Hasta La Creative!

LONDON – Welsh family business Leekes has launched a travel promotion to attract customers to its department stores in the sale season.

Lexus Hybrid Living is an interesting content play by the luxury car brand. While many hybrid buyers are Birkenstock-wearing eco-number crunchers wanting to know all the pertinent facts and figures, Lexus appeals to another demo. The demo that says, “Hey, I’m rich. The least I could do is be responsible.” Of course, never before in history, has it been so easy to “act responsibly” while stroking a check.

The site doesn’t aim to sell cars, but to support the lifestyle. As such, it introduces and promotes key figures from green design like fashion design Linda Loudermilk and architect Michelle Kaufmann. The designers’ stories are told in video and text.

Lexus Hybrid Living also offers city guides for NYC, LA, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle, Phoenix and San Francisco.

The navigation is a bit hard to follow and I’d like the videos to benefit from “share this” functionality, but the content is right and well packaged.

LONDON – Marketing and credit information giant Experian, which yesterday made 200 redundancies, has said its UK marketing services division will not be affected by the job cuts it is enacting to cope with the financial downturn.

This spot for Jet’s Bold Fold Pizza is probably an acquired taste, but there’s something so odd about the production and performances that I find it compelling. The drugged-out, serial-killer line delivery of that lanky grown-up Doogie Howser guy is priceless: “Smells good. Can I grab a slice?” He must’ve been goofing around and the crew liked the take so much, they left it in. Am I right? His bearded lunch companion plays it straight, but that just underscores the first guy’s weirdness. Why the desolate break room with the indistinct background noise? Did Doogie off all the other employees? What’s with the phallic, partially sliced up pepperoni? Are these characters, who are all wearing too much makeup, trapped in an existential hell, doomed to suffer the blows of boxing gloves hidden in pizza boxes for all eternity? Jet’s is boldly going where few brands have gone before, approaching Activia’s level of surreal yet memorable ad nonsense. Let’s shuffle TV references and cue the Twilight Zone theme as the brand blasts into a higher orbit of insanity.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Since former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller and former Fox Interactive Media chief Ross Levinsohn banded together as partners in Velocity Investment Group, internet watchers have been curious to see where they'd place their bets. Online video — its distribution, content creation and monetization — is an area in which they are particularly bullish.

LONDON – British police officers, who started a Facebook group about crashes they had been involved in while driving police vehicles, could face disciplinary action after Scotland Yard announced it was to investigate the matter.

LONDON – Highland Spring has signed up to be the title sponsor of the Waverley Junior Open 2008 tennis tournament in Edinburgh.

LONDON – Bristol-based digital agency Enable Interactive has been briefed to rebuild the website of War Child Music, the musical fundraising arm of international children’s charity, War Child.

LONDON – The Church of Scientology has forced internet giant Google to remove a leaked and now widely publicised online video, which features actor Tom Cruise praising the organisation, from YouTube.

LONDON – The Mirror Group is reviewing its £3.5 million advertising account, ending a 12-year relationship with M&C Saatchi.