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Advertising Agency: Rusu+Bortun Brand Growers, Bucharest, Romania
Creative Director: Catalin Rusu
Art Directors: Mircea Craciun, Catalin Rusu, Anca Uscatescu, Marc Bortun
Copywriters: Mircea Craciun, Catalin Rusu
Illustrator / Photographer: New Folder
Brand Growing Director: Iulian Angheluta
Production Manager: Luiza Olaru

For once, Washington public-relations executives and communications employees have a legitimate excuse to be missing in action during a crisis. Those who work for the government or count it among their clients could be hit with hefty fines if found working during the current shutdown.

But if a couple days off stretches into next week and beyond, PR execs say, they may have their own financial crisis on their hands.

The shutdown — the product of budget disagreements in Congress — has furloughed government employees deemed nonessential. The communications department at the IRS apparently fits the bill, judging by this email sent earlier in the week:

Continue reading at AdAge.com

When an unhappy British Airways passenger can pay Twitter to show his complaint to tens of thousands of potentially interested people, it’s safe to say something profound has changed.

A consumer’s megaphone is now, sometimes at least, more powerful than a brand’s. Individuals can bring a huge company to its knees — or help launch a small brand to national recognition simply by sharing their experiences and opinions on Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Instagram or other social forums.

Brands need to be ready for the spotlight — good or bad — by conducting business and communicating as if their reputations depend on it. What are marketers to do?

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Even before McCann Melbourne’s celebrated “Dumb Ways to Die” campaign for Metro Trains, people already had been dying stupidly all over the place in video games. One especially fertile forum for these idiotic departures is Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto franchise, which recently broke industry records earning $800 million in a single day and exceeding $1 billion within three for its latest installment, GTA V. Metro, of course, was one of the year’s biggest viral hits. The video has racked up 99.6 million views and 190 spin-offs in the form of mashups, user-generated content and spoofs, according to Visible Measures.

So it’s not surprising that the Metro and Rockstar worlds have inspired this recent YouTube parody, created by Brysi, aka “The Video Game Song Guy.” Here, characters in the title shuffle off in morbid, politically incorrect ways possible only within the GTA universe — like fighting “a girl with PMS,” telling “Trevor he’s insane,” touching a “stripper’s private parts” and insulting “a group of darker skinned people.” Rockstar has nothing to do with the video, but it can’t be disappointed. It has more than 624,000 views, according to Visible Measures.

Continue reading at AdAge.com