sparking curious mind

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

I'm particularly proud of their "CENTRE FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE CHILD VICTIM OF VIOLENCE".

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.

So if any of you is interested in this initiative and want to adopt an NGO, please visit "Adopt an NGO" blog.

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.

I haven't been posting for a while because I was really busy. Last week I've worked for the Romanian Fashion Week, coordinating two camera crews for backstage action and taking care of the in-venue commercial breaks. A very tiring and time consuming job.

This was the first time I've been in the backstage at a fashion show. I'm telling you, being a model is not as easy as it looks. Those girls work really hard and there are a lot of rehearsals and waiting and make up sessions. And of course lots of pressure from the designers and agents.

All in all, I had a great experience and hopefully I'll repeat it next year.

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.

Credits:

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

thank you, dalbir

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

The Cgtp, the general confederation of the Portuguese workers, asks to ban of the spread: “It offends the woman”.
The indicted image “offends the dignity of the woman” and diffuses “the stereotype of the sensual and submitted woman in front of a rational and dominating male”, adds the mayoralty, asking to be applied the law that prohibits whichever publicity damaging to the dignity of the person.
What say you?

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

People purchase foods based on their income level, their belief in a food’s health benefit and cost. However, ethnicity and gender also impact people’s food choices, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The study reports that food choice is also influenced by environmental factors, such as reliance on fast food, food advertising and food pricing, and on individual factors, such as taste, palatability, convenience and health benefits.

The key findings are as follows:

• 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.