"I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning," said Andy Warhol. The marketing execs at Martini & Rossi probably wouldn't agree, as they're bringing back the ads the artist helped create for the alcoholic beverage company in the 1950s and 1960s, back when he was known only for those adorable little drawings of lips, shoes, and cats done for the likes of Mademoiselle. According to Brandweek's Steve Miller, Barcardi-owned Martini & Rossi is partnering with the Andy Warhol Foundation to launch "Warhol's take on taste," a campaign of four "new" print ads featuring illustrations by Warhol. A report in the Wall Street Journal adds that the company will hold Factory-themed parties in select U.S. cities. "Model mixologists and celebrity look-alikes from Warhol's era (such as Marilyn Monroe) will reinforce the company's connection to the artist." One event we found, scheduled for July 16 in New Orleans, promises "two limited edition Warhol-inspired Vermouth cocktails and, in true Warhol style, unexpected surprises." Although himself a teetotaler, Andy would surely delight at the idea of cocktails described as both inspired by him and "limited edition."

When embarking on a rebrand of a site about branding, things can get confusing, but Brandweek has completed the task, today launching its expanded website (on the heels of relaunched versions of Adweek.com and Mediaweek.com). Why redesign now? "To more efficiently enhance the capability of our web-based platforms to connect with and facilitate interaction with our core audiences," of course, or such were the buzzphrases (what? no synergies?) assembled by Brandweek publisher Tom Woerner in response to the query of our brother blog, PRNewser. As for how the new site can efficiently enhance your capabilities, check out the newly published Superbrands issue, fronted by the Target-y cover pictured above. Among the Superbrands content available free online for the first time ever are the list of America's Top 2000 brands, ranked by full-year 2007 national media expenditures, and in-depth analysis by category.

In his letter introducing the issue, Brandweek editor Todd Wasserman emphasizes that, "people don't buy products for their utility and quality; they don't even really buy products at all. They buy stories." And he signs off on a rather chilling note. "It reminds me of the joke Woody Allen told in Annie Hall about the man who thought he was a chicken, but his brother didn't want to tell him he wasn't because he—the brother—needed the eggs. We will all be in a lot of trouble on the day when the consumer finds out he is not a chicken." On the bright side, the realization may do wonders for the ranking of the brand currently coming in at #1494, Tyson's frozen entrees.

Although you'll see that we were here yesterday, working in the blog mines simply for the benefit of you, we welcome you back from your long weekend, dear readers. To kick off the day, we start with maybe a slight-off-design-topic, but one we've been wondering about since around January: how much of an amazing gift has this extended, painful presidential primary process been for advertising, media buying, creatives in general, etc. Turns out, it's been a veritable flood of gold pieces for anyone in that industry, with companies positioned in the right place at the right time grabbing all the cash they can possibly carry, at least according to Sir Martin Sorrell, head of the WPP Group. Here's a bit:

Sorrell added to the general upbeat nature of the interview by saying that the global rise in commodity prices was having a knock-on effect, as clients were spending more on promotions and advertising:

"What we've seen I think on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world is an increase in activity... along with some of the other events that we all talk about, such as the Beijing Olympics, European football championships and political spending around the US elections, which have stimulated ad spending in 2008 and probably will continue to the end of the year."

And it couldn't come at a better time, what with the writer's strike earlier in the year messing everything up, the billions of viewing options people now have, etc. So, in this current economic downturn, it's nice to hear that at least one industry is making some money. Though we'd hate to be an ad accountant in 2009, explaining why their revenues aren't anywhere similar from the year prior.

What happens in Miami doesn't have to stay in Miami. In fact, if all goes well, visitors should leave there with something to take home and put on the wall -- or on the floor or in the closet. At least that's the message of the city's newest tourism campaign, which replaces bikini-clad lovelies lounging poolside at boutique hotels (not that there's anything wrong with that) with the work of local artists and designers to extol the city as not only sizzling but also "a refined destination awash in culture." In the above ad, created by agency Turkel and debuting this month in such publications as The New Yorker and Architectural Digest, a man dives into a sea of (digitally multiplied) benches created by local furniture designer Avner Zabari.

Word of the new campaign (catchphrase: "Miami: Express Yourself") made the front page of yesterday's Miami Herald, which titled the story "From Abs to Abstract."

"We've created a more sophisticated image of Miami," said Rolando Aedo, marketing director for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, which commissioned the new campaign. "We're shifting from style to more substance."

As if to say, "We in advertising didn't mean to sell things by deceiving people into thinking their lives would be better if they purchased our products," the team of Unilver, Annie Leibovitz and Pascal Dangin are all three denying the big story floating around late last week that the Dove 'Real Beauty' campaign was digitally altered to make the models more appealing. But it appears to be more damage control by Annie Leibovitz and her posse than it does by Unilver and Ogilvy & Mather, the ad agency behind it all. Leibovitz didn't come into the campaign until two years after it started running and no one seems to want to talk about what was going on before she came into the picture, which is just about the same as saying, "Yeah, we were doing it before, but then our budget went up as the campaign got more high-profile, so we hired a big shot photographer who could hide all of their flaws in-camera." Here's a bit from Dangin, celebrated photo-retoucher:

The photos for that 2005 ad were taken by London celebrity fashion photographer Ian Rankin, not Ms. Leibovitz, with whom Mr. Dangin long has worked. Mr. Rankin couldn't be reached at press time.

"As directed by Ms. Leibovitz and Ogilvy & Mather, [the Pro-Age] photographs were retouched for dust and color correction," he said. "I did not mean to suggest that the women's shape, size, facial features or age were retouched. Consistent with the intent of Dove, Ogilvy & Mather, Annie Leibovitz, and my own guiding philosophy, the integrity of the photographs and the natural and unique beauty of the women were maintained."

Over at Nerve.com, they've assembled a list of the "50 greatest commercial parodies of all time," most of them drawn from the post-monologue slot on Saturday Night Live. The list includes many of our favorites, including the SNL spots for Crystal Gravy (#16) and Calvin Klein "Compulsion" (#29), but where is the classic Grayson Moorhead Securities parody? Dan Akroyd shilling for the Bass-o-matic takes the #1 ranking, and we're pleased to see that this ad for the First CityWide Change Bank came in at a respectable #7.

We can't even begin to tell you the giddy thrill we had reading AdAge's story, "Dove's 'Real Beauty' Pics Could Be Big Phonies." Like most media or ad people, this writer has disliked Unilever's entire deceptive 'Campaign for Real Beauty' from the start, from their billion-YouTube-views "Evolution" video to the massive push two years ago with the "regular women in underwear" ads. So it was with deliriously wonderful schadenfreude to read that The New Yorker has exposed, via a piece about hot shot photo-retoucher, Pascal Dangin, that there was extensive manipulation to make the women in the ads seem more appealing. So now, or soon to come, everyone will be up in arms about being blindly suckered into loving the campaign for its truth and honesty. Meanwhile, Unilever and Ogilvy & Mather, the agency behind the campaign, have been laughing all the way to the bank from the very start.

No, they should wear jeans. Expensive ones. At least that's the thinking of denim brand Seven for All Mankind, which recently shot its fall advertising campaign at Philip Johnson's iconic Glass House, set on a 47-acre New Canaan estate that is now a National Trust Historic Site (and has a spiffy identity designed by Pentagram). According to WWD, Seven is the first company or brand to use the Glass House as an advertising backdrop.

Acquired by apparel giant VF Corp. last year for $775 million, Seven is now trying to expand beyond denim into sportswear, accessories, and licensed products. And when we think of sportwear and accessories, we think, of course, of Philip Johnson! Managed by creative director Alex Sum, Seven's fall ad campaign at the Glass House was photographed by Patrick Demarchelier and features models Doutzen Kroes and Gabriel Chytry. When asked about the unique shoot location, Demarchelier told WWD, "It's fantastic, it's amazing."

Today's big automotive news is that Ford has agreed to sell Jaguar and Land Rover (the "luxury safari brands," as we like to call them) to India's Tata Motors for $2.3 billion ($600 million of which Ford will have to pay back into the Jaguar and Land Rover pension funds). But while Ford is cashing in on storied brands and BMW is messing around with glow-in-the-dark ads, Toyota is putting the identity of its Scion car in the hands of, well, anyone. Scion Speak, a new campaign by ad firm StrawberryFrog, encourages website visitors to create their own snazzy coat of arms, which can be adorned with everything from a butterfly and a cupcake to handcuffs and a spermatozoal trio. Using the handy drop-down menus, we selected a name for our crest (pictured above): "Chancellor Designer The Wack."

For maximum street cred, StrawberryFrog called in designer Tristan Eaton (perhaps best known for his covetable Kid Robot toys), who got to know the cultish Scion owners through nationwide focus groups. "Probably one of the most prominent incidents was driving in L.A. in a Scion and seeing another Scion pass us, honk the horn, and wave at us," says Eaton. "At that point, I realized OK, these guys are their own culture."

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Our very own sister blog, FishbowlNY, has gotten into the business of critiquing design with their recent post calling out an ad popping up everywhere in New York for a new Urban Outfitters opening in Brooklyn. Sure, it's kinda clever, like everything they do at the world's greatest supplier of irony, designed to look like a homemade, glue-and-paste sort of thing that you might see an average joe putting together and posting in their laudromat. Unfortunately, what they didn't seem to care about were details that had anything to do with the neighborhood they were moving into, just a collection of things people outside of the NY area might associate with Brooklyn.

2. Paul's Boutique was in Manhattan, dipwads.