Every weekday, PR Daily associate editor Alan Pearcy highlights the day’s most compelling stories and amusing marginalia on the Web in this, #TheDailySpin.

Scrape and blot. Sponge. Pretreat. Wash on cold. Air dry. As anyone who’s ever done laundry can attest, removing tomato sauce stains is toilsome. Ragu has some experience in that department, and in more ways than one. However, its latest stain has irked one group—one group of One Million Moms. The family watchdog blew its whistle on the brand’s newest “Long Day of Childhood” campaign, and in particular, a spot that “has everyone talking” about what Ragu calls "one of the most mortifying moments of childhood revealed."



More than a long day—it’s the long and notable life of Helen Gurley Brown, the former Cosmopolitan editor (1965-1997) and author of “Sex and the Single Girl,” that we celebrate today. The “simultaneously progressive and retrogressive” figure of female society sadly passed away on Monday at the age of 90. I encourage all of our female readers to rock those minis this week in her honor.

It’s also with great sadness today that I announce my leave from PR Daily, as I now have a bigger and better dream awaiting me as a male model on “The Price is Right.” Just kidding—about my leaving. The eminent TV game show has, in fact, announced a contest for the first guy to take to the stage for a weeklong stint as a model. If only it were as a real “Barker’s Beauty,” back when the show was worth watching.

For the rest of us working stiffs, the real prize might be getting a break for lunch. New research suggests up to two-thirds of workers skip lunch or eat it at their desks.

If that desk happens to be inside an ad agency, take note of the report card being issued to you that indicates the diversity of outdoor ads around New York City.

Chances are a decent number of those advertisements are the marketing efforts of brands such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. What’s the real worth behind these large companies? This infographic notes that it depends on whom you ask, with information from competing research firms Millward Brown and Interbrand, each of which provide largely different figures.

One of the brands also included in that bunch, Apple, is well-known for its iconic “1984” commercial, but it was footage recently posted to Google+ by Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original members of the company’s design/engineering team, that was never aired "because Apple deemed it too self-congratulatory."



A vintage ad that was aired in 1949 for R.J. Reynolds’ Camel brand cigarettes portrayed actors dressed as medical professionals touting that “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” Reports Advertising Age, information for the campaign that ran for eight years was compiled by ad agency William Esty Co., which would send people to survey medics about their smoking habits, including their brand of choice, while often providing the doctors with free cigarettes.



Another advertising classic recently stumbled upon by Boing Boing comes all the way from 1935 and mulls the topic: “If typists were robots.”

I’m more inclined to mull over the various animated GIFs yet to come from various Tumblr accounts. But as MediaBistro’s 10,000 Words blog advises, when it comes to their use in journalism, one should ask these five questions first.

Questions over whether Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” had finally been laid to rest as a viral parody were answered when—in what is probably the best example yet—YouTuber Steve Kardynal made use of the earworm, a bikini, and notorious webcam site Chatroulette.



You won’t find Chatroulette among the top 25 on this list, but you will find YouTube, which is No. 3 on Alexa’s ranking of the 500 top global Websites.

As for ranking the Summer Olympics, London 2012 takes the cake as the most-watched event in U.S. TV history. The NBC broadcast brought in 219.4 million viewers.

Meanwhile, I’d rather watch Shark Week on Discovery and play this drinking game.

Is there something you think we should include in our next edition of #TheDailySpin? Tweet me @iquotesometimes with your suggestions. Thanks in advance.