eBay Tattoo Auctions Get High Fashion Treatment

We just love the wittiness of fashion designers and their ad agencies who come up with eBay tattoo auction knock-offs like this ad for Francesco Biasa who, apparently, is trying sell handbags by placing tattoos (likely fake) on the naked bodies of models. Isn't high fashion a beautiful thing?

Benetton Website Does Weird Little Segment on Potatoes

The introductory caption to the current potato-talk segment of BenettonTalk tells us "Potatoes: you probably eat them quite often, but what do you really know about them?" and wins prominence on the homepage over other important topics like the Tripoli Six, deforestation and a little rant about airport security.

The illustrations are cute in a creepy sort of way. We also learn that one does not in fact grow more potatoes by putting a potato into the ground. Potatoes come from seeds. There's an impressive networking fact. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Vehicle Color Choices Likened to Painting Female Body Parts

Apparently to tout the color choices of its vehicles, Susannah Breslin tells us Italian car maker Lancia has launched a site that lets you try out the colors....on the bodies of men and women by choosing a color and then a body part to color. The site's in Italian but Unscathed Corpse has translated directions. Have fun.

New York Daily News Buys Ad In New York Post

In perhaps some sort of inside Advertising Week joke, Rupert Mudoch-owned New York Post is running ads for Mort Zuckerman-owned New York Daily News. Perhaps one of the two lost some sort of bet while comparing who had the hottest girlfriends and wives. Or, perhaps, there's a deal in place for one to buy the other and an over eager ad sales rep jumped the gun on accepting cross-media ads. Or, we're just dumb and there's a perfect good explanation for this.

Independence Cigar Gives Full Body Roll

Hmm. It seems today's edition of Adrants is turning into the all-sex edition. We had Paris Hilton driving drunk and sponsoring a wine-maker. We had girls on ponies playng rugby at the beach for Burger King. Now we have the most blatantly sexual story of all: actual girl on girl sex. Well, not porn-like actual sex but it's close enough and it's from our good old friends Independence Cigar who've always known the best way to roll a cigar. All videos contain nudity. You decide when and here to view.

Wunderman to Save Agency.com Refugees

Usually when something becomes self-referential, that something realizes it's become a parody of itself and it's time to make some big changes. The advertising industry seems to be incapable of that and Wunderman's Career-O-Matic 3,000 (which we think we've seen before) reminds us of that once again. The device helps people find life after advertising because, after all, the industry is going though a paradigm shifting toilet flush as the :30 morphs into a MySpace page, commercials are now called "virals" and agencies (dot com) take their pants off in public so all can see what passes for strategic thinking is just a bunch of people running down the hallway self-importantly shouting, "Corner office! Corner office!"

Creatives Leave, Return, Leave, Return, Leave, Return

We're not exactly sure this is something Minneapolis-based Colle+McVoy should really be all that excited about but since they sent a press release, apparently, they are. For some reason, they're very excited two of their creatives, Mike Caguin and Eric Husband, have returned to the agency for a third time. Returning from Butler Shine Stern and Partners ,Caguin explains the move back saying, "Why are we back? Simple, Colle+McVoy is doing great work and has lots of potential. And we wanted to get back to Minnesota." said Caguin." One does have to wonder about the other half of this equation - why would the pair leave Colle+McVoy three times in the first place since it's, seemingly, such a great place to work?

Subliminal Advertising Makes a Comeback As Spam

The Ambiguously Effective Idea that Just Won't Die is back and nebulous as ever. A stock called TMXO leaped 31% on September 5 after somebody sent out a GIF with one of those wildly appealing messages that you discover in your e-mail twenty-six times a day.

Apparently "stock spam" can artificially spike a stock by 4.9-6 for the average spammer. So why did TMXO do almost five times better? *Sigh* Because of subliminal advertising: that seemingly innocent GIF consists of four frames, only one of which is the message you think you see. The other three spout BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY.

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Be Careful What You Fantasize About In Your Late Night Commercial

Here's a Monday morning eyeopener for you. Having fun with the late night chat line genre, this spot for Epic Cash created by Ken Abraham and Make It Happen Productions is, apparently, supposed to be paradigm shifting. Abraham explains, saing, "For the most part, late-night chat lines and text messaging ads can hardly be considered commercials. That is, of course, if it doesn't pain you to watch worn and weary porn stars fumbling over remedial dialogue like, "Pick up the phone and call me" or "I'm waiting for you." Real art." We not so sure Ken's spot is all that different from late night cheese but we do like the ending.

Yes, It's Another Fist Bump. Tom Ajello Speaks At OMMA

As a featured speaker at MediaPost's Online Media, Marketing & Advertising Conference during Advertising Week next week, one seriously has to wonder if Agency.com Executive Creative Director Tom Ajello will be able to discuss any topic other than his fist bumping Subway Pitch video. I feel for the guy but he really has to take that thug life wool hat off. Anyway, we're not going to be there because MediaPost doesn't like us but feel free to tell us how it goes,