ADWEEK calls the campaign “pleasingly simple” in a recent Ad of the Day feature. Please have a look and let us know, what’s your NOOK?

In “Kill for a Pencil,” players help ad man “Jon Scraper” navigate the streets of “Madville,” challenging famous advertising icons for the right to a coveted One Show Pencil. Players will recognize some familiar characters, from a lizard hawking car insurance to a well-constructed deodorant spokesman best known for his small white towel and massive pecs.

Built on HTML 5 Canvas for tablet, mobile and desktop, “Kill for a Pencil” is really simple to play (no plugins needed), and the rewards for winning include symbolic gold, silver and bronze pencils and a chance to score free tickets to One Show Interactive for those who can survive the hazards of the game course. There’s even a green pencil for those who navigate the course without incurring harm on any of their opponents.

“We’re hoping this crazy ad game becomes sticky,” said Mark Wenneker, Chief Creative Officer at Mullen. “The One Show is a perfect place to see how people like it.”

“Kill for a Pencil” is live as of today and a crew from Mullen will be running live demos at all of The One Show Events during Creative Week in New York, May 7-11.

The campaign was designed to celebrate not just the technology, but the unique bond that is created between people and robots. The Roomba is more than a household appliance, it’s an expression of the owner’s personality, a member of the family –  a lot of iRobot’s home consumers even name their robots. And there are 7.5 million of these friendly machines cleaning-up the world these days.

The campaign includes TV spots that will run on national cable (HGTV, DIY Network, Food Network and Travel Channel), online advertising (Conde Nast sites, including Wired, Epicurious and The New Yorker), print that will run in national magazines (Scripps titles, including Popular Science, House Beautiful, HGTV Magazine, Food Network Magazine) and a branded YouTube channel where consumers can see videos from the campaign and contribute their own content as part of a “Dance Robolution” contest.

Please join the Robolution and let us know if you Robot too.

We tell companies that their product IS their content. It’s no secret that advertising is all about finding new and interesting ways to deliver a client’s message and content to consumers. Enter Pinterest. You can play it safe and only pin your own stuff, but that’s akin to only talking about yourself at a cocktail party. If you’re feeling trepidation about starting a page for your brand, why not open it up for pinners to do the work for you? Don’t be the copyright predator; be the copyright victim.

• Embed the pin-it badge on your site. If you want people to share your content, and you want them to feel comfortable doing so, make it easy for them: Put the plug-in on everything worth sharing.
• Watermark your PR and Web images. On all your Web images, and images you distribute for PR purposes, you should consider putting a watermarked logo on the lower corner somewhere. As things get pinned and re-pinned, content can get changed and sourcing could get lost. If a blogger covers your new shoe and someone pins the accompanying image, but that blogger’s post goes away for some reason, that leaves the user wondering where to get those great shoes. So let them know in the image itself.
• Find pinners you love. Many people provide a variety of different ways to reach them on their Pinterest profile page. Look for your favorite journalists/bloggers/personalities and let them know that you have something great to share. A new fall line, new product offerings…all ripe for the pinning.
• Make a statement. It’s a good idea to have a place on your page that’s easy to update on a regular basis – for example, a blog.  Everyone needs a way to take an idea and have it on the site by the end of the day. Fresh content is pinnable.  And if you’re doing it right, people will be coming back to your site often. Give them something to look at.

Time will tell if being on Pinterest really presents a risk or if that’s just a bunch of hype. What we do know, however, is that if you own the images, you have the right to do what you want with them. And if what you want to do with them is see them on Pinterest, then open up your content and set it free.

We welcome Mullen into the GREY GOOSE vodka family. The passion the Mullen team demonstrated for the brand, its strategic insight, creativity and collaborative culture really shined through to set them apart. We look forward to writing the next chapter of this great brand with them to share our amazing story with consumers, said Lyle Tick, Senior Global Category Director – Vodka, for Bacardi Global Brands.

Read more about it here, here and here.

The review was led by Courteney Monroe, the CMO at National Geographic Channels, who joined the company late last year after a distinguished run at HBO. As she told Ad Age:

The philosophy I had at HBO and continue to adhere to is marketing should be as fun, entertaining and innovative as the program itself. It’s hard to break through the clutter. In this instance here, I’m not necessarily in a position to outspend competitors. We need to out-swagger and punch over our weight, and create campaigns that have sizzle and breakthrough from a creative and media perspective.

The National Geographic Channels win is the latest in a series for mediahub, which has added LivingSocial, Benjamin Moore, Barnes & Noble/NOOK and iRobot to the agency roster in the past year.

As John Moore, Chief Media Officer at mediahub, noted in the Ad Age story:

We see [this win] as being big for this media organization. Challenger brands are a big part of our secret sauce.

There’s a lot of great things happening at National Geographic Channels with a new programming slate that includes Wicked Tuna, Killing Lincoln with Tony Scott and Ridley Scott, and the new series Are You Tougher than a Boy Scout.

We should be able to do some amazing work together.

Kraft's umbrellas came in handy during the rainy Austin week

So, as SXSW Interactive comes to an end the biggest takeaway I had is that the brands that find a simple problem to solve, but don’t overstep their role or make solutions too self-serving, win.

The rain (Kraft umbrellas, “Keep Your Noodle Dry”), the lines (apps that help you find friends nearby, i.e., Highlight), the constant need to recharge smartphone batteries (FedEx battery couriers) and the difficulty finding a cab (“Catch A Chevy” free rides) were all areas brands provided solutions that were well received by the crowd.

It’s a bit obvious, but this can scale far outside the festival. Keynote speaker and Cyborg Anthropologist Amber Case captured it best saying, “Technology should make life easier, but get out of the way so we can live our lives without unnecessary distraction.” In our case, “technology” and “brands” are synonymous.

Jay-Z performing for AMEX members

Additionally, interesting themes emerged around creating new models, experiences and worlds that entertain, amaze and surprise/delight. AMEX (refreshed new positioning “membership has benefits”  with exclusive Jay-Z concert for members) and Nike (created dazzling displays that interacted with their new FuelBand) were very impressive examples of this and were frequent topics of conversation among festival goers.

In the end, people are looking for good stories, either that they can tell or that they can use to forge deeper connections to others. This focus will likely shape the future of brand actions, new apps and technologies to come. And the brands that meet these needs will come out winners.

I strongly believe that consumption is less about reflecting who we are–even though that’s clearly a fundamental dimension of it–as much as it’s about who we wish to be.

That quote comes from Paul Mullins, a professor at Indiana University-Purdue University and president of the Society for Historical Archaeology.  Professor Mullins’ new book, The Archaeology of Consumer Culture, proposes that the study of remnants from our past may offer us the best insights about who we, as consumers, are today.

Continue reading on Creativity_Unbound.

The music, in case you’re wondering, is “Love You” by The Free Design. Credit writer Gabriel Ferrer, art director Ramzi Sarieddine, creative director Brian Tierney and director/editor Emile Doucette for their handiwork on the video.

In the wake of Facebook’s fMC event, the advertising world is understandably abuzz about brand timelines. While brand timelines have tremendous potential and are quickly becoming a table stake for brand perception, the most important announcement was over shadowed.

That’s the fact that most premium advertising on Facebook must now originate from the brand page (what Facebook regards as the brand’s “mission control”). This is a big deal because it speaks to a larger trend that social marketing is enforcing on the marketing world: the need for seamless management of earned, owned and paid media in real time.

In this case, with Facebook we must realize that most of the time, the people who manage brand pages for big companies (such as PR, customer service or social media teams) are not the same people buying ads on Facebook (typically a media agency), who are not the people making the content. When buying some of the most important ads with the number one seller of display advertising, they must closely coordinate their work.

To succeed and, eventually, to simply survive in a world that requires real-time collaboration, you must start by taking these four steps: (continue reading on adage.com) (follow Sean Corcoran @seancor)