Hyper inked.

I have seen an amazing tv commercial. It’s a commercial that sells the charitable work of veterinarians reattaching rabbit’s feet back to their original owners.Uh-huh. Because?

Because people don’t need luck any more now that they have Traveler’s Insurance.

The ad agency is Fallon in Minneapolis. It’s was realized on film by Tim Godsall at Biscuit Filmworks, as reported in Adweek.

Two Deans, Hanson and Buckhorn, art directed and wrote it. For the complete credits for this creative gem, go to adforum.com.

Some comment on the commercial here and here.

At first viewing, I thought the bunnies were wearing colored bandages. Now that I get it duh! I am a little squeamish myself. (Yep, I know what a lucky rabbit’s foot is,. I just didn’t want to take the clever idea that far.)

Remember the outcry over U.S. films being shot in Canada to cut production costs? Or using the Internet to allow programmers in Asia to compete with American programmers — another “world-is-flat” bid to cut costs to the bone?

Now, with the founding of Banerjee & Partners of New York, Bombay and Bangalore, this outsourcing has begun in advertising. Not only is there serious, American-culture-infused, creative talent in India, there is a booming film industry there to implement further cost savings.

Losang Gyatso, the executive creative director in New York, explained in an Adweek article that because Indians speak many different languages, all the advertising is created in English (former British colony) and driven by strong brand-building imagery.

The foreign creative idea has its detractors. Kevin Roddy, ECD at the Bartle Bogle Hegarty ad agency in New York said “It’s incredibly difficult to creatively direct someone who is thousands of miles away.” While he was Creative Director at Fallon in New York, he had to manage creative teams in Minneapolis.

Still the ad talent in the region is undeniable. In the last three years, Indian advertising has won thirteen Cannes Lions.

Apparently, the dreaded popup print ad is starting to appear offline as well as online.

ComputerAssociates has a watermark ad in the stock pages of The Nw York Times, according to AdRants. When you chck your stocks you are looking right at their CA logo.

Inventive, and not nearly as annoying as the online version.

To tell more the Computer Associates story, a small ad appears at the bottom of the page.

Neil French, the worlwide creative director of WPP Gtroup has resign after causing a storm with his remarks about women ad creatives, according to an article in The New York Times.

In a meeting in Toronto on October 6th, he said women “don’t make it to the top because they don’t deserve to.”

Nancy Vonk, Co-Chief Creative Director of Ogilvy in Toronto, writes about this over-the-top evening here. Her agency is part of the WPP Group. She attended the event and has known Mr. French for several years. She is familiar with his attitudes toward women. She writes, “Before us was a big part of the explanation of why more women aren’t succeeding in advertising,” as she believes his ideas are representative of the way top executives in the advertising business think.

Moreover, according to Vonk, Mr. French said most women leave the business to “go suckle something.” Was Mr. French trying to get fired? Was this a $100-a-seat frat party?

From my experience in advertising, listening as a guy to other ad guys talk, I have to say she is right. Often these conversations are straight out of the men’s locker room. I haven’t of course heard the discussions about who gets promoted to the top creative spot, but I can’t imagine ther whole good ole boy tone disappears.

AdRants is annoyed by their “Pompous Flashturbation” on their website as they lecture the Flash-deprived on the need for the plugin.

According to AdRants, W+K website’s source states:

“You will need to install a couple of plug-ins to fully experience our site. That is not because this is another one of those mindlessly flashy Web sites that give you a headache and make you wonder how you could ever sit through a meeting with those people.”

I frankly couldn’t find this writing anywhere in the early source pages I checked, but it does seem an unneeded lecture.

However, the Flash-powered version of the W+K site is nifty. And they have the courage to put up famous older work — like the dot-com-boom era stuff — that is well-done and fascinating. (Does anyone still use AltaVista? Don’t get too mad: they used to my starting page each time I surfed the web.)

Try the site, and go ahead and download the Flash ™ plugin

The new Apple TV spot featuring Eminem sure looks like borrowed interest — borrowed from a spot for Lugz running shoes.

See a discussion of the remarkable similarities here at Adfreak.com The shoe commercial is from 2001. It is at this site, under Archives, Lugz, 01.

This makes me wonder is the commercial merely derivative or is there a sharing of talent somewhere — designer, or production company?

According to The New York Times, the Metropolitan Museum in NYC is opening a splendid Van Gogh exhibit. Unlike previous shows in the US which showcased his paintings, the new show displays 113 of Van Gogh’s 1,800 drawings.

While many artists did drawings as prelimary sketches for painting, Van Gogh often made drawings in his letters of paintings he had already completed, to show what he was doing. However, in one instance, detailed in the exhibit, he traced his drawing to set up the composition of a painting. (This is a rarity, as he usually painted freehand.)

In all, eight paintings are on display, each chosen for its connection to the drawings.

Many of these drawings and watercolors have never been exhibited to the public before. Moreover, because of the fragility of works on paper, it may be some time before they are shown again.

In a recent issue of Wired magazine, Hitachi has an ad with a real drink coaster insert.

You have to read the back of the coaster to discover the premise. Use the coaster as a drawing pad to design a new great invention using a Hitachi hard drive as part of it.

Does anyone remember the placemat ads for Compaq computers back in the day? Does anyone remember Compaq ™? Hint: they merged with Hewlett Packard.

The UK’s Advertising Producers’ Association has released its annual list of the 50 best commercials. See them at AdRants.

That fantasy flying diesel from Honda (by Weider & Kennedy UK) looks like a Disneyland dream. (Personal skepticism: ok, Honda’s diesel is clean and quiet, but is it fast?)

The Stella d’Artois spot from Lowe London is a major WWI epic. A “reassuringly expesive” spot to produce, I think.

Is that “big and agile” gymnast wearing a fat suit? (He’s selling a “big and agile” Skoda SUV.) You be the judge.

The Return of the Train spot by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y & R incorporates scenes from Hitchcock’s North by Northwest to sell a fast, new Virgin Train service. Using a terrific movie to sell a product without a big stretch of “borrowed interest” is seldom accomplished.

All in all, these are awfully intriguing commercials and easily worth the 2 Euro membership fee.

In what may be the world’s wettest ad posters, a German company Bitfall has designed waterfalls that show advertising in the waterfall itself. On the drops.

They nickname the drops “spherical robots.” Their main website has that phrase in the title, but their internet provider is not happy with all the traffic these amazing still images and movies are creating, so the main site is down. Too much success.