Seattle shop Creature really loves their window space. We’ve covered some of their pane projects before, like the motion-sensor-triggered mirror installed in April. There’s also the pop-up window shop from last winter. And now recently, as part of Seattle’s Capitol Hill Block Party that ran from July 26-28, Creature used their window space to chute out creative fortunes to festival-goers and set up cameras, so they could see who had what fortune and then make that fortune come true.

Creative Director Pam Fujimoto blogged about the whole experience and described the project as “pure Creature,” which aside from being lyrically fun, also sounds like the name of a bad 80s rock band. Makes you wonder what impure Creature would look like. A sample fortune was: “Someone will tell you you look like a younger Tony Danza.” Others involved $2 bills and Mike & Ike’s. The fortunes themselves aren’t that important, but the execution from staffers who spent their weekend on the venture is not only good free publicity, but just a cool bit to cover on a rainy Thursday.

Alas, our usual Extractable contributor Simon Mathews is sitting this month out, but we gladly welcome this rather epic debut from Dana Larson, VP/user experience at the aforementioned San Francisco agency. Larson has spent 20+ years in the biz, holding a wide range of positions including copywriter, CMO, content strategy director and ECD. Seeing as she has some experience in the content strategy field as noted, Larson offers a comprehensive look into what this job exactly entails. Read on.

Recently I was reading a discussion on LinkedIn Groups about whether or not it was a promotion to go from copywriter to content strategist. I asked one of my old colleagues what he thought, and his response was, “I don’t know…what is content strategy, really?” Actually, that’s a good question as I think a lot of people don’t really know what content strategy is. Erin Kissane explains this phenomena in her book, The Elements of Content Strategy, by saying, “In an industry in which the efforts of visual designers, information architects, front-end developers, and content creators can be seen center-stage when a new website launches, content strategy is a fundamentally backstage discipline.” And because content strategists typically work with all of these more visible roles, it can make their role seem even less clear-cut.

I’ll get to just what a content strategist does in a bit, but first let’s set the stage by taking a look at a website that was clearly designed without the aid of a content strategist. I’m kind of at a loss for words at how a renowned organization like Massachusetts Institute of Technology could produce something like the Center for Advanced Visual Studies website. Its haphazard placement of text islands obscured by clouds of floating type combined with random web 2.0 animations is a recipe for digital indigestion. Wow. Go there. Now. Resize the window. Experience the wonder. It’s the site that keeps on giving.

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It’s been some time since we’ve heard word from Dallas-based MEplusYOU–formerly known as imc2–but we’ve now received confirmation that the digital agency has had to make cuts this week. A spokesperson tells us, “The agency had to make the difficult decision to reduce staff. They are talented and passionate people and will be greatly missed.” The MEPlusYou camp wouldn’t comment/clarify any further in terms of approximate numbers and/or departments affected, but multiple tipsters are telling that 30-40 were let go including top creatives. We’ll keep you posted if and when we hear more on MEplusYOU, which last we recall underwent some restructuring last fall.

Update: Seeing as MEplusYOU isn’t commenting any further at the moment, we’ll go to the folks on the Spy line, who are now telling us that mostly tech was affected by the reductions along with a couple of creatives. The numbers we’re hearing now are slightly under 30.

Instead of comparing fuel band scores or enjoying an office taco Tuesday, Venice, CA-based agency Ted Perez + Associates banded together to create something that would push their boundaries as storytellers and technologists. Their idea was an arcade game, made from scratch. Their designers created the characters, their copywriters (presumably) wrote the words, and their programmers built the code. Altogether, they made Gnarnia, a Wii-enabled arcade game that tells the story of an idyllic camp invaded by pesky woodland creatures. Players have to shoot the animals to stay safe and win points.

The idea is fun, and I appreciate the mashup of a title. But in reviewing this project, I wonder a few things: first, could Ted Perez and his associates have used those 26 days it took to bring this project to life for something a bit more…productive? Maybe I’m a total grinch, but because this isn’t particularly funny or nuanced, it seems like a waste of time. And second (in an admittedly off-topic issue), the tiny text on their website makes me feel like I’m about to turn 40. If an ad agency is about storytelling and technology, they should manage to put their website’s font in black, size 12. And get someone with a non-monotonous voice to narrate future promotional videos.

It’s that time again, interns of the world, to cast your votes for the best agency intern program in Internship King’s annual poll. Last year, we saw the likes of The Richards Group, McKinney and 22squared topping the list. This year, as you can see, it’s a whole different ballgame thus far, though voting will continue through end of Friday so who knows how this will turn out. Just to remind you students out there, the Internship King site not only allows you to vote but view ratings, reviews, and salaries of agency internships as well.

And now for something completely different:

A tipster points us to a quaint little discussion in Reddit’s Advertising sub-reddit that asks: “Do agencies drug test? Or is it something that’s on an agency by agency basis? I’m more of a creative and about to start entering the field, just wondering what to look out for.” We figure it’s our duty to distract you from this whole Publicis/Omnicom thing with a few of our favorite responses.

User auto-didact imagined an employee having to break the drug test results with the boss:

“Well, the designers all showed up positive for marijuana. So we fired them. Most of the creative directors too. All the account honchos came up positive for opiates. Most likely coke. They’re gone. All our PLD’s and software engineers tripped up for speed. Not surprising. We’ll have to offshore that work now. Oh, and almost all the senior leadership was clean, but bloodwork showed liver failure in progress. We caught our IT guy huffing cans of spray paint.”

User panthur offers a different experience:

They did at my agency. It was a local agency but now we are owned by a giganto agency conglomerate. A lot of them are owned by big companies and testing unfortunately tends to come with that.

Finally, user pugofwar responded simply with:

Never. (I’m at W+K.)

You can read the whole thread here, and we invite you to share your own experience in the comments.

A week after he initially began his experiment, ad man Marty Weiss‘s search for friends in New York City soldiers forth, only this time with a little less success. Weiss’s man-on-the-street project, where he simply asks, “would you be my friend?” to total strangers, is essentially a self-promotional effort for his newly rebranded agency called, yes, Marty Weiss & Friends, which works with the likes of Grand Central and Sobieski vodka. If you stick around until the end, you’ll see Weiss, who seems like a friendly enough character though NYC passersby aren’t really having it, eventually catch up with a rather familiar name from the ad world. During his 25-year ad career, Weiss worked at the likes of TBWA\Chiat\Day and served as creative director/founding partner of another New York-based agency called Weiss Whitten Stagliano for well over a decade. You can check out his YouTube page here.

As one might imagine, the announcement (and Vine video) of the biggest merger in advertising history is causing quite a reaction from those in the industry. Above, Keith Hunt, managing partner of M&A consulting firm Results International, hypothesizes about the implications the newly formed Publicis Omnicom Group will have.

As Hunt notes, the merger means the company will be able to buy media very cheaply, leapfrogging WPP in the process. But, Hunt wonders, how far can you push down prices? At one point do vendors draw the line?

Also, Hunt says, there’s the issue of who’s in charge. Co-chief execs, John Wren (Omnicom) and Maurice Levy (Publicis)  are elder statesmen. Levy, the older of the two at 71, is now on the hot seat in terms of naming a successor, that is, if the balance of power between Publicis and Omnicom remains a priority. As WPP’s Martin Sorrell said in an interview today, “It’s a nil-premium merger — effectively a takeover of Publicis by Omnicom [without exchange of money].”

Finally, says Hunt, there’s the matter of positioning. It benefits the new company to frame the merger as one that hinges around new technologies and emerging markets, allowing Publicis Omnicom Group to compete against tech companies outside advertising agencies like Adobe. “Exciting times,” he adds before staring into the camera wistfully. It’s only the beginning.

Check out Wren and Levy bonding after the jump.

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In a somewhat surprising weekend move that’s now been broadcast everywhere, French advertising network Publicis and New York-based Omnicom Group announced today that they are merging, supplanting London’s WPP to become to world’s largest advertising firm.

The news comes as a bit of a shock, especially considering the announcement was made on a summer weekend. Reports of merger negotiations first happened on Friday afternoon, followed by more concrete details on the merger coming out yesterday via a report from Bloomberg. The newly christened Publicis Omnicom Group will be led by Omnicom CEO John Wren and Publicis CEO Maurice Levy, who will acts as co-chief executives.

The merger is sending shockwaves throughout the industry, with reaction to news quite mixed. While many agree that shareholders will benefit from the news, looming doubts remain about how the new company will strike a balance of power with its bases split between continents, as well as how Publicis Omnicom Group will go about solving the many client conflicts as competing brands (Coca-Cola and Pepsi, McDonald’s and Taco Bell) are brought under one roof.

Omnicom (whose properties include BBDO, DDB, and TBWA) and Publicis (whose properties include Leo Burnett, DigitasLBi, Saatchi & Saatchi and media giant Starcom) have a combined annual revenue of $23 billion. We’ve heard that Levy has sent out a network-wide email about the merger.

Just to clarify things right quick for those on the Spy line, we spoke to sources in the know, and yes, we’ve received confirmation that Judith Carr, currently president and now-Publicis Groupe-owned DigitasLBi, is changing courses just slightly. From what we’ve been told, Carr, who’s been with what was then LBi for seven years, will be part of a move that includes “streamlining management,” though she’s staying within the organization and starting her own practice within the Publicis Groupe network.

Timeline has yet to be finalized (we’re told it could be anywhere from six weeks to end of year at this point), but we’ll keep you posted if and when we hear more about Carr, who sources say is just one of a few upcoming leadership shifts at DigitasLBi/MRY on coming up. We’re of course staying tuned.