La-de-dah

+ W+K launches 12. It would be one thing for w+k to charge a fee if it was just an education thing. But, since "students" will be handling client work, what happens when what they create gets used by the client? Does that mean that they are in fact paying 13K to do work? That seems extremely backwards. I'd hope that they'd get some sort of compensation for their work being produced. Unless the agency is going to claim that it's "portfolio building" and exposure or some such crap.
Juniors and interns are taken advantage of enough as it is. This seems like it could easily do the same thing. For the sake of the "students" I really hope that they get something other than some certificate or the response that they are buliding a portfolio, just because the work they did was used.

+ Guess doesn't care about copyright infringement: "Julie Wear alleges in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Lexington that the company (Guess) illegally used one of her elegant paintings in its latest suggestive advertising campaign.
A cropped version of L'Amore Secret -- Bandos and Fantazja, a 20-year-old painting of two world-famous Arabian horses, hangs in a black frame as the main backdrop behind a model supposedly posing in a Las Vegas motel room with lavender walls and purple shag carpeting.
The ad is one of several photos by Ellen von Unwerth that comprise Guess' 2004 "Las Vegas Campaign." The series portrays "showgirls and guys" who are "looking sexy in the City of Sin. ... causing distractions at the craps table and gambling with lustful emotions," according to the company's Web site." View the ad here.

+ Pope on Advertising:
"Commenting on the theme "Project Culture: The Language of Advertising," which brought the university students together, John Paul II stressed that it "is necessary to know how to use the appropriate language to transmit positive messages, and to make noble ideals and initiatives known in an attractive way."
At the same time, the Pope added, "it is imperative to discern the limits and pitfalls of the languages proposed to us by the media."
"At times, advertisements offer a superficial and inadequate view of life, of the person, of the family, and of morality," he said in his address, delivered in Italian."
I never would have thought the Pope would have given a speech on Advertising. Seems awfuly strange. I'm not going to go into my religious beliefs here, but at the same time, I do think this is wrong and scary. Bad pope, bad.

+ Advertising: The right to choose? is an article from Ghana which wonders whether advertising is the "power to influence or the right to choose?"