La Croisette gossip is buzzing with the rumor of who won the grand prix in film - everyone is pointing at Guinness - Evolution / Noitulove.

Guinness - Evolution / Noitulove

This is just "talk" - but every year when I've been there the Croisette gossip has been right on the money. So it just might be right again....

If you read more than one ad blog for breakfast you've probably stumbled onto the mysterious Asian Socces babes. Steve at adrants asked for help translating the Belgian site where he had found them, but sadly that left little clue as where the images came from and what they were advertising - if anything.

Adgrunt may23rd2007 (interesting name) has been on a mission since May to tag all cobranded ads with the word cobranded. Give 'm a hand willya?

Meanwhile, as you sell your branded product out in the open, someone somewhere might decide to do some crazy stuff with it. Check this "cobranded brand hijack" to see just how crazy you can get with a Mentos and a Coke light.

Of course, this has become a crazy fad, see everyone mentos + coke light videos on youtube. Yikes. Happily, this fits both Mentos and Coke lights brand should, it's fun loving and inventive (mentos) while light! (Coke). Ok, so it's not just for the taste of it... ;)

The always creative people of Coudal have an interesting way of wasting time in their bathrooms... Writing on the walls is taken to a whole new level now that the agency started a strange game morphing band names with book titles. Yeah that's it, mash up a name of a book with the name of a band, and what do you get? Weirdness!

Booking Bands list the best and some of the rest. Coudal crew came up with these:
Catch 182
Horton Hears a Hoobastank
Of Mice and Men at Work
Bare Naked Lunch Ladies
The Agony and the XTC

Can you come up with better ones?

More fun with chalkboards, this flickr slideshow shows some kung fu chalkboard fighting.

Am I the only person who wonders if the "I'm only here for the Bud?" TV campaign is an homage or an outright ripoff of the "I'm only here for the beer" campaign run very successfully for many years by Double Diamond?

A scanner Darkly is going to be released...ehm..soon. A Trailer remix contest on the web is recutting those same three minutes of footage into more or less succesful trailers, some thinks the contest is producing better trailers than the official one. But leave it to the paranoid Philip K. Dick fans to create viral marketing hype, where there is none... Or is there..? And what does Morgellons disease have to do with it? (read more)

The neon known as the Artkraft Strauss Collection - ArtKraft.com - is being auctioned at Freeman's auction house if you're looking for some ad icon neon to spice up your avant garde loft with that authentic 80's commercial touch.

"For more than a century, Artkraft Strauss, creator of one-of-a-kind spectacular displays, has provided the world with some of the most innovative and iconic advertisements ever conceived."

Go here to see the collection. Stockholm Swedes might fancy the neon dragon which looks a lot like the old movie theatre draken at Fridhemsplan sign. Me, I'm thinking of getting that Bob Hope profile just to scare the neighbours.

The Panopticist has spotted the gem that is Butterick's winter 2005 cover. Somewhere a disgruntled designer is lauging an evil laugh for getting away with this, I'm sure. Is this revenge for all those "logo bigger" requests? Hmmm?

A new toy has hit the market - the Oozinator. Any resemblance to acual bukkake is purely accidental. Or so they say. The Hasbro commercial skyrocketed to cult status last week and was even aired on The Soup this weekend.

Seems Hasbro pulled the ad from their website this weekend, it was here (under "watch it") but is no more. Perhaps because so many blogs linked to the "bukkake gun" - see google search.

But of course, a toy with which you can "sneak up on your opponents with a surprise Oozinator bio-ooze attack!" is just too good, so naturally, words and pictures the ad-comic, had to mock it as well. Somewhere some Hasbro suits are hiding their heads and hoping it will all go away.....

Anyone else getting a little sick of all these hoazes, er, fictional ad people getting their own blog-pages, myspace profiles and livejournal accounts or is it just me? I hope that the free services they leech on are getting paid for the ad placement at least, which is what it is lets be fair.

Most recently I stumbled onto Miss Helga's myspace profile where I've got the chance to download ringtones, desktop images and learn that every idiot on Myspace thinks "advertisment" for short is spelled "add". Gah!

Those who fancy that green-hued film in the dark type dirty video might enjoy the demonstration by Jeff Kling of his "travel with your pencil workout program for rising executives."... Yes, it's strange.

Stranger still though is that I had to hop on the trail of that page-title of the top level on futureadstar.com, which was ncmmedia.com, owned by Eileen Turkel whom I gather is really good at doing medical transcriptions from home and looking for more transcription work. For a moment there I thought I was getting lost in an advergame... I'm not am I?

I think this is great, atop the Spam folder in Gmail (still beta) sits a text-ad for Hormel Foods luncheon meat, a.k.a Spam!

In our best "been there, done that, doing it tomorrow"-tude, we knew we'd have to advertise in a video game eventually - since we've been writing about it so much. When the suitable topical game The Young Guns vs The Old Ones, where new media agencies streetfight against established aphabet soup groups, appeared we simply had to do it.

So there ya have it, our first ad within gamespace. Cute innit? ;) Now if someone could help me get through this game without killing my own team, my day would be made!

Swedens beloved adforum, a highly popular hangout called Bold has had their website defaced today and their name changed to "Böld" ("boil"). The message left on their front page spells out the well known phrase "no advertising please" so common on mailboxes where mail without a recipients adress is not wanted. This is what Bold regulars was met with today as they went to the site.

Here is a « never seen » version of a William Lawson's Blended Scotch Whisky TVC from a few years back. In fact, the client asked the agency to change the end for a more “politically correct” one. Anyway, go check out the spot with the original ending on Youtube. Via ipub.ca.cx

I found Sketch-it on Digg and yes, I dig it. Send them a photo of what you want their stable of artists to sketch, pay them a lousy buck via PayPal and back comes a sketch.

What a great idea! I've got them working on a storyboard for a Viral I've scripted - at more than a dollar. But you can have them do you a sketch for a buck like these below -

Brilliant eh? Tell me that's not worth a buck.

In South Africa last February, a newspaper ad for BMW by Ireland-Davenport (which won the account only months before) has been called plagiarism by artist Gerhard Marx and his representatives, Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary Art (you can see the artists work here). They want the campaign cancelled, an apology and are looking for financial compensation or else they will go ahead with a lawsuit.

They claim that the ad, which features a collage using a map and a line drawing depicting the back of a naked woman for the BMW Z4, uses a technique that is the innovation of Marx (“drawing” human forms using reconstituted map fragments.)

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the BMW ad online and I have not been able to find a website for Ireland-Davenport. There is a review of the ad here as well as some comments that claim that Mr. Ireland was seen at the grand opening of Marx's exhibit, and some other chatter about it here.

Australia's 'Where the Bloody Hell are you?' which we're all bloody sick of hearing about, finally has something going for it. Boobies. That's right, we've got some tits. It turns out Lara Bingle, the 'star' of the ad did a topless shoot for Men's Magazine Zoo 6-months ago.

Was someone over at M&C Saatchi doing a talent search flicking through the pages of Zoo Magazine? We need a Royal Commission / Senate Enquiry!

Coverpage + Story can be viewed here

David Wen, a hard working student at The University of Texas at Austin has a blog that he calls The Ranch. He also has the rather ambitious idea to interview ad-people on a regular basis, so far he's chatted to Ernie Schenck, Ignacio Oreamuno, Deborah Morrison and this morning, with yours truly. Keep it up mate!

Julie Kramme Guldbæk in Denmark has been thinking about what ad-images we are subjected to in public space. She's translated the images to text to make us ponder what they are really saying-
Mellem linjerne (between the lines).
Now, this is lost on anyone that can't read Danish, but it does look very strange to see giant posters read "stiff nipples", "muscular nude man grips his stiff limb", "horny woman with naked breasts" etc. I recall all of those ads, but it does sound like images from porn-mags when she puts it that way, doesn't it?

[via genstart.dk]