For '08 Olympics, Adidas is the People's Nike

With help from Stink and TBWA\China, Psyop put together "Together" for Adidas and the '08 Olympics. Tagline: "Impossible is nothing." It's very Nike, with a little power-to-the-people in concentrate.

Victory, meet China.

McD's Tears 'Barista' Out of Starbucks Playbook

Brandkeys publishes this thing called the Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. According to this year's index, Starbucks lost serious ground in '07 for forgetting what made it a big name in the first place: the coffee experience.

Who's winning the loyalty of Third Place defectors? McDonald's, which stole ground from Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts last year. To leverage its swell in traffic, the burger-and-clown franchise is opening coffee bars throughout the States, and it'll be pushing lattes, cappuccinos and frappes.

Maybe to prove there's no magic to SBUX that can't be duplicated elsewhere, McD's will be calling its coffee peddlers "baristas" and making coffee machines visible over the bar.

Hrm. We're having trouble picturing ourselves sipping macchiattos over a tile floor that smells like pee. But hey, two apple pies for $0.99? Can't beat that.

'Best Ad Ever' is for ... Volvo? Guess So.

Dave and Eddy claim they've found THE GREATEST AD EVER. (And it's not that damn Volkswagen ad.) In an attic!

Visual fetishists, prepare to be disappointed. It lacks color, imagery or music to boost its emotional cred -- just 1,033 words to paint its picture. It's compelling, clever and persuasive, if you bother to read it. And it's for the Volvo! See the ad, sandwiched somewhere amidst Dave and Eddy's gushy storytelling, right here.

Sarkozy Proposes Real Cultural Devolution

President Nicolas Sarkozy is proposing a complete ban on public TV commercials in France. To make up for revenue lost, the country will tax the internet and mobile phones.

The IHT calls the move "virtually without precedent." The move is positioned as a means to protect old streams of income.

With that in mind, it's easy to look at the 'net and mobile as the bad guys. But to penalize growing industries for their effect on old technology?

Please be more backward.

Anywho, the Sarkozy government may draft a bill of the proposal, which has to move through both houses of Parliament. If it passes, expect big changes in France by January 1, '09 at the earliest. (Sarkozy is hoping to make it happen before Q4 of '08, but it doesn't look likely.)

Stuff's changing fast over there. Didn't the smoking ban just formalize?

iPod Central in Teen Pedestrian Death Campiagn

While Apple certainly isn't going to like this campaign, Sydney's police department felt it necessary to call attention the the apparent epidemic of teenagers dying while crossing the street, unable to hear oncoming cars because they were using an iPod.

Ronzoni Gives Cows A Day Off With New Calcium-Infused Pasta

PETA's gonna love this one. Ronzoni Smart Taste which contains as mush calcium as an 8 ounce glass of milk is celebrating its new pasta with the launch of Cow's Day Off, a site on which people can give seemingly overburdening cows a day off. There's just one big problem. If the creators of this had done their homework, they'd know taking a cow off its daily milking schedule would make it quite sick. You see, cows make milk. Cows have to be milked. Regularly. They can't just not be milked for one day. It just doesn't work that way.

And yea, yea, yea, we know it's just a fun little ad concept that only offers the cows a "virtual" day off but, much like cow tipping, it's just one more little thing that spreads mis-information about our bovine friends.

Contextual Advertising Adds Color to Matching Smarts

We all know contextual advertising has it's ups and downs. Well, mostly downs. At least here on Adrants. We've had Do we really need killer values from supermarkets offered next to articles about Amish killings. We've had turpentine ads next to bits about a teen drinking turpentine to abort a pregnancy. We've had Anna Nicole Smith's dead son put up for sale. And we've had "card shark" credit card copy next to an article about a woman killed by a shark.

So it's refreshing to see, thanks to Adrants reader Sarah, contextual advertising progress to the point where it can now match not only contextual messaging but, in some sort of new fashion fixation, match colors...and the need for new hair. In this case, we have a story featuring a balding prisoner in orange prison garb and an ad seemingly sympathetic to the prisoner's hair-challenged status. So sympathetic that the model in the ad is also wearing an orange shirt as if to say, "I identify with you man. Don't worry. We have hair for you here on the outside."

Hair the New Currency for McDonald's NHL Hockey Cards

Ew. I mean really. Hair swapping? That's just gross! But it's funny too. In this quirky McDonald's spot created by Toronto's Cossette and directed by OPC's Brian Lee Hughes, two guys negotiate for an NHL hokey card in s way that isn't normally done...at a McDonald's...or in a sports bar...or anywhere for that matter. Oh what men will do for their sons and for their vanity.

Emails Awarded, Whipple Squeezed, Conference Engages, Lynx Mobilizes

- January 11 is the deadline for entering MarketingSherpa'a 2008 Email Summit Awards which "recognize email campaigns that have outstanding measurable results."

- The Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), announced today that entries are now being accepted for the 2008 AICP Show, The Art & Technique of the American Commercial. Entries may be submitted online here. The Show debuts on June 3rd at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

- GSDM Creative Director Luke Sullivan has released the third edition of his book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.

- The Custom Publishing Council has announced its first custom content conference, Content '08: Re-thinking Branded Content in the Age of Engagement, held March 9-11 at the New Orleans Marriott.

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Penn Farm Show Promotes Wares with Butter Bus

Butter is important.

What, you don't believe us? You clearly don't live in Pennsylvania, where it serves as a crucial vehicle for grade school transportation.