The Brooklyn Brothers‘ mission to cut through the crap that is any brand’s “intended image” is one that will inevitably cure the quarter-inch, 15-second attention span that most of us have formed to protect us from bombardment. Every one of the spots from the ‘Music Is…’ campaign for Fuse TV is conceptually simple, honest, and totally engaging visually. Ranging from film to animation, there is no strict stylistic theme within the collection aside from the tagline, yet each invokes a similar feeling of fleeting delight. My personal favorite is ‘Music Is a Time Machine’ (I’m a sucker for a tight beatbox).

We don't mention McDonald’s too much on this blog (aside from a few snide comments here and there), but a new billboard in Chicago - masterminded by Micky D’s ad agency Leo Burnett - recently got our attention. To promote McDonalds’ “Fresh” Salads, they let lettuce (yes, the real stuff) grow from the sign for three weeks to spell out "Fresh Salad." We have to admit– a very original take on a timeless, and otherwise plain vanilla advertising medium. We’re not asking you to eat there, but anyone in Chicago that has seen this living billboard should let us know how it looks up close.

Via Azsustainability

Let’s play a little word association. When we say Noah Brier what do you think of? A man? Yes (we think). A blog? Not bad. A man with a blog dedicated to finding out what word connotations people associate with global brands from Apple to VH1? Well, that’s not exactly one word, but it is correct. Noah has set up a little psychological experiment called Brand Tags that’s been gaining steam across the Interwebs. He flashes a corporate logo, you shout out a word. Those choice phrases show up in a tag cloud that yields some interesting results. Of course you have your requisite idiots piping in with Sucks, Lame, Capitalist Assholes … but you also get some intuitive feedback in between the garbage responses. Although the architect is quick to point out there are no wrong answers, we say the people putting in “gay” for every brand is doing the site a disservice. (Unless you were talking about Bravo!)

Luxury. Binary. Juice. Is there a limit on what people will pay to nourish themselves through the medium of fruit juice (and, um, nutritional gel)? It seems as though MonaVie has set out to answer that question — a little social experiment if you will. “Let’s pack 19 fruits into a wine bottle (including acaí — wooo!), chalk it up to the Balance-Variety-Moderation philosophy, and charge about $45 per bottle.” MonaVie has been around for a few years now, but I just heard about it. Given that it is sold through a MLM (multiple level marketing) system, that doesn’t surprise me … maybe those peddling it are too ashamed to announce the price to potential customers. At any rate, I (reluctantly) can’t wait to try the stuff. Hopefully it’s coming to a martini bar near me someday soon.

I have a couple of questions for our readers: (1) Have any of you tried the juice? (2) What are your thoughts about products sold this way (is it an automatic turn-off or do you let the quality of the product speak for itself)?

It seems like the last thing the world needs now is a new brand of spring water. But if it’s being sold by a puppet dancing to Snap’s “Rhythm is A Dancer,” the folks at Drench spring water have me convinced otherwise. Their minute-and-a-half-long masterwork of a commercial, created by the U.K.’s Chi Advertising, is so exhilaratingly funny that it makes us thirsty for more. The ad features a hydrated hipster (aka Brains from Thunderbirds) who could just as easily serve you some Drench or serve you on the dance floor. We’d go with the former … that puppet’s pretty talented.

via Brand New

It would be in a product design powerhouse’s best interest to develop a Website that matched their creative aptitude. That would explain why U.K. based Seymour Powell has put together a simple, but very effective way of communicating their message — in seven clicks. As the pile dwindles down you learn there have been 1561 projects, 583 products, 136 clients, 38 awards, 23 years in business, 7 company directors, 5 main disciplines, 1 vision…oh, and a partridge in a pear tree. All of this is done with a dynamic stack of cards that, as the pile dwindles, the achievements are displayed in the scattered pieces. It impressed us, we thought you might want to check it out as well.

A month ago we wandered into the Magic City of Miami, Florida as Fallon London and Sony were creating a little magic of their own. The UK based ad agency teamed up with director Simon Ratigan to turn the “Magic City” into a foam city to illustrate that Sony’s digital imaging products create ‘images like no other.” Well, a month has passed and we’ve been waiting with bated breath to have our breath taken away by the commercial resulting from the shoot. Well, that day has finally come and after taking a gander at the 60-second spot complete with music created specially for the campaign by Warren Ellis of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds fame, we can say that it’s all we hoped it could be and more. You don’t have to take our word for it though. We suggest you witness this visual feast for yourself…and if you find yourself clamoring for more unique images of the shoot, courtesy of Sony’s line of digital imaging products, you can check out some more behind the scenes action at their site.

What do we mean when we say someone has character? Do we mean they’re smart? That they look distinguished? Or maybe they’re quirky? Sometimes it could be all of those things or in the case of some corporate entities, it could mean that they’ve hired San Francisco-based creative agency, Character to extend and rejuvenate their brand. Founded by Benjamin Pham, Tish Evangelista, and Rishi Shourie in 1999, the agency has since worked high profile clients as Nike, Levi’s, Restoration Hardware, Kohler and Pottery Barn on everything from packaging to brand identity. While they were busy giving other companies the once over, Character figured they should throw themselves a little re-branding shindig. The result? A brand new website that adds just the right amount of character for the folks at Character.

Ji Lee wants little people to live on your ceiling. We think you should let him. After all, he’s the guy who gave New York the Bubble Project. The newest project from the guerrilla artist/ad man is Parallel World, a tiny musician’s living room where, ostensibly, tiny musicians come to write tiny AAA radio hits. You may know Lee’s “legitimate” work (he’s done ad campaigns for Cheerios, Tylenol, and Monster.com, as well as logos for New Museum and the Tap Project), but these vertical dioramas are just one of a number of independent projects he’s posted on his site. If you’re looking for some inspiration, commissioned scenes have already included rooms, ski slopes, art museums, and disaster scenes. Personally, we think a tiny Three Mile Island would really be lovely in the rec room.

The ability to watch our favorite shows on the Internet has been a blessing to many folks who don’t have the time to catch their stories at the regular time they’re on. Anyone with the Internet can watch an episode of 30 Rock at their leisure, but unlike DVR, the Internet doesn’t always offer viewers the opportunity to skip those pesky commercials. The folks at Overlay.TV have come up with a solution for this promotional problem. Instead of getting rid of advertisements altogether, The interactive media startup out of Ottawa’s alternative is to integrate them into the program, via clickable product placement and information within the video player’s real estate, which appears throughout the course of the video. The site allows for ‘internet users, content owners and e-commerce sites to monetize and customize their video assets by overlaying contextual information directly onto online video content and linking to external websites.’ For instance, if you like a character’s backpack, you could click on it and find out where to buy it. If that’s not friendly to viewer and corporate behemoth alike then what, pray tell, is?

I'm a tad bit afraid of even mentioning a certain Tom Cruise-related church in this post for fear of perpetuating my own disappearance. Perhaps my cojones aren't as big as the folks at Barkley, the Missouri-based ad agency who in efforts to promote their Summer 2008 internship program or ‘Mentorship’, created a sublime send-up of those who bow at the altar of L.Ron. Their star-laden site features a video testimonial trumpeting the "good cult" atmosphere at their agency and the virtues of their leader B.Doug Brooker. Ultimately the goal of the site is to recruit some brand new talent to their advertising cult who'd like to achieve a whole other level of understanding what the advertising game is all about. We just hope Tom & Company don't take this the wrong way, and we never end up hearing from the brilliant folks at Barkley again. Did we mention how much we loved A Few Good Men?

Sony's digital imaging branch sure has a history of wondrously eccentric and eye-catching ad campaigns. Over the last several years they've dropped 250,000 super balls down a San Francisco street, exploded 17,000 liters of paint in Glasgow, and most recently used two and half tons of Play Doh to have bunnies invade a New York City square. It should come as no surprise then, that their next campaign is just as if not more monolithic than their previous efforts.

When the folks at Fallon London and Sony approached the film friendly city of Miami to see if they could fill a few downtown blocks with foam for their latest ad campaign, city officials thought they were joking. Rest assured, this was no joke. We saw it with our own eyes. Over the last several days a team consisting of 150 crew people (eighteen on foam detail) led by director HLA's Simon Ratigan, took several city blocks by storm, or foam rather. With the help of the world's biggest foam machine, capable of churning out two million liters of foam per minute and filling an Olympic sized pool in twenty-four seconds, Miami was turned into Foam City.

The idea behind the Foam City ad campaign is that bubbles are beautiful, but it's extremely hard to capture that beauty in an image. However, since the latest in Sony's digital imaging arsenal, including the new Alpha 350 with tilt screen, CybershotW175 with smile shutter, and HD Handycam, specialize in ‘capturing images like no other’ we can finally see bubbles the way they're meant to be seen or in a larger sense any truly unique moment. How's 200 locals wading around a city block covered in foam taking pictures with the latest Sony gear for a unique moment?

In addition to the 80,000 plus feet of film shot for the campaign, the commercials will also feature images shot by those wandering through the sea of suds, as well as the documentary filmmaker on hand. We know you can't wait to see the finished product, neither can we. However, we're all going to have to wait until the staggered release of the various incarnations of the ad, set to debut in the Spring and Early Summer. Until then, you'll just have to be satisfied with the images we snapped while on the shoot.

I remember walking into A Salt and Battery the first year I lived in New York, and having heart palpitations when I discovered that at Easter, they do deep fried Cadbury Créme Eggs. As disgusting as that sounds, you shouldn’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I was transported back to that memory just now, when I was mucking around on the Goo-ology website, and watching a series of disturbed Creme Eggs seeking help for their mental problems and suicidal tendencies. Those eggs managed to escape vats of hot oil, though. Go give Eggs & Ladders a play, watch the brilliant UK ad spots under the ‘Fantasties’ section, and when you can’t stand it anymore, rest assured any Duane Reade or Rite Aid will have at least half a million of them in stock already.

So what exactly is the sound of color? Gap and San Francisco-based Rehab asked this question to five bands, who each wrote corresponding tracks for Sound of Color. The pieces were then handed off to different directors who were allowed complete creative control over the videos they produced. The result is a diverse and — pun alert! — colorful soundtrack to accompany Gap’s Spring ‘08 line. Read more of the director’s commentary over at Creative Review.

Old Macdonald had a farm E-I-E-I-O...and on that farm he had some really creative individuals...E-I-E-I...Wait. Something tells us this isn't exactly Old Macdonald's farm. We seemed to have stumbled into the 400 year-old farm house that the creative advertising/PR/Marketing and New Media firm Rees Bradley Hepburn calls their office. The Warwickshire, England home base is far from the hustle and bustle of London and allows for the inspiration of wide open spaces to permeate the creative minds of around 120 employees who have been driven to create better work for the likes of Jaguar, Landrover, and Computeach; not to mention their own super awesome website that celebrates their farm roots. Rees Bradley and Hepburn's body of work proves that you should never underestimate the value of fresh air.