Lee Tamahori - director of new zealand spots and the fab tearjerker (I cried like a baby - just don't tell anyone) "Once were warriors" has just agreed to direct the next Bond film.

It will be shot in London. Betcha didn't see that coming!

(found here first, a la adland)

Ok, a few of you were scratching your heads over the first week, so let's find out if the next round does better... (commercial vid link inside, so read more)

What can a film studio do to get around the fact that film critics hate their movies? Easy four step answer:

1. Get their advertising department to create a critic of their very own.

2. Have the fabricated critic gush and rave about the studio's films.

3. Use the gushes and raves in their press releases, print ads, posters and commercials in order to boost ticket sales.

4. Try not to get caught.

Well, when it came to Columbia Pictures (parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment), three out of four ain't bad. It's nasty.

...or perhaps they can...

What do Radio Shack, Popular Mechanics, LEGO and Pizza Hut all have in common?

Well, via a brilliant move through the Russian arm of Space Station Alpha, they're the first four companies to exploit, err... take advantage of the commercial opportunities of shooting television ads in outer space.

"Lights... Camera... ASTEROID!!!"

So unless you're a space case, you wanna read more...

Do you know whose TV ad premiered last night in America, featuring personal appearances by Barry White, George Clinton, Liz Phair, Steve Harwell of Smashmouth, De La Soul, Lil' Kim, Ziggy Marley, Chuck Berry, Dwight Yoakam, Exene Cervenka and Deep Dish?

HINT: It sure as hell wasn't Napster.

Find out the answer by clicking here.

Using star power to such real, human effect is suprising and dare I say... endearing?

Sonox.com, a music site catering to the rare and the groovy with independent label tunes in the categories as diverse as hip hop and electronica have begun advertising in Amsterdam to attract music fans. These aren't your regular ads however, as sonox doesn't deliver your regular music. (Images if you read more...)

AD-RAG EXCLUSIVE: What happens when the world's most remarkably clever ad agency gives the world's most remarkably clever weekend late night sketch comedy variety show a taste of their own medicine?

(adapted from the forthcoming Little Golden Book special hardcover edition)

You must see Scumco's spec Kodak-film - I suggest you press this link and have a laugh.
This film was directed by Mo Husseini at Kaboom, and he graced the email wires to tell us the story behind the film....

It looked like a tight race in the end when only two were left. This morning KK presented for the second time to Diesel and they were pleased.

So pleased in fact that KesselsKramer are their new agency as of now according to Resume's latest newsflash. The first campaign produced by KK will be the fall and wintercampaign.

It's true what they say, advertising has gone to the dogs. You might remember when pet-food advertising elevated from it's usual P&G-inspired bore-and-repeat style as Whiskas dared to venture out on the creative branch with the world first commercial aimed at cats. The commercial depicted things cats (apparently) would react to, and another ad showed hidden camera footage of cats in their homes trying to chase down the funny squeking and moving things on their masters tellies. My cats didn't much care for that ad, but then again, they only watch sheep-hearding and golf on TV.

Well - new ground has been broken again as the worlds first dog billboard - aimed at both dogs and their masters - is currently touring Holland.....

What a bumble -- Thanks to overenthusiastic Himalayan logo placement, Coke and Pepsi find themselves between a rock and hard place...

This week the adweak.com link starting making it's rounds in the massmailings of office-adgrunts and onto the various mailinglists out there. Who are these guys? Why are they doing this? Are they even guys? We decided to ask them, so here follows a short talk with the Editor - spokesperson for the Adweak crew. First we had to travel blindfolded in the trunk of car to get to the secret meeting place....

Just like much of the US presidential election reporting, ad-rag's proclamation about the first topical ad to reference this stalemate may have been premature.

Across the Atlantic, Thursday marked the debut of a national BBDO produced Pizza Hut spot that also poked fun at the situation. While the Amsterdam recruitment agency ad might be the winner when time zones are taken into consideration, you've got to admit, it's a lot trickier to get a TV spot approved, produced and distributed in that time frame than place a newspaper ad.

For a description of the Pizza Hut spot, read on...

The first topical ad using the stand still in the U.S. Presidential race wasn't produced in the states - it's the Dutch who jumped on the subject.

Publicis in Amsterdam ran an ad in the Telegraaf this morning for their client Capacity, a job recruitment agency specializing in middle and top personnel for marketing communication and sales.

The über-hip folks at Heavy have created a Web-based pilot based on something we live and breathe... dysfunctional advertising agency life! Woo-hoo!

Now, unless you have a revved up computer, a blazing connection, a current browser and all the spiffy plug-ins, I suggest you don't even attempt to check this out. But if you do, here's some helpful no-brainer directions to the goodies (a number of people have gotten lost trying to find it). It's a flash-based site, so I can't give you a shortcut straight to the page.

(1) Go to heavy

The past week has been hectic, Magnus Westerberg and Tim Hearn from St Luke's in Stockholm have been buried under a pile of email and now Magnus takes some time out to answer a sea of questions.

Dabitch: Why Stockholm? Why now? Who are you guys?

Magnus: Andy Law from St Luke's in London has said " I consider Stockholm to be one of the most exiting places in the world right now." so as Magnus replies "Why not Stockholm?".

Dabitch:Why is St.Luke's expanding abroad?

Adobe Systems, the company whose software touches so many our lives, appears to be softly launching a new brand image.

For what will hopefully be a brief time, their current logo (the big "A") and tagline (bet you didn't know it was "Inspiration becomes reality") shares the main page of adobe.com with their replacements.

The new tag, "Clearly Adobe Imaging" is accompanied by a logo that's anything but clear. Actually, it looks as if they tossed the old logo in a blender.

Dabitch: -"Hey Tyler Whisnand, what will you bring to the shop when you are CD?"
Tyler: -"A macintosh powerbook and a case of southern comfort. (our new office is in the meat packing district above the famous landmark biker bar: Hogs 'n Heffers!)"

Earlier Tyler said that he missed Amsterdam, and somehow moving from the border of the Red Light district Amsterdam to the meat packing district in New York seems to make some kind of cosmic sense. It's a step up, I'd say.

Dabitch: -"Tyler, seriously now, what do your parents think you do for a living?"

Talent agency Cunningham, Escott, DiPene is suspending its Chicago
operations due the SAG/AFTRA strike.

They will lay off all employees except vice-president Dianne Herro-Sanford, who focuses on on-camera work, and voice-over agent Debby Kotzen. Employees will be laid off and operations curtailed as of August 31.

T.J. Escott, owner and founder says "the strike has been going on for too long, and there is no way to predict when it will end."

Ad plagiarism doesn't get more blatant than Global PC's theft of one of the most famous commercials in history-Apple Computer's "1984."

DaBitch tipped me to this heist recently and I investigated. (Apple's "1984" can be found in the here in the claymore project superbowl commercial Archive and Global PC's ripoff is at Adcritic.com.)