Uma Thurman is pissed. The actress filed a $15M federal lawsuit this past Friday against Lancome for, as WWD puts it, "allegedly continuing to use her image in advertising even though her contract had expired. According to Thurman's lawyer, Bert Fields, her contract with Lancôme ended in 2004, but the brand has continued to use her image to sell products all around the world during the past four years."

What... you guys thought she wouldn't see her picture in the Paris subway. This is fricking Uma Thurman. Hello? The lady is beyond global. She's intergalactic planetary.

Lancome is calling bullshit with a countersuit saying they don't owe her a dime. They even trotted out a fuckwit of a PR rep for L'Oreal (Lancome's parent company) who basically admitted their guilt:

"The use of Ms. Thurman's image after her contract expired, however minor, was neither deliberate nor intentional."

McCann is L'Oreal's AOR. Not to say they are to blame or anything. A funny note about that... Overheard at the death star agency - a bigwig admitting that they just spend L'Oreal's money on digital, just to say they've fulfilled their digital obligations. Forget strategy, social media, blah, blah... Just build something expensive, throw in some e-commerce, bill the client and hope for the best. How McCann continues to survive while their leadership wastes great talent and churns out mediocre work? No idea. None.

Lewis Hamilton, last year's 2nd place finisher in the F1 circuit in his debut season, is slated to sign a deal to become a "global brand ambassador" for Reebok.

It is expected to be worth about $20 million a year -- not bad scratch for a guy who has been on the world racing scene for only a year.

Hamilton, a sporting megastar in the UK, will join football stars (or "soccer" for the heathens in the crowd) Thierry Henry and Andrei Shevchenko as fellow global ambassadors on the Adidas-owned company.

Traditionally, McLaren does not allow its drivers to seek deals outside its own pool of sponsors, which in addition to Vodafone includes Hilton, Hugo Boss, Santander and Tag Heuer. (I'm sure they'll have to work out a deal for a huge patch on the driver's firesuit.)

However, despite having only one year's track experience in F1, Hamilton is one of sport's most marketable stars, prompting McLaren to make an exception.

Domino's at the beginning of the year vows to freeze the price of their items through the end of the year -- because they have guaranteed fixed costs on all the ingredients. So guess what happens?

Hell yeah... they raised prices on average $2 a pizza as of last week.

All due to the "growing food crisis" on-going on a global basis -- so it is not always the ad agencies who fuck it up for the brands -- sometimes they are fully capable of doing it themselves.

In a poll conducted for Marketing Magazine by Joshua G2, McDonald's comes out as the most hated brand in the UK.

Of course, regardless of whether a brand has inspired great love or a full-on fatwa, it has at least elicited a definite response from consumers, meaning that not only are they aware of its existence but have strong feelings toward it, neither of which is necessarily a bad thing. (following the mantra "Any publicity is good publicity")

The aptly named Jill McDonald, McDonald's chief marketing officer for Northern Europe, admits that McDonald's is a polarising brand. Despite this, according to the chain, 70% of the UK population say they will eat at one of its restaurants at least once over a 12-month period. (some might argue that "McDick's" has better offerings than typical British cuisine -- discuss amongst yourselves...)

On the flipside an unprecedented number of technology brands appear in the most-loved list, with Nokia taking top spot, iPod third and social networking site Facebook making its debut in fifth.

You can find more here.

Hi. Did you know that The Clio Awards are owned by VNU Nielsen? We asked a few people and they were ignorant of this big biz fact. Call us slow, yeah? VNUNielsen is the same company that also owns Adweek. Don't worry. No Phillip K. Dick rants here. Instead, so we're all informed, here is a simple list of VNU's advertising related holdings:

- ACNielsen, marketing research firm
- AGB Nielsen Media Research, television audience measurement firm, a joint venture with AGB Group
- Adweek weekly advertising industry publication
- Brandweek weekly marketing industry publication
- Claritas, provider of intelligent marketing information and target marketing services
- Clio Awards, Advertising and Design festival and award show
- Homescan & Spectra, provides consumer-centric marketing and sales solutions for the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry
- IMS, media planning and analysis software for industry and proprietary research
- Mediaweek weekly media (Television, radio, print and outdoor advertising) industry publication
- Nielsen Media Research, Mobile, Soundscan, etc.

See the full list of VNU's holdings here.

Dove is in the midst of a reoutching crisis. Seems those busty, "real women" were touched up. You are so not surprised. Don't pretend. A retoucher who worked on the campaign, Pascal Dangin, was quoted in this week's New Yorker saying the images were heavily [no pun intended] altered. Dangin, who is trying to keep his career in tact, has recanted. Call me a cynic, but I'm yawning my way through this "crisis." Dove has released this statement:

"Dove's mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by widening the definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves. Dove strives to portray women by accurately depicting their shape, size, skin color and age.

The "real women" ad referenced in recent media coverage was created and produced entirely by Ogilvy, the Dove brand's advertising agency, from start to finish and the women's bodies were not digitally altered.

Pascal Dangin worked with photographer Annie Leibovitz (Ogilvy has never employed Mr. Dangin on the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty), who did the photography for the launch of the Dove ProAge campaign, a new campaign within the Campaign for Real Beauty. There was an understanding between Dove and Ms. Leibovitz that the photos would not be retouched - the only actions taken were the removal of dust from the film and minor color correction."

[source]

Ok...so it is for the creative portion of the Mitsubshi business -- which given previous comments by readers (*cough cough* when you guys did comment on the site) is either a completely soul-sucking account -- or it just sucks to work on because of the ever-changing client needs makes a rollercoaster ride look like a drive through Iowa in comparison. (ed note: I'm full of metaphors today...or full of something...)

The contenders for the $185 million creative account -- all based in Southern California -- are: Omnicom Group's DDB/LA in Venice; and independents Ignited in El Segundo, WongDoody in Seattle and Culver City and Traffic in Los Angeles.

180 (LA), MMB (who in the act of looking up to find out who the hell they were -- well their website broke my browser...instant demerit points there) and Ground Zero are among the shops that did not advance apparently.

BBDO West, the incumbent for the past three years out of San Francisco, did not defend.

The folks at Mitsubishi apparently want to cut back on the TV spend and hike the digital spend -- which puts Organic on the hook too as they are the digital AOR and their work is up for review as well.

This whole thing should finally be wrapped up at the end of the month when final presentations are set to occur.

Ok...so Soccer (or "football" for those so cultured) is not exactly the most popular sport in the US -- but it is the world's most popular sport.

And in the continuing conquest that is Nike commercials (see: Steve Nash)-- they have picked out a winner again.

I'm not a huge football fan -- but this a massive commercial -- and highly entertaining. Leave a comment as see how many "famous" football players and luminaries are shown in the video.

(I love the WAG angle too...)

You are in luck -- Apple has inked a deal with a hell of a lot of movie studios to distribute their movies on iTunes the same day they are released on DVD.

The list of studios include 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios.

The first new release titles to go on sale this week include 'American Gangster' and 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'. Other recent movies also available include 'Juno', 'Cloverfield', 'I Am Legend', 'There Will Be Blood' and 'Alvin and the Chipmunks.'

Only US consumers can access the movie downloads area on iTunes at present. New titles are priced at $14.99 and most back catalogue titles at $9.99. The movies can also be rented at $2.99 for a library title and $3.99 for new releases.

The deal could severely change the landscape of the DVD industry, including video rental chains such as Blockbuster, because they will no longer have the window of exclusivity before movies are released online.

Studios previously gave DVD releases a head start of as much as 30 to 45 days over other distribution outlets to help preserve a major income source. I'd sell the stock in Blockbuster tout suite.

Of course, none of this all really matters to those who are in anyway tech savvy -- the studios keep ignoring this BitTorrent technology wave. It allows one to get DVD-quality movies downloaded 2-4 weeks before it comes on DVD -- and the average movie takes less than an hour to download. (ed note: Now...don't go out there and actually do it though -- that would be illegal and we love our readers too much to get the MPAA after your ass.)

They continue on with the "ignorance is bliss" stance... because that is working out so well.

Oh! I love this. It's so gross, I might barf. Just got this press release:

"Today the Indoor Tanning Association (ITA) launched a pre-emptive strike against those who will hype fears about the sun next week on "Melanoma Monday," by running an ad nationally in USA TODAY."

The text of the ad reads:

"Dermatologists and the sunscreen industry have spent millions on a deceptive campaign to scare Americans away from the sun. Now the tide of research is turning the other direction. The positive effects of getting vitamin D from sunlight are clear. So soak up a little sunlight--indoors or out--a couple of times each week, and get your recommended dose of the sunshine vitamin."

Did your stomach do a little flip at the part where they're basically like - "the world has aligned against you baking yourself in the sun? It's a conspiracy! It's the magic bullet theory all over again!"

So, yeah, the sun is good for your skin. That's not new science for starters, but uh... it also causes all sorts of nasty side effects like oh, cancer and premature aging to name two. Gawd bless advertising. Everyone's got a point of view.