Dear Carat Staff: Layoffs Are Coming. To Everyone Else: Be Nice

These things happen. Everyone's done it. It's just too easy what with all the mailing group features in Outlook that make it so simple to send email to entire groups of people with one click. That's apparently what Carat Chief People Officer (can we stop with these idiotic titles?) Rose Zory did today when she sent an email about upcoming layoffs intended for select senior management to the entire agency.

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Amalgamated Rips 'Virtual Drinking Buddy' Off 'Wrath of Cannes' Winner

You may remember Robbie Wenger. He won the grand prize at Wrath of Cannes -- yeah, that was him licking the statue -- for Virtual Drinking Buddy, a subsite he created for The Knot.

The theme behind Virtual Drinking Buddy was "never be alone again," and toward that end it provided a classy old boozehound that drinks at your side and occasionally even insults you -- just like a real friend.

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Newsflash! Marketers Want Knowledgeable Agencies!

Sapient, who, it seems, hasn't been in the news since the digital boom of 1999, is out with a sponsored study of chief marketing officers which resulted in the creation of a "top ten list for agencies of the future." At the risk of boring you with the details of a study that offers no new insight, here's the list:

1. Greater knowledge of the digital space. (Seriously? That's a stunner!)

2. More use of "pull interactions." (Oh yes they did. They created a new buzzword for social media)

3. Leverage virtual communities. (Apparently, none of the surveyed CMO lived through the Second Life debacle)

4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending. (It would certainly be nice but, in most cases, it's never gonna happen. By definition, most senior management is disconnected from reality.)

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Photographer Claims BBDO Athens Copied Work For Dexim Ad

Old friend The Reverse Cowgirl points to yet another example of an ad agency's use of an artist's work without obtaining permission or providing credit. Writing on Constant Siege, Clayton Cubitt claims BBDO Athens created a direct rip off of photographer Jamie Nelson's work for an ad they did for Dexim. The photo used in the BBDO-created Dexim ad bears a striking resemblance to a photo Nelson took in 2006 and had published on the cover of July/August 2007 issue of Blink.

When contacted, Nelson provided Adrants with an armful of information supporting the notion BBDO Athens did, in fact, closely copy her work. BBDO Athens has been contacted but they have not yet responded. Likely BBDO Athens fully intended to mirror Nelson's work but somehow the permission process was mistakenly overlooked. I'll reserve final judgment until I've made contact with BBDO Athens to hear their side of the story.

UPDATE: We mis-reported (bad source information) the agency in question was BBDO Atlanta. It is actually BBDO Athens. Thanks to Atlanta-based Brent Terrazas for pointing out the error.

Hot Blogger Calendar, 90210 Strip-Searched, Buffy Increases Church Abandonment

- Because what the world needs now is a hot blogger calendar.

- The CW's decided to let advertisers see snippets of 90210's content after all. I guess this means the PTC will be throwing itself a self-congratulatory cocktail party.

- OMG, OMG, a Facebook movie? ...by the co-creator of West Wing? Does that mean there's a parity of significance between Mark Zuckerberg and the ruler of the free world?

- MySpace was the top display ad publisher in June; Microsoft the top display advertiser. Most of its ads were for Live Search.

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Barbarian Group Says the Internet is Awesome

Pondering the question, "Is the Internet awesome?"' Barbarian Group has put together an Easter egg-filled site which, in many different ways, answers the question with a resounding "yes." Oh, and that picture of the bloodied girl on the hospital bed accompanying that story? 420, my friends. 420.

Come On, Big Boy. Pick Up that Magnum and Blow Holes Through Republik.

Bowing to its slogan, "Change or die," North Carolina-based agency The Republik is inviting users to shoot the living crap out of its old website.

Choose from a 44 Magnum, a shotgun or a sniper rifle. The Magnum is by far the most satisfying, and after about 10 hits, a fancy new Republik site appears. It's got a lot going on. Existing projects float across a galaxy of polka-dots, and the top nav is vaguely reminiscent of Modernista, except without all the distractions.

When clicked, a floating dot labeled "don't click here" brings users to an alarmingly red self-promo page. Not a bad gimmick, but gimmicky all the same.

If I had the cash and a cause, would I tap The Republik by merit of its site? At the very least, I'd want to hear them out. I could be wrong, but I think they get it.

Industry Creatives Given Free Reign For Presidential Campiagn Ads

Adweek asked industry creatives to create presidential campaign ads just for fun. While many made excuses as to why it wouldn't be right for them to take part (lack of objectivity, client embarrassment), several were up to the task including Anomaly's Mik Byrne, Butler Shine Stern & Partners's John Butler, Deutsch's Peter Nicholson, Goodby's Jamie Barret, Kaplan Thaler Group's Tom Amico, R/GA's Nick Law, T.A.G's Scott Duchon and TBWA\Chiat\Day's Rob Schwartz.

Some of the concepts centered around Obama's perceived lack of experience, McCain's elderly age and, of course a Paris Hilton take.

Hmm...this prompts a thought. Victoria's Secret versus Frederick's of Hollywood. Any takers?

It's Official: Ad Budgets Will be Reduced

It's about time.This sort-of-but-not-really recession has had everyone talking for, well, years, it seems. Today, we have some meat on the subject. And it isn't tasty. The Association of National Advertisers has released a study citing 53 percent of surveyed marketing executives expect their ad budgets to be reduced withing the next six months and 87 percent are already identifying cutbacks.

Areas cited for cuts are media (69 percent), travel (63 percent), production (63 percent) and new work (61 percent). Of those already planning cutbacks, 50 percent expect a ten percent reduction, 27 percent expect an 11-20 percent reduction and ten percent expect cuts or more than 30 percent.

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Enfatico Now Producing Work For Dell

While Dell's Digital Nomads site has been up for a few weeks, it's only just beginning to receive press. The site is a social media offering for the increasing number of people for whom location has become irrelevant when it comes to work and online life.

Digital Nomads is a blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, a Twitter identity and a YouTube page. While it's been unclear whether or not Enfatico was involved in the creation of the work, an email to Dell Digital Nomad Enterprise Evangelist Bruce Anderson confirmed the agency's involvement. Anderson tells us Enfatico was "involved in the overall layout, design and social-media integration for the site."

With Dell's Richard at Dell having previously made mention to Adrants of work already done by Enfatico, it would seem that knowledge combined with the launch of Digital Nomads, would call for the retirement of that Enfatico countdown clock.