Hasta La Creative!

You could have gone your whole life without ever hearing of Nadia Plesner and her effort to raise awareness of genocide in Darfur. Then, for reasons that boggle the mind, Louis Vuitton decides to wage a legal battle with the artist over her use of the image shown here. Plesner created the “Simple Living” T-shirt and poster campaign to contrast the suffering in Sudan with the opulence of U.S. celebrity. But Vuitton believes she’s infringing on its intellectual property rights by showing that handbag, which it says is similar to this tacky number (though what they claim looks like the LV logo looks more like the mark of a certain Midwestern baseball team). I’ll be honest: When it comes to her legal defense, it’s a bit of a sticky wicket. One could argue she’s not creating a parody of Louis Vuitton but is instead using its work in a satire of pop culture. In the U.S., courts have been tougher on satire than parody. But the real question is, Why would Louis Vuitton pick this fight in the first place? It’s hard to think of a worse idea for one’s corporate image than to sue an artist who’s trying to help victims of genocide. Via Osocio.

—Posted by David Griner

So here’s one of those things that’s so bad it’s good or, well, perhaps it’s just so bad it’s just bad.

According to Ad Age, revenue for U.S. agencies — advertising, marketing services and media — jumped 8.6% in 2007 despite a tepid ad market. And for that, you can thank digital.

While it comes as no surprise that revenue at digital specialty agencies rocketed last year (up 26.8% in the U.S.), it’s clear that digital services have become a way of life (or a way to avoid death) for agencies of all disciplines. In fact, U.S. ad agencies reported an average 10.2% of revenue from digital in 2007.

And in some cases, it was a lot more. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners — Ad Age’s 2008 Agency of the Year — said digital services last year generated 52% of its revenue. The San Francisco agency works for such digitally connected clients as Hewlett-Packard Co.

[BONUS CLICK] Ad Age’s Agency Report.

Lost amid the news last week that the American Association of Advertising Agencies conducted a Leadership Conference that embraced digital and was actually informational and provocative was the announcement from Howard University and the 4A's that they were partnering up to tackle the advertising industry's diversity problems.

(TrendHunter.com) Gorgeous flowers open up to reveal Samsung’s cell phones in this creative Mother’s Day ad by AT & T. The flowers look like a mixture of glass and real flowers. They are just stunning. The song in the ad written by Lupe Fiasco is called Daydreamin’ and is performed by Jill Scott.

Kudos to 1stAveMac…

Every picture has a soundtrack.

Advertising Agency: The Tribe, Dubai, UAE
Via: ArabAd’s Creative Archive

Every picture has a soundtrack.

Advertising Agency: The Tribe, Dubai, UAE
Via: ArabAd’s Creative Archive

(TrendHunter.com) These futuristic buildings can be found in Spain and can be attributed to the creative brilliance of architect Enric Ruiz-Geli. His highly modern words combine clean edges with a lot of spherical design, blending fluidly to create spaceship-like structures.

He is best known for his Cloud-9 studio,…

Advertising Agency: DDB South Africa
Creative Director: Gareth Lessing
Art Director: Darren Borrino
Copywriter: Stuart Turner
Photographer: Clive Stewart
Other additional credits: Paul Binikos

Extend the life of your pencil, extend the life of a tree.

Advertising Agency: JWT, Indonesia
Executive Creative Director: Juhi Kalia
Creative Director: Randy Rinaldi
Art Director: Eric Durdin
Copywriters: Lina Martina, Randy Rinaldi
Production team: Hadi Ramdhan, Dimas Fajar, Lies Yuwono
Client Service: Tyas Handayani
Released: March 2008