Jessica Simpson is now marketing something that kills your braincells on the notion that it’s a ‘smart’ choice.

The ironing is delicious. Though, let’s face it, probably intentional too.

Yes, the girl that did some stuff once, apparently, is the new face of the Stampede Brewing Company‘s beer that’s supposed to be good for you, Stampede Light Plus. Which is, let’s be brutally honest here, the dumbest thing that’s ever happened. Both Jessica Simpson and the fact that a beer is marketed as being good for you.

Putting vitamins in something doesn’t make it a magical elixir that cures all ailments – it makes it a beer with vitamins in it. And as for the light tag – well, thankfully that’s never taken off over here in Blighty. Good lord that would truly be hell on earth.

But faced with these inescapable truths, country superstar Jessica has refused to yield and has signed up to be a marketing whore, appearing in adverts for the ‘healthy’ beer and netting herself a 15 percent stake in the company as payment. Which does, of course, indicate that maybe she isn’t as thick as we all thought.

Either that or she just has a damn fine agent (or it was her dad). We need to get us one of those – a hecklerspray-branded beer would be the stuff of kings, clearly. Plus we wouldn’t lie and say it’s good for you, it’d just be a lager that slagged you off and was generally quite acerbic, if not misunderstood by many American consumers.

Far from just releasing some information and some adverts, there were also some quotes thrown the way of the press – thank god for that! Speaking with her mouth, Jessica Simpson said these inspiring, enlightening things:

“As an entrepreneur, I am always looking for ways to diversify my portfolio with good ideas and good people. Yes, I work out and take care of myself, but I also like a cold beer once in awhile.”

The words: “entrepreneur,” “diversify” and “portfolio” lead us to believe that someone else prepared that statement for young Jessie, but the quoting fun didn’t dry up there. The president and chief executive of Stampede, Lawrence Schwartz, said these wholly believable things:

“She’s the face of the brand now. Jessica is America’s sweetheart and an internationally known entertainer who takes care of herself. You can see it in her smile, her skin, her confidence and her obvious physical fitness.”

Which probably – let’s be honest here – means she doesn’t actually drink a great deal of beer. Not to the extent the company would like people to drink, at least. Though her mental fortitude does indicate she has had a lot of brain cells killed off, so who are we to say? Not Pamela Anderson, that’s for sure.

But, as with any quoting frenzy, the best has to be saved for last. Weighing in with his opinion, Gary Hemphill, senior VP for consulting and financial services firm Beverage Marketing Corp let loose this fact nugget:

“Health and wellness attributes are driving virtually every new product and overall growth in non-alcoholic beverages, but this hasn’t happened to the same extent with alcoholic beverages–maybe because when people think ‘healthy,’ they generally don’t run for the bar.”

Nail. Head. Etc.

Stampede and Jessica’s ad campaign has the slogan “Be Smart, Drink Smart.” We’re actually overwhelmed with what we could put in response to that, so instead we’ll just leave the floor open to you, our readers.

PR stunts are wonderful things. Well, that’s a lie – they tend to be pretty rubbish in the most part, and aside from the odd grandiose piece of artistic wondery they tend to highlight how awful the world of marketing and PR is.

Just ask Ashanti, whose marketing team decided it would be a good idea to encourage ultraviolence, if not murder, with fans of the R&B ‘star’.

It’s a bold move, that’s for sure, but we can’t help but think it’s one that should have had a little more thought put into it before being unleashed on the world.

See, spreading people around a major city and making them stand as human statues to advertise a product – that’s a PR stunt.

A tame one, but it does a job. Flashmobbing and viral marketing – they’re both efforts that appeared in recent times, used for the evil marketing team. They’re not particularly spectacular, generally speaking, but they do what they have to: something a bit different that advertises a product.

While it can’t be argued that Ashanti’s recent stunt wasn’t a ‘bit different’, it certainly can be argued that encouraging violence and murder probably isn’t the best of ideas.

Different? Yes. Ill-advised? Most definitely. Did we mention that Ashanti’s recent marketing ploy for her new single encouraged violence and murder? No? Well it did. Just to be clear on that one.

It all started with the video for the single in question, ‘The Way That I Love You‘. In the video, a clearly quite-pissed-off Ashanti deals with a cheating boyfriend by, well, killing him. Quite a lot. In the face. It’s an interesting take on the situation, and one hecklerspray doesn’t find too far-fetched when it comes to the world of relationships.

But then the problems started – the PR types decided it would be a good idea to incorporate this murderous tendency into the website for Ashanti’s track. By incorporating fake news reports of a spate of murders, allowing potential killers that visited the site to choose their murder weapon and – probably most frightening of all – allowing visitors to send e-cards to people they suspected were cheating on them. As Ashanti herself told Newsday:

“If you have someone you think is cheating on you, you can send them an e-mail blast and customize it and accuse them of maybe not being emotionally available, or you found them cheating on you, or sneaking around with one of your friends.”

It’s clearly a good thing that a musician in the public eye is encouraging such mistrust, and showing people the correct way to respond to any fears or concerns they may have about a relationship. No more should we talk about things, come to sensible conclusions or possibly involve professional help: no, we should threaten, accuse and murder.

Aaaand, we let out a collective sigh.

Fortunately for the world, the insane people who tend to complain about everything, as well as some of those religious types have combined their efforts and got the bloody stupid campaign pulled. Normally hecklerspray would do its best to avoid these types, but sometimes you just have to side with the enemy to face a greater threat – namely, Universal Motown, who released this statement:

“Ashanti and her music have always been about self-empowerment and addressing the issues that are most meaningful to her. We stand by our artist and her creative choices.”

Which could be read as ‘we like the idea of, and actively encourage murder’, if you looked at it in that way. It’s probably not the best marketing strategy really, is it? But hey, at least it’s managed to get her some more coverage, which means it’s worked, which means we’ve fallen for it… bugger.