The other day, aptly named Art Thompson of norelevance.com handed me his sites card, and stopping by I realized it's an art directors dream! Random scrapbook pages, strange record label designs, weird labels from forgotten brands. Aaah, inspirationville.

Me be off on vacation for two weeks. I might stop by turkel schwartz & partners and the Miami Adschool before i hit the calm serene sandy beaches of the Bahamas.
Pass the suntan-lotion. And don't be surprised when I don't reply to emails, because where I'm going, there are no phone lines..... *bliss* ;)

W&K Amsterdam pulls the prestigious Vodafone account they worked so hard to get and will party tonight ordering caipirinha's at the edge of the bermuda triangle of the Nieuwe Zijds Bar's. Don't dust off the book - they won't be pulling in any new staff, they still have people to lay off in those other cities you know.

Here's a cute touch, in the latest shots update email, they quote popbitch as if it was a reliable source. I'm not saying that it isn't. I'm just saying.. Shots.net quoted popbitch! Dude!

It looked a little like this:

DID GODMAN DIGITISE GERI?
Cult UK record industry website popbitch has fanned rumours that Jake &
Jim's latest promo for former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell single It's Raining
Men featured a body double and vigorous post-production. The website alleged

First POP.COM goes flop, now this!

Steven Spielberg is getting a swift lesson in the ways of the web as a gang of erstwhile geeks deconstructs an elaborate spoofsite game designed to promote his new summer film A.I. (Artificial Intelligence).

Here's a quote which appeared in the April issue of "Creativity" magazine. A fine addition to the archives of irony.

"The trade of advertising is so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good. I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly to our passions." Samuel Johnson, 1759

The halfbaked idea has a shrine all it's own on the web - namely the halfbakery.com

Here you'll find gems such as adverts on bald peoples heads which I'm sure we'll see for real soon, and alarm clocks that remind you why you are getting out of bed. Fun place to waste some time.

The "I'm proof" baby T that we are giving away here, sparks a little funny debate on the teabaggers page and grinds Canada's advertising agencies to halt on Friday afternoon.

Target link above jumps to first post. From there you read upwards. Teabaggers is a completely anonymous forum hosted by "Wanda". The password spread via emails. It's also posted several times in the archives.Why don't you guys ever get this active? ;-) Don't tell me you are working? Humbug!

Not to rain on Publicis worldwide's parade of their swelling stock and shares - but are they holding on tight enough to Coca Cola? Or did that client just walk - worldwide?
On the up - there is always Diet.

Ha!

Shots.net is closing down? Say it aint so!Where will we go for our daily fix of cutting edge commercials? Don't tell me we have to buy the magazine and reel/DVD? Shots.net just sent out an email to all their subscribers stating that:

"It is with great regret that I have to tell you that due to circumstances
beyond our control the shots.net site is likely to come off line in April.

shots VHS, DVD and magazine are unaffected by these developments........" continued.....

the email continues:

Was that Alex Keshishian we saw cuddling in the corner of a London hangout with Tiger Savage? Sure the music was loud, but to whisper in someones ear, one does not need to use arms hands and be quite that close.....

We weren't going to say anything, as we actually Like Mark Wnek, unlike the rest of Londons ad community, apparently including wife Tiger. Miauw!

With the loss of several high profile, high $$$ accounts, including a large chunk of the US Kelloggs biz, JWT NYC has felt the heat and laidoff several producers and creatives associated with the now, non-existent biz.

JWT

It's an Amsterdamned shame, but the Publicis office in this Netherlands city recently trimmed seven creatives.

Seven - out of 10! (Not counting the Creative Directors)

If you haven't seen it already - here is that email collection between Nike and "Jonah H. Peretti" - Jonah tried to buy some personalized Nike shoes from them, with the word "sweatshop" under their logo.

At Nike's site you can open a " Design your own shoe " link, a very popular feature that looks like the idea was stolen from Customatix.com the "design your own shoe" site.

The idea is that you customise your own shoe by submitting a phrase or word to be stitched on to you personal pair. So Jonah Peretti filled out the form and sent them $50 to stitch "SWEATSHOP" on to his shoes.

From: "Personalize, NIKE iD" nikeid_personalize@nike.com

An apropriate stunt for Valentines day - or "how to suprise your agency". Yesterday, Stefano Caputo the advertising and media manager and Maurizio Marchiori head-ad-honcho at Diesel, walked in to a pitch-meeting with Kesselskramer wearing big pullovers and secretive smiles.

Ulf Dahlsten - the man who was chosen to head up the Cannes Lions Cyberaward mentioned earlier here announced today that he is resigning from his position as President of Icon Medialab.

Sarky comments at Resume say: "I heard he's leaving to learn how to make banners, so that he can judge the Cannes awards better. Good on him."

Will he still be in the Cannesjury?

This week is fashion week in Milan, the terribly hip are attending parties and Diesel is throwing their own party tonight to celebrate ten years of great ads and great clothes.

So how is that pitch going then? Well, the six agencies pitching are back down to five agencies....

It was only a matter of time I guess, but I just heard this morning that the actor who plays Joe (Jeff Douglas) on the Molson Canadian 'I Am Canadian' rant spot has moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career in the states. I guess his head got too big for this country (even though we are the second largest one in the world, as he once so enthusiastically informed us). Talk about biting the (mittened) hand that feeds you! Let's hope when he says to his new L.A. employers 'about my salary...' they don't misunderstand his Canuck accent and give him an old boot in payment instead. Well, we all know where he'll end up anyway. In a made for TV movie with Gary Coleman and Richard Hatch.

Diesel - considered by many to be the most fun account to grab - is on the pitch.

Invited to pitch for their account are: Paradiset in Stockholm, who created the current image of Diesel from the ground up, Cave Arnholt Jonason in London, with Joakim Jonason who founded Paradiset, Mother in London, KesselsKramer in Amsterdam and Devarrieux Villaret from Paris. The 19th of January these agencies will show their work to Maurizio Marchiori and late January Diesel will announce who they choose to co-operate with. Best of luck to the pitchees - please save the Diesel image before it dies a slow ironic death.

British Adland readers take note: Naomi Klein - the author of
"No Logo" (excerpt here) has been scouting around Europe with a TV crew, making a documentary to appear next month on British TV - channel Four after the news.