30-SECOND SPOTS / DISPATCHES FROM THE WORLD OF MEDIA AND ADVERTISING

1)

Are you a creative director whose parents wish you'd done something meaningful with your life? Winning a Cannes Lion just wasn't enough for them? Would bringing home a Nobel Peace Prize finally shut them up? Then check out The Impossible Brief, a challenge by Saatchi & Saatchi Tel Aviv to devise a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Detail your original, creative and truly inspiring suggestion for how to bring these two nations closer together," reads the campaign's Facebook page. The winner will be selected by a panel of Israeli and Arab ad folk, who no doubt will come to a unanimous decision in complete and perfect harmony. Oy.

2)

In news that's going to freak out paranoid people everywhere, the marketing consulting firm Millward-Brown this week announced it was bulking up its neuroscience research practice with five new members, extending the reach from its base in the U.K. to North America, Latin America and India. In the past, the firm has used magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) to study people's emotional responses to direct mail, and conducted eye-tracking to study what parts of ads people were spending the most time on. None of which will ever explain the success of the ShamWow.

3)

The Canadian Marketing Association isn't normally one to target government, but this week it criticized the feds for a decision to make the long-form census voluntary. In a letter to Industry Minister Tony Clement, the CMA said the census was, "a valuable source of information to marketers when making key business decisions, including what products and services to market to whom." It added that, while some people believe the census is intrusive, Canadians wouldn't like the blizzard of marketing surveys they'd face as an alternative. Are we the only ones who think the CMA just came off like mobsters gently recommending the purchase of "protection"?

4)

Everybody knows the Queen is an amazing gal with killer taste in hats, the ability to tame wild sons and appear coolly collected even as everyone else is melting from the humidity. But who knew she was an astute marketer? An opinion poll issued this week found that support for the monarchy went up a few notches in the wake of Her Majesty's visit to our fine colony, to 36 per cent from 33 per cent. QEII herself remains extremely popular, with 69 per cent saying they have a favourable opinion of her. Seems to us she could make some coin in the endorsement racket.

5)

Or maybe the Queen could drop in on Alberta and the Maritimes, both of which could use some help with their reputations this week. First came an attack by PETA on the annual Atlantic seal hunt, with a video showing hunters clubbing the defenceless animals, their blood spilling onto the ice floes, with O Canada as a soundtrack. Then on Wednesday, San Francisco-based Corporate Ethics International put another video online showing prospective tourists the environmental damage apparently caused by the oil sands. They say that pictures are worth a thousand words. And viral videos? If the activists are right, they could be worth millions of dollars.