Promises of coloured margarine, demonizing drink, and men of action in a gallery of past provincial election ads.

Besides lawn signs and public meetings, newspaper advertisements have long been a preferred method for Ontario politicians to spread their message to the public. Whether it’s a simple promise to provide “good government” or a full platform requiring a magnifying glass to read, the press has offered a forum for candidates to make their case [...]

But the Bruins hockey legend didn’t turn out to be the Tim Horton of pizza.

If Tim Horton could run a donut shop, why couldn’t Bobby Orr lend his name to a pizzeria?Read: Vintage Toronto Ads: Bobby Orr’s Pizza Weekend

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees took to YouTube to pay tribute to their goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie for her 10th year anniversary with the organization. It’s sad that I watched this video and couldn’t get over how ridiculously be…

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees took to YouTube to pay tribute to their goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie for her 10th year anniversary with the organization. It’s sad that I watched this video and couldn’t get over how ridiculously be…

British models Jourdan Dunn and Cara Delevingne star in the Burberry Beauty Fall/Winter 2011 advertising campaign. Cara is giving us the cut-eye. Girl, why are you so angry? I think it’s because she’s being forced to pose next to Jourdan’s crazy pai…

But what were the real facts behind Powley’s Liquified Ozone?

“Facts are not too good for anybody,” eh? Alright then, here are the facts: it’s doubtful that the wonders attributed to Powley’s Liquified Ozone were due to the product in question. It’s likely that liquefied ozone would kill any germs affecting you, but only your mortician or whoever picked up the shattered frozen parts of [...]

Yves Saint Laurent – Discover the Fall/Winter 2011-2012 campaign video, filmed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin and featuring model Raquel Zimmermann wearing 14 Yves Saint Laurent outfits in less than 53 seconds. Seizure-inducing, but great.

Kia Canada is putting the ‘ink’ in the anti-drinking and driving message through a new partnership with MADD Canada.

The campaign uses so-called “memorial tattoos” to alert Canadians to the possible lifelong repercussions of drunk driving. Each …

Kia Canada is putting the ‘ink’ in the anti-drinking and driving message through a new partnership with MADD Canada.

The campaign uses so-called “memorial tattoos” to alert Canadians to the possible lifelong repercussions of drunk driving. Each …

Legitimately.

Lindsay Lohan finally landed a working contract last week. No, not for any film role (I’m pretty sure she’s finished in that world). Lindsay is the face of German Designer Philipp Plein. Who? Exactly! But this time last week, I didn’t…

Victor Garber as a playing card and a television classic that one angry letter-writer saw as an affront to an entire nationality.

In brief: Jack was a musical extravaganza based on the four Jacks in a deck of cards, and it featured Victor Garber embodying hearts. Another Jack, Star TV critic Jack Miller, praised it as fun, melodic, and unpredictable, “a musical experience that flies in several directions without ever losing either itself or its pace.” We’d [...]

Image credit: Peter Gene, used under Creative Commons license.

My day job is in branding for good-for-the-world businesses, non-profits and organizations. So I get a fair few invites to attend events on “branding and sustainability”, or “how brand ca…

Photo: Brooks Elliott/CC BY-SA 2.0)

This week The Wall Street Journal reports that Proctor & Gamble is pursuing a new product introduction strategy. The consumer products giant has noted that products targeted at middle class consumers are staying on…

In case you missed it last week, my post on advertising and propaganda is running on Straight Goods. If you haven’t seen it, I hope you’ll give it a read. Comments best posted on the original thread. . . . → Read More: wmtc: straight goods, adve…

In case you missed it last week, my post on advertising and propaganda is running on Straight Goods. I hope you’ll give it a read. Comments are best posted on the original thread.

More images have been released for the Fall 2011 Armani Jeans advertising campaign featuring Rihanna, and photographed by Steven Klein. An improvement, but still not loving it.

Clowning around for higher profits.

Hinted at but not made explicit in today’s ad: besides promoting time-saving business forms, this advertisement for the Moore product-ivity kit inferred that word processing speeds would improve if staff donned white makeup and communicated solely through miming during working hours. While there was a risk that an interested firm would lose employees due to [...]