MTV and Radiohead Wish to Remind You There are Kids Making Shoes Overseas

For its song All I Need off the In Rainbows album, Radiohead teamed up with MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) to create a cause-oriented music video.

In the video, two kids -- one American, one Asian -- go about an ordinary day. As all young Asian children do, the latter spends his time in a factory, making shoes. And like all Americans, the former wiles away the afternoon, coloring and looking bored.

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Gay Couple Hopes to Reunite. Go Help.

Founder Tim Coco of agency COCO+CO has launched a personal campaign to get Washington's attention. Apparently his husband Genesio J. Junior Oliveira, Jr. was deported last year after failing to win legal status.

His campaign is called Reunite this Family. The site comes stock with a picture of the happy couple and their dog (just aching for reproduction on a shirt), as well as a ticker keeping track of how many days they have been apart.

If you haven't already guessed, the big indignant thorn in Coco's side is the government's failure to recognize their marriage under the '96 Defense of Marriage Act. Wanna help them out? Go donate money or write a harsh letter to your Senator.

Heroes' Hayden Panettiere Saves Whales With eBay Promotion

Hayden Panettiere, star of NBC's Heroes and whale lover, has signed an endorsement deal with social site Zude and Shopit to sell clothes and raise money for Save the Whales Again, a Whaleman Foundation and Animal Welfare Institute campaign to "create awareness about the industrial slaughter of whales and dolphins."

The effort is getting added awareness with promotional placement on the homepage of eBay which points to a branded eBay page for Save the Whales Again.

As part of the promotion, an auction is being held to raise money with the winning bid (bidder plus five friends) getting tickets to a celebrity fundraiser held at Eva Longoria's Beso restaurant and a whale watching tour with Hayden in the Channel Islands.

Down's Syndrome Sufferers Showcase Their Own Capabilities

For The Prodis Foundation, Vitruvio Leo Burnett demonstrated how versatile children with Down's Syndrome are by letting them put together their own ad.

Well, that's how it was sold to us. The ad is more like a (professionally produced?) patchwork of their everyday activities: laughing with friends, winning karate trophies, going dancing, etc.

The video's about two minutes long and quite moving, though it's probably more so when you understand what's being said. In any case, it won an ADC Gold Cube in Corbis' Search for Justice awards show.

Get a Trashbag and Some Lipgloss. You're Going to a Recycling Party!

Hungry Man TV is throwing an RSVP-only party for Internet Week, NY.

The theme is "Out with the Old." Attendees are encouraged to bring old mobile phones, mp3 players, digicams and other electronics for recycling.

Nifty idea. And come on, it's not like museums are falling all over themselves to pay for your mint-condition sports WalkMan.

Asthma Attack Powerfully Delivered

Along the lines of Meth and workplace safety ads, this commercial for the American Asthma Foundation dramatically illustrates what it's like to experience an asthma attack. It's not pleasant and the commercial does a perfect job making the point.

Missing Soldiers Put Internet at Standstill

This campaign won a Gold Clio in the Content & Contact category.

To commemorate Ehud Goldwasser, Gilad Shalit and Eldad Regev, Israeli soldiers abducted by Hezbollah on July 12 of '06, Y&R/Tel Aviv asked major sites to shut down for five minutes on July 12, '07. For that short period of time, each page aired this message.

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Support Barbarian Group's Eva McCloskey With Your Vote

Occasionally, important events present themselves which call for the entire advertising industry to band together as one unstoppable force with the sole mission of advancing a worthy cause and doing good for all human kind. One such event has presented itself today requires our complete attention and participation.

What is this important cause? Why the voting for Barbarian Group's own Eva McCloskey as Boston Magazine's Most Wanted Single, of course! What? Did you think we as an industry were going to participate in that Cannes Humanitarian Lion thing and solve all the world's ills? Of course not. That's way too much work. A simple hottie contest is much more our style so please, do your part. Vote for Eva and represent!

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'What's This? Oh. It's a Body, Bloated in the Sun'

Somewhere in the bowels of my memory is a man with a 'fro, a soothing voice and a paintbrush. As a kid I watched him on TV, mesmerized as he effortlessly whispered magic onto his canvas.

Right about now, though, I'm wondering whether those gripping pastures and endless telephone lines were not actually thinly-veiled and mildly traumatic messages about ethnic cleansing.

I like how at the end he gets all sinister and hisses, "We're almost done here, aren't we? No. It's never done."

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BlogAds Explained, Congdon Returns, Idol Awesomed, Mullen Gets Relentless

- Saatchi Singapore adds what AdFreak calls a bit of Evil Dead to a domestic abuse campaign which focuses on verbal abuse.

- Rocketboom's Amanda Condonn is back after a two year stint with mainstream media with a new video show of her own called Sometimes Daily. (Did you get a nose job, Amanda?)

- Advertising Age's Simon Dumenco rounds up the top seven "most awesomest" American Idol moments of this season.

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