The big news in Sweden is that the entire Nokia team has left Farfar, the Isobar owned hot shop that created the worlds biggest signpost for Nokia and countless other groundbreaking ideas. Dagens Media has interviewed everyone and their little dog too abut Farfar, and now have word from the Jakob Swedenborg and Mårten Forslund that left as to why: "Isobel worked against us every step of the way" they say. Both the launch of Farfar, London and Farfar New York was sabotaged by Isobel.

"...as soon as there's talk about new business you end up in a competing position with Isobar's other agencies, and truth be told, I don't think anyone wanted us there" says Mårten Fishlund about the London Launch where Farfar worked on Nokia from a hotel room. The same thing happened in New York : -" I had the visa, the apartment and the work, but there wasn't a single agency in North America that wanted Farfar there, not even Isobar. That's the problem when a network tries to bring local agencies out in the world."

The quitters are key people at the agency, including the MD Matias Palm-Jensen. Mårten Forslund AE for Nokia, Jakob Swedenborg and Erik Norin, Creative Directors on the Nokia account as well as Daniel Wall, Jeff Salomonsson, Tomas Jonsson, Ante Stenberg and Carl Fredrik Jannerfeldt have all walked away from Farfar today.  read more »

The plastic soup floating out there now stretches from Hawaii to Japan. Ugh. Rise Above Plastics (and don't dump them in the ocean!)

Jonas Åkerlund and Lady Gaga got together again for this video Telephone, featuring Beyoncé - where Gaga prances about in a womans prison sporting insane cigarette sunglasses. Once her love Beyoncé bails her out, they go on a homicide spree in their pussy mobile. There's plenty of product placement going on in this video, even for the dating site Plenty Of Fish where the officer logs in as MissOfficer if you fancy a tough broad. In the end, fashion wins... or does it?

Props for killing the hemaphrodite rumor.

Also notice: When Beyoncé kills her presumed boyfriend, she tops it off by flipping up the same style sunglasses Gaga wore in the Åkerlund directed Paparazzi video. Does that mean that she too is now an Illuminati Puppet brainwashed to kill? (see also part 2 of that hilarious idea). Why yes of course, she's been one since her rebirth as Sasha Fierce.  read more »

Promoting "Most Realistic Baseball Game Ever" with an unrealistic image of Joe Mauer and Kevin Butler sporting speedos down in Cabo. ;)

TBWA get down and dirty with paint for Nissan, this print campaign is shot by photographer Vincent Dixon staging the car avoiding paintballs on the city streets. The online part of the campaign lets the audience to follow QASHQAI’s journey to Urbanproof on www.nissanurbanproof.com - and finally the commercial which was shot over a period of six days in Bangkok shows the car dodging paintbullets left and right. THere's a 90 second "making of" film here for you geeks who want the behind the scenes action.  read more »

Sure looks like this shoot was a lot of fun, doesn't it? Bags of paint exploding everywhere, even the cameras got some on them. Fun!

Alasdhair McGregor, European Creative Director, TBWA\G1, commented: “How do you build on and even do better than the original Qashqai Skateboard commercial? For a car that is tougher and better looking than the original model, we decided to move Urbanproof to the next level.

TBWA is launching the fourth episode of the Nissan ‘Urbanproof’ saga, supporting the reveal of the new Nissan QASHQAI - ten bucks say they looked at Jonathan Glazers Sony "Paint" for pointers in how to make paint go "splat" in cool looking ways. The Nissan QASHQAI outdrives the evil buildings that keep shooting giant paintballs at it, with a roof-top stunt jump to boot.

The groundbreaking TVC filmed in Bangkok in December 2009 and created by TBWA\G1 and TBWA\Paris. Previous creatives have seen the QASHQAI treating the city as its playground with trademark back- flips and stunts. In this new episode, our hero no longer copes with the city but actively reshapes its favourite “battlefield”, now mastering its own “Urbanproof” discipline. The shoot took over six days to capture, involving a 230 people crew, with 80% shot in ‘real time’.

Paris Hilton continues her career of advertising drinks by "Being sexy" anywhere but the US. Here she's the girl who prances around in her fishtank apartment somewhere in Brazil with a cold beer in hand until everyone on the beach raises their glass to her. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Sure, it's only Friday morning still, but it IS Friday so BRING ON THE BEER, amirite?

Here's a twist on the disposable man in advertising... Open on a couple breaking up.... The woman however, knows how to recycle men! Just "Rinse, fold and stack". Ouch.

Zig’s new campaign for Newstalk 1010 is inviting people to make sense of what doesn’t – like the fact that Sarah Palin is a bestselling author – by listening and contributing to the conversation on the Toronto radio station. The campaign which shows some of the currently debated topics in graphic form, takes the form of billboards, TSAs, elevator wraps in Toronto’s downtown core and online banners. Speaking of the electric car, I totally want a Tesla model S, pretty sleek right?  read more »

Fans of iconic brands like the blue and yellow Chiquita should head over to Design:related and read the interview with the designer DJ Neff about the Chiquita Banana Brand Refresh for some great eye candy and howto bring an old icon into the new era.

Many times as designers we are tasked to help brands build or rebuild their identities. We may initially think that a clean slate is required to achieve a better identity, and in some cases that can be true if the existing brand identity has little to no value. But in most cases, there is always something that can be built on, discovered, or championed with any brand. It really just requires spending as much time as you can with the product, immersing yourself in it. Like method designing, you just have to live it and the work will flow through you.

Fans of old Chiquita should start humming I'm Chiquita Banana, and I've come to say
Bananas have to ripen in a certain way.... right about now.

Bacon Strips, comic strips about and featuring bacon, are found on the website republicofbacon, a site for Maple Leaf Bacon dedicated to bacon and the people who love it from john st., Toronto.  read more »

Did y'all know I've gotten cynical over the years? Nooo, say it ain't so the crowd roars in mock shock, but yep, I have.

See, when I got this email, I did immediately think "is this a trick to get me to post it?", either way the most I could be bothered doing was deny it was our viral on twitter eleven hours ago. It was the 0 connections on her linkedin page that sealed the deal for me, well, that and no response to my email. Oh, and her lastname.firstname@gmail email was lacking a G. I may make typos, but I'm not blind.

Hi there,
There are rumors that the 'Master Kong' TV interview

is actually a self promo for Adland. Can you confirm this? and if not- do you have a hint who is behind this?
Many thanks
Jaia Rosenberg
free-lance journalist for advertising publications and creative ad blogs

And lo and behold, looks like Steve over at adrants got the same email: Master Kong A 'Viral' For Adrants?. So fess up fellow adbloggers, who else got it?

So who, pray tell, is behind this viral? Lets file this under: who gives a toss. Honestly, virals that make me hunt for the sender have bored me for years already.

Update: Arity, over twitter I got it confirmed from @griner and a few others that practically every ad-news-gossiper got this email, how clever.

The funniest? @creativitymag got a mail from Jaia too and at that time her Linkedin page stated that she worked for them. Do'h! @creativitymag knows that she does not.  read more »

Here's a new app that I'm sure will be used and abused by creatives everywhere, Stickybits is both iPhone and Android ready - with it you can stick barcodes to real world objects, and when scanned they unlock photos, vidoes, anything you want that you've attached to that barcode. You could create scavenger hunts, add extra digital stuff to your biz-card, add a digital guestbook to a real world location, attach digital assembly instructions to that plate you just shattered and glued together with a barcode sticker... The possibilities are endless.

I dunno about you, but I'm downloading this app right now. Momma's gonna have some fun.  read more »

I dunno about you, but I think bumper cars in elevators seems to be a lot of fun! ;)

These new spots from BBDO, Toronto for Frito Lay are directed by Holiday Films’ Scott Corbett and promote Frito Lay’s new Multipacks. “Wall Climbing” shows that chips can be fun for the whole family, unlike say getting vertigo-dad up on a wall.

Microsoft takes on Google with this UK ad, where they show what information overload has done to us all. Bing is positioning itself as the"decision engine". This ad launches a campaign today, that Microsoft is backing with $2bn in media and creative.

"This is a big moment – we are taking out our slingshots and taking on Goliath," said the managing director and vice-president of consumer and online at Microsoft UK, Ashley Highfield, adding that he believed Bing met a real desire from both consumers and advertisers.

Like mtlb says hot cheerleaders in the mud, what's not to like?.... Well if you like it thick, slow and uhm... mud-flavoured? Well then, Dairy Crest has a FRijj drink for you!