World Cup Takes on Super Bowl Qualities With Wet T-Shirt Contest

And just when we thought the World Cup was a fine, upstanding, respectable event unlike the gratuitous, sex-laced, GoDaddy-powered Super Bowl we get Wet T-Shirt World Cup.

Two Drunks Lose Lion On beach At Cannes

As soon as I promise not to complain about Cannes any more, two drunk knuckleheads claim to have lost their Lion on the beach after burying it near the MSN beach party and then, three hours later, try to dig it up while filming it and claiming it's not any kind of promotion. Oh but wait. What respectable hipster would be seen anywhere without their digicam. OK, so if any of the rest of you drunks stumbled over a Lion on the beach and stole it to place in your ego case, you had better give these guys a call. Their boss isn't too happy with them. Oh. they're offering $1,000 if you find/return it.

Drunk Girl Sleeps on Couch At Cannes, Event Still Worth It

OK. I'm going to shut up about Cannes now. I always call it a pointless boondoggle but I have never been so I have no real right to condemn something I've never experienced. Before Bud Theisen of Alphabet Soup went to Cannes, he asked me if there were any questions I'd like to ask those in attendance. I said sure. With the viewpoint Cannes is just an industry circle jerk, I wanted to know why Cannes mattered. I wanted to hear it from the mouths of those basking in the glory of their company's expense account.

While Bud did ask the question, it seems he asked is the event worth it rather than why it's worth it. Two very different question but I'm not going to complain because the answers he got were great and can be summed up eloquently, "Fuck 'em if they don´t like it. We deserve it".

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Panasonic Joins User Generated Content Parade

Panasonic, with help from Renegade Marketing, has joined the rest of the lemmings blindly walking towards the user-generated content light. The company has launched Share the Air, a hip-ish site on which there are photoblogs from Atiba Jefferson, Sam Smyth, and Jimmie Mcguire, people we assume are hip-ish in some sort of way, videos from Girl and Chocolate and, yes, a user-generated content section where visitors can submit their own action sports videos to be considered for a $16,000 Panasonic HD video prize.

Blender Approves, Hospital Hires, Couch Kills, Intel Sings

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Blender and Best Buy are getting together to launch "Blender Approved" music endorsed by the editors of the music magazine.

- Our old Boss, Jeff Winsper, President of Winsper Inc. has picked up the Exeter Hospital business and will develop a full on marketing program for the client. Huh? Oh. Sorry. Of course, we're mentioning this here because we worked for the guy and he's brilliant. Why else would we mention such small time news?

- Some people just don't like the fact that those Charmin Bears have to do their business just like every other animal on earth. Oh wait. It's the over used poop joke. Bring back that creepy freak Mr. Charmin. At least he was entertaining in a weird sort of way.

- Using email lists, message boards and video sites, Hub Strategy gave a viral boost to its commercial for Lombardi Sports in which death by extreme skiing is touted as killing fewer people than live as an inactive couch potato.

- In China, Intel employees get branded every morning with during their ritual exercises and this song.

- One Adrants readers thinks a recent Ad Week headline "Mazda N.A. Imports Marketing Exec" describing the movement of one of its employees from Japan to America is offensive. We think it's quite catchy ourselves.

- Here's a few outtakes of those kids in the Adidas World Cup 2006 Impossible Dream ads.

- If the U.S. Senate approves a constitutional amendment to prohibit flag-burning, Commercial Alert is urging U.S. Senators to define commercializing the flag as a form of desecration of the flag.

'Arousing Technology' Bike Ads Not Arousing to Magazine

If you work in media and you spend your days planning, negotiating, buying and sending out IOs you really don't even care what the agency production department is sending to an individual ad you bought. In fact, one can go years without ever having seen the actual ad they bought space for. But, on the other side- over at the magazine, they see every ad that comes in the door and sometimes they don't like what they see. Now, we're not talking about ads that are just plain crappy. We're talking about the ones that do not arouse good feelings when received. This was the case with a recent campaign created by TDA Advertising for Titus Cycles and sent to Mountain Bike Action magazine.

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NBC Gets Less Stupid, Partners With YouTube

While YouTube wanted to partner all along, NBC saw the existence of its content on YouTube as some sort of horrific abuse of copyright law and forced the video site to remove various NBC clips such as the famed "Lazy Sunday." Now, the net has reversed its line of thinking, realizing that keeping content off YouTube is similar to telling a 13 year old she can't use MySpace. In a deal between the two, NBC will have a branded area on YouTube where various network programming clips will be uploaded on a weekly basis insuring far better reach and distribution than the net using just its own site. NBC will also promote the partnership on-air including a contest which calls for people to submit their own promotional spots for The Office. The winner will get their submission aired in August during the show.

Ordinary Animals Jealous of Zoo Animals

Not that any animal in their right mind would actually want to live in a zoo if they had the choice but these commercials for the Toronto Zoo would have us believe so. OK, so that statement was tinged with tree-hugging liberalism but would you want to live in a cage if you didn't have to? Anyway, there's three spots and they're sort of funny. There's also a website at which you can here other animals plea for a life in the zoo. They were created by Lowe Roche.

Beatboxing White Family Give Black Boyfriend Grief

Here's an amazing commercial from MTV that captures all the humorous elements of a boyfriend coming over to his girlfriend's house to pick her up and facing the wrath and annoyance of her family as well as his girlfriend's embarrassment over the confrontation. It ends in the usual way with the girl grabbing the guy and running out of the house as the family continues to berate. But, there's a twist to this ad. The boyfriend is black, the family white and they, not the black guy, speak "beatbox" which, in a stereotypical twist, the black guy can't understand. The ad ends simply with "Speak." It's a powerful message in many ways. It encourages communication on many levels. Parent to child. Child to parent. Family member to family member. Family to boyfriend. Girlfriend to boyfriend. Without one understandable word, the ad communicates better than most ads that carry understandable words.