sparking curious mind

The emergence of the new 'ubersexual' man presents a potential goldmine for global manufacturers and marketers according to the latest research from Euromonitor International.

Cosmetics companies, health clubs, retailers and travel companies all look set to profit from the changing male image, as men become more image-conscious. The ubersexual man is defined by Euromonitor International as 'more complex, more thoughtful, more culinary and better groomed than macho man, but more traditionally masculine than the metrosexual'. They are, therefore, more likely to prepare and research meals, buy cosmetics and toiletries, and join health clubs.

Intra pe gala societatii civile si afla si tu cat talent ai

comScore Networks today announced the launch of comScore World Metrix, the first true estimate of global online audience size and behavior based on activity from the world’s largest online behavioral research panel. The comScore World Metrix panel has active representation from countries that comprise 99 percent of the global Internet population. In launching comScore World Metrix, the company announced that 694 million people, age 15+, used the Internet worldwide from all locations in March 2006, representing 14 percent of the world’s total population within this age group. This number marks the first worldwide universe estimate based on a consistent methodology across all countries.

Israel, Finland and South Korea Lead the World in Online Engagement

comScore also released the top 15 countries ranked by average hours spent online per visitor for March 2006, as a measure of engagement. Israel led the list, with the average user spending 57.5 hours online during the month – twice as much time compared to the average person in the U.S, which did not rank in the top 15 countries. Rounding out the top 5 were Finland, South Korea, the Netherlands and Taiwan – all countries with high broadband penetration.

New to blogging? Or you're doing it for some time, now? Still don't understand what is RSS and hot it works? Watch this simple video explanation.




I can see clearly now.......!!!!!

Agency ONE cauta grafic designer. Daca esti interesat, vezi datele de contact in layout sau suna la 0232/214 500.
E-mail: office@agencyone.ro

New Skittles ads made by TBWA, TORONTO. Funny as hell!!!

Hey ladies! Ever wonder what it would be like to sneak into a sweaty, steamy men's locker room? No you can. Thanks to Levi's Lady Style new collection. Take a peek here

"A good typographer is someone who communicates a point of view with skill and imagination, and makes the type taste good."-- Jeffrey Keedy, graphic designer

It's a quotation you'll find in this short piece of motion design realized by Boca AKA Marcos Ceravolo and Ryan Uhrich, two students of the Vancouver Film School.

College students in the USA, may love to use the latest gadgets and wear the hottest fashions, but they may not know where their favorite brands originate, according to exclusive new research from market research firm Anderson Analytics.

53 percent of students thought Finnish cell phone company Nokia to be Japanese, while 57.8 percent thought Korean electronics company Samsung was Japanese. And 48.5 percent mistakenly thought Adidas clothing came from the United States, not Germany.

"For the most part, this next generation of educated American consumers either have no clue where the brands they use come from or simply assume everything comes from the United States, Japan or Germany," said Tom H. C. Anderson, Managing Partner, Anderson Analytics,

The study is based on an online survey of 1,000 US college student conducted during the fall 2006 semester by Anderson Analytics’ GenX2Z.com, which provides in-depth research on the youth market. See how students rated brands here

Karakiri is a creature of confort, a friendly octopus, made from cotton for a lasting relationship with your skin.



It holds you even when you watch TV. Is fully washable. Custome made for a perfect embrace

Karakiri is made by Oana Felipov. Great idea, Oana!

Check out the beautiful site for more info about how to get your Karakiri

A few months ago Yahoo! Sport and Eurosport started to work together to build the site. The aim was to develop the premier Sports web destination – Yahoo! Eurosport.

Finally, 41 year-old Romário netted the landmark goal four minutes into the second half of the Brazilian first division match that pitted his Vasco da Gama against returning northerners Sport.



“This is a very special moment in my life and Id like to dedicate this last goal to my children and thank my parents and everybody else who is present here tonight”, thanked a visibly moved Romário, crying openly.




To celebrate his achievment, here is a compilation of his best goals and moves.

The Samsung Summer Collection of mobile phones showcases the latest in mobile communication devices

Mai sint cateva ore pina la inchiderea urnelor. Nu sta deoparte! Rupe-ti jumatate de ora si voteaza. NU conteaza cum. Doar mergi si voteaza.

Log out, shut down, GO VOTE!

"Adopt an NGO" is an initiative of the Civil Society Gala the only Romanian event that pays homage to all civic initiatives, large or small, that are making our society better and healthier.

So I've been invited, along with other bloggers, to adopt an NGO, thus showing my support to it's activities and efforts. I decided to adopt "Save the Children". One of my best friends works for this organization so I'm quiet familiar with their programs. Basically, "Save the Children" fights for children's rights. They deliver immediate and lasting improvements to children's lives, not only in Romania, but worldwide.

Save the Children Romania is guided by the fundamental values expressed in the UN Declaration on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and is founded on the conviction that:

• All children and adults are of equal value
• Children have special rights
• All children have a right to life and development
• • No child should be discriminated against
  • All children have a right to be heard
  • The Child’s best interests should be a guide

The project aims at creating and implementing an alternative system of services, which should ensure the intervention and protection of the child victim of violence. The multidisciplinary team of the Center, made up of doctors, psychologists, social assistants and psychiatrists offers the following services:

• protection for the child and the protecting parent (housing and food for maximum 30 days);
• therapy, treatment, rehabilitation and specialized ambulatory or residential assistance;
• legal counseling;
• training the specialists for working with children victims of violence and their families;
• offering information and informative materials to the persons working with the children, to parents and children;
• prevention program in high schools, schools and kindergartens.

The results of the third annual planner survey are in. The research, conducted by Heather LeFevre of the Martin Agency, shows that the most desirable place to work as a planner is W+K. Closely followed by Crispin, BBH, Chiat, Goodby and others.

Those who think that the quality of planning has increased (42% of the respondents) credit blogging (talking about blogging killing planning :)), generosity of thinking, better defined roles, the challenges of the world pulling us up and better people.

466 planners completed the survey (compared to 192 last year). 36% are likely to change their job this year. Regardless of the current position. Those set on or considering leaving planning specify that they don’t know exactly what they will do or they plan to start their own business, freelance, go back to school, go to the client side, switch to consulting, research, innovation, creative, production or media.

There are a lot more details about salaries and other stuff. You can download the results here

“We stand behind our skin care products, so much so that we are prepared to go naked to prove it.” states The Elave web site. Instead of wandering around a science lab in a white gown, the presenter speaks completely naked, along with the rest of the room.

The video, featuring nude women and men, is online at www.nothing-to-hide.co.uk. Is it gratuitous nudity, an unnecessary attempt to get the attention or is an example of courage and nerve from Ovelle Pharmaceuticals? You'll be the judge.



Ovelle has seen a 500 per cent rise in sales, both online and in the High Street, since the campaign was launched on May 5.

AdofDaMonth.com is a forum to promote good creative. The featured work is judged by a jury of trained ad-monkeys who vote for the best ad every month.

These ads are a spoof on the trend on pro bono advertising for entering in showcase
websites, awards.

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Budapest, Hungary
Title: Barber Shop and Restaurant
Creative Director: Dalbir Singh
Art Director: Zsolt Molnar, Pablo Compos
Copywriter: Dalbir Singh
Photographer: Zsolt Molnar

We define culture as a network of discrete, specific knowledge structures shared
by individuals within some definable population. Icons of a culture are like “magnets of meaning”; they connect many diverse elements of cultural knowledge.
Thus, cultural icons, when activated, will spread activation to other constructs in the cultural knowledge network.

Like other symbols, a consumer brand can also be a cultural icon or a vehicle for
cultural meaning. Iconic brands are consumer brands that become “consensus expressions of particular values held dear by some members of a society”. These brands are loaded with cultural meanings; they are strongly associated with the culture’s values, needs, and aspirations
and increase their cognitive accessibility.

Consumer brands vary in their degree of cultural iconicity. We conceptualize brand iconicity as the degree to which a particular brand is associated with multiple constructs in a network of cultural knowledge. Consumers’ knowledge about products/brands forms integrated structures in memory. Iconic brands can transfer their iconic status to the product category they belong.

Accordingly, we conceptualize an iconic category as a product category with highly accessible iconic brands. Through the strong connections with their iconic brands, iconic categories also possess rich cultural significance; they are strongly associated with the values, needs, and aspirations in their culture of origin. Brands with rich cultural meanings can create stronger and much deeper connections with the consumers.

Directed by Dante Ariola through MJZ
Voice by Edward Norton
Music by A-Bomb

João Ribeiro and Sérgio Veiga, students at the University of Aveiro, started this experiment of mapping each and every internet user in the Whole Wide World!

MapMyName is the name of the project and the guys want to do this in only one month. So better hurry up and join. I'm already there.

Media and entertainment executives see the growing ability and eagerness of individuals to create their own content as one of the biggest threats to their business, according to results of a survey released by Accenture.

More than half (57 percent) of the respondents identified the rapid growth of user-generated content — which includes amateur digital videos, podcasts, mobile phone photography, wikis and social-media blogs — as one of the top three challenges they face today.

The new landscape offers opportunities as well as challenges, according to the study, as two-thirds (68 percent) of the respondents said they believe that within three years their businesses will be making money on user-generated content. However, a quarter (24 percent) of respondents said they do not yet know how their businesses will profit from user-generated content.

Asked to identify which type of content offers the highest growth potential for their industry over the next five years, the greatest number of respondents — 53 percent — cited short-form video, followed by videogames (13 percent), full-length film (11 percent) music, (11 percent), consumer publishing (9 percent) and business publishing (4 percent).

According to a recent survey orchestrated by GfK Custom Research, a staggering 87% of Americans have been put off the sport of running for a variety of reasons including the fear that they need to be competitive in order to participate*. In opposition to this philosophy, Reebok asks consumers, "What are you just doing?" in its innovative global movement "Run Easy."

Reebok's "Run Easy" movement kicked off with an aggressive media campaign featuring advertising created by New York agency, Mcgarry Bowen.




The first phase of the "Run Easy" movement will feature several attention grabbing OOH executions including edgy messages such as "Run + Puke + Run = Crazy".


Reebok's Run Easy television spot celebrates the joy of social running "at the speed of chat." In opposition to Nike latest TVC's which depict the pain and suffering which athletes go through.

In Latin America Nike it has sent a new campaign Nike Rockstar Workout
The commercial titled Sweats the Fat is produced by the Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla, and is performed by the Costa Rican singer Debi Nova.
In it, Nike invites women to exercise through music and choreographies designed by Jamie King, leaving the choice of aesthetic surgery as a second alternative. The campaign is developed by the Argentine agency Madre of Buenos Aires.

Nokia has launched a blog/vlog for their N series mobile phone users called Nsights. Because the future is today and tomorrow can’t wait (what a cliche!).
Nokia is trying to open the conversation and want you to participate in the discussions.

For now they’ve opened up two sections - Internet and Music - that are ready to have revolutionary and visionary insights from you.

The internet has turned old ideas on knowledge, entertainment, commerce, community and information on their head. All that remains is to free it from your desk...

Away for a much deserved vacation. Going to the mountains during the Easter Break.

Scandal for the publicity of the Crazy Horse

We are living in exponential times. There are about 540,000 words in the English language.About 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.More than 3,000 new books are published . . .Daily. More amazing facts about the shift that our world is going through right now, here.

And of course, watch this amazing presentation



via innocent drinks via here be monsters

• There are considerable ethnic and gender differences in the association between socio-economic status, perceived barrier of food price, perceived benefit of diet quality and dietary intake.

• Income constraints on individuals and families can lead to a poorer quality diet. When buying food, African-Americans with lower incomes saw food price as more important than Whites with the same income level did.

• Caucasians of lower socio-economic status ate more fat and saturated fat. African-Americans showed no association between income level and fat intake.

• Among all study participants, and independent of income, the perceived barrier of food price appears to increase sodium intake while reducing fiber intake.

• Perceived benefit of diet quality was directly related to better nutritional behavior, including consuming foods less in saturated fat and eating more fiber, fruits and vegetables. Compared to men, women were more concerned about meeting food guidelines in order to improve their health.

• Women had lower energy, energy density, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium intake than men. Yet, men had higher intake of fruits and vegetables, fiber, calcium and dairy products, particularly because they consumed more food.

Reyka Vodka is an Icelandic brand. The word reyka derives from the ancient Icelandinc word for steam. Watch and enjoy these cute, hilarious commercials. So simple and touchy. Gorgeous!

Check out their website. Cool graphics










via notcot

I love no 7: Notice patterns, Make connections

from here

John G won the debate against John L. Blogging isn't killing planning!

No: 56%
Yes: 27%
Don't Know: 17%

Read the notes from the debate here

One year ago I've starting this blog not knowing where it will take or if I will last for so long. So far, it was a very enriching experience. Although, at some point I lost half my posts, thanks to the encouragement of my friends, I've managed to find the energy to keep blogging.

Along the way I've met wonderful people, both online and off line. They inspired me, I've learned valuable things and shared great ideas. One of the things that is very important to blogging is content. Content is a record. What differentiates content from other forms of information is that it is formal and recorded. It isn't a conversation in a café. It isn't a chat at a bar. Blogging may well be conversational but a key difference is that it leaves a record that others can peruse.
I'm humbled to know that there are people out there interested in what I write. That rises the bar for me to write about interesting things.

Blogging is a long-term investment of time, energy and creativity. A wonderful form of communication, that's why I thank you all reading and participating. Whomever you are.
So let's keep the conversation going :)

Agrimold din Vaslui imbuteliaza si produce apa minerala carbogazoasa de izvor, sucuri si ulei pentru gatit. Ceea ce mi-a starnit interesul sunt numele sub care compania comercializeza aceste produse. De mare inspiratie!

Dupa cum vedeti din fotografie apa minerala, "Izvorul Moldovencei" se numeste "Adio Sete". La fel si sucurile. Uleiul poarta numele de "Pofta Buna".
Trageti voi concluziile ca pe mine m-a pufnit rasul si nu ma mai pot concentra :D

Din categoria: Creativitate fara limite

I've just discovered two great sites dealing with green living.

The Alternative Consumer it's about eco lifestyle. They "present cutting-edge design, progressive initiatives and wise alternatives that stimulate a positive impact on the environment - one purchase at a time - alternativeconsumer.com is essential reading for busy folks looking to cultivate a greener lifestyle."
It's an excellent place where you can find cool things that help on preserving our world.

Greenthinkers is a web site that was created as a place to discuss and present ideas on how to live a more green life. They throw some green ideas out there in hopes of getting ourselves and others to make lifestyle changes that benefit the environment, or at least don't harm it as much.

Go check them out! I'm sure that there's something you can do to help saving the Earth!

Branding was on everyone's lips in the first day at Mad Days (ro). Marius surprised me with a creative presentation. He made a t-shirt with the title of each slide, wear 'em and as the presentation went along he took one t-shirt off to unveil the next slide. Brilliant!

The audience was participating, asking questions, challenging Marius. Great atmosphere! Surprisingly, there were lots of people in the audience. Somehow I knew that here in Iasi the interest for branding was high, but I didn't imagine that the turn out would be so great.

Later on, there was the opening of a very interesting photography exhibition. The author, Otilia Andrei, showcased photos of Asian "street talk". Photos taken on the streets of some Asian cities, illustrating commercial signage. Very refreshing.

Congrats to the organizers! Advero and Twin Arts. Good start, looking forward to the next workshops.

Good ideas can be drowned out by a flood of bad ones, says Laurent Florès. His New York-based company, called crmmetrix, developed a worthy new solution called Delphi. The Delphi system combines customer creativity with marketing department knowledge, and tests both with instant feedback from the Internet.

The system uses an Internet-based panel of consumers, provided by the client or crmmetrix, of whom the first 100 are asked for their best idea for a slogan to sell a particular product. Those consumer ideas are mixed in with the marketing department ideas and put to a vote by the next level of panelists.

"The beauty of this system is that consumers both generate ideas and sort through them," says Olivier Toubia, assistant professor of marketing at Columbia Business School in New York, who is co-authoring an article with Florès on the methodology of the Delphi system for the peer-reviewed Marketing Science magazine.

The clients range from consumer products companies like P&G, Unilever to Accor Hotels and the tire company Michelin. No doubt something is worth it about this method giving the names of the companies which use the system.

via stefan via IHT

This advert for Volkswagen was withdrawn from broadcast by the car maker following complaints from a number of mental health charities, including the Suicide Prevention Action Network, the American Psychiatric Association and Mental Health America. According to the complaints, the advert was guilty of mocking and exploiting the serious subject of suicide.

Title:"Jumper"
Brand: Volkswagen
Agebcy:Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, Miami

I like the "I'm feeling lucky" button ;)
Of course, this is just a joke :)

Dear planners, the 3rd annual planner survey is online. Heather LeFevre conducts an informal survey that is designed to let us all see what planners at different agencies think about their jobs, understand what drives salaries, and hopefully learn more about how our discipline is changing.

The survey is designed for planners only, from agency or freelance. Those outside US are welcome to participate. The answers will be anonymous and this link will capture your email if you want to receive the results.

Spread the word!

found at fallon

Alin created a love letter to Renault 12, Romanians' favorite car. The book is a "a compendium of architectures, designs, fashions and lifestyles."
You can download it here

To start of your week, here are some really sexy prints for Lavazza Coffee. From now one my morning coffee will be a much more intense experience :)





The photograph is Eryk Fitkau, an Australian who thinks that ""A photograph does not speak, it does not smell, it makes no sound, it does not move, it is just a two dimensional piece of paper, but a good photograph can do at least one if not all of the above!" At the end of the day that is exactly what Eryk's images are all about.

via cup of java

This is a great tools! Free online file conversion. Just the kind of thing lots of us was looking for. Zamzar supports conversion between a wide variety of different file formats: text, image, music, video. You can even convert YouTube videos. This is the epitome of web 2.0.

Some friends of mine put together a interesting event. Mad Days is a mix of advertising, music and film. It will take place in Iasi between 22 and 24 March.
I look forward to the workshops held by Marius (on branding) Costin and Elena (planning) and the guys from Violet. Also there will be a fine selection of Romanian short movies and a concert with Al Jawala, a German band with an eclectic sound, mixing Balkan rhythms, drum'n'bass, jazz and funk.

Looks like fun. Come join the fun!

via iasi nights (ro)

I love this visual. It reminds me on the times I learned to ride a bicycle and the liberating sensation of my first meters on two wheels.

In an Adage interview, Bob Iger, CEO, Walt Disney Co. commented:

According to Mr. Kent Oldham, associate director and GBS consumer view solutions manager at P&G, “now more than ever, consumers are owning our brands, and we not only have to understand that they are owning our brands. But we also have to embrace that idea and understand the implications of it.”

Finally P&G admits it. The change in consumer's attitudes towards brands is irreversible. Consumers have the need to be in control, people are becoming more self-expressive on a scale not possible before -- with family, friends and even strangers on the Internet, thanks to new technology. “They have ways of networking with each other that they have never been able to before,” Mr. Oldham said.

Marketers don’t control all touch points, and those touch points, as a result, have a great impact on the way consumers view brands. The implication of not learning from every touch point a consumer has with your company or product or service can be costly. “No matter how much great brand-building work you do, and how much equity your brands have, all it takes is one negative consumer experience to destroy all of it."

After a long wait, I've got my blog back. Unfortunately, everything posted on the new blogger platform is lost :(
Now, I don't know what to do. Should I try to rebuild the blog as it was, or should I continue posting from here on? What do you think? Any suggestions?