed SyFy‘s latest motion picture masterpiece, Sharknado, you may be wondering, “What exactly is a Sharknado?” Allow me to enlighten you: Despite the potentially misleading name, it is neither a shark that behaves like a tornado, nor a tornado that behaves like a shark, but is, in fact, a tornado that forms over the ocean, sucking countless man-eating fish into its swirling vortex and dropping them willy-nilly upon the streets of unsuspecting Los Angeles.

Upon viewing the film with friends, the first thing I did — once I had come down from an unprecedented fit of gleeful laughter, which began during the opening sequence and persisted through what is perhaps the greatest ending of any movie ever — was to share my transcendent experience with my social media friends and followers. And I was far from alone.

On the night it first aired (July 11), the campy action film generated 318,232 tweets during broadcast, and peaked at 5,000 tweets per minute, making it the most-tweeted TV program of the night. Helping to fan the wildfire was the participation of big-name Twitter-users like Wil Wheaton, who tweeted a Vine counting down to the premiere to his 2.4 million followers, and then proceeded to live-tweet the movie. Read more

The New York Times: Microsoft Struggles to Provide Customers with Simplicity

The Washington Post: Paula Deen’s Cook Adds to PR Nightmare

Los Angeles Times: Spirit Airlines Ad Makes Fun of Royal Baby, Anthony Weiner

Advertising Age: Stephen Colbert Riffs on the Crazy Power of Branding

CNN: Boycott of Florida Gets Complicated

SeaWorld’s Preemptive PR Strike Against Potentially Damaging Documentary May Hurt, Not Help

Royal Baby PR: The Good, The Bad, The Money To Be Made

Yawn in Front of This Coffee Machine and Get Free Coffee

Naked Juice Bares All in False Advertising Settlement

Chipotle Fakes Twitter Hack for 20th Anniversary Publicity Stunt

This weekend we moved a step closer to The Singularity as the world’s two largest PR/marketing/advertising groups announced plans to join, creating one unstoppable media megalith that will easily pass WPP to become the biggest, most powerful group in the history of big, powerful groups.

Together, Publicis and Omnicom include agencies from Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett to BBDO and DDB Worldwide.

On Saturday and Sunday the two companies confirmed the move and released statements from co-CEOs Maurice Levy and John Wren, who made a public appearance together; Levy said the merger started as “almost a joke” six months ago. One thing the pair didn’t do was secure the Twitter handles @OmnicomPublicis or @PublicisOmnicom, a fact that allowed a couple of industry wise guys to have a bit of fun in the wake of the announcement:

All your base are belong to us. C’est moi.

— Publicis Omnicom (@PublicisOmnicom) July 27, 2013

Bring it, bitch. @PublicisOmnicom — Omnicom Publicis (@OmnicomPublicis) July 28, 2013

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M Booth PR’s blog Word. went live this week with a Google Glass edition, filling a Pinterest board with clips and commentary that’s entirely Google Glass created or related.

Lauren Martiello was the firm’s “Google Glass Explorer,” and she visits everything from gardens in the skies of NYC (above) to art exhibits and the workspaces of various creative types. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.

I also had the chance to take Google Glass for a test run and found it to be a bit too much. I get the hands-free nature of it. But do I want to have a device on my face and a screen in my peripheral vision in order to achieve that hands-free-ness? Not really. Of course, technology has a way of becoming necessary once it’s out in the world for a bit and its utility is fully sussed out. As for PRs, you can probably get a few cool stunts out of it. Clients would certainly be happy.

If you have thoughts on Google Glass do share. After the jump, ICYMI, Google’s own clip about the experience of using the device.

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