:: adgruntie :: Freaky Friday Flux

+ W+K London's blog points to an article from the Financial Times which discusses that in a study done, clients claim that their ad agencies don't understand them, that they are not the agencies most valued client, and that 29% claimed that lack of creativity was a problem.

+ New York Festivals Design and Print winners were announced on Wednesday. Check out the winners at their site. Not all winners are up yet, but there's enough to whet your appetite.

+ Olympics and advertising -"'Impossible is Nothing' is the theme for Adidas' campaign by director Lance Acord (cinematographer of "Lost in Translation" and "Being John Malkovich"), which harks back to earlier Games and triumphs. For example, in one spot, 13-year-old gymnast Nastia Liukin appears to be performing on the uneven bars alongside Nadia Comaneci, who is executing a perfect-10 routine in the 1976 Montreal Games. In another, Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian 10,000- meter runner, competes against himself -- indeed, eight other Haile Gebrselassies -- which is what he's done often by besting his own records. The thought behind the ads, said Richard Bullock, the creative director of ad agency 180 Amsterdam, which created the ads with advertising agency TBWA, was, "What else could better exemplify the notion of 'Impossible is Nothing' than the achievements of Olympians?""

+ Olympic-Size TV Audience for the Athens Games? "What does $1 billion worth of television commercials look like? As the networks owned by NBC Universal begin coverage of the Summer Olympics in Athens, American viewers will find out. If, that is, they watch. In years past, it would have been heretical to doubt that huge audiences would want to gather in front of TV sets to see the Summer Games. But these Olympics are different from any others, for reasons that include worries about terrorism and dismay over athletes' failing drug tests. All that is leading many on Madison Avenue to question how eager Americans actually are to view 1,210 hours of coverage of all 28 Olympic sports planned through Aug. 29 - more coverage than for the previous five Summer Games put together."