She blinded me with Chesterfields.

Always. Be. Cooler.

(Image.)

WE GOT YOUR DOMINO’S RIGHT HERE.

So how do you compete with a major pizza juggernaut like Pizza Hut and Domino’s? Hit them right between their... claims, just like Anthony’s in Denver, CO did with recent transit and outdoor work.  YEAH BITCH. Like Lowe’s and Home Depot squeezing out the local hardware stores, Domino’s and Pizza Hut have been moving in on the local pizza guy for years. Unless you have a few stores, good luck trying to compete without cutting prices. Here, they at least have a decent budget ($150K) for a smaller chain vs. the take it out in trade deals you end up doing for the single Mom & Pop pizza places. (More after the jump.)

(Agency: Cultivator.)

But wait, there’s more...

– Never hug or kiss your children. (Via.)
– Before Svedka, the original bionic Fembot.
– Pay me now.
– Deep-fried beer. BLESS THEIR HEART.
– Abandoned communists. (Via.)
– The egg was asking for it.
– All Glenn—all the time.
– The Datoo. 

Handmade in America.

Forget Made in America, when’s the last time you heard anything was handmade here? While I would likely never drop the cash on a pair, Esquivel shoes, has put out two self-promotional pieces which are absolutely gorgeous. Both the clip above and the slide version (after the jump), are directed by David Hubert and Olivier Staphylas showing the assembly process in the company’s California workshop. Handmade. In America. Whodda thunk it.

So then, Burning Man isn’t 50 year-old dudes making the trek with their teen sons?

Oh. Back to school time also means back to Burning Man, man. Although by now, I figured Proctor & Gamble would’ve figured out a way to hold (insert iterative name) celebrating (insert consumer demo which exploits social movements).*


*Burning Mom — A cooking festival for the rest of us.

No Segways, but Ken Block’s Gymkhana Three DOES have gratuitously inked T&A.

Warnings, that is. And for the crowd expecting another sick Ken Block driftfest, a one Mr.  “IrOnLaKxSmUrF” speaks for all of us when he says:

“Fuck everyone who cant read it sez music video not amazing rally car driving fucking retards.”

Well said, friend. Well said. This time out, Block’s DC shoes Film returns with The Music Video Infomercial featuring The Cool Kids. AND SMASHING FLUORESCENT TUBES. Oh, and hot models getting inked.

(Via Kiss My Black Ads.)

Hello Ladies—Look at your pad, now look at Stayfree Ultra Thins.

Brad will not only cook your meal and give your mom a book, but he’ll pick out your pad. So will Ryan, and so will Trevor. Look, let’s just let Old Spice own the space of parodying what a Real Man is because it’s uninhabitable for the next 10,000 years. I know I’m working on anger issues with my therapist, but I’ve never wanted to punch a screen more. Not to mention the link that you can supposedly click which goes nowhere. For an online *viral* ad, I guess this is what they call true integration.

Speaking of, typing it in then takes you to a generic coupon site having nothing to with the clips? Is this the best that can be expected when a Big TV shop mindset takes non-digi/social aim at the net? This is what drives smaller digital/social/interactive shops nuts, when they see the budgets put behind larger content efforts like this, knowing what they would’ve done with the same money and just a little more integration. Gotta do more, man. Gotta do more. If you are going to venture into OS land, then go all-in. Take these three dudes and set up in a fake real dating site, or at least tab one off Facebook. Get people involved with real man/dating horror stories. It’s Johnson & Johnson—they got the bucks.

HELP ME HELP YOU.

(Agency BBDO, Toronto)

Is Carhartt for real men or not?

I NEED TO KNOW. Carhartt’s an old brand. Like, Coke old. It’s also a Real Man™ brand. Durable clothes that last, made for American workers WHO DRIVE DODGE CHALLENGERS, rah! The stuff’s tough, I know. I have two work shirts that just won’t die, no matter what I do to them. It’s what the snowplow guy wears who does your company’s parking lot.

Except, not no more.

But wait, there’s more...

– What’s orange and comes in a bag? (Via.)
– Google-Per-View.
– No really, MySpace is still here.
– I’ll take unfinished American projects in Iraq for $5 billion please.”
– Bet one of them freaks out. (Via.)
– Track every last one of the little bastards I say.
– Pack of Newports and a Quick Pick please.

Know your internet memes.

The perfect companion piece to 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced on the Internet and its sequel? An infographic explaining memes to... the Meme generation. Or memes of your generation, whatever gen that may be. Show it to that friend who... just doesn’t know. Now you have no excuse to not know, ya know?

The Swedish burqa ad they don’t want you to see!

Everything’s just a little naughtier with burqa in it, innit! Who says Sweden doesn’t get down with their political campaign ads. Swedish Democrats represent! So as of now this ad won’t be running there though because of the racial hatred implied. Apparently showing women in burqas racing a granny with a walker goes too far. Hmmm, could it be that they were offended with the portraying of immigrants as somehow inferior? Hey, I know, let’s run it by legal and see what they say. According to a lawyer with the Swedish Media Publishers’ Association:

“I cannot see how this would be hate speech. This is an election ad. The scope is wide for what one can say. They simply play on people’s fears. Legally, it is within the allowable framework.”

Well, there you have it—I guess legal just approved it.

I’m certain I had a waitress like this once.

The latest in the Direct TV Sunday Ticket spots gives the business to Eagles’ fans. She shouldn’t be so upset though because Sunday Ticket recently opened up access to anyone. Drink up fellas, heh.

The men who never came back.

Lost among the dead pelicans is the human toll of the BP spill. Figured so much time has been spent looking at pics of dirty beaches, might as well take some time to at least know the lives of people doing jobs that bring us the everyday stuff we use. It’s something missing from so much of the reporting on BP, where the focus now is more on the reparations for the living and people’s livelihoods. There’s the story about Mike Williams as told on 60 Minutes, and there’s also a more extensive look on Esquire into the lives of the eleven who died on the rig and the challenges they faced.

(Image is from a NASA satellite showing the rig on fire—the little white dot in the lower right.)

Like your whole world depended on it.

We need more ultimatums in campaign ads.

“I have a gleam.”

“I believe James Madison said “ I am not a bigot i will pray with any man.”Sorry we are a country found on christain values.If you don't like it move to a country that has your values.”

Politics? Glenn Beck just made the Tea Party go all-in on God.

That first quote by the way was from a commentor on a story about the rally. More on the religious implications in a second, but if you missed the Glenn Beck Reinvents America Restoring Honor rally, why? It was nothing short of an SEO keyword orgy, summoning every generation and movement this country has produced: Martin Luther King Jr., 9/11, George Washington minus his Challenger, Lincoln, the Greatest Generation and Jesus.

Along the way, he may have even referenced the first cavemen sitting around a fire.

Beyonce’s fierce silver tears.

Each new piece from Beyonce’s House of Dereon’s fall line comes with real silver secretions. Or not.

Steve Jobs on branding.

iGod on what branding is for Apple... and everyone else.

(Via.)

Contextual madness - Justin Bieber is the devil.

Proof that he is easy to summon.

Visit Bucks County and make up words.

Maybe buy some cheap tees or something. Not really feeling like having an unforgetaway, though. A what?

But wait, there’s more...

– Ground, Manhattan.
– WTC Building 7 conspiracy theorists unite.
– Ground Zero merch!
– Album sales still dropping and it’s your fault.
– Jimi Hendrix Super Chicken.
– Atari computer concepts.
– Sci-Fi eye chart.
– No, seriously, why don’t those little basterdz freeze?
– Stevie Nicks the internet slayer.

Nissan: Our cars won’t kill you.

It’s all about the innovation friends. Innovation that stands up to *just about* anything. (If you have either a Nissan or kids, you know no car can promise to stay clean).

(Via.)

Ned Flanders takes on Katrina.

Wherein One Night Only is the new sneak preview, Harry Shearer has one out this Monday night the 30th called The Big Uneasy, at a theatre near you. Tired of hearing the words *natural disaster* when it came to referring to NOLA and Katrina, Shearer decided to make a doc on the real cause of the disaster—as he sees it: The Army Corps of Engineers.

(Via.)

Lacosted by flapper mallets.

Mallets for anyone who decided the roaring Twenties needed to come back in Ellen Von Unwert’s Spring Summer 2010 campaign for Lacoste. Okay, well, a few say the economy is as bad now, but flappers people? Flappers? They won’t bring us out of this mess. THEY JUST WON’T.

“If elected I will shower—for you!”

“Colorado, please don't vote for someone who forgets to take their clothes off in the shower.” Too late YouTube commentor! The polls have Denver mayor John Hickenlooper ahead! Is it an amazing ad, this focus on running a *clean* campaign? No, but it stands out for that reason though. Too bad, I was looking for a little more “I’ll *clean* up Washington” bravado instead of a frugal candidate.

Apple’s iFanaticism – or attention to detail.

“The moment I realized the LED was mimicking breathing (I first experienced it with a white iMac) was the moment I realized just how far Apple goes to make computers for humans.”

As opposed to gnomes, but yes, I get the commentator’s point. Apple creates an intuitive experience melding software and hardware. The boring chart above represents their patent for a status light on Macbooks that replicates the typical 12-20 breathes per minute rate of most people in a resting state. While not a big fan of the pulsing in a dark space, I appreciate its origin.

(Via.)

So YouTube is just like TV then?

Here’s a nice little twist in the world of tobacco advertising. The BBC has a report out about how big tobacco is now using the internet to promote smoking because it can no longer use traditional media like TV. See, told ya, the net IS like TV! The gist of their study is that impressions from videos on YouTube containing cigarette references or themes are just as dangerous as TV and print ads for smoking were/are. Granted, people have to actively seek out things on YouTube vs. sitting there and letting TV do its old school push thing, but to equate the net with TV reach is a stretch, innit? One TV spot reaching however many millions of people is different than a video with 40,000 views.

That raises a bigger issue though regarding how the net is viewed. If it’s going to eventually be thought of as just another media channel, then do the same laws and regulations apply there as they do on TV? WHAT SAY YOU?

Katrina then and now.

I was never sure about the whole iReporter thing that CNN had started. It always seemed like some fancy tech name they gave to the same people who’d always sent in twister videos. But this look at Katrina then and now using before and after photos is the kind of human interest story that a media parent like CNN might not have deemed worthy in the past, yet embraces now.

(Via.)

Overheard internet...

Yep, they said it...

“The fashion conscious turista keenly aware yellow to be a phallic colour, could not believe the sartorial faux-pas. - - As if the unseemly shirt tucked in the high-waisted stretch-jersey ladies pants wasn't enough, what to make of the man's fascination with the emasculated 'toro castrato' blue figurine. - - Which hat then she mockingly visualized would complement this sissy man's ensemble. - - Her impatient companion meanwhile, uncomfortably aroused by Arrow man, tried hard to suppress the raging ‘toro bravo’ in him.”
– -1-track-mind-


“Any second where the screen is still is the timelapse for bong rips.”
– TheSirBoyKing


“I’m pretty despondent right now. This is all completely pointless. We can sit here and watch Jon Stewart tell it like it is for the five millionth time and prove the idiots wrong, but the fact is they don’t care. Even with empirical evidence, you cannot reason with the millions of people who watch Fox daily. It’s a giant crowd, one I have to contend with every fucking day living in fucking Texas, and finding another logical person here who can commiserate with me is impossible. So how does one cope? ...besides working on my new play, For Gay Texans Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuff.”
– thevirginspring


“congrats to the loser”

– big_drama2

“Without theft, there would be no advertising. The whole reason all these people are in advertising is because they could never make it as artists. - - To quote the immortal (and immoral) Don Draper: ‘Advertising has more failed artists and intellectuals than anywhere since the Third Reich.’”
– badvertisinguy


“I just love the way TLC turns ordinary mothers into whores....”
– Cherrie_Blossomm

But wait, there’s more...

– Why iPhones have the shaking feature.
– The Hero For Hire your hero could act like.
– Shawshank You.
– The pub crawler that got away.
– Obama’s mosque?
– Everyone take a page and write it for her.
– Iron Maiden’s crash test.
– The reason for hot chicks in beer ads.
– Early Kodachrome color film footage. C’est le stunning.
– Yeah, I could do this, like, never.
– Lady Dada. (Via.)
– Nothing says POTUS like shoulder straps.
– To Live & Ride In L.A..
– No, YOU’RE awesome. (Via.)

Geeks inheriting the mirth.

Part of me goes, why? Part of me goes, HA, very cool. Racer is part video slash cardboard, part Wipeout recreation. Gonna need a new name for this analog slash low-fi recreations of digital experiences that keep happening more and more though: Digilog? Analogic? There’s another trend going on here too highlighted by Jehmlich and Matthes Mikysec’s creation, where the better the available tech gets, the more retro things people want do with it, almost as if they reject the promise of the future by looking to the past. Oh the humanity duality! Maybe it’ll be more like flash mob moonlight bowling: People gathering to play analog versions of digital classics in some large space. The important question then becomes: How much is a ride in a cardboard box worth? .25¢ for two minutes? You BYOB?

(Via Gajitz.)

Dunkin’ Donuts’ spamtastic Double-D mess.

At the risk of being another social media case study, here’s another social media case study, albeit a small but relevant one. So Dunkin’ Donuts got hit with spam today on Facebook, and while it points out how any brand can be hostage to the net—it also shows brands and agencies still need a lot of help in the space.

Basically, spammers flooded their Facebook page throughout the day with adult links and images which, once removed, keep showing up even as I write this.

This missing limb brought to you by G4 and the U.S. Navy.

The closest I got to recruitment was the Navy rock band that came to our high school in my senior year. G4 is trying a *different* approach with “Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan.” It’s going to be a new reality series that mirrors the Hurt Locker, featuring a U.S. Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit through training and deployment scenarios. The Navy will have no creative control, which I’m guessing is meant to assuage fears that they will seek to max out with a heavy recruiting message. While I get what the approach behind it from G4 president Neal Tiles, the veiled recruitment angle is yet one more evolution of *integrated* programming involving the military and one that networks slap themselves silly over for having pulled off. BUT MAYBE IT’S ME. Here are a few comments so far:

“This is disgusting. Don’t watch this. They just want to see one of our EODs die. I can’t beleive the Navy let them do this.”

“Great! Lets show the bad guys exactly how we disarm their bombs so they can learn to work around that.”

“This is stupid, and disgusting. For starters, my brother is a Combat Engineer in the USMC and has suffered wounds, and the lost of friends as a result of doing the exact job that the EOD performs, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. -- As ‘Smitty’ said, they just want the rating boost from someone getting hurt, maimed or worse. On top of that, we’re going to record our training sessions for the enemy’s convenience. I just lost almost all respect for the channel and I cannot believe the Navy EOD is going for this cheap and stupid publicity.”

I think that about sums it up.

How long it really takes to program a video game.

It tales 6:38! Sped up of course, but cool look at the behind the scenes programming of a video game, complete with original song by the programmer. Capturing is the new aggregating is the new... In this case, Metagun, a vector-slash-shooter where you learn to play as you go. Okay, nobody would want to see how you made that AWESOME PowerPoint deck last week, but capturing the entire workflow of a project this way is a different spin on project tutorials.

(Via.)

Has the ad industry abandoned Hope?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Parent Company Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Feels like it. I saw a clip of John Stewart on tv.gawker about the recent follow the mosque money trail tear that Fox is on, and it just compounded something I was thinking recently, that maybe the ad industry thinks it doesn’t have to support Obama openly anymore. Why would they need to, when The Daily Show picks up the baton and takes on the Fox News disinformation campaign nightly.

Little mosque on the Ground Zero.

Even though Little Mosque on the Prairie has been running in Canada since 2007, me thinks it would go over perfectly here right about now. See, Muslims and Christians CAN live together peacefully—in TV land!

Nike gives you a hoops event you didn’t know you needed.

Buck for Nike and the World Basketball Festival that kicked off in NYC last week. Schoolhouse Rock meets Yellow Submarine meets bangin track, as they say. Really sweet spot with Times Square support too. As for the festival, it’s meant to promote hoops domestically in urban settings, something I think we’re good on. (I’m pretty sure the Williams’ sisters would prefer cities fix up some tennis courts instead.) Granted, promotions are everywhere in sports now, but this manufactured event by three of Nike’s brands—Converse, Jordan Brand and Nike Basketball—feels off, like it’s going beyond the usual sponsorship of our national sports teams. In this case, USA Basketball.*

Going deeper here and putting on my shit that’s on my mind cap—sideways, slightly of course—that’s not at all meant as a dig on Buck. Nike comes to you and says we need a way to promote a major new event, you’re taking the gig, no question. But it reminds me of what I’m seeing other digital shops still struggle with. They want to move beyond the silos major brands put them in, but they keep undermining their own effort by settling for work that reinforces the notion that they’re just an extra pair of hands, one that executes an ad agency’s vision, not theirs. They do the work in hopes of it being a foot in the door, but it seldom ever is. They not only need to fight to become a partner who thinks beyond one project, they need a client willing to let them.

*Now, if Nike wants to help the sport, see about pumping life into the NBA’s All-Star weekend.

Why BP will happen again.

“We must learn from this, so that it never happens again.” Isn’t that what everyone says after a tragedy? Of course, certain advancements in safety do come about after key learnings from many accidents. Recalls aside, that’s how the auto and airline industry got safer. But not everyone seems to learn. This is Mike Williams, one of the survivors of the BP Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. He was on 60 Minutes this week recounting his story of what happened. It confirms a lot of what I heard within days of the explosion, and some things I suspected in the following weeks. Focus on animals covered in oil, lost tourist dollars and rage tees all you want, but until you solve the root problem that these things KEEP coming back to, accidents aren’t a question of if, but when: rushed schedules and deadlines combined with lapses in safety procedures.

I’m a Mormon—and I walk!

Were the Mormons facing that much negative PR from Big Love and society at large that they needed to rebrand? Apparently. They have a new campaign out aiming to change what people think of them. Included in this is a series of short bios out featuring people from different walks of life talking about their accomplishments, then capped off with “...and I’m a Mormon.” Typical PR approach in this case is to counter the misconceptions surrounding something by giving you a reason to identify with it. Ergo, i.e., e.g., Mormons are people too because we (insert stuff you and I do every day). Handled wrong, the approach can also focus the spotlight on the very thing you’re shying away from: “OMG, you walk? I didn’t know Mormons did that!” Like any rebranding effort though, it’s only as good as the core product. NOT to equate the two, but could a Scientology rebrand successfully and change negative perceptions people have of it? Doubt it. Likewise, I think people are smarter than to buy into all the stereotypes we assign to religious faiths in this country. People seem to have an issue with religion in general rather than any particular denomination. If people don’t buy into the Mormon faith, it won’t be because of an ad campaign.

(Via, via.)

But wait, there’s more...

– Original color pilot for Munsters.
– David Lee Roth, pilot.
– More kids.
– 1-800-REALFAKEDRUGS.
– Handing it to AT&T.
– Less kids. (Via.)
– You probably want to wear the other cap. (Via.)

Air New Zealand—crazy about air safety films.

Would American athletes appear in an air safety film like this? Much as I’d like to see it, I doubt it. Not New Zealand however. To show how crazy about rugby the country is, members of their national team the all-world All Black and Air New Zealand staff breath life into the typical pre-flight safety briefing. No beer chute exits, but Betty at the end though has a bit of a surprise finish. Ouch.

(Via.)

Because iPhone owners never drive distracted.

At first glance, State Farm’s new On the Move widget is meant to be an away message for your cell, something you activate before you drive. Nice concept, (even though the ultimate away message is just to turn the damn phone off), but okay, they’re trying. Then I see it’s only for the Android. No Crackberry. No iPhone. No Windows Mobile. With a problem like distracted driving potentially affecting all drivers, offering this on a platform with a small percentage of the market seems odd. The widget is part of their existing Pocket Agent, which is already available for both Android and iPhone, so it’s not like they haven’t dealt with the platform before.

It’s sorta like Bud Bowl.

Anything Jimmy Johnson won’t promote now? I know I said no more YouTube contest here, but technically this didn’t startt on YouTube.

*waits*

No. Next up? The Crown Royal Jimmy Bowl! You and four friends can win a trip to Dallas and the big game by sending Jimmy a video on why you should be a winner! Wait, you mean it’s just Dallas anytime and not that Big Game™, but a flag football game? Oh. Upload a video of yourself responding to one of Jimmy’s instructional life videos. I’d use drinking responsibly as a theme: A tailgate with two guys sitting around discussing Proust’s views on the 3-4, drinking iced tea. Or maybe just hitting someone in the nuts with a football would work too.

“It cost less than Skittles!” (NSFW.)

Riffing on the New York Times self-promo spots, The NY Post version is like the Jersey Shore without bleeps. (There’s also a spoof for the NYT one though.)


(Via Animal.)

iTaser not included.

Does the iSafe bag work? Holly Says. So does CBS news, so it must! Wonder how many false alarms are going to go off when school starts up. Soon as one of the *older* girls finds out who has one, cue constant setting off of alarm, followed by annoyed teacher confiscating bag.

Welcome to Ted Nugent’s house of obsolete tech.

Aka, the 50 Rubbermaid containers full of your past you’ve been keeping for years in the garage? Ain’t worth much beyond sentimental value.

Apparently, I collect tech.* Well, obsolete tech that is. I don’t intend for it to start out that way, but that’s the way it ends up. This was driven home after finally dealing with a garage full of crap we’d kept for far too long from countless moves. The stuff you’ll get to later because you don’t have time for it now.

Well, this week, later was now. Music (vinyl & CDs), computers (Macs), video games (Sega units) or publishing (comic books). Pick a category, I saved it. Hoarding? More like part nostalgia and part investment mindset: “Don’t get rid of it, some day it will be... worth something.”

Wrong.

The point at which it’s worth something seems to be 50 years and older, if local dealers (and the net) are any indication. Just being old isn’t enough though. Based on I what got for what I unloaded, rare is what I needed.

Anything from Blue Note? Like crack. Classic rock like Uncle Ted? Motor City Meh. What you thought it was worth depends on what they’re offering—and you’re willing to let it go for. Providing the final supply and demand kick in the nuts is eBay, which likely has every one of your titles—times 100.

You then ask yourself why you saved all this stuff in the first place. Nostalgia? I can see that. Having something tactile from the past that’s yours to have and hold has meaning. A piece of history, people. But then, putting the tact in tactile, your kid says that if you die tomorrow, they’d give all your stuff away because they don’t want a big pile of stuff to deal with.

It’s there I thought the better thing to do is not to pass on old *stuff*, but to instill a love for a particular art that doesn’t depend on a specific technology to enjoy.

As such, I live in a cloud that I never thought I would, streaming and discovering more bands and films than by any other method I’d used in the past. It’s not that previous generations were or are resistant to change—some are—it’s that most had no choice. I didn’t want to keep spending money on new formats just to access the same music, but what can you do when the industry that created the content also controlled how it was distributed?

I couldn’t know that streaming would be an option when I first started buying CDs. Likewise, I have no idea in 10 years what the music or film landscape will look like. Minority Report-type HUD displays accessing any song or movie at will as you walk around? Not sure.

Whatever it ends up being, I’m still going to keep my Last.fm account. Might be worth something some day.

* For purposes here, I’m defining tech as content synonymous with the media used to experience it.

Doc Brown was right?

Usually, the inventions I see coming from Japan are like a bad infomercial. Products that do multiple things at once: the portable restroom—and a clothes dryer. Dog shampoo machine—and a satellite dish, and so on. Although not the first to use the process, this though is about the most practical thing I’ve seen on a small scale. Some real Back to the Future type tech from Akinori Ito takes plastic waste and burns it, converting the resulting gas to oil that can be further refined. Not sure how efficient this is because they don’t say how much energy is needed to run this process, but it claims to produce 1 litre of oil from 1 kg of garbage. Too good to be true? Maybe not. There’s a bigger question though with any tech that threatens to compete with the current methods of energy consumption: adoption and its effect on economies, here and abroad. We had electric car technology years ago killed by the same Detroit which now embraces it. If this invention does what it says, imagine your local dump now becoming the biggest gas station in town. People could start making money off what they consume, not to mention helping the environment by reducing what gets dumped into it.

(Via.)

It’s Ok to use cardboard cutouts in your ads.

There’s something about the way the *victims* are treated as inanimate objects by the abuser that makes this New Zealand campaign interesting. The other subtext is that It’s Ok to say something when others won’t. Not sure the payoff at the end works though with the mate wanting to have a chat coming off more like he just wants to go have a beer.

THE CREEPIEST POLITICAL AD OF THE YEAR.

So far, at least. (Hey look, all caps gets hits, don’t hate.) Apparently Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner has 270° vision in his new campaign ad. Is his Common Sense messaging a brilliant yet subtle nod to Thomas Paine, or Midwestern pragmatism? YOU DECIDE THIS NOVEMBER!

“So I can do my issues.”

Basil’s back! Only in America friends. Only in America. Go Basil or go home.

Filmed in glorious black and white, in a galaxy...

Just when you thought the Star Wars Rebel Meem Alliance had run out of ideas.

(Via, via.)

Move over Snuggie.

The Snazzy Napper is like a burka for dreaming, no? Is it me or are informercial product names now doubling as Jersey Shore cast names? (Snuggie. ShamWow. Snazzy Napper.)

(Via.)

I Heart New York.

You don’t change a campaign until when? That’s right. Until it no longer works. Vegas, you listening?

How much for color?

Just give me the black and white then. All those old statues I/you/we learned about in art school? Supposedly they were a festival of festive colors! I knew things like eyes were typically jewels eventually plundered by thieves, but UV lighting has now revealed what many of their original colors were. Like historical photos, seeing things in color when you’re used to the rest of a period being black and white changes your perception, as if they’re somehow now fake. Pigmentus, what say you?

(Via.)

Let’s be careful out there.

This weekend, let’s watch out for those weak moments, please?

(Image.)

Overheard internet...

Yep, they said it...

“sad. mr. lydon did fund the last PIL tour on the back of his butter commercial earnings though.”
– Anonymous


“WTF? So who’s greenlighting “The Twitter Supremacy”? ”
– watertiger


“@wilson, oh i’m so alt i say “first” in japanese because japan is way more rad than amurica. you’re not a hipster. you’re a lame-ster! who’s excited for am appy store closing sales?!?!”
– hate-ster


“GO ARIZONA - WE THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES ARE BEHIND YOU! Don’t let those east coast scumbag politicians bother you at all. As usual, they are clueless - I think it’s passed down from the top. “We the people” (’cept for the illegals) agree with your methods. Keep going. WE ARE VOTING AGAINST ALL POLITIANS THAT ARE WORKING AGAINST YOU! Keep up the good work. Again, may I just say----GO ARIZONA!”

– garybelcher1


“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA She shouldnt be out in the public unless she wears one of those cones around her neck.”
– Angel2376

“Much in the same way John the Baptist presaged Jesus... And Billy Ray plowed the road for Myley... Levi Johnston foretells the coming….”
– GlastonburyMannNN


“Not on the creative. Love the creative. But some media planner blathering about a “billion impressions?” Come on.”
– MammaPajama

We need that by EOD Friday. By the way, that’s this Friday.

The clients never care as much as you do. I came across this piece on Hacker News about whether it was possible to write perfect code or not, but it’s as much a look at what clients just don’t understand regarding projects, deadlines and impossible requests—things that only end up costing them more money in the long run. Yeah, it’s geek stuff that anybody working in digital these days has faced, either from the dev wanting to get it right to the creatives and account team just wanting it done. Look past the coding aspect though because it could refer to any part of a relationship with a large client that goes wrong when working on a creative project. (Hard not to guess who they were talking about with a name like Gorilla Mart.) Notice the insane time demands or cluelessness on the part of the brand wanting more bells and whistles without being aware of cost or whether they’re even possible to do given the schedule. Hello scope creep—hello padded invoice. Read and nod, weep or scream.

(Image.)

Because diamonds are a grillz best friend.

How’d I ever miss this Bud Light gem? (So to speak.)

AdVerve 44 - That movie sucked

Play the show now.

By now you know we barely go an episode without mentioning a film we hated or loved, or both. Well, why not do a whole show on them then. Okay, so we did. They’re movies we liked which may have flown under the radar over time. Docs, fiction, whatever. WE GOT US SOME DIFFERENT TASTES IS ALL. Sit back and check out a list for the Netflix cue. If you hate ’em or love ’em, let us know. (And if it’s the former, we’re not giving you your money back.)

As it is a *list* show, we each threw down 10 titles, even though we could’ve easily come up with more. One we forget is pure art director porn called Ashes and Snow, narrated by Laurence ‘Don’t ever call him Larry’ Fishburne. Some say there’s no there, there. Others say it’s jaw-droppingly damn well worth it. Well, that’s why this stuff is subjective. (We include the links for all of them below as well as some we referenced in passing.)

Linkage (in order of show appearance):
American Tail.
Code 46.
Moulan rouge.
Bob Roberts.
Almost Famous.
Thank You For Smoking.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Our Brand is Crisis.
Goodbye Lenin.
Slasher.
City of Lost Children.
Delicatessen.
Lost in La Mancha.
Alice.
Quick Change.
Talk to Her.
The Wrestler.
Roman Holiday.
U-Turn.
Agora.

Alt mentions:
Moon.

MI3.
Ashes and Snow.
In The Company of Men.
Up in the Air.
The Lives of Others. (Gene Hackman tackles the subject.)
Amelie.
Breaking the Waves.

Interviews:
Kevin Smith Prince story.

General interview.
Jason Reitman Kevin Pollack chat show.

Big Brother Coke.

I *AM* Mr. RFID, but this feels like way too much work to solve a problem that wasn’t a problem, let alone one that needed this degree of solving.

(Via Adland.)

Back in my day we didn’t have distracted driving.

The phones were the size of shoe boxes and you could talk wherever you wanted—even while driving. Freedom. Glorious freedom.

(Via Retrocrush.)

“Crowdsource, nothing but CROWDsource...”

(Sung to the tune of...) Star Wars Uncut, the crowd-sourced Star Wars remake is complete, and it’s everything you’d expect—and less at times. I kid. The brainchild of Vimeo developer Casey Pugh, people were given :15 second chunks of the classic to recreate any way they liked. (I was going to do it, but bailed. In times like these, who has time, right?) Nobody knew what the person before or after them would do with their scene, so you get a mix of, not really sure actually. But seeing the cheese factor in many of the scenes puts a new spin on your expectation of the same old same old. Watch the entire movie at their site. (Be ready for initial skipped scene and slow load.)

Here’s hoping they take on Top Gun or Pulp Fiction next.

My God’s website is better than your God’s.

The kids these days... while NYC is ready to throw down over religion, the crew from TDA in Boulder focuses on tees, love and understanding for Colorado University’s online student newspaper. Can’t we all just get... a shirt for $15? YES, WE CAN! Funny Threadless-like covering all the social mores! Considering they’re to promote and raise funds for their website, then, sell them on... the website?