Rumor Mill: Creatives at TBWA\CHIAT\DAY, LA Seek Liberation in Droves

According to a West Coast source, it's fast a trend at 5353 Grosvenor Blvd. to abandon ship.

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Petco Goodies Give Peppy Pets (Possibly Too Much) More Energy

We can't even count the number of times we've been dragged to some canine haven by an overzealous pet, so this new ad by Petco, brought to us by good old Brentter, definitely struck a sappy chord.

We were jarred back into reality by the voice and branding message at the end, though. It just didn't jive well. The guy sounded like a hard-boiled narrator for an energy drink - you know, like this, except ever so slightly less intense.

That bold-ass font didn't help matters either.

Don't Just Encourage Literacy, Pistolwhip People with It!

Jeremy over at Pop-PR sent us a link to this alleged PSA, which takes place at Raphael De La Ghetto High School, where very scary things happen. (Really. It was like a lower-budget version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall.")

The purpose of the crunked-out video is to encourage disenfranchised youth to "read a mothafuckin' book!" Users are also led to Not a Rapper, the official website of Bomani D'Mite Armah, "the poet with a hip-hop style."

There are other important messages proffered by the PSA, including "Your body needs water, so drink that shit!" and "Brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your goddamn teeth!"

Word on the street is the video aired on BET and appeared on VH1's Best Week Ever. We sat through the whole thing for posterity's sake and, afterward, did indeed feel violently inclined to pick up a mothafuckin' book. Whether it so triggered the street hoods is another question.

AIDS Walk Reinvigorates the Proletariat

Is it just us, or does this AIDS Walk ad just scream worker's revolution? Everytime we see it, we feel an irresistible compulsion to mobilize.

Fake Steve Jobs is Forbes Editor!

Senior Editor Danial Lyons of Forbes has just been outed by a New York Times reporter as the Fake Steve Jobs that's got everybody frothing at the mouth.

Having crowned Bill Gates "the Beastmaster," Eric Schmidt "Squirrel Boy" and open source addicts "freetards" during his anonymous reign, Lyons hit everybody with his schoolyard candor - from major CEOs to tech journalists to forum geeks.

There doesn't appear to be a successor in line. Post-unmasking, Lyons wrote, "My plan at this time is to live forever and to remain in charge here, though perhaps with fewer restrictions on my power.

"The truth is, I am not human - I am a man-god, son of Zeus, born to a mortal woman but fathered by the ruler of the gods, lord of thunder."

We like this Danial Lyons.

After playfully rebuking the NYT reporter for robbing people of their "childlike wonder," he alluded that Fake Steve Jobs will live on as part of the Forbes.com family.

This Time in '45, Hiroshima Was Devastated

With war such a salient topic of late, it was only a matter of time before we started getting throwbacks from the '40s.

Owen over at Sinless just sent us the Aug 6th Hiroshima Ginsberg De-Classified Nuclear Test Film, a 12-minute visual assault on what was happening in Hiroshima in 1945, roughly during this time of year.

The video includes a reading of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Plutonian Ode." If that sounds like it'll add some nuance to your day (it definitely added sparkle to ours), by all means, watch. If enough people get all riled-up, maybe we can storm the Capitol together, say around 6?

Levi's Targets Gay Community with Equal-Opportunity Ad Production

Advertising Age drew some attention to an effort by Levi's to strengthen its clout in the gay community by producing an ad twice - once for the straight community, and once for the gay one. The gay one ran exclusively on MTV's Logo network (which, unless it branches out, sounds like it's probably getting less play than the hetero version).

As always with Levi's the production is clean but the concept is wrongfully credited for being the first to do the gay/straight coin toss with human beings.

Orbitz, noted by Ad Age for having done this with marionettes, also produced a set of thematically gay and straight ads with human beings.

Oops.

Brickfish Wants Your War Ballads!

Here's an opportunity to undo all the ickiness generated by that godforsaken All You Need is Luvs campaign. Brickfish is conducting a call for entries by people seeking to belt out a tune about the war. Some of the stuff is all right if not overproduced, but hey, maybe that's the fruit of UGC.

The logo is a little confusing. Songs from the heart or songs from the war? In our case, maybe it's the same thing.

Three lucky winners get $500 and potentially a diaper campaign cameo via Saatchi and Saatchi. Just kidding. Maybe.

Target Breezeway Sucks Distracted Onlookers into Light Display

Visitors to the "top of the Rock!" (er, the Rockefeller building) in NYC may have noticed a really interesting spaceship-type thing on their way back down.

This strange little room, dubbed the Target Breezeway, can apparently sense the number of people wandering mystified in its midst and associates each person with a color that then generates distracting, if not dazzling, reactions along the walls.

Most of us walked around like zombies trying to place our palms on the occasional Target symbol that appeared. Every few minutes, and with enough warm bodies, the Breezeway lights up in a display that would put Times Square at New Year's to shame.

We've always maintained that the best way to ensnare a small population would be to draw them into a secluded space with shiny objects. The Target Breezeway is an ingenious way of demonstrating that possibility.

We were definitely sucked in.

Alltel Rides Mancave Concept for All it's Worth (Not Much?)

To get the most out of its most current Mancave ad campaign, Alltel launches ... wait for it, wait for it ...

The Mancave.

By manufacturing a sense of animosity allegedly felt by those "other" wireless guys against Alltel, the burgeoning mobile company hopes to lend the sense that it's, if not bigger, then at least more chill than its hopelessly pre-pubescent, nunchuk-toting contemporaries.

Requisite MySpace at WirelessThugz.com. You get the picture.

It's really cool that all these online brand communities are launching to back up these funny little ad campaigns, but how does traffic actually get to any of them? How are they actually leveraged? After the death of bud.tv, we remain nonplussed.