So, Researcher nominated me to the gender-unbiased third annual Wired News Sexiest Geeks contest - and since my exbf (who is a proper true wizard all hail his mighty strong kung fu übergeek) just emailed me with a laugh saying "guess who I'm voting for!", I thought, what the hell - I might as well tell you all that I'm on that list.

 Vote for the Sexiest Geeks of 2007 - my red mop of curled hair doesn't show up until page three (tee hee hee) and it's not the best of pictures, but wehey, I've got seventeen votes (I'm guessing that my mom must have found the list). Won't you humor me with one more? I'll let you look at my brass blowtorch if you do. And I might even let you touch my scooter. But only if you wash your hands first and wear gloves.

I don't know what has prompted this sudden influx of emails where people alert me to the fact that they have a commercial idea that they wish to sell, but something has happened recently to increase these emails to one or two a week rather than one or two every six months. Perhaps Adland is listed on some commercial producers site somewhere? Your guess is a good as mine. Winner of the most cryptic email goes to the fella today who emailed via our contact form simply:

subject: commercial
[name] sent a message:
i have an idea for a commercial . (301) XXX-XXXX

Now, it seems ripe to be put in the FAQ that we don't produce ads here and can't help people sell their ideas, but I don't know how to best explain the obvious. Perhaps since you adgrunts seem to be hopping on eggnog, you could suggest a few good replies? ;) Have at it, what would you tell them?

Mediabistro's Agencyspy emails adrenalina in the wrong country gets confused responses from some guy named Bernardo Torre who has never heard of Agency Spy, wrongly assume that ADRENALINA-NY.COM are afraid to talk to them. Ha ha. Misunderstandings are funny. Agency spy might wan't to hold off on assumptionpostings (a.k.a. AP) in the future.

Welcome to Scotland. Stay out - commenter Steve Feinberg at adfreak reckons the Scottish flag "looks an awful lot like a "Do not enter" sign. " Hahaha.

American Copywriter is creeped out by Canadians, or rather that "safe happens" horror campaign they're running. It's freaky, and I don't like it at all. Having worked in a kitchen, I know all about cleaning shit up. Never needed an ad to tell me that, it's part of the job, so I don't quite understand who these ads are targeting. Just trying to scare the bejeesus out of random people watching TV are we? Well, it's working.

I know, it's last weeks W&P but bear with me I was busy building search features mmmkay? W&P say what we all were thinking when we saw that outrageous furry inspired Orangina ad. And bless'em for giving this awesome animated gif of "Cthulhu's girlfriend" which I will many uses for. Hehe. It's soooo... Juicy! And Hypnotic. Don't stare at it too long it may cause permanent damage.

ps bonus-linkage: I'm the redheaded shadow here in the 100th words & pictures comic. Am too. Can't you see me? I'm right there man. What do you mean that's a blond? No way. You're just jealous.

We interrupt this regular adbitching for a public service announcement. Since many adgrunts (soooo many) surf here on macs, and since this Trojan targets Quicktime users I reckon I should warn y'all. There's a trojan in the wild targeting macs specifically. It was only found on porn-sites a few weeks back but now it's making appearances on social sites where embedding of video is allowed - such as MySpace. The Trojan appearing on Alicia Keys page sounds exactly like the mac-trojan. The trojan reacts when you try to view a film, alerting you that "a quicktime codec is missing to play this movie" and giving you a link to download this codec. Once you download that, you'll have to double-click and install it of course, and then the Trojan resets your DNS so that you'll be directed to phishing sites on the web. I have a copy of this Trojan (one of my hobbies is to collects viruses, yeah I'm weird) and to a regular user it looks just like you're installing a Quicktime codec.

Once given root access, the trojan changes the computer's DNS settings to point to phishing sites or ads for other pornography sites. Even if the DNS is reset manually, a background task added by the trojan changes the DNS again automatically.

If you fear that your rig has become infected, Macworld has removal instructions.

Make sure that you don't get infected. To install Adobe Flash player 9 please go straight to the Adobe site. To get the latest Quicktime player please go straight to Apple's Quicktime download site. Never accept downloads from anywhere else. It's that simple. Don't install stuff from untrusted sources. Don't trust anyone but the makers of the software you should be using, not Myspace, not Ning, not Facebook. It doesn't matter how big and famous the site is, if they allow users to embed stuff from third party sites, they can be sending you malware. Kay?

Happy Halloween fellow adgrunts! I stumbled across this Halloween Ad Gallery featuring print ads with a Halloween theme throughout the past 60 years or so.

From the site:

Over the years, Halloween has brought me some of my fondest memories. Whether it was making a giant Pac-Man costume out of yellow foam insulation or having the living crap scared out of me as my grandfather had me convinced that there was a witch who was gonna "get me" if I went outside; it's all fun to look back on.

One of the things people tend to forget about, however, is all of the Halloween-themed ad campaigns that are unleashed upon us year after year. Well, I've done my best to compile a big collection of Halloween advertisements from the past 60 years or so.

We've had good reason to be a little quiet around here despite hip happenings in the world of Adland as the Caffeinegoddess got married last Saturday in Salem, MA. I was there as the maid of honour and my daughter was the flowergirl.

Quite a different trip from my normal travels as I didn't visit any ad agencies, but I did get to see whales outside of Boston. Whales breaching! Very cool.

Also, I got to celebrate ten years of Adlist being the best advertising mailinglist on earth with none other than longtime listers Alec Long, Grant Sanders, John Backman, our own famous Clayton T Claymore and last but not least Steve Hardy who travelled down from Canada, plus tag-along better halves and wee ones. Much beer was consumed, pool was played and silly adjokes told - more on that later as we all brought cameras but most are probably not safe for work... if you work someplace they hate beer, which is probably in hell. Poor you!

Meanwhile, yes the RSS feeds have become borked around here and now that Mommy is back I'll look into it and fix it. Ta-ta.

The first commercial is from the last year, the second is recently released.

Someone just emailed me this "Hover" car ad, what the hell...? The torn middle suggests that the ad is real but would anyone really run an ad like this? Scam or portfolio piece, what do you think?

Oy vey. I've spotted it in a few Swedish blogs recently, and then to top it all off someone mentioned it at work - the old "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux" myth. It goes a little something like this and can be found on countless funny pages, in silly list emails, and spoken during water cooler chats in offices around the world.

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign, "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux".

The funny of course being that Swedes are unaware of the double entendre.

Here is the mythical ad poster.

(originally posted in the comments for "both of these ads really suck")

So lets be clear, it was not an American ad, it was a British advertising poster, and the pun was intended. Look, the Electrolux sucks so hard it explains the leaning tower of Pisa.

The republicofideas.com is some cryptic new website that asks for your email and will let you know what it is September 3rd. Hmmm...
Avin Fathulla and Fabian Topfstedt in Vienna are behind it, but what is it? Care to guess?

Alchemygoods makes ad bags out of.. yeah, howdyaknow? Ads!
Those huge building-wrappers in vinyl mesh which once perhaps advertised Bud, Puma or god forbid something really ugly like Newport, is cut up, re-arranged and then turned into a fancy gear tote. Nice extra touch: Recycled seatbelts are the comfy handles. Cute and clever. And environmentally conscious in more ways than one, it is after all made from a recycled old ad. ;)

Martin Jönsson at SvD mentions the 'almost banned' Dr Martin Campaign that got the creators fired and says "via Adland", but he manages to link Resumé (Swedens AdAge) instead. Watch out with the copy-paste mate. ;) Teehee.

My personal fave to win - and it actually has a chance is Dove's "evolution"

But it's got competition, Coke has two that are rumored to win - video game and vending machine:

A parting shot from the crony Blairite lickspittle machine, this piece of shit, was from none other than Wolff Olins, normally an OK design house, but on record ON TELEVISION, (pre 1982) for producing a logo for the pencil giant, Staedtler of Germany- of not being reduceable. Fine when it was 12 metres high and on a building, but utterly unreadable and too small when it was actually on a PENCIL! duhhh!
Now this dog's dinner was actualy awarded without a PITCH!
It cost £400,000. That's $800,000 in today's money, and it sucks!
The word London is an afterthought, and is in a reluctant lower case.

Those Frenchies are at it again, using their relaxed European sensibility to create a humorous, engaging, and actually rather moving AIDS awareness ad campaign to promote safe sex. Emphasizing the importance of condom use while embracing and, these ads manage to make their point while entertaining viewers. Wordlessly set to a punk-rock soundtrack, the human heart’s search for “the right fit” parallels those touchingly awkward moments, hilariously depicted here, which can accompany safe sex. But the message is clear, as stated at the end: “live long enough to find happiness.”

Nik, an adgrunt in the trenches has found a productive hobby during the downtime of his adjob - he creates dordles, they're doodles but with the subconscious full advertising briefs, brand names and strange strategic thoughts percolating in the background. In other words, they're weird in a way that we like.

"What can keep my dog's digestive system healthy?

Isn't food just poop on the other side?"

BETC Euro RSCG opens exhibit - BETC Euro RSCG and the Passage du Désir with the backing of the Paris Municipality, the Caisse des Dépôts, Havas, Partizan, in cooperation with the Amicale Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano yesterday opened an exhibition that looks at the looting of Jewish property in Paris titled "Retour Sur Les Lieux" which translates to "return to the scene". The exhibit shows 85 photographs from a small album of photos found in the German federal archives in Coblenz which were taken at the former Lévitan building "Aryanized" by the Nazis, now the Passage du Desir during WWII. Admission is free and the exhibit runs from 18 April to 20 May 2007, every day except Tuesday from 11 am to 7 pm at the Passage du Desir, 85-87, rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin 75010 Paris - Metro: Château d'Eau or Gare de l'Es.

tbd hires Kevin Smyth as AE - tbd, a full-service advertising agency, today announced that Kevin Smyth has joined its team as a new account executive. "It's great to have Kevin back on board at tbd," said René Mitchell, Vice President and Director of Client Services. "He's been on the client side and managed a national brand in a major category. For our team at tbd and our clients, he adds expanded strategic thinking on how to best communicate our clients' brands." One of the first employees at tbd seven years ago, Smyth was previously the finance manager for the company. He changed career paths, earned his MBA in Marketing at Indiana University and gained several years of job experience in the marketing field. His love of the Bend area, and tbd itself, brought him back.

MAKE in Minneapolis, creates two new CG environmental PSA spec commercials, all for shits and giggles… and a good cause.

Respect yourself. Respect your environment..

You can now check them out at: www.nowlookwhatyoudid.com

Been seeing a lot of revamped cartoon gals in my RSS feed recently, (#1, #2) and as far as I can figure it looks like the Dove campaign from early 2005 with vampy Velma, wild Wilma and magnificent Marge has only just recently made it in to the ads of the world archive, thus prompting many a adblog to point and say