When you manufacture electric razors, you spend a lot of time thinking about the shape of people’s faces and noticing how much the simple construction and care of a face communicates about somebody.

Procter & Gamble’s Braun brand took that notion and created the “Wear your face” campaign, which is now turning into a book that will benefit UNICEF. The book, Wear Your Face: Portraits of Men of Varying Ages, Origin, and Character, was the idea of BBDO Proximity Duesseldorf creative director Olaf Reys, who worked on the Braun campaign for P&G.

Reys teamed up with some of the world’s best-known photographers to capture some of the world’s best-known faces, including George Clooney, Robert de Niro, Mickey Rourke, and Mick Jagger.

“Today the male public image is multifaceted and malleable, presenting a kaleidoscope of diversity and sophistication,” Reys said in a press release. “The work I amassed is a visual documentation of how far society has moved towards a more tolerant interpretation of masculinity – and femininity.”Continue reading...

For decades, new Las Vegas hotel/casinos have been incredibly over-the-top and, let's face it, garish: a pyramid, a pirate-themed one, a mini re-creation of New York City, King Arthur’s castle, the list goes on. But now a casino is heading in the opposite direction by leveraging the Nobu brand to attract a new clientele.

Nobu Hospitality partners including Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, Robert De Niro and Meir Teper, along with designer David Rockwell and principals from Caesars Palace, held a press conference this week at the original Nobu in New York City to reveal the concept for the world's first Nobu Hotel, set to open in Las Vegas late 2012.

The design for the Nobu Hotel at Caesars Palace looks to bring the zen palate of Nobu restaurants to life — an oasis for well-heeled high-rollers to calm their nerves and enjoy the good life after making (or losing) more cash at the city’s many gambling tables.Continue reading...

Clocking in with 45 brands, the new #1 movie at the box office, the seasonal romcom New Year's Eve, is bloated with as much product placement and brand name-dropping as it is marquee names. That count is high, yet still 15 brands fewer than the film's precursor, Valentine's Day.

A lot of the product placed in New Year's Eve is subject to a particular paradox: To have disclosed it would have been dishonest to reality.

Taking place around New York City's iconic Times Square New Year's Eve ball drop, the film includes numerous shots of the landmark square and its cluttered signage, as well as plenty o' stock footage of the actual event. In fact, the movie functions as a sort of tourism video produced by the city's tourism board. (Testifying to just how sanctioned it is as a tourism film, Mayor Mike Bloomberg even makes a cameo.)Continue reading...

Love the black cod with miso (as Robert De Niro does) and other award-winning dishes at Nobu Matsuhisa's Nobu restaurants? Then you'll welcome the first Nobu-branded hotel. Caesars Palace is helping bring the Japanese chef's brand, built on his global network of 23 restaurants, to Las Vegas.

The partners today announced they are developing the world's first Nobu Hotel, "an innovative concept that will integrate an exclusive hotel tower with the first Nobu restaurant and lounge on the Las Vegas Strip."

It's understandable why kids are fascinated by Silly Bandz, those still-popular brightly-colored silicon bracelets that form fun shapes, look cute stacked up and can be swapped with friends.

Adults are joining the fun, swayed by celebrity devotees such as Shaquille O'Neal to don the Power Balance wristband, a silicon bracelet that comes in somber colors, is worn one at a time, and isn't designed to be shared or traded. (Boo!)

Instead, it offers magical qualities and not one but two holograms, making claims that most Silly Bandz collectors would raise an eyebrow at.Continue reading...

"Al Pacino's first commercial ever." "His first product endorsement." Even our report on Pacino's endorsement of Vittoria coffee noted it as his "first." One brand of timepiece, however, would beg to differ.Continue reading...

We're not sure if Al Pacino was inspired by his old friends Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, but the Oscar winner has lent his name to his first product endorsement.

Similar in look and feel to De Niro's black-and-white American Express spot (which you can see after the jump), the spot features a chatty Pacino extolling coffee for Vittoria, a family-owned brand billed as "Australia's No.1 pure coffee brand." It wasn't shot down under, however—even in Australia's home of caffeine connoisseurs, Melbourne—but in Manhattan's Soho area, including shots of the historic (and now City Bakery-owned) Vesuvio Bakery.

Aussie ad blog Campaign Brief says the commercial was directed at Pacino's insistence by another Oscar winner, Barry Levinson, while the print campaign was shot by celeb photographer Brigitte Lacombe. (Update: Brandchannel's Abe Sauer points out that this is technically Pacino's second brand endorsement, although the first one ended up in a legal dispute. So let's say first official brand endorsement.)Continue reading...