There was plenty of face time and driving but the agencies were also required to perform in front of one another as each tried to impress the client-to-be, an unheard-of concept in the notoriously competitive ad world. "You don't expect the client in these situations to be creative...that's what they want us for," says Scott Goodson, president of Strawberry Frog, one of the four contenders.

First, each team had to introduce themselves and create interesting name tags on the spot. The team from New York-based Mother put pictures of their actual mothers on tags. Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP) of Sausalito, Calif., in a nod to socially correct recycling and frugality, they riffed, reused plain name tags from a meeting the previous week.

Then each team took turns answering questions that tested improv skills. "If Arnold Schwarzenegger runs for President, who should be his running mate?" went one game question. (Strawberry Frog's team was divided between Sylvester Stallone and Papa Smurf.)

They also were sent out into nasty rainy weather to drive MINI Coopers and go on a kind of scavenger hunt for ideas and props to be used for a scrapbook. The book would tell a MINI story that the agencies and the client would all review over cocktails. Butler Shine's scrapbook centered on a story about a mannequin the team named Darlene, which it snitched from a local electronics store. Darlene and team motored in a MINI to a pumpkin patch, but the caper ended up, for real, with the team being grilled at the local police station. "It was unusual to mix it up with your competitors, but being small and independent, we are all kind of members of the same club," said BSSP Creative Director Michael Shine.

Can't say I've heard anything quite like this, although there are plenty of new biz stories out there.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis for Salon: Mike Jeffries, the 61-year-old CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, is the Willie Wonka of the fashion industry. A quirky perfectionist and control freak, he guards his aspirational brands and his utopian chocolate factory with a highly effective zeal. Those who have worked with him tend to use the same words to describe him: driven, demanding, smart, intense, obsessive-compulsive, eccentric, flamboyant and, depending on whom you talk to, either slightly or very odd. "He's weird and probably insane, but he's also unbelievably driven and brilliant," says a former employee at Paul Harris, a Midwestern women's chain for which Jeffries worked before becoming CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch in 1992.

Examples of his strange behavior abound. According to Business Week, at A&F headquarters Jeffries always goes through revolving doors twice, never passes employees on stairwells, parks his Porsche every day at the same angle in the parking lot (keys between the seats, doors unlocked), and has a pair of "lucky shoes" he wears when reading financial reports.

His biggest obsession, though, is realizing his singular vision of idealized all-American youth. He wants desperately to look like his target customer (the casually flawless college kid), and in that pursuit he has aggressively transformed himself from a classically handsome man into a cartoonish physical specimen: dyed hair, perfectly white teeth, golden tan, bulging biceps, wrinkle-free face, and big, Angelina Jolie lips.

When I ask him how important sex and sexual attraction are in what he calls the "emotional experience" he creates for his customers, he says, "It's almost everything. That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that."

[via Golden Fiddle]

The State of Nevada is attempting to lure more California businesses tired of high taxes, and has started a website called Missing Bear to suggest that even the wild California bears are leaving. From the AP:

"We still think there is a real need there for companies that want a way out. There is an alternative — you can run for the border," said A. Somer Hollingsworth, president of the Nevada Development Authority.

Nevada's new ads — running in newspapers with links to similarly themed Web sites — jokes that even the bear on California's state flag has skedaddled across the state line to Nevada to thrive.

Oversized outdoor ads will be draped on downtown buildings in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Diego.

The $560,000 marketing blitz represents the most recent skirmish in an often-playful border war in which the neighboring states have tried to pilfer jobs from each other. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger once drove a truck down the Las Vegas Strip, offering to move any company to California.

While the aim of the patent is to enable the displaying of MSN style graphics on handsets, they also want managed to patent the delivery of text based emoticon - so presumably sending :) via an SMS - if selected via a dedicated or softkey, would be a breach of the patent in future.

[via The Spunker]

Except for one, it seems: Southfield, Michigan's Doner Worldwide, who does work for Mazda, Six Flags, DuPont, and Blockbuster, among others. They do have donerus.com registered and for use as an email domain.

But no site. Poking around the web the other day, I completely came up empty on a search for Doner. Anyone know why?

What's Next's Pitching Rules for Flaks
Publicists, please paste these to your refrigerator or filing cabinet

1. don't pretend you're not a publicist
2. don't lie
3. if you forget rule 2, refer to rule 1
4. provide an email address from your company, not hotmail, yahoo, or gmail; and a phone number in case I have a question.
5. say who your client is and what you are pitching and why in 200 words or less (preferably much less)
6. if you make a mistake, admit it and move on
7. don't lie
8. pitch me before you give the story to everyone and her dog or don't bother me

[via Adrants]

The spot, shot on location at a palace in Mumbai, India, continues the company's strategy to present its guitars as the ultimate gift. The 30-second execution depicts an opulent Indian celebration. As an empress tries to impress her husband with luxurious gifts ranging from an oil portrait and jewelry to a Rolls Royce, he shows only apathy. When his attention is drawn to a musician playing a Gibson guitar, she commandeers the instrument as the perfect present. The spot closes with the line, "Only a Gibson is good enough."

The Interpublic Group shop enlisted award-winning director Gurinder Chadha (who directed Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice) to shoot the commercial.

The media budget was not disclosed. Gibson of Nashville, Tenn., spent nearly $2.5 million on advertising through November 2005, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

According to their press release, this was the first ever inclusion of a podcast in a film festival, confirming what Arin and Susan have been discovering for the past year—video podcasts are changing the face of filmmaking and are not only an imperative promotional tool but also a new medium for expression.

USA TODAY: Shares of the Mexican-food chain became a hot tamale Thursday on Wall Street when they more than doubled in their first day of trading, gaining $22 to $44.

The stock's smoking first day says as much about initial public offerings as burritos. It's the first time shares of a U.S. company have doubled in their first day since November 2000, when computer-chip maker Transmeta gained 115%, Thomson Financial says.

If any of those Super Bowl viewers read newspapers or listen to talk shows, Fusion's introduction will probably be old news. CVS and a handful of other retailers began promoting Fusion in their free-standing inserts in newspapers last Sunday. And ever since September, when Gillette first unveiled its Fusion razor — or, as the company called it back then, The Future of Shaving — columnists, talk show hosts and bloggers have taken good-natured swipes at the whole idea that the more blades the merrier.

Peter K. Hoffman, president of Gillette's blades and razors unit, insists he is unfazed and predicts Fusion will be a $1 billion product by 2008.

Q. How can someone build a personal brand or image? Is it as simple as wearing bright colored suits?

A. I had a male entrepreneur friend ask me once in a social setting, “Who are you at the office?” I answered, “I am me. The same person you know here. Who are you?” He answered in his usual jovial, fun-loving way, “Oh I’m an -------.” After I picked up my jaw, I realized there are a lot of people who build an image that suits them professionally, but is not consistent with who they are personally. For that reason, I draw a distinction between “building an image” and “living your brand.”

The way to go about “living your brand” is to uncover what you do best and what’s most important to you. Those two things are the primary guideposts for building a strong personal brand. As for wearing shocking pink, if you’re passionate about pink and it’s a genuine reflection of you and what you want to express to the world, it works. The key is authenticity.

The ad features a row of female butts and a headline reading, “25 Pegaditas.” It’s promoting a contest where listeners must name 25 songs in a row for a chance to win cash. The Spanish translation for “pegaditas” is “little ones strung together.” However, some folks (particularly Hispanic women) insist it’s also playing off the word “pegar,” which translates to “hits.” In this case, the dual meanings for “hits” are popular songs and ass slaps. Females United for Action, a primarily Hispanic women’s activist group, has launched a protest. Looks like somebody’s going to get spanked before this is all over.

For the past couple of years, people have sold their used iPods and other music players filled with music on eBay and other auction sites with little notice. But lately, a new breed of seller has popped up, touting like-new iPods jammed full of content — for prices hundreds of dollars more than the cost of an untouched new iPod.

An example from eBay on Monday:

• A 60-gigabyte video iPod loaded with 11,800 songs, with a starting bid of $799. The iPod alone would cost about $400. "I don't see how it's different than selling a used CD," seller Steve Brinn, a Cincinnati pediatrician, wrote in an e-mail to USA TODAY. "If the music industry asked me not to do it, I just wouldn't do it."

After USA TODAY asked eBay about the listing, eBay removed it. "That is a copyright violation, one that we don't even need to hear from the rights owner about before removing," says eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.

According to Media Daily News, lawyers, ad agency execs and a few creative types gathered for the annual Association of National Advertisers' Advertising Law and Business Affairs Conference in New York yesterday, got an earful from Commercial Alert Executive Director Gary Ruskin.

Ruskin, opened his speech by observing that polls show "most Americans really despise what you do."

Later, Ruskin said "Americans are tolerant, but they will reach a point where they will say that's it, they've had enough." Twisting the dagger, he later cited polls to the effect that "your industry is not yet as unpopular as the tobacco industry."

Apparently the criticism came as shock, as the attendees had just finished their mystery meat luncheon, and had not been given ample time to digest.

[via Adrants]