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Frank Lingua, president and CEO of Dissembling Associates, is the nation's leading purveyor of buzzwords, catch phrases and clichés for people too busy to speak in plain English.

"Business Finance" contributing editor Dan Danbom interviewed Lingua in his New York City office.

Read more for the interview.

A guy is clearing out the attic of an old house and comes across a box
with a label that says: MAGIC LAMP. FOR AGENCY SUITS ONLY.

"What's an agency suit?", the guy thinks to himself. "What the heck, I've never tried a magic lamp before. I'll just go ahead anyway."

AdAGe reports on Absolut's new campaign - the old iconic bottle campaign is dead and buried now after a 28 year run. Compare the old with the new.

Remember last year, when a "accidental" spot-on copy of a Far Side Cartoon won the Grand Prix Outdoor? (Or maybe, it was a just copy of a 1998 Peugeot ad....... ?) Course it could be all coincidence as they say - anyway, this year in Cannes another copy-of-a-cartoon won Bronze in the poster category. Oy vey. Cannes is going straight down the toons. ;9

You might have seen the 3D pavement images in emails, but did you know who the artist was?
It's Julian Beevers work, and his homepage here boasts more photos. Commissioned work includes ads for Sony Computers as well as potential ad ideas for fly spray to soft drinks, all very skilled anamorphic illusions, guaranteed to stand out. ;)

What do Ogilvy’s Brian Collins, Wieden’s Ty Montague and Euro’s John Rea all have in common?
Yes, they’re all creative directors at the world’s finest ad agencies but they also share the responsibility of judging the first annual STEP inside design advertising competition.

Have your work (printed, published or aired between Jan. 1, 2003- to May 1, 2004) reviewed by the industry’s finest. Selected work will be featured in the September/October issue of STEP.

Print $30 each; $50 per TV spot and web banner, $150 multiple media campaigns.
Deadline May 15.

Woop! We won the best group weblog award, now everyone pat yourselves on the back! Thanks to all who joined in and voted - we'll be getting the T-shirt, and we do love T-shirts, so we'll even wear it.

It took me way too many years to find the "original" mustache campaign that I remember from when I was a little kid - found deep down in the dusty archives of the Swedish Arla Milk products company, photos of famous people posing with big white mustaches. Concept ring a [cow]bell?

What is a brand faced with the problem of not having enough for a TV budget to do?
You may have seen the stickers, the jars full of dirt, or even the billboards depicting giant jars full of dirt, one headline reads "Cures Boredom", another "Reintroducing the world's first toy". These teaser billboards soon revealed that Wisk is behind them.

Something eerily familiar about those BuyMusic.com ads?

This article in Slate details how BuyMusic's new ads are blatant and shameless rip-offs of Apple's iTunes ads. Even their slogan - "Music Downloads for the Rest of Us" - rip-off the ad slogan Apple used to launch the iMac way back when.