Yes, the Oscars are over. But we have a short acceptance speech of our own to give. Not to thank the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (they’ve been shown appreciation enough), but the Printing Industries of Virginia, who honored our agency and James River Press with a Best in Print 2009 Award of Excellence for the annual report we designed for our client Dynex, Inc. We’ve had the pleasure of working with Dynex for several years now, and this award is a reminder that great work only happens through great relationships. So while we appreciate the recognition from the PIV, and we congratulate James River Press for such a fantastic printing job, our true thanks go to Dynex. To download the full press release, click here.

Sure, the Beatles’ music has cropped up in TV spots before. And borrowing famous tunes for ads is, in general, a commonplace (but not without its potential pitfalls, as we’ve pointed out). Still, it’s a different matter to appropriate an artist’s face and philosophy, as opposed to the work itself. So it’s almost as if Citroen was deliberately courting controversy when they decided to build a recent spot around old footage of John Lennon sharing his thoughts on originality and inspiration.

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