Google Games, 'Time' Troubled, Saatchi 17 Sinks

- Google command over the ad industry may increase even further with the purchase in-game ad company Adscape Media.

- Time Inc. is not having a good time these days as automaker cut $100 million in ad spend across the publisher's titles.

- It would appear the Saatchi 17 are now wishing they never left in the first place haviing just been axed by Interpublic.

Mr. Peanut Sings Deceitful Tune, Stuffs Ballots

We've never been huge fans but Mr. Peanut gets just due for being a longtime symbol of good clean fun in a mixed nuts can. That's why we're sad to be the ones to tell you how easily the 'Nut's integrity can be compromised.

Word on the street is Kraft had Draft FCB run an online vote to freshen up the Mr. Peanut look. Small changes: pocket watch, yea or nay? Cuff links, too Chippendale? But apparently Kraft had a panic attack and made everyone in the Company and at Draft stuff the ballot to ensure Mr. Peanut remains the same stodgy, phallic eyepiece-porting womper he's always been.

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Head Gear Animation Makes Neat Cartoons

This Blistex ad features quirky animation and short, satisfying sound effects. More importantly, it presents the perfect excuse to showcase the spankin' new website for Toronto-based Head Gear Animation, featuring a fresh series of weird bite-sized cartoon campaigns with every reload.

Think Sick Animation but tamer, though after close consideration both serve nearly the same purpose as Head Gear pushes products and services and, these days, so does the once too-cool Sick Animation. Ah well. We all have to sell out to cash in.

Nokia Pits Left Against Right in Push to Start

With the help of Toronto-based agency Lowe Roche, Nokia Canada throws together an awesome Atari-esque campaign called Push to Start, where your left and right hands compete arcade-style for dominance.

The idea suggests Nokia's new one-handed push-to-open feature is so fantastic your hands will be fighting over who gets to nail it again and again. There's a wanking joke in this somewhere but we like the campaign too much to make it.

Crispin Plays at Necromancy for Popcorn King

We don't know what to say about this creepy iPod-wielding Orville Redenbacher resurrection except that we're horrified, and popcorn won't console us. To add insult to injury, it's also badly taped and executed in a manner most shitty.

Turning a childhood icon into a twitchy zombie is the air fluffed foodstuff of nightmares.

Thank Crispin for this work when you're done being paralyzed by fear.

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Agencies, Government Bodies Brainstorm for At-Risk Snot-Nosed Teens

The Ad Council and the US Army join forces, enlisting AdPack to help them encourage teens to stay in school. The result? Boost Up. The gimmick? Branded tissues by Zim-squared (sorry, we can't make that symbol without getting our post all fudgey) for at-risk youth throughout NYC.

That's almost too inspirational for words. You know what? Pencils would have been more useful. Or even green recess balls with good bounce to them. We can't think of anything to say to this mediocre effort besides you guys suck. You would probably have sucked less if you ran these kids over with recruiter vans. And we're almost 99% sure those tissues you're so generously doling out don't come in neat tiki man-shaped boxes, either.

Ass-Plucked Agencies Peck Around Diversity Hiring Puzzle

With nowhere left to run, agencies like Ogilvy are biting the bit and listing goals for minority hiring in '07, which include such ambitions as 16% minority new hires at exec level and 33% at the general level. Interpublic's created a minority incubator to nurture them through those first few payless, sleepless years in agency life. And others, like Arnold Worldwide multicultural programs director Tiffany Warren, are simply prostrating themselves in desperation: "I beg, I plead with [young minorities]: I tell them they'll make a real difference," she says.

Despite best intentions by agencies, however, nobody is out of the clear yet. A major critique of Ogilvy's percentage goals is that agencies can't gauge at the outset who or how many they'll hire, fire and promote in a given year. Additionally, the definition for "minority" is left up to the agencies themselves, meaning for the few who blanket "nonwhites" under the term, women remain an unprotected scarcity. You also get a symptomatic reverse-racism effect that can be awkward for the minority, agency and other employees involved: "You've got to have senior, visible minorities who can act as validation" that the industry has opportunities, says Ogilvy co-CEO Bill Gray.

Awwwwkwaaaaard.

Is there any way merit gets to play into this? Nobody wants to walk around knowing they get the Gucci suit because big O had a minority deficit.

Skeleton Shirts are Neat So Brown Gets Cut Slack

Agency Brown of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada throws together a little Spinal Tap tribute to demonstrate why it's just cooler to be "one louder" than the other cats out there. These are the same guys who did that "we're always on" lightswitch thing that we made fun of last year.

We'll cut them some slack this time because we like that weird skeleton shirt that Nigel Tufnel has on. It's funny the things that endear a campaign to you. We still, however, think Brown can be corny as all hell with this somewhat feeble "toot our own horns" shtick.

DRGM Does Pin-Ups in Drag to Celebrate Women

DRGM Las Vegas celebrates its agency femmes by creating a pin-up calendar of said women - except they're all being parodied by the agency men.

DRGM creative director Bernice Bamburak explains, "[T]hese guys make us look sexier than we are -- did you see the legs on Miss July?" She also notes that clients, who know both the men and women in the agency, love the idea. Last year the women parodied the agency men.

We need to create a compendium of all the ways this pin-up concept has been abused in the name of things like cheese, theatre, coffins and even fat as pets. What happened to the days when things were simple and we just took pictures of girls with pom-poms and team-coordinated bikinis?

Oddcast Launches U-DOO, Another Individuality Widget

Oddcast, the guys responsible for this year's It's Red Again campaign, just launched U-DOO in tangent with MySpace.

U-DOO enables you to create unique user avatars and ringtones for your phone so instead of staring at an image of your buddy with his mouth hanging open every time he calls, you can look at an animated version of him while bobbing your head to his theme song. If there's anything better than that, we might just spontaneously combust, because that's a fate too sweet to miss.

Read more about U-DOO here. It ain't no iPhone but we're sure they'll get along just fine.