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Design/technology conference FITC is one of the parties behind this video, which besides begging for some "In a world..." stylings ala the late Don LaFontaine, tells us how the agency world will have vanished like the Mayans or the cast of The Facts of Life. Apparently "greed" and "arrogance" coupled with cluelessness and a more powerful audience are to blame for the demise in this clip, which we guess is jabbing at whoever's still stuck in a Mad Men mindset.

H/t @jasonzada

More: "Agency Life Gets the Ha-Ha Treatment"

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

According to a source: "BGB New York/BGB New York has a huge 'ladies room' problem...Since January 2010, some one has been secretly taking dumps on the bathroom floor. YES! in the ladies room. last time this happened....YESTERDAY, THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2010!"

More: "Blind Item: Which Agency's HR Director Wants Everyone to Know You're Fired?"

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

-Hugh Jackman fulfills his duties as Lipton's global brand ambassador by showing off his moves in Rio. link

-The entire Nokia team at Swedish agency FarFar walked out. link

-Merrill Lynch asks Times Square passersby, "What Do You Want to Retire?" via an interactive billboard. link

-Digitas helped create a new app for MillerCoors dubbed the MGD 64 Pedometer. link

-GM takes on Kentucky legislators and auto dealerships in a new ad campaign. link

-Google will apparently bail on China in early April. link

-Joshua Brandau was named acting media director for Pereira & O'Dell. link

-Stella Artois launched a social media campaign and global competition to promote its affiliation with the Cannes Film Festival. link

-Why Hollywood should be afraid of the iPad. link

-Japanese ads never cease to amaze (video after the jump!). link

More: "Thursday Odds and Ends"

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New York City has inspired countless works of art, from films and novels to Boogie Woogie abstraction and at least one moon-crossed Christopher Cross ballad. It drove illustrator Christoph Niemann to get on the floor of his Berlin home and play with Legos. The result was a memorable post on his New York Times blog that has been expanded into book form. I LEGO N.Y., out this month from Abrams Image, takes readers of all ages on an annotated tour of the five boroughs. The chunky board book's 29 vignettes feature Niemann's parsimonious Lego approximations of New York landmarks such as the Flatiron Building (seen from above), the Statue of Liberty, and Donald Trump's hair. Along with Big Apple staples like a Nathan's hot dog and a Taxi Driver encounter ("You talkin' to me?") are mundane aspects of city life—a plastic bag snagged on a tree branch, stepping into bubble gum—that somehow take on new poignancy when rendered in plastic bricks.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In your eager Friday think piece, we turn to a story from Wednesday. In it, a guy says social media marketing can replace advertising &#151 and cites the likes of Funny or Die (site) and AdMob (site) as examples. Here's that story. After the jump, some comments from advertising people that counter it.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Surprised that BBDO went with a giant, fake looking breast for the upcoming Naked issue of Marie Claire? You shouldn't be &#151 they do something similar each year as a lead up to the special edition. Proceeds go to various charities &#151 and the naked bodies usually belong to some celeb who is too classy to take it off for, say, Playboy. To quote a random sound bite I heard yesterday, "there are far worse things in life than nudity."

Generally this is done in South Africa &#151 not sure if there's an American edition.

Credits and another execution after the jump. Via AdsoftheWorld

More: "Mick Jagger's 17 Year Old Daughter Half-Nude in Hudson Jeans Campaign"

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-Ogilvy Wins IKEA

-David&Goliath Among Those Facing Lawsuit for Kia Super Bowl Spot

-Just What is Crispin's Involvement with Gap Nowadays?

-Heineken Simultaneously Pleases Soccer Diehards and Their Girlfriends

-Israeli Agency Hacks, Ransoms Alex Bogusky's Facebook Fan Page

-Ari Merkin Reunites with Crispin

-Sometimes Tag Lines Come in Really Handy

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

(Photo: Wright)

Go up, up, and away the Charles and Ray way with the iconic cloud backdrop that you may recall from some of the dynamic duo's photo and film projects. This particular version was created for the 1976 exhibition "Connections: The Work of Charles and Ray Eames," and it's among the treasure trove of 133 Eames things that will go on the block at Wright's April 8 sale. The auction house estimates that the acrylic-on-canvas backdrop will sell for between $5,000 and $7,000, but for this rare specimen of Eames-specific whimsy, we think the sky's the limit.

Previously on UnBeige:

Slate V's ad critic Seth Stevenson recaps a little experiment he ran using Google TV Ads. Stevenson shows how you can infiltrate shows like Glenn Beck's by building a specifically targeted media campaign from the comforts of home for as little as $100. Whether it's an informal testimonial for Google TV Ads or not, Slate V's self-produced spot--which drove people to a website--aired 7 times during overnight reruns of Beck's show and a total of 54 times on four networks, netting 1.3 million total views in a week's span. Total outlay? $1,300.

More: "Glenn Beck Just Lost Fox 11 More Potential Advertisers (That's 57 Total)"

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The ad below from Germany (were you thinking anywhere else?) for a "scent" called Vulva Original wouldn't stand a chance with U.S. censors but it's still pretty tame compared to the NSFW first commercial promoting this alleged product as well as its over-18 site. Here, a routine workout serves a completely different purpose.

Via Illegal Ads and AdFreak

More: "Kotex Uses Fierce Colors, Vaginally-Aware Women to 'Break the Cycle'"

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Over the last couple days we've heard Organic is undergoing layoffs. One source asserts they've laid off the entire Detroit office. They have a Detroit office? Yes, they do. Another says they let go of half the office (which?) and that the last day is March 31. This is sucky. The agency did not respond to a request for info by the time this "story" was published.

Update: Sources familiar with the matter tell us that the layoffs in Detroit were "relatively small" though approximate numbers weren't revealed. They go on to add that there are still over 100 people working in the Detroit office and that the agency is "hiring people in a variety of different capacities."

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Over the last couple days we've heard Organic is undergoing layoffs. One source asserts they've laid off the entire Detroit office. They have a Detroit office? Yes, they do. Another says they let go of half the office (which?) and that the last day is March 31. This is sucky. The agency did not respond to a request for info by the time this "story" was published.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Fourteen years after it was first proposed, the Food and Drug Administration has finally issued fairly sweeping regulations to prevent tobacco marketing/selling to youths.

As of June 22, the tobacco industry is banned from selling or distributing tobacco-branded apparel, using music or sound effects in audio tobacco ads, dishing out free samples of cigs and are limited to only using black-and-white for video ads and ads in teen-oriented print publications. With the last provision, however, the industry sued and a district court in Kentucky blocked implementation of it.

Surprisingly, Big Tobacco companies like Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds are in support and/or are already largely in compliance with the new FDA rules while those like Commonwealth Brands--the maker of Davidoff cigarettes among others--are none too pleased with the clampdown.

You can view the press conference about the FDA's new rules featuring Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Here's a story about a copywriter, James Spring, who came to a crossroads in his life and decided to do something meaningful. In his formative days, Spring had been an amphetamine smuggler, operating out of the Baja peninsula of Mexico. Years later Spring became a copywriter, living with his family and working in San Deigo. As he neared his 40th birthday, Spring decided to do something meaningful, so he headed to Mexico to save two kids that had been kidnapped by their meth addicted, murdering parents. It all worked out in the end, but not the way he expected. Click here to listen &#151 fast forward to 11:30 and settle in.

After the jump, video of the kids reuniting with their grandparents.

Via This American Life

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The now shuttered Smithsonian-affiliate, the Fresno Metropolitan Museum, was already in trouble with Ansel Adams' family for trying to auction off his donated work to help pay off their bankruptcy debt, and now the museum is at the center of another complaint, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/03/17/state/n152311D53.DTL&type=business">this time against the town's government. The county's Grand Jury has lashed out at the City of Fresno for their spending of $15 million to try and save the museum six months ago, when it first hit serious sink-or-swim problems. While it's certainly a noble and valued thing for a city to try and save a local museum, the court officials say they way the local government handled the effort was an absolute mess:

There was no business plan, no appraisal on the property -- which appraised last year at $10.5 million -- and no investigation into why the project was already 100% over budget by the time the city came to the rescue.

It blames former Mayor Alan Autry, the city council, and the city manager's office for the lack of oversight. But some council members and the assistant city manager say the museum's board of directors also deserves some of the blame.

"They led a lot of people to believe that they had the financing in place, it would just be a matter of months and unfortunately with the economy, we saw a significant downturn in the economy," said [Assistant City Manager Bruce Rudd]. "It was a perfect storm."

While their hearts were certainly in the right place, and maybe that will still win them some political points, it's one museum closure that's certainly riddled with something more than just sorrow-tinted fond memories.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

We had to see it to believe it but yes that is the Oracle of Omaha, the boss of Berskhire Hathaway and now-outed Axl Rose fan Warren Buffett impersonating the G n' R frontman in this amusing clip for Geico (which BH owns).

According to reports, every year Geico produces a video at its annual meeting that features company employees and this 2 1/2-minute power ballad is just the latest addition. Considering how tiresome the Gecko has become, we'd take Buffett as the pitchman in a heartbeat. Hey, it worked for other bosses like Dave Thomas. Also, check out Vanity Fair's site to see how Buffett's performance in this clip ranks with ones from previous years.

More: "The Gecko Waves Goodbye to Glenn Beck"

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

-Just what is Apple making developers do to keep the iPad a secret? link

-Greenpeace takes Nestle to task for contributing to the destruction of Indonesian rainforests and the brand has in turn dropped the palm oil company being held responsible. link

-YouTube and Viacom's copyright infringement case gets more heated as the former's accusing the latter of secretly uploading clips. link

-PETA is asking the company that's selling off Sex.com to donate the domain to them rather than auctioning it off. link

-Sony Europe's Twitter effort was a sales success. link

-Hyatt's Funny or Die campaign: We might have to side with Die. link

More: "Thursday Morning Stir"

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Understandably, following his death last month, fashion designer Alexander McQueen has been receiving countless posthumous tributes and honors, the most recent being his win in the Brit Insurance Design Awards. But this summer, the departed McQueen is set to perhaps receive one of the highest honors on our shores as it's been announced that the Council of Fashion Designers of America will bestow upon him the Special Tribute Award. The annual, high-profile event will take place in New York on June 7th and will also include awards given for best womenswear and menswear from a shortlist pool that includes designers like Tom Ford, Donna Karan, and Jason Wu (a full list of all the categories and nominees is available here). In addition, according to the AP, "Michael Kors will get the lifetime achievement award, and model-turned-entrepreneur Iman is the year's fashion icon."

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It's a Friday morning, so that likely means your day is already shot, as you daydream about the upcoming first real spring weekend we've had in quite awhile (everywhere but here in Chicago, where the forecast is 35 degrees and snowing for the next week). But in the interest of salvaging a bit of your day, we kick things off with this bit of inspiration. Starchitect Richard Meier gave a speech in Buffalo, New York this week, which we guess makes perfect sense, given that everyone of late seems to find that city either a) the bee's knees (like Nicolai Ourousoff) or b) a terribly depressing place (like "the media"). His lecture was entitled, "Notes on Architecture," and was just that, finding Meier talking about "personal narratives on a lifetime of projects." While there's nothing particularly unique about a famous architect showing up to talk about himself and his work, here you actually get the benefit of listening to the whole presentation, recorded as a podcast for Archive.org. And if hearing to Richard Meier for an hour doesn't get you going this early in the morning, well then, you're already too far gone and should just take the rest of the day off.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

"I cringe at the word 'design.' There are certain things in my restaurants that are overdesigned. Not many, I think, but there are some that I'm very embarassed by. But I'm not going to say what they are."

-Detail-oriented restauranteur Keith McNally, whose Richard Lewis-designed Pulino's Bar & Pizzeria opened this week at the corner of Bowery and Houston in New York City

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.