French Vogue's set off the sensitivity meter with its decision to paint Dutch model Lara Stone black for the October issue.
Another thing that bears mentioning, if only for its strangeness: after painting Stone brown, the makeup artist painted parts of her white again for some shots.
This is racking up the usual stink about racism in advertising (Birth of a Nation comes, unbeckoned, to mind). Commentary ranges from "Why not just use an African model?!!" to arguments that the move is a statement on the complexity of race and identity. Some people also think this is a knee-jerk reaction; one user observed that the rag once dressed a woman up as a man, and nobody complained.
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Ford evangelist Scott Monty's sent us some stats on the progress of Ford's Fiesta Movement, whereby 100 social "agents" drive around the country in Euro-spec Fiestas and complete appealing monthly missions related to volunteerism, adventure, style and design.
The results of the missions are broadcast on YouTube, flickr, Facebook and Twitter.
According to Monty et al., brand awareness for the Fiesta has risen to the equivalent of models that have been on the market for two to three years.
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Black Eyed Peas partnered with Oprah to celebrate the 24th season of her show, which sought to drum up viewership with big kick-off fetes on Michigan Ave.
The pop band sang I Gotta Feeling onstage while a humongous crowd performed a flashmob dance routine on the floor.
We watched with polite interest, having been forced to watch many a flashmob over the past coupla months (especially since the death of MJ), and were left with three as-yet-unanswered questions.
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Never mind Birkin bags and pretty scarves. The object at left is a new and insanely luxurious piece of social currency dubbed WHY -- the Wally Hermes Yacht. Outfitted with 900 meters squared of thermophotovoltaic panels (that's their way of saying it's also green), it was designed in partnership with Hermes and a company called Wally, which specializes in futuristic boats and yachts.
The pricey contentment-eating boat porn was dropped into our laps by Wisey, author of The Digestif, who told us that WHY takes Hermes' luxury ethos to a new level: don't just sport your means around your neck or on your arm: LIVE INSIDE IT. Alongside whales or off the coast of Greece!
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Crush/Toronto, a master at taking a book's soul and turning it into pop art, drew us into the bosom of Douglas Coupland's The Gum Thief in 2007.
This year it's doing the same for Coupland's latest novel, Generation A. The approach is different: more existential, with some Tarantino pulp thrown in.
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"A lot of these "facts" are classic examples of how to lie with statistics."
"Brilliant collection of stats, the evidence seems to be compelling. Top sound track to so many thanks to you and Fat Boy Slim for an uplifting five minutes:)"
Had enough social media charts? Not so fast, this is the net--it won't ever run out of those. Welcome to the Social Media Revolution. (Maybe after reviewing it this is why Ad Contrarian is calling it quits for now.) It's ambitious factoids supposedly backed up by a ton of sources, but as with anything 2.0, there's just too many ways to look at data like this and still sound right. Regardless, those two comments pretty much sum up the two opposing camps of this brief look at social networks and internet trends. It's got a Web 2.0 proprietary name though: Socialnomics!
All I'm saying is, credit for not doing the enlarged rotating type thing.
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Impressive if a little in-your-face. With help from SheKnows, Deep Focus and VideoEgg, NYC-based creative producer Fred Ehrhard used video banner ads, a Diggable top-10 list and Twitter hashtags to convince his girlfriend to marry him.
In the event that you want to help the stalwart Fred along, use the hashtag #sayyesD to tell Delila, the girl in question, why she should weld her life to his FOREVAH. Handy-dandy twitter search, however, has informed us that she's accepted, so now y'all can stop stressing about the additional work that's been imposed on the hive mind.
Wondering if this is the last we'll hear about Delila and Fred. Probably not. We can see the Caturday headlines now: IM IN UR SOCNETS, ARRANGING UR MARRIAGE!
Adrants reader Gareth sent over Levi's tribute to Senator Edward Kennedy. It appeared in the Sunday editions of the Times and the Globe and sports a rambling and whimsical quote from the Sen. ("The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die"), then a message from Levi's itself: "Let us continue his legacy of faith in the people and faith in the work that has yet to be done."
Wordy but loaded with gravity. We like that it remains sparing and casual; apart from the text, a hand-sketched version of the Levi's logo appears over its current tagline: "Go forth," part of a campaign primarily targeted to meatheads at uni.
The ad reminds us of Kenneth Cole's "Different Shoes" campaign, and it's a wonder to us that KC hasn't seized this opportunity to add Kennedy to its list of creative-friendly quotables.
It could just be that we didn't look hard enough though, so if we're wrong, send that bad-boy over.
If you've ever played a massive multiplayer online game -- or at least watched that one episode of South Park -- then you're well-versed in the frustrations of laggage.
Lag is when you're in a crucial scenario in the game, but a crappy connection speed leaves your character in a vulnerable position just long enough to compromise you and your team.
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- Hey, little girl, feel better about your period.
- Joy it forward. Every time a beverage uses a happiness synonym that's not "happiness" (as in Happiness Factory), you can reasonably conclude you're dealing with Pepsi.
- "People like it, but they won't buy magazines with large women in them." More story here, props to MTLB for the link.
- Zippo makes branded entertainment leap.
- Intern-on-intern music video mayhem.
- Twitter elevator pitch contest. You have until tomorrow to enter and win a Flip!
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