It's A Fake, Fake, Fake, Fake World

Have you ever walked around the city and wondered whether or not your the only person there and the rest of the city is just one giant prop? No? Well the guy in this Barclays commercial does. That is until he bumps into a Barclays bank and all his worts nightmares are eradicated. Why? Because Barclays has substance in a world of financial insecurity. Or so they say.

Bill Posters Are Ugly. Except the Ones Created by Ad Agencies

Remember when the whole anti-graffiti thing was all the rage with marketers trying to hire graffiti artists to "bomb" their brand all over the place? Well its back. OK, not really but here's a twist on the whole thing.

In Australia, there's an apparent bill posting problem causing undue visual pollution. Making matters worse are the ugly signs telling people bill posting is not appreciated. Well, always the category of company to put its mark on something, an ad agency has come to the rescue.

Happy Soldiers has taken it upon itself to rid the urban environment of bill posting and the ugly posters decrying it. How? With more postings, of course. But, this being the work of an ad agency, these are no ugly postings. Nope.

Have a look.

Brands Go Green For Rain Forest

Last week in London's Piccadilly Circus, St Trinian star Talulah Riley posed in front of new Princess Rainforest Project billboards which feature an animated frog. Riley virtually kissed the frog from afar optical allusion-style.

McDonald's and Coke are supporters of the effort. The Coke sign tuns green and shows the faces of Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Kermit the Frog.

Other campiagn elements include MySpace (???), Facebook and Twitter.

London's Cake Group created the campaign. See images here, here and here.

North Korea On Its Way Towards Mud Wrestling Beer Babes

As quirky (by our standards) as a Japanese commercial, brewer Taedonggang has launched North Korea's first beer commercial. The two-and-a-half minute commercial touts the beer as the new look of Pyongyang and that it will ease stress - not a bad selling point for a country which appears to have a lot of stress going on inside it.

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A Unique 'Stream' Will Get You Noticed

Italian retailer Police has cast aside boredom and done something unique to find its next spokesmodel. With a very strange video in which a dude power-urinates all over the place, people are encouraged to submit their photo along with reasons why they are "younique." Others can vote for their favorites every two weeks until sixty finalists have been selected. Final selection by the retailer and its creative agency will occur in September. The winner will appear in the Be Younique 2010 ad campaign.

How Younique are you?

Top Ten Ironic Ads Highlighted

- The Consumerist has a list of the top ten ironic ads including Dutch Boy touting lead paint, James Dean promoting safe driving in a PSA and Union Carbide promising to build a new India.

- Want to win a trip to Hawaii? Enter Pacifico beer's Epic Adventure Photo contest.

- Did you know that you - yes, you - are killing YouTube. Why? because you are a cheap, greedy bastard.

- Want some free ideas? Bald Guy is giving them away here.

How SEO Killed the Corn Farmer

SEO? Say What? Yea, search engine optimization. Heard of it? No? Well if you haven't, you don't know much about online marketing. But that doesn't really matter because OneUpWeb does know that they can help those that don't.

So how does an SEO company talk about the mundane aspects of far-from-Cannes but more-meaningful-than-Cannes marketing tactics? It creates an eight chapter video, of course. And that's what How SEO Killed the Corn Farmer is all about.

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If That 'We Are A Family' Agency Crap Were True...

Imagine an "agency as family" meeting at your shop. Now imagine it taking place at the dinner table with your family. It might go something like this as envisioned by Please Feed the Animals' Erik Proulx:

"I've called this Proulx family meeting with some unfortunate news. As you know, we've just lost our main source of revenue - my job - so we had to make some tough decisions. Ben, as the eldest child you can stay but with 33% fewer meals. Clara, I'm sorry to say, your position as a child in this household has been deemed redundant. Since you were the last in, we thought it fair that Ben keep his position as Proulx spawn. However, because you have been here for 3 years, you qualify for a severance package, which includes placement assistance into a foster family. Feel free to use me as a reference. Really, I mean that. And thank you for all your cuteness and unconditional love. Best of luck."

Ah, the brutality of working in the ad industry.

Much Ado About Twitter. And Why Everyone Needs to Calm Down

So Advertising Age is all over agencies today for their use (or lack thereof) of Twitter. A destined to be classic quote from a Euro RSCG spokesperson reads, "We're developing our Twitter strategy and in the meantime want to hold onto the name. It's a Catch-22: You don't want your Twitter handle stolen, but you also don't want to start using it before you're really ready."

On the one hand, all well and good. No one wants to make a fool of themselves. On the other hand, this is not rocket science. Certainly it's easier for a random individual to join Twitter and use it any way they see fit. That, however, is not entirely the case for a brand, an agency or an agency representing a brand.

While the wonderful world of social media is, as everyone insists, supposed to be one gigantic, happy conversation, brands, because they are more than one person, need an agreed upon approach to using the medium. But that doesn't mean they have to over engineer it or have every last detail of that "strategy" in place before they dip their toe.

Why? Because you can't develop a "strategy" unless you know the medium and you can't know the medium unless you use it. Yes, it is a bit of a Catch-22 but the Catch-22, itself, is a Catch-22.

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It's Amazing What Ruffles Can Do For Your Imagination

Honest.This is just your average, run-of-the-mill potato chip commercial. You know. The one where a guy puts on a strange head contraption and begins to fantasize about women unclasping their bra, jumping up and down on a bed, dancing in a thong, playing with stuffed animals, sticking her tongue out at you and...getting an x-ray while wearing lingerie.

Yea, that kind of commercial. Nothing special here. Move right along people.