ad gossip

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

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

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?

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

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.

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.

Remember the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL), who are on a mission to correct America?

They're gone one typo too far: AZ central - Typo vigilantes answer to letter of the law

Two self-anointed "grammar vigilantes" who toured the nation removing typos from public signs have been banned from national parks after vandalizing a historic marker at the Grand Canyon.

Jeff Michael Deck, 28, of Somerville, Mass., and Benjamin Douglas Herson, 28, of Virginia Beach, Va., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Flagstaff after damaging a rare, hand-painted sign in Grand Canyon National Park. They were sentenced to a year's probation, during which they cannot enter any national park, and were ordered to pay restitution.

***
Deck's diary account of the Grand Canyon incident was submitted as evidence in court. It says the two men climbed Desert View Watchtower while on holiday from their typo-enforcement duties "and discovered a hand-rendered sign inside that, I regret to report, had a few errors. I know today was supposed to be my day off from typo-hunting, but if I may be permitted to quote that most revered of android law enforcers, Inspector Gadget, 'Always on duty!' I can't shut it off. . . . Will we never be free from the shackles of apostrophic misunderstanding, even in a place surrounded by natural beauty?"

After correcting a misplaced apostrophe and comma, Deck reported, he was aghast to discover what he described as a made-up word: "emense."

"I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further, so we had to let the other typo stand. Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity."

TEAL's official site now only carries the statement: "Statement on the signage of our National Parks and public lands to come."

So, we all know that Microsoft are working hard at retooling that broken image that Vista has, and it's been reported that Microsoft Enlists Jerry Seinfeld In Its Ad Battle Against Apple. Ooohkaaay. Nevermind that using him in ads went out somewhere around the American Express Superman campaign a near decade ago - why use Apple's old spokesperson? Oh, they forgot, right? Well here's an Apple ad from early 90's featuring "The crazy ones" which includes Jerry Seinfeld taking a bow at the end. Yeah he's crazy, crazy enough to endorse anything for money. I guess he needs it to pay all his parking tickets ;)