The Beauty Advantage:

Illustration by Paul Sahre

Most of us have heard the story of Debrahlee Lorenzana, the 33-year-old Queens, N.Y., woman who sued Citibank last month, claiming that, in pencil skirts, turtlenecks, and peep-toe stilettos, she was fired from her desk job for being “too hot.” We’ve also watched Lorenzana’s credibility come into question, as vintage clips of her appearance on a reality-TV show about plastic surgery portray a rambling, attention-obsessed twit, stuffed to the brim with implants and collagen. (“I love plastic surgery,” she coos. “I think it’s the best thing that ever happened.”) Creepy, yes. But for all the talk about this woman’s motives—and whether or not she was indeed fired for her looks—there’s one question nobody seems to want to ask: isn’t it possible Lorenzana’s looks got her the job in the first place?

Not all employers are that shallow—but it’s no secret we are a culture consumed by image. Economists have long recognized what’s been dubbed the “beauty premium”—the idea that pretty people, whatever their aspirations, tend to do better in, well, almost everything. Handsome men earn, on average, 5 percent more than their less-attractive counterparts (good-looking women earn 4 percent more); pretty people get more attention from teachers, bosses, and mentors; even babies stare longer at good-looking faces (and we stare longer at good-looking babies). A couple of decades ago, when the economy was thriving—and it was a makeup-less Kate Moss, not a plastic-surgery-plumped Paris Hilton, who was considered the beauty ideal—we might have brushed off those statistics as superficial. But in 2010, when Heidi Montag’s bloated lips plaster every magazine in town, when little girls lust after an airbrushed, unattainable body ideal, there’s a growing bundle of research to show that our bias against the unattractive—our “beauty bias,” as a new book calls it—is more pervasive than ever. And when it comes to the workplace, it’s looks, not merit, that all too often rule.

Consider the following: over his career, a good-looking man will make some $250,000 more than his least-attractive counterpart, according to economist Daniel Hamermesh; 13 percent of women, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (and 10 percent of men, according to a new NEWSWEEK survey), say they’d consider cosmetic surgery if it made them more competitive at work. Both points are disturbing, certainly. But in the current economy, when employers have more hiring options than ever, looks, it seems, aren’t just important; they’re critical. NEWSWEEK surveyed 202 corporate hiring managers, from human-resources staff to senior-level vice presidents, as well as 964 members of the public, only to confirm what no qualified (or unqualified) employee wants to admit: from hiring to office politics to promotions, even, looking good is no longer something we can dismiss as frivolous or vain.

Fifty-seven percent of hiring managers told NEWSWEEK that qualified but unattractive candidates are likely to have a harder time landing a job, while more than half advised spending as much time and money on “making sure they look attractive” as on perfecting a résumé. When it comes to women, apparently, flaunting our assets works: 61 percent of managers (the majority of them men) said it would be an advantage for a woman to wear clothing showing off her figure at work. (Ouch.) Asked to rank employee attributes in order of importance, meanwhile, managers placed looks above education: of nine character traits, it came in third, below experience (No. 1) and confidence (No. 2) but above “where a candidate went to school” (No. 4). Does that mean you should drop out of Harvard and invest in a nose job? Probably not. But a state school might be just as marketable. “This is the new reality of the job market,” says one New York recruiter, who asked to have her name withheld because she advises job candidates for a living. “It’s better to be average and good- looking than brilliant and unattractive.”

Remember the story about the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate? It goes to show our beauty bias is nothing novel. At the time, radio listeners thought Nixon had won, but those watching Kennedy’s tanned, chiseled face on TV, next to a worn-down, 5 o’clock-shadowed Nixon, were sure it was the junior senator. There are various explanations for some of this. Plato wrote of the “golden proportions,” which dubbed the width of an ideal face an exact two thirds its length, a nose no longer than the distance between the eyes. Biologically speaking, humans are attracted to symmetrical faces and curvy women for a reason: it’s those shapes that are believed to produce the healthiest offspring. As the thinking goes, symmetrical faces are then deemed beautiful; beauty is linked to confidence; and it’s a combination of looks and confidence that we often equate with smarts. Perhaps there’s some evidence to that: if handsome kids get more attention from teachers, then, sure, maybe they do better in school and, ultimately, at work. But the more likely scenario is what scientists dub the “halo effect”—that, like a pack of untrained puppies, we are mesmerized by beauty, blindly ascribing intelligent traits to go along with it.

There are various forces to blame for much of this, from an economy that allows pickiness to a plastic-surgery industry that encourages superficial notions of beauty. In reality, it’s a confluence of cultural forces that has left us clutching, desperately, to an ever-evolving beauty ideal. Today’s young workers were reared on the kind of reality TV and pop culture that screams, again and again, that everything is a candidate for upgrade. We’ve watched bodies transformed on Extreme Makeover, faces taken apart and pieced back together on I Want a Famous Face. We compare ourselves with the airbrushed images in advertisements and magazines, and read surveys—like this one—that confirm our worst fears. We are a culture more sexualized than ever (Mad Men notwithstanding), with technology that’s made it easier than ever to “better” ourselves, warping our standards for what’s normal. Plastic surgery used to be for the rich and famous; today we’ve leveled the playing field with cheap boob jobs, tummy tucks, and outpatient procedures you can get on your lunch break. Where that leads us is running to stand still: taught that good looks are no longer a gift but a ceaseless pursuit.

Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor and author of The Beauty Bias, is herself an interesting case study. During her term as chair of the American Bar Association’s commission on working women, she was struck by how often the nation’s most powerful females were stranded in cab lines and late for meetings because, in heels, walking any distance was out of the question. These were working, powerful, leading women, she writes. Why did they insist on wearing heels? Sure, some women just like heels (and still others probably know their bosses like them). But there is also the reality that however hard men have it—and, from an economic perspective, their “beauty premium” is higher, say economists—women will always face a double bind, expected to conform to the beauty standards of the day, yet simultaneously condemned for doing so. Recruiters may think women like Lorenzana can get ahead for showing off their looks, but 47 percent also believe it’s possible for a woman to be penalized for being “too good-looking.” Whether or not any of it pays off, there’s something terribly wrong when 6-year-olds are using makeup, while their mothers spend the equivalent of a college education just keeping their faces intact. “All of this is happening against a backdrop of more women in the workplace, in all kinds of jobs, striving toward wage equality,” says Harvard psychologist Nancy Etcoff. “So we’re surprised—but we shouldn’t be—how this [beauty curse] continues to haunt us.”

Forty years ago, when feminists threw their bras into the “Freedom Trash Can” outside the 1968 Miss America pageant (no, they didn’t really burn them!), it was to protest the idea that women had become “enslaved by ludicrous beauty standards,” as the organizers put it. At the time, women still made up just a fraction of the workforce, and yet they were rejecting the notion that, in work or play, they had to be confined to the role of busty secretary—a mere office toy. A decade later, as women entered the workforce in droves, it was boxy suits, not bustiers, that defined their dress. But today’s working women have achieved “equality” (or so we’re led to believe): they dominate the workforce, they are household breadwinners, and so they balk at having to subvert their sexuality, whether in the boardroom or on the beach. Yet while the outside-work milieu might accept the empowered yet feminine ideal, the workplace surely doesn’t. Studies show that unattractive women remain at a disadvantage in low-level positions like secretary, while in upper-level fields that are historically male-dominated, good-looking women can suffer a so-called bimbo effect. They are viewed as too feminine, less intelligent, and, ultimately, less competent—not only by men but also by their female peers.

To add an extra layer of complexity, there’s the conundrum of aging in a culture where younger workers are more tech-savvy, cheaper, and, well, nicer on the eyes. Eighty-four percent of managers told NEWSWEEK they believe a qualified but visibly older candidate would make some employers hesitate, and while ageism affects men, too, it’s particularly tough for women. As Rhode puts it, silver hair and furrowed brows may make aging men look “distinguished,” but aging women risk marginalization or ridicule for their efforts to pass as young. “This double standard,” Rhode writes, “leaves women not only perpetually worried about their appearance—but also worried about worrying.”

The quest for beauty may be a centuries-old obsession, but in the present day the reality is ugly. Beauty has more influence than ever—not just over who we work with, but whether we work at all.

(credit: Jessica Bennett for Newsweek)

Le Froglet - a plastic-goblet-of-wine concept

When every member of the BBC's Dragons' Den panel says an invention is rubbish, most people scurry off back to their day jobs, vowing never to come up with a silly idea again.

But James Nash refused to give up on his dream and he is having the last laugh as Marks & Spencer struggle to keep up with demand for his 'cup-a-wine' concept.

Mr Nash's invention – a single-serve plastic glass of French wine with a tear-off lid – solves the problem of feeling like a glass of wine but not having a glass or a corkscrew.

Mr Nash first took the idea to BBC's Dragons Den last year only for it to be rejected out of hand. He asked the Dragons - Peter Jones, Theo Paphitis, Duncan Bannatyne, James Caan and Deborah Meaden - for £250,000 for a 25per cent stake in his business, Wine Innovations Ltd.

However, they gave him a torrid grilling and bowed out because they were unconvinced anyone would be interested. Duncan Bannatyne was particularly dismissive, saying: 'People don't want to buy wine in plastic glasses like that with a seal on top. For that reason, I'm out.'

The 187ml glasses equate to about a quarter of a bottle of wine, which adds up to 2.25 units and below the drink drive limit for most people of 3 units. They are bigger serving than the traditional small - 125ml - and medium -175ml - offered by most pubs and bars. However, they do not match the 250ml large glasses now offered by many wine bars.

The new M&S Le Froglet wine individual glasses, which each cost £2.25 for a Shiraz, Rose and Chardonnay, were launched just last week and the store has found they quickly sell out. The website cluelessaboutwine.co.uk said shoppers seem excited about the concept. 'Judging by the buzz in the shop I suspect that these may well be a hit,' it said. 'They look so off the wall that curiosity will force a purchase and then good old bourgeois convenience will take over.'

'This is a new idea, and what it does have the ability to do is to give the consumer a realistic portion, a more manageable drinking quantity which saves you spoiling a whole bottle for a glass. 'It also provides you with a nice collection of plastic picnic glasses. 'It does change the perception of wine, and could make a 'ready meal for one' a richer experience.'

However, the website did point out that the extra convenience does come at a price. If the same wine was bought in a full 75cl bottle the price comes to £5.49 versus £9 for the equivalent amount in four of the new packs. Mr Nash, who is based in Surrey, said: 'It was disheartening to be dismissed by all the Dragons, but I knew I had a great concept which would work in outdoor events, BBQ, picnics, concerts and wouldn't give up.

'I'm really looking forward to facing the Dragons again as 'the one that got away'. Hopefully sales of the product will show that they're not always right.'

An M&S spokesman said: 'The glasses are merchandised in our 'Food on the Move' section, which is obviously the aisle people on the go head to - particularly office workers. 'We think that they are proving popular with people who want to perhaps enjoy the summer with a glass of wine in the park as part of an impromptu picnic - either after work or for a relaxing lunch. 'They are also popular with commuters who want to enjoy a drink on the train home from work to wind down. We have found that they are very popular in locations popular with tourists.'

The M&S winemaker, Belinda Kleinig, said: 'This is a really exciting step for M&S – our research has shown that our customers really like the greater convenience of lighter weight bottles so we thought we’d take it one step further with great quality wine ready to drink from a glass.'

(credit: Dailymail.com)

KLM Comfort with a tough of Magic

Slick and attractive ambient work that really got people's attention by adding a little bit of magic to something otherwise totally lacklustre - an economy 'comfort' seat on KLM.

Agency: Rapp Amstelveen, Holland

Tampon-makers can't mention the V-word. Period.

For years, advertising for tampons and "sanitary products" have been shrouded in nebulous euphemism. So what happens when a US tampon-maker drops the coy messaging and goes straight for the jugular (so to speak)? Its ad gets banned by the major US television networks for mentioning the word vagina.

Even when the company substituted "down there" for vagina, two of the networks still wouldn't run the ad, so the company was forced to drop the idea altogether. That provoked Amanda Hess, author of The Sexist blog, to observe: "Now, the commercial contains no direct references to female genitalia – you know, the place where the fucking tampon goes."

An executive for Kimberly-Clark, the owner of Kotex, notes that US TV networks have no such compunction about references to "erectile dysfunction" in prime-time ads for Viagra and Ciallis.

The New York Times reports that the campaign – produced by the advertising agency JWT, part of WPP – for tampon brand Kotex was "a bit too frank" for US television:

Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT, said that after being informed that it could not use the word vagina in advertising by three broadcast networks, it shot the ad cited above with the actress instead saying "down there", which was rejected by two of the three networks. (Both Ms Harris and representatives from the brand declined to specify the networks.)

"It's very funny because the whole spot is about censorship," Ms Harris said. "The whole category has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we're saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina."

The amended ad shown above, "How do I feel about my period?", has a series of images parodying the stock images used in sanitary product advertising, and concludes: "The ads on TV are really helpful because they use that blue liquid, and I'm like, oh, that's what's supposed to happen." The ad debuted on US television this week.

Things are different in anything-goes Britain, where the makers of the Mooncup product have a website entitled loveyourvagina.com.

(credit: Richard Adams, The Guardian)

OK Go's 'This too shall pass' video. Rube Goldberg insanity at its best!

Directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs. Produced by Shirley Moyers. The official video for the recorded version of "This Too Shall Pass" off of the album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky". The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The Rube Goldberg machine was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs over the course of several months.

"It's like Beirut"

The expression "it's like Beirut" is a much-used comparison for everything from violent riots to a teenager's bedroom. Why do we still insist on associating Beirut with chaos?

When North East Lincolnshire Council announced this week it would be demolishing a notorious crime-ridden street in Grimsby, one resident said it would no longer be "worse than Beirut".

It's not the first time the comparison has been used and probably not the last. From Joe Public to world leaders, the phrase "like Beirut" is shorthand for chaos and decay.

Since 1991, the year after the Lebanese civil war ended, there have been more than 50 recorded usages of the phrase, according to Robert Groves, editor of Collins Dictionaries. It began with a reference to a Chicago slum on American National Public Radio.

Lebanese blogger Jad Aoun records usage of the phrase and mails the culprit a "looks like Beirut" certificate.

Last year he sent out about 30 certificates, mostly to the UK and US. But he says the phrase is also used in other countries, from Australia to India.

There is little doubt the association between Beirut and chaos springs from Lebanon's civil war. But it has been over for nearly 20 years and since then the world has seen countless other wars. So why don't people say "like Baghdad" or "like Sarajevo"?

The answer is partly down to timing. In the UK, the civil war was the first international conflict taking place in the age of 24-hour news. People were updated almost daily.

Ignorance

Since television news is a highly visual medium, the images coming out of Beirut had a lasting impact, says David Seddon, associate editor of the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Add to that the length of the war - it lasted from 1975 to 1990 - and the cultural impact becomes clear.

"The news was saturated with stories about Beirut for a long time," says Dr Youssef Choueiri, reader of Islamic studies at Manchester University.

Those stories also became personal due to westerners being taken hostage during the crisis, notably John McCarthy and Terry Waite.

"This idea of having British hostages in Beirut and no one could rescue them... turned Beirut into a lawless city," says Dr Choueiri. "It became the symbol for urban chaos."

That sense of chaos was exacerbated by ignorance of the overarching situation in Lebanon, argue some. It seemed like everyone was fighting everyone else.

"For people who didn't know about the Middle East, it was fairly baffling," says Mr Seddon.

More recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have seen "episodic bombings" - not civil war, says Dr Choueiri.

In addition, the association many westerners had with Beirut as a glamorous holiday destination made its transformation into a warzone all the more striking, Mr Seddon says.

Pre-civil war, Beirut was a sophisticated waterfront locale, similar to current-day Dubai or Monaco. So the descent of glittering, cosmopolitan Beirut into "appalling mayhem" significantly impacted the people who previously may have visited the city.

So although Baghdad and Kabul have suffered similar physical devastation, they had never really been considered glamorous urban vistas in the first place.

'Irritating'

"The level of physical destruction was pretty high," says Mr Seddon. "It did look to people in Britain rather like London after the world war."

But that physical destruction is no longer an issue in Beirut. Since the end of the war, the city has undergone a revitalisation of sorts and is a holiday destination once again. The New York Times named it one of its "44 Places to Visit" in 2009. Nearly two million people followed the advice.

The attempt to return Beirut to its pre-civil war image has been hampered by violent outbreaks in the capital in 2006 and 2008, says Dr Choueiri. But in his experience, the Beirut of today is cleaner and better controlled than people might expect.

"The image itself is shifting," he says. "This Lebanon is different. It's entering a new phase."

Such an outdated expression need to be laid to rest, says Mr Aoun. He uses his certificates to raise awareness of the accuracy of people's perceptions. He also believes there might be a simpler explanation for why we insist on using the phrase - laziness.

"It is basically a cliche and doesn't provide an accurate description of what they're trying to say," he says. "I can understand its use in the 1980s and 1990s, but in this time we can move beyond it."

Of the 30 letters he sent out in the past year, he has received four responses which he calls "generally positive." One British journalist responded: "I realised [it] was offensive towards Beirut, and could indeed be seen to perpetuate a negative image of the city."

Indeed, all Beirut's champions ask is that people stop and think before resorting to the outdated metaphor.

"We know that there are cities that are worse than Beirut," says Dr Choueiri. "[The saying] doesn't do justice to the long peace Lebanon has enjoyed since after 1990."

Plus, he says, it's just downright irritating.

(credit: Elizabeth Diffin, BBC)

Staple art

French artist Baptiste Debombourg used staples on a blank white wall to create this piece. Check out more of his work here.

Dust art

British artist Paul Hazelton creates delicate pieces of art from household dust.

Check out more of his work at the Saatchi Gallery.

Here's how the artist describes the inspiration behind his work:

"The dust of everyday life – the unavoidable and necessary by-product of living, engrosses me. Art, also an unavoidable and necessary by-product of living, engrosses me. Art, like dust, is a residue of life and therefore, the making of art is like an extreme act of self-exfoliation. For me, making art is a per-version of life that has many possible diversions. Sometimes these diversions take you somewhere unexpected, sometimes somewhere gross but you have to keep going."

(credit: Saatchi Gallery)

Tiny banner ads attached to flies generate buzz. Too much?

"A company at a German trade show has attached tiny banner advertisements to flies and set them loose on unsuspecting visitors, in a bizarre yet effective marketing stunt.

The banners, measuring just a few centimetres across, seem to be causing the beleaguered flies a bit of piloting trouble. The weight keeps the flies at a lower altitude and forces them to rest more often, which is a stroke of genius on the part of the marketing creatives: the flies end up at about eye level, and whenever a fly is forced to land and recover, the banner is clearly visible. What's more, the zig-zagging of the fly naturally attracts the attention because of its rapid movement."

(credit: Wired)

Man sues over lack of 'Lynx effect'

A luckless Indian romeo is suing Lynx after he failed to land a single girlfriend during seven years of using their products.

Vaibhav Bedi, 26, is seeking £26,000 from parent company Unilever for the "depression and psychological damage" caused by the lack of any Lynx effect. Court officials in New Delhi have agreed to order forensic laboratory tests on dozens of his half-used Lynx body washes, shampoos, anti-perspirants and hair gels.

Lynx - marketed as Axe in India - is famous for its saucy ads showing barely clothed women throwing themselves at men. But Bedi says in his court petition: "The company cheated me because in its advertisements, it says women will be attracted to you if you use Axe.

"I used it for seven years but no girl came to me."

When contacted Unilever declined to comment on the case. But India's leading compensation litigator Ram Jethmalani warned: "There is no data to substantiate the supposition that unattractive and unintelligent men don't attract women.

"In fact some of the best looking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys. I'd suggest that the company settles this issue out of court."

(credit: Ananova)

Bicycle exhaust that plants flowers

"The Bloom device is meant to be a subversive and inspirational tool for our concrete jungles. Similar to the tuft of a dandelion as the wind carries the seedling, we propose a way of dispersing seedlings with bubbles and bicycling. Seeds are co-mingled with a bubble mixture and upon pedaling to your destination , you release the floating seeds which land in cracks and crevices throughout the city streets. Over time, the seeds grow into flowers and plants to create a green “fringe” to our sidewalks and streets."

(credit: commutebybike.com)

the toilet cleaner that doesn't smell like one

The new Ambi Pur campaign from Australia. Funny. But lemon smells like a toilet cleaner to me. Bergamot or vanilla would've made a bigger splash.

(credit: Ohlalamag.com)

Someone dropped their huge pink bunny rabbit!

"Every once in awhile you come across something so strange and whimsical that it makes you smile, and you feel a little happier knowing it’s out there in the world. Such is the case with this gigantic pink rabbit which took five years to knit by Gelitin, a group of four artists. The rabbit is a unique art installation which awaits visitors in the Italian Alps, close to Cuneo. The designers poetically offer, 'behind a hill, as if knitted by giant grandmothers, lies this vast rabbit, to make you feel as small as a daisy.' Like another famous pink bunny, this Rabbit keeps going and going and going… in size, and its creators assure, “the rabbit will wait for you 20 years from now.”

There's someone in my tea

These are made by German design company Donkey Products. They come in three sets, each with five bags: RoyalTea, DemocraTea, and StripTea. Would be cool if each of the characters had a unique flavour attached to them. 'Putin' would taste rough and outdoorsy, 'Sarkozy' perhaps a little sharp and bitter...and you'd just put 'Obama' in whenever you felt like a little change.

(credit: Gizmodo)

I'll have a Slow Cow Vodka please.

"Out to help those looking for a quick relaxation fix, a new drink from Canada offers ‘an acupuncture session’ in every can. An antidote to energy drinks like Red Bull, Slow Cow was developed to help people de-stress.

Under the premise that caffeine-packed drinks tend to increase anxiety, Slow Cow contains theanine, chamomile, valerian, passiflora and other ingredients known for their calming effects. The beverage is meant to increase mental awareness while improving relaxation, without the post-hit dip that caffeine and other stimulants cause.

Slow Cow, whose tongue-in-cheek logo apparently did not amuse Red Bull, might have found a gap in a market saturated with energy drinks of every possible variety. It's not the only beverage to position itself as a relaxation drink, mind you, (Drank is another), but Slow Cow gets our vote for best branding. Seems like a natural fit for spas, hotels, airlines—or anywhere else consumers could use a serving of relaxation."

(credit: Springwise.com)

Perspective creates floating words

Graphic designer Axel Peemöller painstakingly painted distorted letters on the walls, floors and beams of a Melbourne, Australia parking garage so that when you stand in the right spot, they seem to hover in mid-air. He won several international design awards for this project.

The YouTube Dilemma

"YouTube provides a steady stream of inspiration to advertising creatives, but it also leaves young directors vulnerable to having ideas stolen and agencies open to accusations of plagiarism. How can both directors and agencies protect themselves?

In 1998, director Mehdi Norowzian sued the Irish advertising agency Arks Ltd for copyright infringement. He claimed Arks had copied a substantial part of his short film, Joy, in its hugely successful Anticipation advert for Guinness which featured a man performing a flamboyant dance as he waited for his pint of the black stuff to settle. Norowzian lost, the case setting a precedent over the legal rights of directors and artists when claiming the artistic content of their work had been 'appropriated' by an agency.

The tense question of plagiarism has become a regular part of advertising life ever since. Accusations from artists and directors crop up periodically in the media, where a discussion on their validity will take place before the subject is usually dropped. The agency in question may be left with a minor stain on its integrity but with no major ill-effects to its client relationship or bank balance. The rise of internet sites such as YouTube has made this issue even more pertinent, however. Suddenly a research tool is available to advertising creatives giving access to millions of films and ideas from all over the world, leaving the makers of these films vulnerable to having their ideas stolen.

Unlike the more established artists and directors, who have an army of colleagues and fans to vociferously defend their creative ideas if they suddenly turn up in a TV ad, the users of YouTube are often young filmmakers, usually unrepresented by production companies, and therefore especially vulnerable. The weapon of choice for young directors in such situations has become the online blog. With the mainstream media unlikely to pick up a story about plagiarism from someone unestablished, the blog comments box has become an effective place to air grievances. A recent example of this occurred on the CR Blog, where the posting of a new Sony Bravia ad, featuring a life-size zoetrope, caused an immediate backlash on behalf of a young director, Mark Simon Hewis, with claims that Fallon, the agency behind the spot, had based the commercial on a short film by Hewis. The situation raised a number of questions, about how young directors can protect themselves against their ideas being stolen, but also about the increasing necessity for ad agencies to find ways to defend themselves against accusations of plagiarism.

In the case of the Sony Bravia ad, the similarities between the film by Hewis and the ad by Fallon are minimal beyond the fact that both rest on the concept of a life-size zoetrope. Hewis' film is a poetic rendition of a man's life story, whereas the Bravia ad sees footballer Kaka showing off his ball skills. Yet Hewis had been approached by RSA, the production company that worked on the ad, with a view to working on an 'up and coming advert opportunity' and was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement on behalf of Fallon which mentioned Sony. When the Sony ad came out, and Hewis had heard nothing more from RSA or Fallon, colleagues leapt to conclusions and to his defence via the CR Blog.


Mark Simon Hewis' film

"I got a sense the Sony ad was maybe influenced by Mark's film," says Katie Daniels, a freelance producer who worked on the film and contacted CR at the time of the blog story on the Bravia spot. "Obviously the idea of a zoetrope is not new, but from the atmosphere I had a sense that they'd watched the film. But it wouldn't be so grating if they hadn't got in touch and then we'd not heard from them again, that was bad etiquette. Directors are creating these films as showpieces for little or no money in the hope they'll get commercial work."

Following the furore on the blog, Fallon explained that the contact had been made with Hewis in relation to a different strand of the project for Sony, and that the production of the Bravia-drome ad was already well underway by the time this occurred. The agency is also categorical in its assertion that it never takes its ideas from outside sources. "We would be doing ourselves a huge disservice if we were found to be deliberately taking an idea from elsewhere," says Fallon partner Chris Willingham. "That's so fundamental to our work, and why clients choose us."

This is not the first time that Fallon has been under fire for allegedly being influenced by the work of others, however. When the agency's Play Doh ad for Sony was released in 2007, the artists Kozyndan complained on numerous blogs, including CR's, about the commercial's similarity to an artwork by the duo which features multi-coloured bunnies hopping through a cityscape. In this instance, Passion Pictures, the production company for the ad, had been in contact with Kozyndan in the past but nothing had come of it. Both Passion Pictures and Fallon firmly deny that the idea was taken from Kozyndan's work.

It's easy to assume here that the advertising agency is always in the wrong. Certainly there are plenty of famous examples where ideas from artists appear to have been directly adapted for ad campaigns, with seemingly little concern for the source of the work. In 2003, Wieden + Kennedy's ad Cog was criticised in the media for its similarity to art film Der Lauf Der Dinge by Fischli & Weiss, and in 1998 artist Gillian Wearing complained about the likeness between her series of photographs which depict people holding hand-written signs, and a VW campaign by BMP DDB. More recently, a John Lewis campaign by Lowe featured shadow sculptures that bore a striking resemblance to artworks by Tim Noble & Sue Webster. At the time, Ed Morris, executive creative director at Lowe, acknowledged that the artists' work was mentioned when discussing the concept of the ad, but that the core idea was already on the table before it came up.

Which brings us to the thorny issue of whether a commercial has only been 'inspired' by another piece of work, consciously or unconsciously, or whether an idea has been deliberately lifted. This is naturally a blurred area, especially as creatives, like the rest of us, are constantly bombarded with imagery. In the continuous quest to come up with new ideas for ads, it is perhaps inevitable that some of this visual input might be unintentionally recycled. This might sound like woolly excuse making, but it is far from unusual. Writing on this issue on Design Observer, graphic designer Michael Bierut recounted how he'd realised that a poster he created in 2005 was remarkably similar to a piece from 1975 by one of his favourite designers, Willi Kunz. For Bierut the replication was made unconsciously, and made him worry. "I don't claim to have a photographic memory, but my mind is stuffed full of graphic design, graphic design done by other people," he wrote. "How can I be sure that any idea that comes out of that same mind is absolutely my own?"



Acknowledgments such as Bierut's are perhaps unlikely to ever be heard from an ad agency, however. And often, of course, advertising is consciously influenced by others' work. In these instances a surprising trend is emerging, where agencies are starting to give credit to their sources. Fans of music videos may have been surprised to see a recent Visa ad from Saatchi & Saatchi, which featured a man on crutches dancing through a city. A very similar performance had been seen recently in a video for dance music act RJD2, by director Joey Garfield, and it would be easy to conclude Saatchis had simply lifted the idea for their ad. This was true, but it turned out that the agency had also picked up the performer and director, along with the idea.



"We do the Saatchi & Saatchi new directors' showcase and trawl the internet looking for interesting stuff to put forward for this," explains creative director Kate Stanners. "We found this piece of work by Joey Garfield and thought it would be amazing for Visa. We wanted Joey to be acknowledged in the showcase for having done the piece of film, but equally we wanted to approach him for Visa. We wouldn't have pursued doing the ad if it wasn't with Joey and Bill [Shannon, the performer in the spot], and it ended up being Joey's first commercial." Stanners acknowledged that it would probably have been easier just to approach Shannon for the ad and work with a more established director, but felt it was important to work with Garfield too.



Another music video that was adapted for advertising purposes recently was Roel Wouters' promo Grip for zZz. Distinctive for its use of trampolines, the video had done the rounds of the industry's media. When he was approached by ad agency Krow Communications to replicate the ad for a Fiat Grande Punto ad, however, Wouters was not keen. At this juncture, an agency might typically have gone off and made their own version anyway, but Krow went out of its way to acknowledge the influence of Wouters' work and paid him a license fee. This then freed them up to replicate the promo without fear, which they did, to a degree that surprised even Wouters. "I never thought they would copy it," he told CR at the time. "But I think it is quite honest, they're not acting as if they've come up with the idea themselves. Making the decision to do such an exact copy is weird but quite strong I think, it gives the feeling of a sincere tribute."



Even those outside of the industry are beginning to see credit given to their work. In the press materials accompanying the release of a recent Aero ad from JWT London (shown top), there was an acknowledgement that the spot had been inspired by a film on YouTube. Both films show a skateboarder plowing through balloons in a skate park. JWT creative director Russell Ramsay recognises that YouTube has changed the research process for agencies. "All these references are instantly accessible now, which they didn't use to be," he says. "There are so many ads that have been influenced by films and by art. But now the influences can be instantly found, whereas they couldn't be in the past…. Part of the skill is matching these ideas to a brand. Advertising does use these things to that end, and always has done."

Despite seeing the similarities between the two films, Ramsay still feels they are essentially different. "We thought of the YouTube film as the recording of an event," he says. "We wanted to get the best skateboarder – if you watch that film, it's not the best performance of it…. We did acknowledge it in the end, but I think we've done enough to it for people to not be that outraged by it. But people have to make up their own minds."

This nod to the YouTube filmmaker from JWT, however grudgingly given, does seem a step in the right direction, although the next logical move, where filmmakers receive renumeration for their ideas, seems unlikely to occur. Ideas cannot be copyrighted, and, as the Norowzian case proved, using the law to prove plagiarism of imagery can be fraught with difficulty, and expensive. Furthermore, despite the good example set by Krow with Wouters, this still doesn't get around the issue of what an agency does if an artist or director says a flat 'no' to having any involvement with the commercial. All too often, the idea still gets made, and there is little that the originator of the idea can do about it. In this sense, we are perhaps no further on than we were ten years ago. However, with the internet providing an easy outlet for filmmakers to complain when they feel their ideas have been pinched, a new wave of consciousness does seem to be beginning to sweep over ad agencies. "I think ad creatives are very conscious of the notion of originality," says Kate Stanners in their defence, "because part of your job is to come up with original ideas. There is a respect for ideas and there is a respect for the originators of ideas."

(credit: Eliza Williams for Creative Review)

A little taste of Dubai...in Paris.

Dubai café, a tea house/restaurant/lounge in the midst of all that is authentic and beautiful in Paris where you can chill and enjoy the smaller pleasures in life...like fake plastic coconut trees and beautiful vistas of the Burj al Arab. Contact me for the address - whether it's to visit or to avoid it.

Twitter & Facebook screw with our moral compass?

"Rapid-fire TV news bulletins or updates on Twitter or Facebook could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists say.

Scientists say updates on networking tools such as Twitter are often to quick for the brain to fully digest.

New findings show that the streams of information provided by social networking sites are too fast for the brain's "moral compass" to process and could harm young people's emotional development.

Before the brain can fully digest the anguish and suffering of a story, it is being bombarded by the next news bulletin or the latest Twitter update, according to a University of Southern California study.

"If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality," said researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.

The report, published next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition, studied how volunteers responded to real-life stories chosen to stimulate admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain.

Brain scans showed humans can process and respond very quickly to signs of physical pain in others, but took longer to show admiration of compassion.

"For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people's social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and refection," said Immordio-Yang.

She said the study raises questions about the emotional cost, particularly for young people, of heavy reliance on a torrent of news snippets delivered via TV and online feeds such as Twitter.

She said: "We need to understand how social experience shapes interactions between the body and mind, to produce citizens with a strong moral compass."

USC sociologist Manuel Castells said the study raised more concerns over fast-moving TV than the online environment.

"In a media culture in which violence and suffering becomes an endless show, be it in fiction or in infotainment, indifference to the vision of human suffering gradually sets in."

Research leader Antonio Damasio, director of USC's Brain and Creativity Institute, said the findings stressed the need for slower delivery of the news, and highlighted the importance of slow-burn emotions like admiration.

Damasio cited the example of U.S. President Barack Obama, who says he was inspired by his father, to show how admiration can be key to cultural success.

"We actually separate the good from the bad in great part thanks to the feeling of admiration. It's a deep physiological reaction that's very important to define our humanity."

(credit: CNN)

Lebanese Magazine Lifts Veil on Sex in the Arab World

From explicit articles about masturbation and homosexuality to columns about "My First Time", Joumana Haddad is out to lift the veil on Arab cultural taboos with a glossy magazine that is already the focus of controversy.

The first quarterly issue of "Jasad" -- "Body" in Arabic -- hit the stands in Lebanon last December. Tongues have wagged ever since about a daring venture into uncharted territory in the largely conservative and Muslim Middle East. "It's true that this is a first in the Arab world," Haddad, 38, a writer and poet, told AFP in an interview.

"I put open handcuffs near the word 'Jasad' on the cover of the magazine to illustrate that I wanted to unlock a taboo. "We need to stop treating our bodies, especially we women, as if they're something to be ashamed of," she added. "We have so many issues to deal with without having the extra weight of needing to cover our bodies."

The December issue of "Jasad", which sold for 10 dollars, includes articles on self-mutilation and cannibalism. The cover story of the March issue focuses on the penis. Other articles deal with battered men and women, transsexuals and the Kama Sutra.

A regular feature is "My First Time", in which a well-known figure talks about his or her first sexual encounter and subsequent sex life. Sexually graphic images -- including reproductions of works by famous artists such as Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso or Francis Bacon -- accompany the articles by authors from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Pseudonyms are not allowed.

Although such a magazine would barely raise an eyebrow in the West, it has drawn the wrath of religious authorities and women's organizations in Lebanon who are calling for its closure on the grounds that it amounts to pornography.

"We are all in favor of modernity... but this magazine, under cover of being cultural, appeals to sexual instincts," said Aman Kabbara Shaarani, head of the Lebanese Council of Women, an umbrella group of several organizations. "Subjects that teach our youngsters how to make love do not fit in with our moral values and civic education." Shaarani said she had written to the highest religious authorities in the country -- both Christian and Muslim -- as well as to cabinet members and the censorship bureau calling for "Jasad" to be banned.

"I will not give up because there needs to be a media watchdog for these sorts of publications," she said. "We are considering taking this before the courts."

For now Lebanese authorities appear content to let publication continue, however. Haddad, who is also culture editor of the well-known Lebanese liberal daily An-Nahar, argues that her publication does not target minors and is sold in a sealed plastic envelope clearly marked for adults only. She said she regularly receives hate mail and her website has been hacked into 15 times and had the words "There is no god but God" in Arabic left on the server. Haddad is not moved by such threats and stands ready to defend herself.

"I'm not afraid of controversy," she said. "I am passionate, I believe in this project and sales have demonstrated there was a need for it." The magazine's first issue -- all 3,000 copies -- sold out within 11 days. Sales of the second issue, printed at 4,000 copies, have so far been brisk, Haddad said.

Outside Lebanon the magazine is sold by subscription only as no bookstore in the Arab world would dare stock it, she said. "The highest number of subscribers, 282 out of some 400, are in Saudi Arabia where the magazine was met with much enthusiasm," said Haddad, who financed the project herself.

So far advertisers have shied away for the most part, fearing a backlash. While Haddad admits that some of the articles and pictures in "Jasad" may be shocking to some, she rejects any notion that the Middle East is not yet ready for such a publication. "Why should we treat the Arab world as a minor?" she said. "People against this project should go back to our own literary heritage which includes 'The Perfumed Garden' and 'Thousand and One Nights'.

(credit: Naharnet.com / AFP)