Well, that didn’t happen

Sadly, our attempt to capture gold in the Cannes Young Lions: Team USA competition has failed. Below is our submission entitled “Imaginary Food”. Have a look and see if you agree with the judges.

You can see an alternate cut of this spot here, check out our print submission here, or view all of the other entries here.

I wouldn’t expect the same thing to happen with the Macbook Air. For one thing, modern pants technology does not allow for people to put full-sized laptops in their pants pockets. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see companies like Marware coming out with some sort of rubber-skin-laptop-protectors. If all else fails, you can always use a Manila envelope.

As a Facebook convert, I rarely check my Myspace account anymore. Recently, when I have logged on, I’ve been greeted by numerous suspect messages and comments. What is most alarming is that these messages aren’t coming from nameless fictional teenage girls (we’ve all grown to see through those) but from my own, real, flesh and blood, friends who’s accounts have been hacked.

These messages have been becoming increasingly frequent. This morning I got a message from a friend of mine asking me to ignore any messages coming from him about classmates of ours having been murdered. I didn’t ask questions. I just went to my preferences and deleted my account.

Myspace had better do something about this problem, and soon. In the meantime, for anyone not trying to screw me with a false coupon scam or bogus sex site, you can find me on Facebook.

Much to the dismay of my coworkers and more specifically, my office mate, I am known to wear flip flops to work in the Summer. In the Fall, perhaps even in early September, I push them to the back of the closet and they are replaced with more weather appropriate footwear. Perhaps L.L. Bean was thinking of me. Perhaps they felt bad for me. Maybe they wanted me to be able to wear Flip-Flops all year long! I can’t imagine any other reason why they would unleash these Shearling Flip-Flops on the world.

Shearling Flip-Flops? Really? Are there people out there thinking “I really want my feat to be warm, but I really love my new pedicure and I’d hate for it to go to waste!” Apparently L.L. Bean thinks so! They’ve bought prime real estate on the front page of CNN.com to advertise them!

Well, luckily there is still time before Christmas. If you hurry you may be able to snag a pair for yourself after you’ve gotten a pair for everyone else on your list. They will go perfectly with your Irish wool wetsuit!

Here are 15 of our greatest success stories:

Victoria Secret. Anything Less Would Be Uncivilized.

Is it live, or is it beef?

Dow Chemical, Rip. Mix. Burn

Between love and madness lies iPhone.

Why ask why? Try Viagra.

Depends Adult Diapers. For those who think young.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. Paxil CR.

Wikipedia. You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers.

Only you can prevent Microsoft Office.

Timberland Boots kill bugs dead.

Syrup of ipecac, taste the rainbow.

Don’t you wish everything was made like Gatorade?

Like a good neighbor, Mexico is there.

Zanex. Think Different.

We’ve done what we can, but we could always use your help. Post yours below.

Remember, do it for the tag-lines.

-TTRP

Is it just me, or does the recent campaign for Lotus Notes 8 bear a striking resemblance to the serial identity for Cliff Freeman Design? I’ll let you be the judge.

Unfortunately, any type of conceptual ad or headline was next to impossible to pull off. Usually it would end up being something like “Rumble in the Big Easy” or “Come On, Feel The Heat!” This was because we couldn’t't focus on any particular athlete. If someone became injured, or sucker-punched a fan, or killed a bunch of pit-bulls in a backyard dog fighting ring, we needed to have alternate images to swap out at the last minute. That way we wouldn’t run an ad that would garner bad publicity for the event, or show an athlete who wasn’t actually playing that night. On occasion, these changes would be made several hours after the newspaper’s “drop dead” deadline.During hockey season, we would occasionally have to go to our fourth or fifth alternate.

Fashion runs on a totally different time-line. Back in my sports promo days, I would look at people working on fashion and cosmetic accounts with serious envy. These people might be working four, five, maybe even six months in advance of their deadlines. By the time the fall season was here, the ads for the following spring season where already of being retouched and polished up. For an over worked, ulcered guy like myself, that sounded like a huge improvement!

Now, I’ve never worked for a fashion magazine, but its  easy to imagine that they work on a similar time-line. So I guess it isn’t so surprising that a coked-up jail-bound drunk with her career firmly in the crapper is gracing the cover of one of the nation’s most prestigious fashion magazines.

As I walked to work this morning past the ritzy section surrounding Carnegie Hall, I noticed a phone booth ad proudly displaying the September issue of ELLE magazine. There, in all of her freckled glory, was none other than Ms. Mean Girls herself, Lindsay Lohan. One might think that ELLE is taking risks by placing a human lighting rod like Lindsay on their cover, but I tend to think that decision was made a long time ago. Back before her May drunk driving arrest or her stint in rehab. Before her latest movie tanked or her July re-arrest. I’m talking way back in the salad days when the lovable star of Parent Trap was starting to show herself to be a true movie star.

Perhaps ELLE could learn something from the USA Today sports section.

Enjoy.

If you are looking for effective widgets, check out the one below from the Superbad site. Or check out that funky clock in my sidebar. Both are good examples. More companies are going to catch on, and then you can expect a flood of this kind of advertising. Most of them will be awful, but hopefully a few will be truly remarkable. Enjoy.

P.s. Sites that have widgets on facebook are seeing huge increases in traffic. Check out Quantcast’s recent report on the facebook effect.