On Saturday night, Barbarian Group had the post-ROFLcon VIP party at their Newbury Street offices in Boston. Uber-geekiness ruled. Tron Guy was there. iJustine was there. The Jib Jab crew was there. Evan White was there. MC Frontalot was there. Jason Scott was there. Chuck Norris Fact Generator's Ian Spector was there.
It was like sitting in a high school science lab except every geek was, instead, a star quarterback on the state championship football team.
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- Senior exec Alan Cohen of Interpublic was named US CEO of OMD. Cohen has worked at 20th Century Fox, ABC and NBC.
- Rock stars aren't made. They're mothafuckin' born.
- Here's a Vespa campaign where people's heads are replaced with Vespa S headlights and handlebars. BlotTO gets philosophical about it. And for some reason, we're thinking East London decapitator meets hipster Terminator.
- Think political smear campaigns are bad now? You clearly haven't lived that long. Our favourite: "Millard" is a pussy name. Followed closely by Dykes like Ike. (Look at that smile. How could they not?)
- EPM Comm has published a very expensive brochure to teach marketers about women. Because come on, it's not like you know any real ones.
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So Leo Burnett created a goofy in-house ad to announce its new dress code. It's unclear whether or not it's a joke since attempts at confirmation have...well, failed. The horror of it all is that creatives, usually exempt from any and all dress codes, are required to adhere to the code. So, no more jeans. No more black t-shirts. No more kicks. Say what? Yes, you heard right.
Leo Burnett's creative department will now be able to go to client meetings on their own without being found out by either the client or the AE they will pretend to be just to make up for all those years of being told, "The client won't go for that." And, yes. It's been confirmed a joke.
More and more agencies are realizing that multi-windowed Flashturbation sites are a thing of the past. For good reason. They are useless when it comes to SEO and the simple fact a mistaken click of the browser back button blows you off the site makes them intensely aggravating.
Two years ago, Boston's Hill Holliday adopted a blog-style website. Many other agencies have followed including, recently, the Barbarian Group which, this week, launched a new site repelet with employee blogs and a continuous stream of content.
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Looks like we're in for some more legal wranglings over agency naming. Minneapolis agency Ryan Partnership is changing its name to RPM Connect to "better reflect the firm's expertise in retail and shopper marketing." After the drama over We Are Gigantic and Gigantic Marketing, one has to wonder what JWT's RMG Connect is going to have to say about this one.
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A little bit blog, a little bit news, a little bit portfolio. It's the new Barbarian Group website. Leaving behind the usual agency Flashturbation, Barbarian Group has crafted their site to include employee blogs as well as the usual agency website stuff such as portfolio, capabilities and jobs section. There's also a section called Barbaripedia, an information-rich section of the site that contains everything anyone would want to know about the agency which was the true hero behind Burger King's Subservient Chicken.To use a McDonald's-ism, We're Lovin' It.
- Havas reports a 2.5 percent gain in revenue to $550 million for Q1 2008. What recession?
- Hilary pulls out Osama Bin Laden to help her cause in her close race with Barak Obama.
- These anti-smoking ads make no sense. No sense at all. None whatsoever. Nadda. Zip. Zilch.
If you can't get enough news from CNN, now you can wear the organizations headlines on t-shirts custom printed with headlines you select. UPDATE: Scott from Dribblelass informs the URL can be altered to make up your own headlines.
- Want to get into the ad business? Here's some advice from the board of the VCU Brandcenter.
A source tells us Rosalinda Baez, the woman involved in the JetBlue bomb scare last Tuesday by claiming she had a bomb in her suitcase, is not, as she stated, a Dell consultant but an executive at interactive shop schematic. The shop has not yet responded to a confirm or deny request.
Baez, who was trying to make a JetBlue flight from JFK to Autsin after the gate had closed reportedly a flight attendant, "What if I had a bomb in my bag? Well, I have a bomb in my bag, so are you guys going to turn the plane around cuz I need my bag." Certainly not the smartest thkng a person could do in our post-9/11 world.
Baez's claim caused the plane to be diverted to Richmond where 79 passengers were deplaned while bomb-sniffing dogs examined the plane.
UPDATE: Rosalinda responds in comments.
Any video that ends with "We'll cram our YouTube right into your Facebook," has to at least get shared a little bit. Agency Luckie & Company create a video and an accompanying site, Demand Justice, to celebrate the hiring of a new head of interactive and to poke fun at others (hey, that's what agencies do) who just don't get online marketing.
Created to resemble any one of the millions of cheesy lawyer ads you see on TV during fringe, late night and overnight, the ad features Justice "The Optimizer" Mitchell who confidently promises to "improve whatever crap you're doing online by...some sort of metric." Now that's the sort of honesty we love in an ad agency!
Sassy Richard of kirshenbaum + bond is launching a show on Plum called Creative Lunch. Think Oprah, except people will be picking at food while weighing in on almighty Creativity. Slated guests include Martha Stewart, Matt Lauer, and David and Dylan Lauren.
We've seen Richard talk before. He's mesmerizing, especially when he does that swishy thing with his hair. Also, he never ever capitalizes anything.
Hurry for self-fellating agency heads. Now here is a promotional image of Richard barefoot. (The PR company sent it to us, except 34098343908 times bigger.)
No word yet on the debut of a "k" magazine, featuring Richard on the cover in various states of simper, following the success of the talk show. We're sure they're working on it though.
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