Hasta La Creative!

LONDON – BBC Magazines is to launch Lonely Planet magazine in the UK later this year.

LONDON – Sky and Five have secured a combined £300m deal for the rights to air matches involving the England cricket team between 2010 and 2013.

LONDON – GCap Media’s One Network has teamed up with Norwich Union for an eight-week promotion inviting listeners to fill up their cars with petrol for free.

Have you ever wanted to soothe your aching muscles by piercing your fingers through your own skin and rubbing the sinewy flesh beneath? Nope, me either. This disturbing ad for Harnn Massage Balm (more executions here and here) is supposedly from Thailand’s Y&R Bangkok. I say supposedly because I just can’t imagine the media buy for this would extend beyond a few obscure fetishist magazines and Hellraiser fan-club newsletters. Via Ads of the World.

—Posted by David Griner

LONDON – BA has released the first in its series of posters which use images taken the previous day to show how smoothly Terminal 5 is now working.

The nerds at IT research firm Gartner have defined a whole new generation they’re calling Generation V. Short for “Generation Virtual,” Gen V is a new type of generation that defies traditional demographics. It is not split by age, gender or race. So, it’s not a generation at all, basically. Gen V is instead “based on demonstrated achievement, accomplishments and an increasing preference for the use of digital media channels to discover information, build knowledge and share insights.” Gartner divides the generation into four categories by level of engagement with technology: the Creators (0-3 percent of the total), the Contributors (3-10 percent), the Opportunists (10-20 percent), and the Lurkers (80 percent). (They forgot Trolls, the 0.5 percent who actively seek to destroy). Their whole point is that separate marketing strategies need to be implemented for this generation—strategies that Gartner, of course, can help provide. Self-promotion aside, I like the concept of a generation defined more by technological influences than by birth years. The times they are a-changin’.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

What athletic shoe doesn’t need a giant urban assault vehicle? Nike won’t say no, that’s for sure. Hub Strategy tricked out a vintage 1959 fightin’ machine for Nike to take on Mountain Dew’s Action Sports Tour, and now the decommissioned amphibious contraption will build some brand by leveling cities where Reebok controls the perimeter. Or maybe it’s just embarking on a marketing tour. Nike should use its death-truck to target the singers behind that insufferable Converse song and teach its competitor the real meaning of “My Drive Thu.” Of course, New Balance might retaliate by outfitting a B-52 with high-tops, but that plan would probably bomb. Because the B-52 is a bomber. Thank God I’m too old to be drafted. Unless McCain gets elected, that is.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Normally, celebrity political endorsements do more harm than good. But Gwyneth Paltrow is only a small part of this ad encouraging expatriate Americans to vote in the upcoming election (for Barack Obama, naturally), so she can’t really screw it up. Or can she? Given John McCain’s recent ads, Obama doesn’t need more celebrities in his corner at the moment. Not to mention, most Americans who’ve fled the country lately already hate Republicans, so the ad may be a bit superfluous. Maybe we should focus on reaching the millions of people who still live here and don’t vote.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

WebVet.com just went live, with pictures of Fido, Fluffy and other assorted species so devilishly cute I can only assume they were Photoshopped by Satan. The site says candy, caffeine, avocados, beer and nuts (though perhaps not beer nuts) can be harmful to your pet’s health. Look, if you’re feeding Tiddles mochachinos, truffles and guacamole salad, you deserve everything you’ve got coming. And there’s gonna be plenty of it! One headline on the site: “44-Pound Homeless Cat Found in N.J.” Yeah, it probably ate its owners. Pets are a lot of work, they’re expensive, and just when you get used to them, they die and leave you nothing in their wills. If you must own one, and its eyes turn red and it starts baying at the moon—especially if it’s an iguana—don’t go online! Call a real vet! God, those pictures are so damn cute.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

LONDON – Cult 1980s TV comedy series ‘The Young Ones’ is set to make a comeback thanks to a distribution deal between BBC Worldwide and iTunes to sell downloads of individual episodes.