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Is Olive Garden's New Logo as Wretched as Everyone Says?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 14:17

If you thought Olive Garden's logo couldn't get any worse, you were wrong. On Monday, the Darden-owned restaurant chain unveiled a brand refresh. The perplexing cluster of grapes that graced Olive Garden's logo for a decade and a half has devolved into a twiggy branch that appears to be an unfortunate shade of chartreuse. The previous tacky pseudo-script laying out the chain's name has become a font that's even more half-baked.

Agency Poaches Talent by Mailing Out Books With a Phone Hidden Inside

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 14:12

Ah, it's the old hollowed-out-book-with-a-phone-in-it trick! FP7 in Dubai got smart by taking a novel approach to avoid hefty headhunter fees. The shop placed cellphones inside die-cut, faux ad industry books and mailed the volumes to creatives it wished to hire. The volumes were impressively designed and personalized to match each recruit's interests. (The one using Coke's colors and type style, promising guidance for "Creating Campaigns for the Coolest Brands on the Planet," is especially impressive.

Watch This Woman Become a Man to Protest Unequal Pay in Sweden

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 12:16

We've seen plenty of women get makeovers in advertising lately—either in pursuit of some market-driven ideal of beauty, or in critique of same. In this video, though, a woman is transformed for a different purpose. Annelie Nordström, chairwoman of Kommunal, Sweden's biggest union, as made over as a man to protest unequal salaries between men and women in the country. It's all a stunt for International Women's Day this Saturday.

Tetley Tea Keeps Changing With the Times

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 10:51

In the wide world of corporate bromides, “evolve or die” is one of the most enduring. It holds true for e-commerce. It certainly applies to personal electronics. And apparently, it’s also true for tea. Make that Tetley Tea. While tea leaves themselves have changed not at all in 4,000 years of consumption, these 1957 and late 2013 ads show just how flexible this heritage brand—now in its 177th year of business—has had to be.

This Agency Develops New Brand Categories

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 10:50

Specs Who (From left) Michael Lastoria, managing partner; Ashley Heather, co-president, chief digital officer; Sarrah Hallock, co-president, COO; and Doug Jacob, CEO What Digitally focused ad agency concentrating on fashion, beauty and lifestyle Where New York office Doug Jacob, who helped develop the New York nightclub Tenjune, says his experience launching such hot spots provided a great entrée to advertising, informing the creation of the shop JWalk

Medical Pot's First Legitimate TV Ad Still Looks Pretty Sketchy

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 03/05/2014 - 19:09

What's being billed as network TV's first medical marijuana commercial is running in New Jersey this month, and soon this sad little ad will reach Chicago and Massachusetts as well. The spot is for Marijuana Doctors, a medical Marijuana provider that links patients with doctors who are able to prescribe it.

Three Years Later, We Finally Have a Brutally Powerful Ad About the Crisis in Syria

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 03/05/2014 - 16:46

For PSA campaigns aimed at getting people to help the children of Syria, job one is making the crisis feel immediate rather than remote. Last month's hidden-camera stunt in Norway, in which a child sat freezing without a coat at a bus stop in winter, did just that. Now, Save the Children has released its own U.K. campaign to make the horror in Syria feel real—the 90-second video below, which does so to devastating effect. The ad, by creative agency Don't Panic, imagines if what has happened in Syria were to happen in London.