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Creativity online reports:

In the end, it was a technicality, not international outcry, that relieved TBWA, Paris of its Bronze Lion.Despite angering the Chinese government with depictions of Olympics-related torture for Amnesty International, Cannes International Advertising Festival organizers and the network, upon reviewing the entry, realized its token media buy occurred after the April 30 deadline.

The campaign can be seen in full here: Amnesty International - After the Olympics
Our previous posts on this campaign:
Amnesty international disavow a Cannes Lions winner - did another scam ad get a Lion? 07/22/2008
TBWA are two-faced, according to Chinese netheads. 07/14/2008

"The Voice" - real name Don LaFontaine has passed away at the age of 68 - was the worlds most recognizable announcer. He was the voice that all other voices tried to be. Voiceover artist Ashton Smith once remarked "When you die, the voice you hear in heaven is not Don's. It's God trying to sound like Don." When rereading that quote Tuesday, Smith said "I guess God is going to lose that gig when Don gets up there because Don is just that good." Source:AP - Hat Tip BAP

C|net says: "Be sure to read Chrome's fine print" - which you should be doing all the time anyway. There are two things stick out in the terms of service in Chrome.

This one, while not stating directly they will throw Google-ads around wherever they please, doesn't exactly exclude the idea. Traditionally, ads on the web are served by the page you are visiting not the browser that you use. This paragraph seems to indicate that it'll change in the near future.....

"Some of the services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the services, queries made through the services or other information.
The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Google on the services are subject to change without specific notice to you."

Then there's this - who owns what now? They're not saying that they will automagically gain the copyrigt of your stuff, but they are saying that they will have right to display some of your content, in conjunction with promoting its services. Come again?

"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services."

Hat tip to Claes Magnusson in my Jaiku-posse.

Last year I worked at a place where the "creative" was limited to "Model on the left, product to the right" and every single sketch ever made had to be done in photoshop so that the myriad of people who had something to say about the layout in its infancy, could waste everyones time complaining about "the models ears being too square" because all I found was a photograph of a great face with big hair, and my lassoing away of the hair left her ears looking silly. (Yes, I had to go draw fake ears on the model for the next meeting, Seriously.)

Using pre existing photography for presentations not only locks you into working only with what already exists (and that you can find) instead of using that creative brain they hired you for - but also puts you straight into the path of copying work which is called derivative work and can get the company into serious trouble. Y'all do remember that little thing called "copyright", right?

At that job, I did what any sane AD would do, I went back to pen and paper and drew everything I had planned to be in the final layout. That's when some people turn to already perfect photography to present to their clients in meetings instead. And that is when shit like this happens.

Spotted at clayton cubitts tumblr account, where the Dexim ad is credited to BBDO Athens.

So many people are twittering now, people use it to stay in touch with their friends - like me - and people use it to promote their websites new posts - like adland does. Not to mention using it to hit on Salvator Romano and all the other Mad Men out there. ;)
So, self-promotion and website promotion is already there, clearly - but how about using it as a place to advertise? That's exactly what Twitterad suggests, they'll sell you peoples background image on their twitter homepage. You can sell your background to the highest bidder - and for the ad-buyer the minimum buy is only .99 cents. Under Quality control they write:

TwittAd 's technology will continually check to make sure that a Twitter user is serving the ad. Every hour the ad is served, the Twitter user will receive money in their TwittAd account. Once the TwittAd users account reaches $20 they can request payment. If Twitter user removes the image before the advertiser's time has expired, we alert the advertiser and they have the option to give negative feedback to the Twitter user. Advertiser will receive credit back from TwittAd for the time their ad was not served.

There are a few obvious problems to this idea, for one - how often do you look at anyones elses twitter page? Tweets are showing up in IM and text messages on phones, and on your own page. Then, the background images aren't clickable - so where do you go once you've seen the ad? I guess those who like to do general branding all over the web might like the idea, but I don't see twitter users in mass selling out their space anytime soon. Also, twitter themselves - who don't have enough funds to afford texting the European and Australian users anymore - don't make a dime off this idea. "No, TwittAd is not affiliated with Twitter.com. TwittAd was built using the Twitter open API." Call me when I can help Twitters revenue by selling my background image, until then, no thanks.

You might have spotted the Ad Age power 150 and looked to find that SEO blogs count higher than personal blogs (of course!), but since it takes so many different number crunching things into account, it's surprisingly democratic - and it adds "Todd Points" to the score. The many different sources also causes the list to move around a lot more than any others, since for example Technorati - despite many years on the web - can suddenly go all wonky. I've seen Adland be on #17 and #70 on the same day as Technorati has acted funky for some reason. Media Culpa also notes that the power150 only counts his atom feed and not his many feedburner subscribers. Not to mention that Alexa is still shunned by most mac-people (even though the alexa toolbar is now available for Firefox) giving the SEO (and thus PC users) blogs a leg up with that score over the blogs more often frequented by mac-driving creative types.

Spinning around made a list of the top UK blogs found on the Power150 where Russel Davies is the leader of the pack.
But there's a European ranking out there as well, it was Kullin's Media Culpa that brought this to my attention in his July 18 post - Nick Burcher counted all the european flags on the list to make a European version and even made little graphs, and then he did one based on Alexa traffic where Adland is number 2 again.

Well, number two no more. Adverblog and Adland usually have the same exact total score, but with Adverblog listed first, so I naturally had to screendump this. ;) We'll never beat Italy in football (soccer to you US folks) so I have to gloat when I have my chance. Sweden, raah raah *dances around with pompoms* No hard feelings Italy, you know i root for Italia in football!

The top 100 blogs in the European ranking today is:

#1(19) Adland - Sweden
#2 (22) Adverblog - Italy
#3 (27) I Believe in advertising - Italy
#4 (40) Russel Davies - England
#5 (42) Yoast - Tweaking Websites The Netherlands
#6 (48) Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog Belgium
#7 (49) Osocio The Netherlands
#8 (54) Adverbox - Italy
#9 (57) NevilleHobson.com - England
#10 (58) David Airey - Scotland
#11 (60) Blogstorm - England
#12 (84) Adliterate - England
#13 (90) Crackunit - England
#14 (93) Behind The Buzz - UK (!)
#15 (101) Viralblog - The Netherlands
#16 (104) Media Culpa - Sweden
#17 (117) Talent imitates, genius steals - England
#18 (127) Krishna De's BizGrowth News - Ireland
#19 (128) Only dead fish - England
#20 (131) PR blogger - England
#21 (132) The engaging brand - England
#22 (139) Joe La Pompe - France Shout-out! been around almost as long as we have!
#23 (143) HERD - England
#24 (146) Fresh Creation - The Netherlands
#25 (156) Coolz0r Marketing Thoughts - Belgium

(the rest inside, folks)

I would just like to point out that artist Nic Hess can be a pretty funny guy.

Via todayandtomorrow who found it at wrongdistance

Moi, Åsk Wäppling a.k.a Dabitch, was just speaking about advertising (what else?) on RixFM radio with Roger, Titti and Gert of Rix MorronZoo. Not the first time we've been on the radio mind you, we chatted for an hour on the advertising show a few years ago - but it is the first time in Swedish. Not sure I made as much sense as I wanted too, considering the early hour for me. Should've taken that coffee intravenously. I really wanted to play RACV Car Loans - Disclaimer Guy as en example of good radio advertising, but y'all can listen to that here.

Ett glatt hej till alla svenskar som kanske hittat hit efter att ha hört mig i morse. Välkomna till reklamfanatikerns sajt. :)

The Denver Egotist has gone around town photographing the political street art that's currently popping up all around Denver. "We’ll call them Obama’s posse." they say - a lot of distinctivly Shepard Fairey work is adorning the walls, as well as some fresh new things I've not seen before. Personally, I really dig the rainbow Lincoln Obama pictured here on the left.

Is this the work of SS+K the "non-traditional creative communications firm defined by a combustible mix of political consulting and high-level of creativity"? We know that Obama picked up GMMB & SS&K back in 2007 for creative work, so... it just might be?

For all your headline-writing needs, try the handy, new and improved Advertising Slogan Generator — and start writing that great award-winning headline. But wait, there's more!

Now how much would you pay?

Resumé Thursday Augist 28: "Red Cross backs up adbogger"

Yesterday I was on page six in Metro, Sweden - which can also be found here on the web with the headline: "Mom must have dropped me on the head when I was a kid". Sorry mom.

How did you build up the site?.
By being stubborn. When I began (in 1996) I had to get my own server. I don't just write, I run the server, I digitize the commercial films, and I've built the database. I don't add stuff without the creators permission, but since the arrival of youtube and myspace commercials are being thrown around left and right.

I think Marc Jacobs is trying to tell us something. That the nineties have been over for ten years and 2009 will birth new looks to dog us for years just like the fashion party of 1999 did.

Remember the bright and bold haircolors? The "Matrix" inspired thin sun glasses with no rim? The thick soles on every shoe available? The pleather, latex and fake snakeskin? The exposed navel? The low-cut jeans? The hipster shorts? I'm telling you we need to stop doing all of this now it's been going on for years. The big T-shirt and leggings look that took over after that did not help matters one bit.

That has got to be the reason he named Russian duo t.A.T.u. as the faces of his autumn/winter line. They're well past their fame as faux lesbian pop tarts, by about ten years - but they did know how to do the school girl uniform look right.

Marc Jacobs stuffed Posh Spice into a shopping bag, what will he do with this duo? He's had strange picks before - among them controversial child star Dakota Fanning, director Sofia Coppola, The White Stripes' Meg White, and singer M.I.A. I can't wait to see what he does with the Tatu girls - and I hope neither one of them is pregnant during the shoot.

The Mad Men Tweeters are back.
don_draper and the original peggyolson accounts have been reinstated.
and the other folks, like Don's wife betty_draper, the überboss in socks bertram_cooper, the heavy drinking don juan Roger_Sterling and everyones favorite redhead Joan Holloway and many more are twittering away.
Silicon Alley insider reports that Deep Focus were the ones that "gently nudged their client into rescinding the DMCA takedown notice they'd sent to Twitter." There's a company doing good on their paycheck.


Yesterdays news then: Mad Men Tweets not issued by AMC - takedown notices sent

Adland's fave toon-artist David Jones brings us a look at what might happen if he did the Mad Men thing.

Here's a little update to the Vällingby City "Donate your old clothes before buying new ones" campaign created by Ruth advertising in Stockholm. Check out the film of the clothes donation-boxes in action inside.

The Daily Mail reports that Nick Park of Aardman Films was approached by Harvey Nichols because they wanted a worldwide icon from the Bristol area to promote the opening of the new Harvey Nichols Bristol store. Posters and magazine ads feature Wallace, Gromit and Lady Campanula Tottington sporting designer-wear from the likes of Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Ray-Ban Wayfarer, Duchamp, Christian Louboutin and Zagliani.

There's also a making-of video that can be found here.

Oh Noes! The Mad Men tweets, where most of the Sterling Cooper possy where going about their day in public tweets was not created by AMC, in fact the AMC sent Twitter a DMCA complaint about the accounts, and several are already pulled including @don_draper & @peggyolson. Philmang has the scoop which he found via venturebeat. Phil rightly reckons that this is an "epic FAIL on the part of AMC", meanwhile I wonder what I'll do all day now that I can't hit on Salvator Romano and befriend fellow redhead Joan Holloway. I was having lots of fun with the characters over at twitter, and their tweets showed me the Playboy spread which I would have never found otherwise, since we all know I don't read that for the articles. I guess I'll just get back to work now. *sigh*

Playboy does a Mad Men Fashion spread declaring that "vintage cool is staging a comeback". As usual Bryan Batt/ Salvatore Romano is looking good enough to eat - and even ever-slimy Vincent Kartheiser / Pete Campbell comes out looking suave as hell. Pardon me, I must now sit here and swoon for the rest of the afternoon.

Another trade-press bit on the recent Chinagate - now it's Axel Håkansson & Mediavarlden.se in Sweden who had a long chat with me about the technical details and free speech implications of it all. No google translation of this yet.

102.2 Smooth Radio has done it, FNAC vinyl & Rocketboom have done it, and now Eskils Junker Film joins the trend with their Knight Music video.

 
Dibs on calling this trend twice jumped the shark!

If you're still not bored with the album-cover-collage photo fun, dive into the Flickr LP Portraits Pool for more.

It is Malspam - fake news headlines tempting you to click something you shouldn't and forcefeeding your PC an .exe file that can do bad bad things. The Malspam campaigns began somewhere in June, but haven't dropped off much since from what I can tell.

However, their headlines provide endless laughs! On adlist we've amused ourselves by showing off the funniest headlines we've gotten - can you top any of these? There's a few key players often mentioned, Paris Hilton & Britney Spears reign supreme in the gossip-girl corner, while Bush and Cheney only show up rarely, sometimes even with either Paris or Britney.

Lets see what she's been up to lately, shall we?
"Paris Hilton Had Sex With Aliens" - you know, if we ever get confirmation that there is extraterrestrial life out there, I bet we'll get it in this way.

"Bisexual Paris Hilton likes Bush & Dick" we know that already, oh, did they mean George Bush and Cheney?

A few days later it appears she was feeling sinful, thus: "Paris Hilton Becomes Nun"

The by far scariest one yet, however, has to go to "Paris Hilton to Operate New Atom Smasher". We can't trust her to operate a car people.

Former Pop-diva Britney is repackaging old tricks it seems:

Britney: My Vagina Made Me Shave My Head - I'm trying very hard not to picture that. I don't want to know how that worked. What holds the razor?

"Britney Spears pregnant with antichrist" - I thought she already did that?

The "MSN Breaking News"-spam or CNN.net-spam usually revealed itself in their headlines choice of words. For example:
"MSN Breaking News: Iran Kicks America in the Nuts" - the nuts folks. Well, America does have it's fair share of nuts, I guess.

Of course, we can't escape Paris even here:
"msnbc.com: BREAKING NEWS: Paris Hilton Considered For Mother Teresa Role" - if there is a god he would smite us all for that.

This one is really good: "msnbc.com: BREAKING NEWS: Mike Tyson To Fight Michael Jackson" - what kind of fight? Who can sound most like a little girl? Will Tyson eat Jackson?

Politics and patriotism is always a big click-puller - therefore we get: "New National Anthem Proposed by Bush"

But then the "bizarre" headlines might get you to - how about: "Man killed by flying cocktail glass" - I swear it wasn't me.

Some people are crazier than others.
"S.D. man pleads guillty to harassing deeer" - I wonder what he did to that deer. "Hey doe-eye, you're looking fine today!"

Also - rock out to my home country "Swedish princess slaps town florist". Yeah, even our royals are crazy, that could totally happen.

" Facebook under attack by clones" - if only!

Now, my personal favorite because it is wrong on so many levels.

" Scientiists iisolate animal fart gene"

Yikes, mediaspy has some hot gossip - as the story goes, a CD created a gmail account in the name of ECD Mark Taylor, and used it to ask employees opinions about the work, salary and other issues. Well, he forgot that pretending you are someone that you are not is actually called fraud and it is further rumored that Roy Spence, GSD&M's president and founder, "called in a political favor and got a warrant through the local U.S. Attorney's office" to find out who sent that email. How very Sopranos, except you know, legal.
The email-faking CD was tracked via their IP# and now there's a photo of them at the front desk stating "No admittance". Youch!

Well let that be a lesson to you all - gmail does not mean "anonymous and totally untraceable and it never did.

The little birdies are saying this to the Agencspy:

"It was a dumbass [sic] idea, to say the least, and nobody knows why the guy/gal did it — what he/she was trying to find out. Maybe he/she thought he was underpaid. More likely, he/she felt like his/her job was one the lone. He/she'd been on the chopping block before but was rescued by one of the founders."

It's not clear which CD it was, or what exactly was said in that email to piss everyone off that much - I'm sure we'll hear more on this story.

Dagens Media reports that Puma made a marketing mishap last Thursday when they projected a commercial onto the Stockholm city library. (An utterly gorgeous building designed by Gunnar Asplund, by the way.) Seems that the agency AdCity Media forgot to sort everything out before using the famous building as Johanna Hansson, the Director of the library, says to Dagens Media: "We have not given permission for this, and do not want to be used as advertising space. We are a library, and as such should be impartial and free."
Even the client wasn't informed, as Puma's marketing director, Rickard Kull said: "I'm not totally up to speed on the media plan. It is Adcity Media who has done the advertising."

Unlike the previous Puma mishap - oh yes you remember the sperm-splash Puma pitch-ads that did a tour around the world after showing up here at Adland 2003 - this mistake was given the green light by Puma. Somehow.


Other ads projected on walls in Adland:
WWF - Burning Panda Beamvertising - (2008) :60 (Denmark)
Bos creates interacting billboards for Fido / 2007
Light Graffiti in Atlanta / 2005

You can check out the two minute film about this here.
The final two stages of the adidas Impossible is Nothing Sport in Art project are taking place at the Beijing Olympic Games in a major art exhibition right now and at an auction at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in October.

The original paintings, the creations of some of the world’s greatest athletes and sports stars including: David Beckham, Tyson Gay, Ian Thorpe and 2008 Olympic Gold medalists Jeremy Wariner, Allyson Felix and Yelena Isinbayeva, are part of the Sport in Art exhibition that has already toured China to great critical acclaim his year.