Creative tag team Chad Rea, ecopop, and Peter Lundgren, formerly Vardag now the creator of T-post.

T-post? What's that? T-post is "the worlds first magazine that you can wear", subscribers get a new T each month in the mail. The news story is printed on the back inside of the shirt, and a graphic artist’s interpretation of that news story is printed on the front. The comment “Nice shirt” now becomes an invitation to tell the story behind the design and "create dialogue about an interesting world event."

As the direct marketing industry faces a raft of new environmental targets for 2010, ONEPOST, the UK’s leader in postal management and advice, issues a white paper revealing a unique insight into the views of consumers and businesses

AeroGRID, the aerial imagery consortium, has new offices in the city of Padua, Northern Italy. As well as providing AeroGRID’s main sales outlet for Italy it will also be the base for planning and managing image capture projects in the Italian peninsula. AeroGRID now has a presence in Europe’s four largest economies as well as Benelux.

On March 31, 2009, Walter Lürzer was inducted into the GERMAN ADVERTISING INDUSTRY’S HALL OF FAME. Awarded since 2001, this title is presented by German business weekly “Wirtschaftswoche“ to personalities of special merit who have rendered outstanding services to the advertising industry. The citation of Roland Tichy, Wirtschaftswoche editor-in-chief and chairman of the jury, read as follows: “Walter Lürzer has, in a quite remarkable career spanning several decades, successfully managed to marry creativity and a spirit of entrepreneurship – and continues to do so.” Walter Lürzer is the first Austrian to have been honoured in this way.

After graduating from the Hochschule für Welthandel (“World Trade University) in Vienna, Walter Lürzer began his career in 1965 as a copywriter for McCann-Erickson. In 1972, Salzburg-born Lürzer cofounded agency TBWA Frankfurt. Three years later, he joined together with Michael Conrad to set up the agency Lürzer, Conrad, which in 1980 merged with Leo Burnett. A further milestone in his career came at the end of the 1980s with the establishment of advertising agency Lowe, Lürzer in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf.

Since 1984, Walter has been publishing a review catering to the special needs of the advertising industry. “Lürzer’s Archive,” which boasts a total circulation of 38,000, appears in a German edition serving the German, Austrian and Swiss markets, and has separate English editions for the North American, European and international markets. Additionally, a Chinese edition is also published.

19th March 2009, London, England

Now small businesses can easily plan, create and manage outdoor advertising in just a few clicks

Today Signposter.com, a new online service helping businesses in the UK buy and manage outdoor advertising, marks its official launch at the Grow Your Own Business event in London. Signposter.com is the first online service that makes cost-effective outdoor advertising accessible to small businesses in just a few clicks.

Michael Jansen and Bas Korsten, highly awarded ex-DDB Executive Creative Directors and co-founders of Selmore, have officially started Nothing this week. Yep. Nothing.

Have a look at some of the photos from the agency (click for larger view)

To create the right atmosphere for the Nothing office - it being "an independent entrepreneurial agency that delivers innovation and commercial creativity for local and international clients out of a cardboard box" they literally built the Nothing office, entirely out of cardboard boxes. Check out a stop motion movie inside.

New end-to-end service will enable rapid generation of fresh revenue streams and media campaigns for operators and advertising sector

Barcelona, 16 February, 2009 – Jinny Software (Stand 2B06 Hall 2), a leading global supplier of messaging and media platforms to mobile network operators, today launches a fully-managed Mobile Marketing & Advertising Service at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

New digital advertising solution tackles fragmentation, and launches open marketplace with nine partners

London, 13th February 2009: Gigafone, the leading mobile services group, today announced that it is introducing a unique new mobile advertising service in partnership with E-Plus Group, Germany's third largest mobile operator.
The service is branded "GIGAFONE" and based on the Gigafone Ringmate service, already successfully launched in Russia and Asia. The GIGAFONE service will be open to all subscribers on the E-Plus network and accessible via the company's new mobile content platform www.beta2go.de

After a 35-year career in military recruitment advertising, including the past 13 years as president and co-founder of the agency that begins with the initial of his last name, Doug Laughlin of LM&O Advertising, Inc. today announced his retirement from day-to-day management of his full-service marketing and communications shop.

Doug Laughlin will assume the newly created role of chairman, LM&O Advertising, Inc. as he hands over the agency’s operational reins to son, Chris Laughlin, who is now president, LM&O Advertising, Inc., effective immediately.

Sony Ericsson’s C905 Cyber-shot™ phone gets a starring role and stops the city in its tracks

The company commissioned professional photographer Matt Stuart to take photos, using the 8.1 megapixel C905 Cyber-shot™ camera phone, to use in the launch of its new campaign.

The Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber-Shot™ has a 8.1megapixel camera.

This social media news release contains photos of the C905 Cyber-Shot™ in action.

There's nobody (but me) there yet since I just started the group, but if you went to the School of Communication Arts in London and (or) had the honor to study under John Gillard - why not join the group: School of communication Arts on Linkedin ?
This way, perhaps us old schoolmates that scattered with the wind upon graduation may find each other again. ;)

More on John in Adland:
An interview with John Gillard
Gillard, "the pied piper of creative talent" dies

Global focus on local mobile search and advertising

Copenhagen, London – mobilePeople, the world leading local mobile search company, has today received $8million USD investment from Nordic based venture capitalist firm Via Venture Partners. The funding means that mobilePeople has the ability to expand its international reach and concentrate on affirming its leadership position within the global mobile search and advertising space.

Thierry Bezier has just joined the independent agency Fred & Farid (Paris) as the head of Fred & Farid Digital. He will be in charge of strategy, conception and development.

Thierry is a well-known actor of the web industry in which he has worked for over ten years. He first worked in France where he created a web agency to sell "ready to use" websites.

He then moved to Japan where he was in charge of the web development of special projects and of the monitoring of innovations at Dentsu for many years.

During this time, he imagined the concept of Intruders.tv, an international Web-TV. It was on his return to Europe that he launched www.intruders.tv at an international level, in association with Vincent Camara .

From a common agreement, He will keep a toehold in Intruders.tv, and develop as much synergy as possible between Intruders TV and Fred & Farid Digital.


He is already working on account such as Orangina, Schweppes, Wrangler, Van Cleef &Arpels, and his department has about ten collaborators (Web designers, experts on video, coders etcetera...)

Hey adgrunts. I dunno about you, but for me It's been a rough week. Hence the confusing covers playlist.

Monday began with some recaps of the Crispin campaign for the operating system known as Vista - Eric Karjaluoto at ideaondeas got nerdy and Apple/MS back-and-forth in their ad campaigns while I declared that Microsoft is a supermarket and Apple is a restaurant in The Microsoft Saga.

The Denver Egotist pointed us to what must be the "the most complex way to land a new client in history" - a full fledged viral campaign for stock photo, press release here.

As a newly formed design shop, General Projects launched with a self-assigned first project – to get the attention of Corbis and eventually turn that into a client relationship. This was done by launching a faux-viral campaign online with the intention of getting the Corbis name in front of as many members of their target audience as possible on a limited budget.

- so the site they designed went viral and all I'm wondering is did they pay for using the stock as well? In that case it might also be the most expensive pitch in history. Naah. I heard some agency took apart a car and rebuilt it in their lobby several floors up just to impress a potential client once.

Over at Good Kate Roberts is interviewed about AIDS-vertisements. "Todays youth never saw the shocking images of Freddie Mercury or Rock Hudson dying, or those really scary, in-your-face, aggressive public-service announcements" which makes selling social responsibility in sex more important than ever.

We had masses of print ads submitted, the Ikea short bedtime stories was popular, the puking Cadbury gorilla was gross, the hard on french fry was confusing, as was the steamy elevator scene while the Melanoma Foundation got straight to the (gun) point. Teppanyaki Food Fest was pretty, and Rok Vegas was juvenile. Meanwhile I learned how to say lingerie for your feet in french: Lingerie pour les pieds. BC Lottery Corporation found the end of the rainbow and the burning man giving out flyers is still haunting me.

We also had masses of print ads recalled, leading me to make a new rule: Deleting the ads dilute the resource we are trying to build here. Adland will no longer do it. The horrific school shooting in Kauhajoki brought out the worst in banners.

Commercials flooded in, and Diesel's "worldwide Dirty 30 party" might not be safe for work even if they used the SFW porn concept of covering things up. Axe meanwhile did a sexier version of hiding all the naughty bits with Squares. Frucor V Lemon mocked soda ads, Wrangler asked Why?, and Quercus showed us suicidal animals depressed about global warming. Famous Dave's cows went people-tipping, Tina Fey and Martin Scorsese talked about a time share in Boca, and ground zero showed us Alpha males and their side-kicks in CopStache and Pier (ouch). We had strange giant eyes, mouths and extra hands in Freaks like us for the Australian Director's Guild Conference 2008.

Best this week was that new members uploaded their work to the Radio ads section. You should do it too. Radio ads are fun!

Good morning Monday.

Nama Sutra asks How creative can ad agency names get? and lists oh-so-many nutty named. He missed Wexley School for Girls and uh.. Wow, there are are lot of crazy names out there, but my favorite is probably still Umovoacavalo because I have no idea how that egg got on top of the horse.

Last week was fun, Extended stay hotels new ad is a breath of fresh air, and I might even forget that horrid viral where some girl licks everything in sight, also Pfizer (of all clients) wowed me with some nice graffitti, while Aliens invaded ESPN and white-out can abort babies from teenage mothers life. We concluded that dust is revolting, Flash banners can hijack your clipboard and these Audi side assist posters deserve a second look.

I really liked the woman whisperer, bonus points for the actress' perfect impression of a nervous filly, I hated the Arby's thought ballons and I was really impressed by the stuntman who walked around giving out flyers while on fire. The whole Microsoft debacle deserves its own post. We talked like pirates for a full day as well.

Thanks modernmechanics for telling us "your car is well stacked" (Via easydreamer)

NCH, the UK’s largest children’s charity that helps the most vulnerable and excluded children achieve their full potential, is launching a revamped identity and powerful new fundraising as it re-brands to Action for Children.

As part of a multi million pound overhaul, London-based creative agency Baby Creative has devised the charity’s first advertising campaign in its 140-year history. The campaign will launch in 2009, aiming to drive awareness of what Action for Children does.

Baby Creative was briefed to handle the entire creative process following a pitch against six branding and design consultancies.

It is the Telegraph that brings us the headline: Charles Darwin to receive apology from the Church of England for rejecting evolution.

The apology, which has been written by the Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, the Church's director of mission and public affairs, says that Christians, in their response to Darwin's theory of natural selection, repeated the mistakes they made in doubting Galileo's astronomy in the 17th century.
"The statement will read: Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practise the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and hope that makes some amends."

You can read the full text from Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs here on the Church of England website Good religion needs good science he notes (in bold) Nothing in scientific method contradicts Christian teaching which is sure to piss off some christian creationists out there.

Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests. Good religion needs to work constructively with good science – and I dare to suggest that the opposite may be true as well.

Still, this is progress. It only took 200 years this time for the church to catch up, unlike in the case with Galileo's works, where the official opposition to heliocentrism by the Church disappeared in 1835, and it wasn't until 31 October 1992 that Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled - a whopping 382 years later. Christian PR is moving faster these days.

This is really upsetting news to me, Nagi Noda was a uniquely talented creative artist / designer / director and a talent we hadn't even begun to know - you may recall her D&AD winning work for Japanese pop star Yuki in the video "sentimental journey" that was featured in the Saatchi new directors showcase of 2006. The exact cause of death has not been specified but it's known that she has suffered ongoing complications after a car accident last year.

Yuki - "Sentimental Journey" - (2005) 5:00 (Japan)

"The Voice" - real name Don LaFontaine has passed away at the age of 68 - was the worlds most recognizable announcer. He was the voice that all other voices tried to be. Voiceover artist Ashton Smith once remarked "When you die, the voice you hear in heaven is not Don's. It's God trying to sound like Don." When rereading that quote Tuesday, Smith said "I guess God is going to lose that gig when Don gets up there because Don is just that good." Source:AP - Hat Tip BAP