Staffblaster Makes Hard-Partying Cogs Look Lively Upon Entry

In lieu of a season's greeting, AIS, London gives us a holiday tool we'd actually like to use.

The Staffblaster attacks dronelike employees -- likely sleepy, hungover and shoddily dressed -- right as they walk through the door (typically between nine and 10 AM).

Must do wonders for morale.

Mullen to Leave Behind Country Manor For City Offices in 2009

A long time coming, Mullen has finally made it official. It's moving it's stately Wenham Massachusetts offices to Boston. Founded in Marblehead Massachusetts by Jim Mullen in 1970, the company then moved to a large mansion in Beverly Massachusetts until 1987 when a fire (which we witnessed from miles away while driving on a nearby highway) destroyed the offices. The company then moved to another mansion in Wenham Massachusetts where another fire, just eight months later, damaged but did not destroy the building. State investigators determined the fire to be arson but a private investigation by Jim Mullen found the fires to accidental.

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Q: Why Don't Creatives Like Working on Property Brochures?

Hitler is one fucked-up agency executive.

This is almost as funny as Hitler gets banned, a homage to his love for the Xbox.

It's great that we've learned to laugh at this icon for human tragedy. But how long before our laughter eases the stigma around the toothbrush mustache? Until an ordinary man can walk about with one, sans persecution, our work is far from done.

Virtual Account Manager Takes Questions -- or Not -- in Absence of Humans

Meet the good for nuffin' Virtual Account Manager for Burns Marketing. He's great at looking like a douche bag and making "What the fuck?" faces when you ask him questions. We despise him because he's essentially a subservient chicken that isn't subservient. He doesn't even try.

The purpose of the VAM is to make people feel like they're being helped, even while Burns Marketing is away for the holidays. Ha ha fuckin' ha!

Deep Focus Bronzes Up for Social Media Use

Deep Focus, which gave us Big Love Land, an informative interview with Mr. T, and embeddable Flight of the Conchords (the cats at left), has just been named an Agency of the Year, courtesy of MediaPost's OMMA.

Read all about it here.

Honors include Best Use of Social Media, for which Deep Focus won the Bronze.

Congrats, guys! Don't let it get to your head and start launching crap CGM campaigns.

Dentsu/Biegel Mud Wrestling Match Continues

And so for Steve Biegel it seems suing Dentsu for forced participation in hot tub action isn't enough. He's now adding religious discrimination to his list of apparent transgressions foisted upon him by the ostensible monsters who run Dentsu. Biegel claims he and other Jewish Dentsu employees were discriminated against based on their religion.

In a statement regarding alleged treatment of Dentsu America President Doug Fidoten, Biegel said, "Defendants have openly discussed firing Mr. Fidoten, as well as removing his responsibilities. Mr. Fidoten is quite literally a token Jew, presented as a fig leaf to hide the simple fact that Mr. Andree and his fellow gentile managers have in one year eliminated every Jew in the creative department at Dentsu."

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Gigantic Marketing Expands Trademark Litigation to Include MDC

In early October, Gigantic Marketing went after MDC Parnters agency WeAreGigantic for trademark infringement. Launched alongside an MDC consolidation of MFP and Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, We Are Gigantic is headed by Neil Powell who formerly was a partner at the now defunct MFP which suffered significant client loss.

Today, after Niel Powell failed to appear two times in front of Magistrate Judge Ellis, Gigantic Marketing President Bernard Urban has expanded its litigation to include WeAreGigantic parent company MDC Partners.

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Shift Control Goes RPG on Second-Gen Company Site

Hey, this is pretty nifty. CT-based Shift Control Media, which builds casual games for marketers, has relaunched its website with help from Vancouver's mod7.

The site vibes like an RPG game: You're an alien exploring human behavior and interning at a Madison Avenue agency. The reading's a little heavy compared with the few instances of action, but then again you get to hear bullshit words like "synergy" from alien ears.

The alien also observes that "all the attractive humanoids work in marketing." Hell yes, little green man.

Ken Convoy Rants Rich About Agency Arrogance

Ken Convoy's got a few agency-ready business models proven to save tons of money and make clients love you more. He can do it all at a fraction of the cost most agencies can, and with less than 10 people involved.

What are these big ideas?

We don't know.

Who is Ken Convoy?

Um ... a dude who runs a one-man agency in Santa Barbara, CA.

But hey, Ken is willing to convey his winning, proven models to any kingpin agency willing to talk to him. The problem is, nobody's passed him more than a few friendly emails, followed by the inevitable brush-off.

In this post right here, Ken (sometimes eloquently) details his attempts to penetrate the iron curtain of "agency arrogance" with zero luck.

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Omnicom Touts Cutting Edge Capabilities...With 2006 Work

This is the perfect time to use George Parker's BDA acronym which stands for Big Dumb Agencies. Adrants reader Lauren tipped us to a story in AdWeek about Omnicom's John Wren touting the holding company's "non-traditional" work.

The story miffed here a bit and she wrote us, "Congratulations Omnicom and welcome to the digital age. This article really bothered me because it seems like the advertising trades are so obsessed with covering any bit of news coming out of holding companies that they are missing the real news, the real trends and maybe even the cool interactive work that's being done now, and not in 2006. And (gasp) maybe, just maybe it's not the holding companies that are ahead of the game this time..."

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