Samsung's Blueseat Celebrates 'Emerging' Filmmakers

Illustrating the idiocy that is often passed off as breakthrough work from independent filmmakers, this spot hypes Samsung's Blue Seat, a celebration of the independent film industry which claims to help "emerging filmmakers keep their vision alive. Oddly, a star-filled, Sean Penn-directed film is featured on the site. How independent and emerging is that?

I'll Ride That Mustache Off Your Damn Face!

We have to hand it to Axe. For years, they've managed to keep the central idea of their brand alive. With each outing, the message is the same: Axe attracts women and serves them up to the whims of men. Of course, that's not at all true but it makes for a great ad campaign.

The latest entry in the campaign is The Axe Naughty to Nice Program which plays out the continuing scenario of women going crazy in the presence of men wearing Axe products. This time it's about women who turn into lust-crazed vixens and commit crimes. The Naughty to Nice Program aims to rehabilitate these women.

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Adam Blogs, TV Guide Gowns, AT&T Mobilizes, Old Folk Socialize

- Aquent is hosting a webcast on September 27th entitled "Getting it all Together: Best Practices in Planning for Coordinated Print and Web Initiatives." which will examine how to make print and online work together better.

- The recently formed Association for Downloadable Media (ADM) will hold its first in-person meeting at the Podcasting & New Media Expo in Ontario, CA. The meeting will be held at 7:30 a.m. PDT on Friday, September 28, 2007 in Ballroom A.

- A new eMarketer report examines the value of social media and whether or not the hype meets with the reality.

- Website uptime monitoring company has gotten cute with its homepage turning it into a modified 404 page.

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Nike Introduces the Greatest Team We've Never Heard Of

Hoping, perhaps, to bring back the days of Mia Hamm, Wieden + Kennedy just launched a new Nike campaign for the Women's World Cup with the headline, "The greatest team you've never heard of," which introduces women's soccer's next greats. Illustrating the dedication of the team, the copy in one ad reads, "Together [they] have missed out on 13 proms, 74 birthdays, 21 Thanksgivings and 989 boyfriends." And in an effort to familiarize us with the team, copy in another ad reads, "[the team] includes a tattooed surfer, a scholar, a college football fanatic, a humanitarian and a trucker hat-wearing scuba diver."

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Mira Sorvino! Ludacris! Chaka Khan! It's Advertising Week!

Yes, my friends, it's that time of year again. Now in its fourth year, Advertising Week, the advertising industry's ego-fest that shames all others, makes its debut Monday, September, 24. As if you don't already get enough of it on a daily basis, the week offers you the opportunity to wallow in the business even more and celebrate the earth shattering "power of advertising and its impact on business, social issues, politics, music, and media through panels, events and discussions with top CEOs, CMOs, industry heavy weights and influencers including Martha Stewart, Academy Award winning actress and activist Mira Sorvino, Grammy Award Winning rapper Ludacris, Grammy Award winning producer Emilio Estefan, Emmy Award Winning producer Michael Davies, Today Show correspondent & former NFL player, Tiki Barber, Founder of Craig's List, Craig Newmark, as well as live performances by Gym Class Heroes, Panic! at the Disco, Chaka Khan, comedians Lewis Black and Susie Essman."

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Read Adland for All the Reasons Why You Should - or Shouldn't - Go into Advertising

We're firm believers in that if you're going to devote your life to something, even something as "banal" as advertising, you should commit. Let yourself go. Fall in love with it. Learn it inside and out.

After reading Adland over the weekend, we're thinking, here's a book that finally lets you do that.

It's really hard to find a book on advertising that doesn't come off as worshipful and jam-packed with debauched ad men and images of half-naked women, or overly critical and almost caustic. These are all attempts to simplify the profession and shove it into a box it doesn't really belong in.

We get a sense that author Mark Tungate has as much of a love/hate relationship with advertising as anybody. Without ignoring or embellishing those feelings, he examines the industry as a chartable landscape with a unique history.

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Hey, Kid. Want Some Manpower Candy?

We got the coolest spam today. Check it out here.

For those too lazy or too distrusting to click, it says:

"Hey, can you make love more that 10 minutes? Yes, you can with our 'manpower candies.' All love enhancers (and many other meds) at one online store!"

We're not really sure what manpower candies are. They sound like a cross between our favourite peppermint treat and Power Thirst. We looked them up on our handy-dandy internets and only found more questions than answers.

method: Pretty Cleaning Products for Hipsters Against Dirty

We really dig method, a company that took it upon itself to develop cleaning products that are non-toxic, easy on the eyes and gentle on the senses.

But probably the biggest reason why we like them is they can push that manifesto in a trendy, almost sexy way.

We recently got an email blast from method under the subject line, "(still) cleans like a mother." Ha-ha, right? We are over this hipster crap. Then we opened it up and saw this.

And we're like, that picture is cute. That copy is clever. Wait, our kids lick tile? (Indeed, they do.) But wow, a method cleaning product does look really good with any decor.

Microsoft Cuckolds the Search Beast with Games of Chicken

Because Microsoft can't drive users to its search engine by merit (recall the Ms. Dewey effort), it's been dangling bait over internet users with various mind games and search-oriented word puzzles.

One such game is Chicktionary, where you try to build as many words as you can with a given set of scrambled letters. Once you engage an ad banner, you're driven to Live Search Club, where your engagement with the game is counted as ongoing use of Live Search.

This is how: each time you use the scrambled letters to make a word, successful words are counted as queries in the search engine, which then brings you its definition.

This and similar games have brought inordinately good tidings to the Microsoft search camp.

Clever.

Chris Crocker Says 'Leave Britney Alone!'

Without containing anything the least bit socially redeeming or having anything at all to do with advertising, we share with you this video of an overwrought Chris Crocker emotionally pleading to everyone to LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! Asking how dare the media make fun of Britney after all she's been through, Crocker spends a full two minutes and 11 seconds crying about how the media makes tons of money off writing crap about Britney.

Freakishly as this message is delivered, Crocker is completely right. Just witness VH1's rehashing tonight of Britney's woes over the past couple of years. Just witness any Britney-related media thrashing. And, yes, we have crapped on her as well. Mea Culpa on that. Will this ever change? Doubtful.

And if you want even more of this, there's apparently a conspiracy theory that goes along with her VMA performance. Her lack luster dance moves were apparently due to...yes...a faulty heel on one of her shoes. And on and on and on it goes...