Hasta La Creative!

With a name like Staines, it has to be good. Except actually it’s crap, according to the city of Adelaide, Australia, which pokes fun at London’s most sadly named commuter town in this ad, aimed at attracting British immigrants. This isn’t the first stain on Staines. Sacha Baron Cohen settled on Staines as the hometown of his dimwitted character Ali G, for the same reasons M&C Saatchi is targeting it here. “We went for Staines because it sounds nasty,” an M&C executive admits. (Other ads in the series carry headlines like “Sod London house prices,” “Stuff London traffic” and “Bugger it, I’m off to Adelaide.”) But the constant jokes may be taking a toll on Staines, whose long-suffering residents are beginning to bite back. A city-council spokeswoman tells the West Australian: “All places have plusses and minuses, and there are a lot of plusses about Staines,” adding, “I certainly wouldn’t wish to be derogatory about Adelaide.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

University of Oregon student Feff Farrell sent us this recent commercial for U.S. Senate candidate Steve Novick.

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Singapore
Creative Director: Chris Chiu
Creatives: Victor Ng, Jon Loke
Photography: Groovy Studios

When I worked at The Integer Group, I launched KTIG, a now defunct internet radio station. I also helped launch an internal wiki for teams working on the Coors business.

But blogs were still new to me back then.

Today, following a bunch of links from The Denver Egotist, I landed on Shopper Culture, an Integer blog which looks to be an outgrowth of Meg Kinney’s “Exploration of America’s Relationship to Shopping.”

I also took note of Create and Connect from Karsh and Hagan, a Denver agency that Integer acquired. Karsh has since been rolled into TBWA by Omnicom, the holding company that owns Integer.

After an earthquake, the first thing that needs to be rebuilt is the lives of the people who suffered it.
Peru needs your help.

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Creative Director: Fernando Bellotti

Eric Rice is a Silicon Valley based artist and designer.

The chumby is a compact device that displays useful and entertaining information from the web using your wireless internet connection.

While the strike may be nearing an end, Boone Oakley has come to the aid of the Writer’s Guild of America with a solidarity campaign.

Maybe it's because I'm headed to Panama next week for the Caribe International Advertising Festival that I feel compelled to address race — both the presidential race and the continued use of racial characteristics, like skin color, to define Latinos.

On Sunday night, like many Americans I was plopped on the sofa watching the Super Bowl of advertising. Thankfully the game was memorable, as the ads for the most part were not. Considering the vast amounts of money and attention these spots receive, the efforts were largely small thoughts with big production budgets. Which reminded me of a story that USA Today ran about six months ago.

LONDON – Millward Brown, the market research company owned by WPP Group, is upping its growing presence in India through a joint venture with Indian research company IMRB.