Cialis Battles Blog Fog



Lilly ICOS last week denied it owned a blog titled CialisBlog.com and said it brings "dozens of legal proceedings" against sites purporting to be official. The site in question is erratically updated and contains earnings reports, info on clinical trials, and generally upbeat items on the erectile dysfunction drug. On Wednesday, John Mack, who writes the widely read Pharma Marketing Blog, ripped into what he described as Lilly's Cialis blog, calling it "too far-fetched to be believed," and a demonstration of "incredible incompetence" on the part of Lilly. On an e-mail listserve, one of Mack's readers stated that in fact the site is registered in Romania to "Vandelay Industries," an apparent reference the bogus firm often mentioned on Seinfeld.



The New York Times

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The New York Times has launched a series of free podcasts, available via the iTunes Music Store, Yahoo! Podcasts, My Yahoo! and NYTimes.com. The New York Times Front Page podcast has already entered iTunes' top 100 ranking, reaching No. 5. Other Times podcasts feature content on the upcoming Winter Olympics, as well as restaurant reviews and select interviews from the series "TimesTalks," including media reporter Bill Carter's recent interview with Larry David.



ETC.

The first of Nike Golf's new television advertising spots began airing over the weekend on The Golf Channel. Starring Tiger Woods, the spot highlights the technological wizardry of engineer Rock Ishii, designer of the Nike One ball. Other ads will introduce viewers to the engineering and design behind Nike Golf's Slingshot OSS irons and SasQuatch drivers . . . Intuit filed a false advertising counterclaim against H&R Block, marking the latest salvo in a challenge that its Turbotax software readied more tax returns than H&R Block offices. Previously, a judge barred Intuit from running any ads from Jan. 20 to April 30 that contained the claim that "more returns were prepared with TurboTax last year than at all the H&R Block stores."