Hasta La Creative!

According to The New York Times, Mrs. Obama gave a big shout out to J. Crew during her Oct. 27 appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.

Dressed in a $148 pencil skirt, a $148 yellow and brown tank top and a $118 yellow cardigan, she seemed to be promoting both fiscal prudence and the overlooked appeal of mustard-colored clothing.

“I want to ask you about your wardrobe,” Mr. Leno told her, alluding to the news media reports that Sarah Palin had a campaign clothing budget of $150,000. “I’m guessing about 60 grand? Sixty, 70 thousand for that outfit?”

“Actually, this is a J. Crew ensemble,” Mrs. Obama replied, to cheers from the audience. “Ladies, we know J. Crew. You can get some good stuff online!”

(TrendHunter.com) The Japanese love their cell phone keychains, but this edamame one doubles as a stress reliever. Food has been recognized as a way to relieve anxiety for many people, but usually that’s accomplished by…

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — General Motors Corp., which could run out of operating cash in the coming months, today said it will sell its remaining equity stake in Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp. The auto giant said it plans to sell 16.4 million shares of Suzuki stock, or 3% of the Fuji Industries-owned company.

(TrendHunter.com) While the ubiquitous game was first released on May 22, 1980, it just seems that it has never actually gone away and appears, in fact, to be having somewhat of a revival, as evidenced by all the items…

LONDON – Lloydspharmacy has appointed McCann Erickson Birmingham to its creative and media planning and buying accounts. The accounts are worth an estimated £4.5m.

If you’re going to launch an online ad on a Saturday and spark outrage among your target audience, you might want to plan to work the weekend. Motrin caused the aforementioned fuss with an ad aimed at moms who practice “baby wearing,” the fine art of carrying your kid in a sling or backpack. The spot comes off sounding pretty insulting to these moms, whom it implies are treating their babies like fashion accessories. When mom bloggers got wind of the spot, they started a tidal wave of criticism, flooding Twitter with thousands of angry comments about Motrin. (Here’s a video compilation of some of the irate feedback.) Assuming the ad was the work of Motrin agency Taxi New York, a blogger contacted the agency’s director of corporate communications, who was reportedly unaware of the online firestorm. Social media professionals were quick to point out that there’s no good excuse these days for failing to notice that your new ad went over like a fart in church. “Motrin apparently did little to no monitoring of their intended audience before or during the Twitterstorm,” writes new-media maven Mack Collier, “which is still baffling to me in this day and age of free and easy tools to let you do just that.” UPDATE: Motrin has now apologized in a message on its homepage.

—Posted by David Griner

LONDON – This evening hair styling brand ghd launches its first TV ad since its ‘Thy will be done’ ad was banned by the ASA because it might cause religious offence.

God gave Rock ‘n’ roll to you, put it in your car for everyone.

Advertising Agency: Publicis Yorum, Istanbul, Turkey
Art Director: Orgut Cayli
Copywriter: Emrah Kural
Illustrator: Orgut Cayli
Photographer: Orgut Cayli (cityscape)

Published: November 2008

Advertising Agency: Jung von Matt/ Alster, Hamburg, Germany
Creative Directors: Fabian Frese, Daniel Frericks, Götz Ulmer
Copywriter: Jo Marie Farwick
Art Director: Till Monshausen
Editing and Naildesign: Benita Rath
Aired: September 2008

LONDON – Omnicom’s OMD has pulled out of the running for Santander’s conglomeration of media accounts, leaving the main incumbent Carat to pitch against Arena BLM, Starcom and Universal McCann.