Last Thursday I went to the Strategy Agency of the year awards. Taxi Toronto had won the previous four years in a row. This year Rethink won, with DDB Toronto getting silver & Lowe Roche Toronto the Bronze. Each of the nine shortlisted agencies got to produce a 2 minute video to highlight their work/agency. Lowe Roche did a killer slide show & Bos did this funny little piece that they were kind enough to send to me. It takes a bit to load.

Wednesday is "Hump Day" so I thought I'd post the Durex site The Pants Whisperer. I think this site is both entertaining & a bit lame all at once. The Dickorations are clever, especially the New Year's Eve one, and so is the Penis Name Generator. If I had a penis it would be called "Wilbur the Saucer-Headed Swamp Thing". Umm, makes me really happy I don't have one. But the Bang It video section is pretty lame. I wonder how many of these videos are actually consumer generated. Have a poke around.

James Price is a NYC based Live Action and Motion Graphics director who shamelessly sent me a link to his site and it only took me a month to actually get around to looking at it (shame). I wish I would have looked sooner, for his work is really good & interesting -- I mean "interesting" in a good way. Great site design too.

Reginald Pike director Lena Beug brings us a feel-good campaign for CMT. Agency: CMT In-House.

Wieden + Kennedy London take us on a beautiful journey in their new spot for apothecary Space NK. As the brand's first piece of above the line advertising, this gorgeous spot aims to visually recreate the founder's passion for discovering new beauty products from around the world. I completely scooped (plagiarized)) this from the new & improved The Reel newsletter. If you do not subscribe to it, you should.

This is a great print campaign from JWT, Dubai. Scooped from I believe in adv.

A great PSA for the UN via Saatchi & Saatchi, Toronto, directed by Blair Kitchen of Chuck Gammage Animation and with music by Vapor. It' was shown at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and the Holland Animation Film Festival & it's getting quite a bit of press.

Pig Wrestlers & 100% Human Hair are the two new Virgin Mobile spots directed by The Perlorian Brothers via Mother New York. These spots have shiny costumes, a pig, a miget, wrestling, a girl in a bathing suit and a mini man playing electric guitar. What more could you possibly ask for?

Some of the top names in design, motion graphics & animation team up for 72andSunny's Microsoft Zune Arts campaign. I've linked to the following five spots from the Boards website -- Two Little Birds, Eyes, Pixel Dancers, Moodbot & Monster. Check out more on the Zune microsite here.

Michael (AKA Lucky) from The Perlorian Brothers pointed me in the direction of VVORK, where I found a link to artist Ara Peterson's portfolio. I love it. Take a few moments to check it out.

Jayson Atlenza was born in  Batangas City, Philippines, raised in Jersey City, NJ and is currently an art director at BBDO NY. Last week his Sneaker Art Show opened in NYC. Check out the shoes here & watch a video (by Owen Plotkin) of the opening here.

I have yet to read an official confirmation that the big blue wrapped boxes that are all over Toronto & Montreal are for Bell, but I saw this Bell ad today online & it pretty much solidifies it for me. I definitely think it's the same blue box as on the billboards. Also, I'll take the lack of any reply from Cossette as a "yes". Read more here.

My friend Steph Crowhurst just pointed me to Oliver Laric's site. It's full of interesting work lIke this Aircondition Video and these Shoes.

Last night the Art Directors Club of Canada had it’s annual awards ceremony at the ROM in Toronto. It's a new venue for the event & I have to say it was so much better than the past two years that I’ve been. At the time that I created this post, the winners had not yet been put up on the ADCC website, but I’m sure they will be later today. The next few posts are some of my favourites from last night.

I’ve always loved this & it won Gold for  Advertising – Innovative / Non-Traditional, Single. That’s a mouth full. 

DDB Toronto won a gold for TV Single 60 seconds for Dirty Hand for Hockey Canada. This is the director’s cut by Reginald Pike’s Mark Gilbert – I prefer this music to the agency cut.

I really love this campaign that won Zig a Silver in the Advertising Posters, Campaign category. The ADCC has not posted the winners online yet, so here is a link to them on Applied Arts. There are two more in the campaign, I’ll try to update with a link to those later. 

Head Gear Animation won Gold in Animation for this beautiful campaign. It’s posted here on their nifty new site.

Both are in the Advertising Illustration category. The first is the Naughty Wrapping Paper & the second for Sausage & Beaver / Axe & Tree / Valentine Cards. On a side note, The Globe and Mail named the Christmas wrapping paper the PR Stunt of the Year.

This campaign by Taxi & directed by Reginald Pike’s Brian Lee Hughes is hilarious. It won Golds for TV Campaign, TV single under $50,000 and Cinema. The later two singles were both for “Catch You Later”. Three silvers were also awarded to this campaign.

Toronto-based Head Gear Animation has launched a new site. It's nice, simple, clean, easy to navigate & I love the animations that change everytime you refesh the page. I like them so much that I actually spent about five minutes on their site the other day just hitting refresh to watch them all. Serious. You should try it.

This flash animation, created by Clayborn Creative Consulting, is pretty entertaining. It shows flags from around the world, and comments that clients would make if the flags were presented to them. But I think Japan's flag is perfect. The client should have approved it without changes. Scooped from Advertising/Design Goodness.

Right now, television viewers in France are experiencing the results of an extraordinary collaboration that took place between two complicated and fascinating sets of brothers -- The Perlorian Brothers & The Bogdanov Brothers. View the camapign via DDB Paris here.

These HUGE billboards are appearing all over Toronto. Lots of people are talking about them, but no one knows what they are for. People are saying they are for Bell, as they did something similar last year, but no one at Cossette Communications Marketing is talking. I was going to snap a pic myself, but Adrants posted & I scooped theirs instead. Thanks Steve!

"Invisible" is the stunning new Salvation Army campaign via ACLC, Toronto. View the broadcast here & the print here. ACLC creative team is Steve Conover & Howard Beauchamp. TV directed by Christina Hodnet of The Partners' Film Company, Toronto.

This is the Scissor Sisters Land of a Thousand Words, a brilliant homage to the opening title sequences of the James Bond films. Scooped from Motionographer. Enjoy.

There are four spots in this clever campaign for Sirius Satellite Radio via Rethink Vancouver directed by Big Bad Brian Lee Hughes of Reginald Pike.

Here are two new spots by UNTITLED director James Haworth for the Canadian Real Estate Association. My mom's a real estate agent, she'll like these. Watch Trainer here & Mother-In-Law here. Hi Mom! I love you. xo

Introducing the latest ad blog, The Ad Feed. It's run by fellow Torontonian Travis, who describes the site as "an advertising aggregator for all the latest and greatest news, blogs, and creative that adfolk may love." Thanks Travis for sending me the scoop.

I love the rhythm and flow of this spot -- Transactional Fluidity is the perfect name for it. Directed by Kinka Usher for TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles. The music is very Bugs Bunny. Fun.

Two new Subaru spots via DDB Canada, Toronto. Directed by UNTITLED's John Mastromonaco and visual effects by Crush, Toronto. John Mastromonaco is repped by Argyle Brothers in the US.

Created by Mother London & directed by David LaChapelle, this Boots ad, which was shot in Barcelona with a team of 105, took over 18 hours to film. The turkey scene alone took a whole day and more than 120 kilos of Brussel sprouts were used in the bath scene.

Project name: `Tis the season to be gorgeous.

Zero 7's Crosses video directed by DuckEye - aka Jey Malaiperuman and Kate Freeland. The name DuckEye comes from a term used by David Lynch to describe the crucial scene of a films construction where the characters and story collide together to form what he calls 'The eye of the duck'. This scene is not necessary the climax of the film but more of a prelude to closure of the entire story. Repped in the UK by Rokkit.