Former Firebrand Execs Launch Ad Agency

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What do you do when your company fails, investors pull out and your industry derides your business model?

ABC, Fox Finish With Upfront Sales

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Walt Disney's ABC expects to secure around $2.5 billion in ad commitments for the 2008-2009 prime-time season, according to the network's top ad-sales executive. Meanwhile, News Corp.'s Fox has also completed sales, notching what a person familiar with the situation said was volume "significantly above" last year's $1.9 billion total.

CNBC-Created FedEx Spoof Ad Craps on UPS’ Big Brown Belmont Loss

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If you’re not first…

Is that a Bike Rack, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

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To promote Tom of Finland, a new manly-man scent from Etat Libre d’Orange, Ogilvy/Paris attached naughty images to protruding public fixtures.

Rock Fight, HKM Merge to Form Hello & Co.

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Hello & Co. tapped Crush, Toronto to promote its debut.

Amsterdam A Damn Good City With Damn Good Beer

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Oh look. Amsterdam is cool.

Why Use Your Brain when You Can Hassle a Rich Uncle?

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“I didn’t use my brain. I went straight to the financial aid office.” That’s the headline from the ad at left, which concludes with a tidy “thinking saves thousands at myrichuncle.com.”

Drink at Home, Real Ad Peeps Celebrated, ZobZee Saves Twitter

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Don’t drink in public

Yawn, Guy Proposes On Billboard. Oh Wait, No. It’s A Diamond Ad

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In yet another example no new ideas exist in the world of advertising, yet another innocent personal human gesture has been usurped and turned into a a marketing ploy.

Joy Division Sponsors Zune, Twitterati Defects for Plurk, Facebook Seeks Ad Feedback, John McCain Tells War Stories

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– Maybe inspired by Apple’s limited-edition U2 iPod, Microsoft is releasing a limited-edition Joy Division Zune.

Newspapers run ads about fake airline Derrie-Air

“Derrie-Air has been exposed. Readers of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News opened their papers Friday to see ads for a new airline called Derrie-Air, which purportedly charges passengers by the pound.”

See article at:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080606/D914OT3O1.html

(From AP’s “My Way News”).

Apsara Eraser: Picasso

Apsara Eraser: Picasso

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai, India
Executive Creative Director: Piyush Pandey
Creative Director: Zenobia Pithawalla
Art Director / Copywriter: Manoj Kumar Bhagat
Illustrator: Dilip Khomane
Photographer: Avdhoot Hembade
Published: December 2007

Apsara Eraser: Escher

Apsara Eraser: Escher

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai, India
Executive Creative Director: Piyush Pandey
Creative Director: Zenobia Pithawalla
Art Director / Copywriter: Manoj Kumar Bhagat
Illustrator: Dilip Khomane
Photographer: Avdhoot Hembade
Published: December 2007

Disney launches parenting social network

LONDON – Walt Disney is launching a new ad-funded social networking site for parents, with UK sales being handled by digital agency Ad2One.

Apsara Eraser: Durer

Apsara Eraser: Durer

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai, India
Executive Creative Director: Piyush Pandey
Creative Director: Zenobia Pithawalla
Art Director / Copywriter: Manoj Kumar Bhagat
Illustrator: Dilip Khomane
Photographer: Avdhoot Hembade
Published: December 2007

West L.A. Fadeaway

Looking for a chateau
Twenty one rooms but one will do
I don’t want to buy it
I just want to rent it for an hour or two – Hunter/Garcia

Omnicom will pull creative out of the L.A. branch of BBDO West.

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“It’s not difficult to have a large office in L.A.,” said Andrew Robertson, president and CEO of BBDO Worldwide, New York. “All you have to have is a car account or Apple. However, if you don’t have one of those, then you need to decide where to have your West Coast talent center of gravity, in L.A. or San Francisco. We’ve chosen to concentrate our talent in San Francisco.”

BBDO’s move is only the latest example of a business trend that is nearly as perplexing and frustrating to locals as why the nation’s second-largest city can’t field a pro football team. In just two decades, agencies that once dominated L.A.’s advertising landscape have disappeared or diminished significantly. In the last five years, many once-giant network offices along the Wilshire corridor — JWT, FCB, Grey — have pulled out entirely or been reduced to shells of their former selves.

[via Adweek]

Bebo ties up Sony Ericsson for new music series

LONDON – Bebo has commissioned a new ad-sponsored drama featuring a junior post room employee at Universal Music, who secretly starts up his own record label.

T conductors in Boston get fishy ads pulled

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Boston maintains its perfect record for reacting to ad campaings with humorlessness as the MBTA prepares to remove Legal Sea Foods’ “Fresh Fish” subway ads that poked fun at drivers on the Green Line. (The “fresh” quips include “This conductor has a face like a halibut.”) Stephan MacDougall, president of the Boston Carmen’s Union, tells the Boston Globe that he fielded 40 phone calls from Green Line workers incensed by the ads: “To say they are angered and offended is to put it lightly. If they don’t come down, we will not drive those trains.” Deana Cruthird, a T rider and a local voice of sanity, retorts: “You can’t take everything personally.” Hey, I don’t “take it personally” when those $20 Charlie Cards I’ve used for one $2 ride mysteriously won’t scan and I’m “asked politely” (usually through clenched teeth and with strident explanations about how the scanner’s never wrong) to cough up some cash or get off the train. These people aren’t halibut. When it comes to a dollar, they’re sharks! UPDATE: The Boston Globe, angling for a Pulitzer, notes that Legal’s CEO has offered “a fishy apology.” The paper should clam up, already!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Fox / Lost: Crash

Fox / Lost: Crash

Advertising Agency: Bungalow25, Madrid, Spain
Creative Directors: Pablo Pérez-Solero, Julio Gálvez
Art Director: Alfonso Arbós
Copywriter: Sergio Cuenca
Producer: Angel Arocha
Released: August 2007

Converse offers free song from eclectic US trio

LONDON – Three US musicians with diverse styles, including Pharrell Williams and The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, have joined to co-write and perform a one-off single to be distributed free from Converse’s website in celebration of the shoe brand’s 100th anniversary.