You Mean Luxury and World Peace Go Hand in Hand?

Dentsu, Canada put together this spot -- dubbed its "latest and greatest" -- for the Lexus H. (The H stands for "hybrid".)

You know, no one could ever accuse Lexus of being too flashy. For an upper middle class status symbol, it manages to resist the compulsion amazingly well.

Verizon Creates Reality Show Out of FiOS Installations

In its quest to boot cable out of the home and replace it with FiOS, Verizon has launched a home upgrade reality show of sorts, My Home 2.0, which will be aired on TV as well as the web and include social media concepts such as blogs and YouTube videos. Five families in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh will have a team of techno types come to their homes and outfit it with the latest and greatest Verizon has to offer.

The installations and block parties held in each neighborhood will be recorded and placed on the My Home 2.0 website, YouTube, Facebook and Verizon's FiOS on-demand cable channel.

If a reality show about people living on an island can sustain itself, we suppose a show about people getting new home technology toys could fair just as well.

Second Year of Diversity in Advertising Conferences Announced

With four conferences under it's belt, Business Development Institute has announced plans for its 2008 series of Advertising Industry Diversity Job Fair & Leadership Conferences. Kicking off the series will be the New York event held at NYU February 28. San Francisco, Chicago and an Experienced Hire Diversity Recruiting Program in New York will follow. For more information on the New York event in February, go here.

It's Too Late to Plan Your Funeral After You're Dead

Here's a semi-witty use of a coupon in an ad for an issue that usually doesn't align itself with wit: pre-planned funerals. Even the creative brief is witty, reading, "The truth is, at some point it becomes too late to pre-plan. Why? Because you're dead." Hey, why be coy when you can get right to the point. After all, that's what all good advertising should do.

ACLC Toronto created the campaign for Mount Pleasant Cemetary.

Chivas Celebrates It's 25 With Lucy Liu and Julianne Moore

Lucy Liu and Julianne Moore recently stepped out to celebrate the launch of Chivas 25 at the New York Public Library. What? Hard liquor? A library? Someone definitely gets points for this complete no-sequitor. For those who care, Moore was wearing Lanvin, Fred Leighton jewelry and Roger Vivier shoes and Liu was wearing a Zac Posen dress and shoes and jewelry from Bulgari.

WTF? Did we just write that? Who gives a crap? Certainly not us. Just send us a bottle of the stuff, Chivas, and will give you proper props.

Target Targets Facebook, Social Shoppers Follow

Here it comes... Here it comes... Here it comes... Oh wait, that's another thing. But, still, here it comes. Just as we new it would, marketers have begun to ravage Facebook with their wares. MySpace was turned into an ugly, flashing, digital billboard. Second Life was a silly waste of money. What will Facebook bestow upon marketers and marketers upon Facebook?

Whatever it is, no one will care in six month to a year because there'll be something else gracing that slide in every ad agency's PowerPoint presentation where the new and the cool are recommended because, well, they're new and cool and it makes the agency seem new and cool in front of the marketer and the marketer new and cool in front of its customers and investors. Here today, gone tomorrow Cool and the Cool Hunters who follow the wave are about to hit the speed of light.

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Fallon Explains Creation of Sony's Play-Doh

If you want the back story on the creation of Sony's Play-Doh, you can view the Making Of video here. No mention is made of where the idea for the commercial originated which, depending upon your viewpoint, matters or is completely irrelevant.

Sometimes All It Takes to Send a Message is an Ornery Footballer and a Marker

We probably only think this is funny for two reasons:

1. We like the idea of poking a meaty fat guy into livid confrontation
2. The idea of leaving our mark on somebody's belly in big fat Magic Marker never loses appeal, no matter how old we get

The Hooliganograms are the classy invention of Cake, which is promoting Football Hooligans International, a new series on Discovery. It debuts in Europe this fall.

If it somehow manages to be the emotional trainwreck Footballers' Wives was, it will probably be a success.

Real World Domesticity Tries LV Out for a Change

Believe it or not, there are instances when associating your brand too closely to real life can hurt. This ad for Louis Vuitton is one of them. The clutter on the closely-packed desk, the slightly bent-in LV bag, the visible electrical outlets and empty glasses and open laptop, the rumpled hair and tired but sweet nuzzles -- the whole thing fills us with discomfort.

We're thinking everyday grind, exhaustion, and a longing for this brief moment in the day to last as long as possible before life calls us back to do the dishes. It's a frenetic and agonizing sensation.

What happened to soothingly ethereal Scarlett, or gangster-film angsty Gorbachev? Take us awaaaay.

NYC's Tourism Department Could Use a Little Magic

NYC & Company, which serves as New York's marketing and tourism organization, has launched a component at NYC Visit to help tourists feel more local. For the most part the site is a gigantic press release and if it possesses the rhyme and reason its raving PR people claimed, we're not seeing it.

Anyway, the new tourism effort for the Big Apple kicks off with a series of print ads and a TV spot, all of which are posted at the tourism site.

The print ads are explosions of ... just ... stuff and they all make stark statements: This is Entertainment, This is Fashion, This is Food, This is Shopping, and This is Just Another Day.

For the most part you get a Saks Ad Meets Highlights for Kids feeling.

We're not crazy about it. But hey, maybe the ads are amazing when they're three feet long and accosting you from the side of a building.