Hasta La Creative!

This week, Esquire posted a truly arbitrary list of the Top 10 Car Commercial Songs, which might as well have been called the Wilco/VW Playlist. Its rankings were determined by the mathematical formula of “(quality of song/fan disapproval) x odds we’d buy that car,” which is downright simple compared to the Moby Quotient. There are a few good picks on the Esquire list, namely Wilco’s beautiful and beautifully used “Either Way” in the commercial above. But there are some real turds in the granola, too, like Mellencamp’s red-blooded rodeo anthem “Our Country.” So what should be on the list of the greatest car-ad songs? Check out a few of our picks after the jump, and share some of your own in the comments.

—Posted by David Griner

There’s no shame in going with VW for any best-song list, but how could Esquire leave off these two?

“Pink Moon” by Nick Drake

“Mr. Blue Sky” by ELO

Adweek’s Manuela Oprea also reminded us of the techo catchiness of The Orb’s “Little Fluffy Clouds.”

I generally don’t associate Cadillac with things of beauty, but AdFreak editor Tim Nudd rightly points out this spot featuring the hypnotic “Here Comes the Sun Again” by M. Ward.

And what the hell, why not throw in the Never Ending Story theme song?

The city of Las Vegas welcomes all kinds, including douchebags.

[via Shabooty]

Anyone who has spent appreciable time in Las Vegas interacting with other visitors could be forgiven if they returned home to weep for America. Let’s say some of the clientele is decidedly déclassé. Vegas.com is even more blunt about it in a promotion centered around the “douchebags” who descend on Sin City. In addition to offering a short “Are you a douchebag?” quiz, it seeks out photos of “douchebaggery” in action for possible use in a future Vegas.com ad. You might want to comb through your shots from the Strip for that pic of the gentleman with the mullet, jean shorts, fanny pack, wifebeater T-shirt and bad tattoos. Send them to douchebag@vegas.com. And props to the creatives who got this idea through to execution. I imagine it will ruffle a few feathers. Via AdPulp, among others.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Bud Light had that skydiving spot on the Super Bowl one year. Now, BBDO Melbourne unleashes a team-skydiving extravaganza for Carlton Draught, complete with a giant and destructive parachuting pint of beer. There’s a companion Web site here. Needless to say, do not attempt.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

LONDON – A cross-party group of MPs has accused Citroen of Nazi stereotyping and called on the French car manufacturer to scrap its latest ad campaign for the new C5 model.

LONDON – Media Corp is set to merge its ad technology firm Eyeconomy with recently-acquired online ad sales house NASH.

(TrendHunter.com) This amazing image is a recreation of Leonardo DaVinci’s “Last Supper” that features Star Wars characters. What’s even more amazing is that the image is actually 69,550 frames from all six Star Wars movies. I’m not sure how much “artistry” is involved in the actual creation of pieces like this. I th…

Paul Johnson, writing for Ad Age’s Small Agency Diary makes a good point about interactive capabilities at traditional shops.

There are a lot of ad agencies talking a mean game and touting their capabilities in pitches. To paraphrase the head of a web-development firm (after I plied him with a few cocktails), 90% of the small agencies out there chasing interactive business have one guy on staff who knows anything, and if they’re lucky maybe a Flash developer. According to my buddy, they’re subcontracting all their development work to him, and he’s growing at 50%. And the word from my friends on the client side is that every agency knocking on their doors can show you at least one respectable interactive program. Just don’t scratch too deep.

Isn’t that the history of our business revealed anew?

We always have the capabilities to answer any client problem, whether we do or not. For, no one’s going miss out on that incremental income. We’ll figure it out back at the shop, we say to each other in the taxi to the airport.

Ashton Kutcher (aka Mr. Demi Moore) is featured in an artistic futuristic cover and spread in the new VMan (spring/summer 2008) where he plays a robot being repaired. The “I’M NOT REAL” photo shoot was done by famous photographer Mario Testino,

The concept of the shoot was Ashton’s, “I had a visio…

Ad Age's two-day Digital Marketing Conference wrapped yesterday afternoon and I've now recovered enough to pull together all the non-Ad Age coverage that I've been following over the past couple days. Most of it's good, thought-provoking observations — I'm treating it all as great audience feedback that I'll use for planning future Ad Age Digital events. Got more? Pass it along.