Russia’s abysmal track record for gay rights got unnecessarily worse last year, when a court ruling banned gay parades in the country for the next 100 years. Today, Stockholm Pride and M&C Saatchi Stockholm are fighting back with gowest2013.com, a digital campaign that lets Russians celebrate gay rights on Twitter for one well-intentioned thorn in the side of the Russian government: to get “Go West” trending in Russia. How are they going to accomplish this from a Swedish website, you ask? All tweets from the website automatically change location to a Russian city. Got to love technology.

If Stockholm Pride accomplishes their goal, I’d love to see the faces of Russian government officials after “Go West” starts trending. Stalin rolls in his grave, Putin rolls in his bed, Sting makes more music videos like this. If you’re interested in contributing, you can tweet from the website to help the cause and watch as Princeton, New Jersey turns into Ufa, Russia.

This is the true story about how one agency locked three creative types (a copywriter, art director and creative technologist) in a room for 24 hours and challenged them to, you guessed it, “get creative.” The end result was a viral hit of sorts from a few weeks ago called “Couchella,” which debuted just in time to coincide wit the annual weekend-long music extravaganza in California. As we previously mentioned, the trio who were put to the test were Julie Matheny, Scott Blew, and Ivan Cash, whose experiment is captured in the clip above. The “Couchella” project, essentially an internet music festival, actually marks 72andSunny’s involvement with Portfolio Night 11, specifically the Los Angeles installment. Whether it worked or not is up to the audience that took part, but hey, at least “Couchella” provided a free alternative to the now-bloated event that inspired it.

Mark Svartz, Hal Kirkland and their crew, who were behind previous efforts including the “Artobots” installation as part of their “Audio Tour Hack” campaign, have returned with a new “binaural sound” exhibit dubbed “Mad World,” which takes us through the sands of time as part of an effort for One Club and its Creative Week. Sure, it’s a bit vague at this point, but here’s a little description from the Hack Tourists:

If you don’t feel like watching the whole 3-minute Portfolio Night Boston clip from SapientNitro above, here’s a brief summary: A hipper-than-thou ad creative pitches a wealth of concepts to an agency head. The problem is, that this mustache-sporting creative’s ideas hinge on a litany of buzzwords and tech-y hoopla, which the agency head (OMG! Look at his CLIOs! Look at Cannes Lions!) shakes his head at. The creative is then escorted out of the building, and we see the words “Idea Before Everything” flash across the screen.

You’ve probably seen this execution done hundreds of times before, many times made by agencies that see these little vignettes as an opportunity to advertise themselves as shops that “get it.” They do so by making fun of whatever new ad trends are the talk of the town right now, making sure that the viewer (who is generally either an employee or someone who works at another agency, like you) knows that they don’t buy into bullshit hype and that their work is somehow pure. But, let’s be honest, does anyone really believe that? Has anyone won new business that way? Can any of you say that you never worked at an agency that unironically bought into these kinds of hype-driven executions this video mocks? Sure, it has to done, because that’s what clients want, but let’s not pretend that all of us have clean hands.

I guess what I’m asking for is that agencies who preach innovation to start marketing themselves in an innovative fashion. That, or how about we actually practice what we preach and don’t make creative that actually does hinge on whatever buzzword Mashable puts on their homepage (not going to happen). For the record, I’m not calling out SapientNitro in particular. I’m just tired of seeing this idea.

The folks at New York Festivals are putting on their annual “New York Show” beginning this Wednesday, May 1st at the New York Public Library (video from last year’s event above). Seeing as they sponsored our January AgencySpy party and all, we’re sending back a little lunchtime love and letting you know that the NYF currently has 40 tickets up for grabs for the two-day creative-focused event, which will include speakers such as Havas Worldwide CCO Jason Peterson, Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide digital CD Tom Eslinger and David Rolfe, head of integrated production at BBDO. If a bevy of creative speaking sessions as well as cocktail events, an Awards gala and other activities tickle your fancy, you can register here for a free ticket. Make sure to fill out all the fields and use the code 8888 to have at ‘em.

With Portfolio Night 11 drawing nearer, we’re starting to receive an increasing amount of content from agencies who are either hosting or just celebrating the fact that their city’s taking part in the annual global recruiting/review event. We’ll try to keep the coverage to a minimum since we actually have no stake in PN 11, but a few entries have caught our eye over the last week or so including Doner’s tribute to Eminem and 8 Mile.

The latest interesting submission comes to us from Sid Lee New York, which is serving as Big Apple host for this year’s event. As mentioned in the headline, the agency has decided to create a speed dating atmosphere for creatives complete with speed-dating style tables (with tablecloths) and chairs), ’90s-style name tags (whatever those look like), ’90s dating videos playing on a projector (think those old “Great Expectations” commercials), breath mints, disco ball, a car keys bowl for creative directors to leave business cards and even a photo/”kissing” booth. Considering the ’80s-style promo above (with a track that sounds like M83) and the disco ball, though, we’re not sure what decade Sid Lee is exactly waxing nostalgic about. Whatever the case, the agency will try to play Cupid in its NY PN 11 installment, which takes place at the Art Directors Club on May 22 in Chelsea. Get full info here.

Yeah, we couldn’t resist. Again, by sheer coincidence, we have another Doner-related item today thanks to this clip that dropped in our inbox less than a half-hour ago. We’ve already reported on Portfolio Night 11 and posted a couple videos along with it last week, but entering the ring now is Doner, which is celebrating the fact that the Motor City is taking part in the annual recruiting/portfolio review event for the very first time.

So, how else would one inaugurate Detroit’s inclusion into the festivities other than giving a shout-out to native son Eminem. Ladies and gents, we give you “9 Mile,” which of course pays tribute to the hip-hop star’s film 8 Mile and gives a nod to its classic freestyle battle scene but, yes, with a twist. Guess getting your portfolio ripped apart by Doner EVP/ECD Brad Emmett is just as humiliating as getting schooled on the mic by Rabbit. Credits after the jump.

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Since we’ve never been able to make it out to Cali for the annual, now-bloated Coachella festival (we went with “Couchella” this year), we’ll instead enjoy this birds-eye view–literally–from one Chris Crutchfield. The 6’7″ director/actor/motion graphic designer who strapped on a GoPro Hero 3 to give us a “Coachellavated” perspective of the musical extravaganza.

The project was creative directed by Scott T. Chan and produced by his L.A.-based creative studio Whirled, which is perhaps now best known for its annual “Zeitgeist” work for Google. Seeing as we’ll probably never make it out to Coachella though we’ve been saying otherwise every year, we will gladly take this three-minute diversion from the usual advertising news as we head into the late afternoon. Speaking of Coachella, Jimmy Kimmel and his crew getting attendees at this year’s fest to lie about liking bands that don’t actually exist.

Yes, kids, it’s time to get those portfolios in shape as the annual Portfolio Night event is just a month away. The 11th annual installment of the recruiting/review event will take place simultaneously on May 22 in 24 participating cities around the world including Athens, New York and Tokyo. For the first time, Portfolio Night, which was founded by IHaveAnIdea, will be presented by the Art Directors Club, with this year’s theme being the “3-Hour Job Hunt” (promo video produced with 360i and starring IHAVEANIDEA founder/current ADC executive director Ignacio Oreamuno above).

Anyhow, tickets for the event are now on sale. Over the weekend, Tokyo celebrated its first time participating in Portfolio Night by launching the horror-themed promo below. Being fans of the genre, we just couldn’t resist.

As the opening moments states, viewer discretion is advised with this lengthy promo from RPA and Tool, who for the fourth year in a row are teaming up to hype the Newport Beach Film Festival. If you haven’t seen Corbin’s Bernsen‘s epic, award-winning (ok, not really) The Dentist saga or better yet The Marathon Man, consider this clip called “Mandible” the Cliff’s Notes version.

Again, this is not for the squeamish (though as a horror fan it’s not all that shocking; as a guy who’s got a dentist appointment next week, that’s another story), but in a statement regarding “Mandible,” RPA creative director Scott McDonald says, “We wanted to demonstrate the power of film by taking audiences to a heightened state of emotion and then pulling them back to reality, reminding them that they’re watching particles of light on a screen.” Perhaps what we’re seeing is how RPA felt during the recent Honda review, but who knows, they came out of it pretty OK and so will you. The Newport Beach Film Festival begins April 25 and runs through May 2. Enjoy the show, kids. Credits after the jump.

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