Members of Hezbollah are borrowing tricks from U.S. advertising for an upcoming campaign commemorating the eighth anniversary of the Israeli military withdrawal from Southern Lebanon after a 17-year occupation.

Artists and writers designing the slick billboards, leaflets and television spots used U.S. advertising yearbooks as source material, the International Herald Tribune reports. The group's brightly colored promotional materials, which are reminiscent of promotions for energy drinks and MP3 players, are just one part of a sophisticated program of public relations and branding that takes its cues from Madison Avenue.

"The dominant style is American," graphic-design professor Zeina Maasri told the Herald Tribune. "It's a kind of communication you can't escape. [Americans] sell politics as a commodity."

In other advertising news:

-- In Oregon, politicians are avoiding the topic of immigration in ads this cycle. (Salem Statesman Journal)

-- Mexico's Federal Elections Board fined one of the nation's top broadcasters $500,000 for airing television spots paid for by political parties. (Variety)

-- A British lawmaker is urging a ban of alcohol advertisements at sporting events, arguing that they encourage teenage binge-drinking. (Daily Mirror)

-- An ad for PETA's campaign against the restaurant chain KFC in which Colonel Sanders is splattered with blood is under investigation in the U.K. for possible violations of decency rules. (UTalkMarketing.com, view ad [PDF])

-- European countries are trying to entice Americans to travel across the pond with a new ad campaign. (USA Today)

-- The iconic "I love New York" campaign is being revived and expanded to encourage tourists to visit destinations throughout the state. (New York Times)

-- An avid player of New York's Take Five lottery sued the state's lottery agency Monday, claiming ads grossly exaggerate the odds of winning. (New York Daily News)

-- Pfizer relaunched a branded marketing campaign for an anti-smoking drug after working with the Food and Drug Administration to ensure that new ads include information on the medication's risks. (CNBC's Pharma's Market blog)

-- In Internet advertising, a marketing researcher writes, there exists a "paradoxical relationship between advertising effectiveness and repugnance." (Online Media Daily)