Hasta La Creative!

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — After a testy five-month "courtship" and plenty of rebuffs, Taylor Nelson Sofres changed its stance and today said its board will now back a takeover by ad giant WPP Group — even though TNS still believes the $2 billion offer undervalues the company.

(TrendHunter.com) Earlier this year, TrendHunter.com reported on the naked falling photographs of UK model Agyness Deyn. The photographer, Ryan McGinley, shot Agyness and two stunt men jumping from five stories and landing…

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — When "The Sims 3" launches in February, the popular video game promises to be more realistic than ever, thanks to improved graphics, better processing power and an increase in ads. Yes, an increase in ads.

(TrendHunter.com) We already told you Sacha Baron Cohen crashed the Milan Fashion Week catwalk disguised as a flamboyant Austrian fashion journalist. Despite getting in trouble there, he continued on to Paris Fashion Week.…

(TrendHunter.com) Paper that could have ended up as the contents of a landfill is now Eve?’s Garden, a beautiful B&B;in a small town in Far West Texas.

It sounds like magic, but this charming Bed And Breakfast was built…

Steven Grasse of Gyro Worldwide is a skilled self-promoter, and I say that with all sincerity, for self-promotion is a necessary skill that’s hard to master. Too much self-promo and you’re tiresome. Not enough, and you don’t exist. Like a soufflé, you have to get it just right.

With the help of Harriet Bernard-Levy, a celebrated French cultural theorist, Grasse is getting it right. For what agency head doesn’t want a French intellectual poking through his old campaigns and family albums?

According to the publisher, Bernard-Levy’s new book, Virus: The Outrageous History of Gyro Worldwide, “frames the Gyro story as a business epic, the tale of an unknown Philadelphia ad agency that taught the world to “sell out” and, in so doing, laid the foundation of America’s cultural and economic hegemony for the 21st century.”

In the book, Bernard-Levy claims Gyro invented viral marketing, while also launching careers of such notables as Spike Jonze, Doug Aitken, Quentin Tarantino and Dayton and Ferris. Hmmm…there’s likely some truth in these claims, but I can certainly see why the word “outrageous” is in the title of the book.

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) — While most magazine publishers continue to depend heavily on print, today at the American Magazine Conference they heard from a panel of publishers that are going well beyond the page.

Chris Anderson, author of "The Long Tail," is working on his new book in which he explores the notion of "free." Rather than hole himself up in a cabin somewhere while writing, he uses his blog to test out content, source external perspectives and even ask for a little help.

In an incredibly transparent post/e-mail called Friday is Always Black, Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, extols the reasoning behind cutting 19 staffers and hiring 10 more even though his sites’ ad sales are up some 30 percent.

In old-school newser fashion, Denton posted the story on a Friday (last Friday, in fact), the day of the week where stories are leaked as our minds focus on weekend plans. It was tactful move, not unlike his decision to cut jobs in the first place, even though his company is growing (Gawker dot com is up to 24 million hits last month from just 8 million in December of last year, according to Denton).

We interviewed Denton just hours after the story broke. His decision, and the explanation behind it, set an example for the kind of transparency that prevents the rumor mill from over-churning. What he did and how he did it at first seemed counter-intuitive; but upon re-examination, his move sets an example for how companies may want to tighten up during these financially strenuous times.

Matt: Removing the sites that are hurting from the equation, what do the ad sales numbers look like for the year? This quarter v Q2/Q1?

Denton: We don’t break revenue down by site. But I think it’s safe to assume that Gizmodo and Gawker do well with gadget and tune-in advertising respectively. And Kotaku has this year become a must-buy for video game releases.

Matt: Can you give me a salary comparison for the jobs you’re cutting versus those you’re adding? How much are you spending on the new jobs &#151 and how much are you saving from the layoffs?

Denton: The new jobs on balance pay about the same as the positions we’re cutting.

Matt: Will the laid-off staff be compensated? If so, please detail as best you can.

Read the rest of the story, after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

As a journalist, Latina or not, I receive all sorts of marketing pitches every day, mostly in the form of press releases. And, as you may imagine, these are not really hard to understand. But a recent release from consumer products giant Procter & Gamble really got me thinking, or at least puzzled me enough to read it twice to understand what it was really all about.