We're big in to celebrity news around this office, or at least us women are. The entertainment section of the paper is the first to be read each afternoon, and the recent cheating scandals of Hollywood were hot topics for gossip around the lunch table. And that's how we can understand the power of a celebrity when it comes to endorsing your product or brand.

Celebrity endorsements are everywhere you look in the modern market. Catherine Zeta-Jones has recently become synonymous with T-Mobile, while Britney Spears was once well known for her promotional run with Pepsi. What about Jamie Lee Curtis and her recent commercials for Activia, the probiotic yogurt that keeps you regular? No product, brand or service is off-limits when it comes to star endorsement. Insurance companies do it, clothing companies do it, weight-loss companies do it, and all with quite a measure of success.

Celebrity endorsements give a brand a touch of glamor and offer name recognition even when product recognition is lacking. A celebrity's fame, lifestyle or values attached to your company may also reflect on to your own brand, and if all else fails, publicity for them means publicity for your brand.

But we're all aware of the drawbacks. Tiger Woods was dropped from the majority of his endorsement deals when his sex scandals broke the news. Most of the companies he was affiliated with wouldn't touch him as his new, very public, lifestyle harshly contrasted with the ideals of their own brands. Nike's damage control could only do so much.

The wrong celebrity endorsement can backfire and leave you scrambling dealing with damage control. But if done right (such as collaboration with the right celeb) awareness and demand for your product or brand are sure to sky rocket as high as Lady Gaga's last record sales.

Here are a few commercials offering celebrity endorsement. I personally prefer the subtlety of the first Adidas commercial, that and the fact that it features David Beckham eye-candy
Is there one you find more successful than others?

You thought doing a company rebrand was hard, try rebranding your entire life. As we all know, our Brand Manager, Mike is a HUGE fan of Miley Cyrus. Well okay, if not a huge fan yet, he may soon be, after her rebrand this year, as she goes from Disney teen sensation to adult pop star.

Celebrities are brands, and often need to reinvent their image to target a new audience. Michael Jackson was the first to do it in the 80s, jumping from a 70s kid disco star, to an 80s pop superstar. In his case, and in many others to follow (JLo, Madonna, even Victoria Bekham), it was a success.

However, not all stars hit the mark on a rebrand. I bet no one remembers when country superstar Garth Brooks tried to reinvent himself as an alter ego rock star named Chris Gaines? He even launched the whole fiasco with an NBC TV special. Ick, what a creepy nightmare that was. At the height of his career, Brookes changed his look, his hair colour, his clothes, his music and his name, all at once. He would even talk about himself in the third person. It was such a horrible disaster that it wasn't long after that he announced his retirement from music. Could it have been the millions lost, the decline in his fan base, or the bruised ego? Guess we'll never know for sure, but one thing is certain: his rebrand was a failure.

Celebrities need to follow the same hard and fast rule as all businesses: if you are going to rebrand: stay recognizable. Without some kind of tie to your previous self, whether it's your corporate identity or personal identity, failure is certainly going to be in the cards. As far as Mike becoming a die hard Miley Cyrus fan? That's in the cards too, perhaps he needs to watch her new video "Can't Be Tamed" before he decides:

Video Games Live logo

I was privileged to have attended the Video Games Live Concert series in Vancouver. Aside from the hours of great ochestrated music and light show, there were plenty of things going on. They had a costume contest, video game competitions (Guitar Hero, NHL 2k10, Street Fighter 4, and Punch Out), an on-stage Frogger duel, and a few give aways. It was quite the experience and amazing to see the hardcore gamers coming out and dressing up as their favourite game personality. (Although Earthworm Jim did look pretty sweet, I still think the lady dressed up as the orange Pacman ghost should have won.)

Having grown up in the era when home entertainment systems were becoming mainstream, the experience allowed me to reminisce about some of the more memorable games of the past 30 years; namely, Chrono Trigger, Megaman, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Gauntlet, and Centipede.

Overall, the one thing that I was most surprised about amoung all of the music, vidoes, and events was their branding. They were able to capture the experience in their brochures/programs, logo, website and advertising by utilizing their colour scheme to set the tone for the whole event. Everything was kept simple and clean and it was targeted directly at the audience that they were hoping to capture. One thing is for sure, I'll never forget their logo; that 8-bit pixelated space invader wearing headphones.

Here's the video for the Costume Content for those curious enough to watch.

And for those of you that remember the awesome music of Chrono Trigger:

Another year goes by, and we all get a little bit wiser. This Sunday, two of our graphic designers, Caitlin and Dave, will both be celebrating their birthdays.

In keeping with StudioTHINK tradition, Caitlin and Dave both got to choose their own birthday cake. Caitin stuck with a traditional chocolate cake, but Dave wanted to be different. Initially he wanted a Banoffee Pie, but his vote was vetoed by those in the office that detest bananas. Instead, he went with a Danish Whipped Cream Cake, which I must admit was surprisingly good.

Although they both don't have big plans for their birthdays (at least they didn't want to tell me), I can only infer that Dave will be hitting up Gabby's Cabaret for some line dancing hoe-down goodness, and Caitlin will be strutting her stuff in her home-brewed Twilight Moon cosplay outfit.

Feel free to wish them happy birthday in the comments, or email them your greetings/photos, or anything else that you think they'd like to see.

Am I the only one who is addicted to Apps, preferably free? I enjoy finding new little things to keep me entertained, but often don't keep them for long (although somehow the Cat Piano has survived the monthly sweep). Blame it on my short attention span. One of the rather frivolous reasons I'd love to upgrade my iPod Touch to an iPhone is so I can get the Shazam app that helps me name songs.

Recently I came across a rather cool app from Pantone, which I thought has the potential to be a very useful tool for anyone who needs to go out and meet clients, and who often find themselves without a famous Pantone swatch book close at hand. The only thing holding me back from trying it out is the rather steep $9.99 price tag. Is anyone else using this yet?

This week I thought I'd throw it out there to our readers to give me some new app suggestions, I'd love to know, what are some of your favorites? Leave them in the comment box!

Our latest Studiothink team competition is the time-tested favorite of grade school kids everywhere: an egg drop contest. For those of you not familiar with the term, it's a competition where contestants must create an egg container that, when dropped from a high elevation onto the hard ground below, will keep the egg inside from breaking.

Talk of wonderous flying machines, brightly-coloured parachutes, and questionable physics filled the office as we all considered the best and, most importantly, coolest way to deliver our eggs safely and securely to the office floor. As these things often go, time got the better of us and, while we couldn't physically manifest the egg-drop vessel of our dreams, we definitely made a decent effort.

Mine was the DaVinci-inspired parachute made from bamboo and rubber bands (far left in the image). Unfortunately my egg didn't survive, teaching us all a valuable lesson about the importance of wearing a seat belt.

Rob's was a bungee-seat inside a bucket he made that morning. His clever idea of encasing the egg in a single cutout of egg carton kept his egg alive.

What Chandra's egg-drop device lacked in creativity it made up for in practicality - her Disney princess bag stuffed with air bags cushioned her egg from the impact and it, too, survived.

Finally, believing strongly in the creed, "If you're going to fail, fail spectacularly," Mike sent a hockey water bottle filled with pancake syrup and water careening to the earth, his egg taped over a thin line of toilet paper covering the bottle's mouth. The idea, I guess, was that the contraption would hit the ground, the egg would continue to fall, burst through the thin paper and plunk into his syrupy solution, safe and sound. Unfortunately for Mike (and anyone standing within 13 feet or so of ground zero), the bottle slammed to the ground, firing a fountain of pancake syrup, water, and egg throughout the office. Fail spectacularly, indeed.

In the end, by unanimous decision, Rob was declared the winner of the egg drop and won a nifty new Nerf gun to store at his desk and wield against unsuspecting co-workers. Congratulations on your victory, Rob, and since you're newly armed, let me take this opportunity to say that I've always liked you best.

This week I was suckered into something completely different - we really need to hire some more women around here. All the guys wanted to take their gun training, my husband included - and well, I'll admit it, I hate to be left out. I had never handled a gun in my life, so really, the whole experience was fun to do. We spent two, five hour sessions learning our gun safety and handling, with a written and practical test at the end of it all. The gang included Mike, Dave, Rob, myself, Dave's dad, and my husband Brent.

All of us passed our test, with scores in the 90's, although I thought I was going to fail when I couldn't find the right bullets for any of my guns! We are now all eligible to apply for our unrestricted and restricted gun licenses. I'm not really sure what I'll do with mine, perhaps some target shooting? I won't kill anything, as I strongly believe if I can get it at Safeway, I don't need to see any eyeballs. So, you might see me at the local gun range killing some of those vicious clay skeets.

Last Friday at lunch, Rob appears with this cake and his two accomplices, Mike and Dave. Not only did they want me to try the cake, they wanted me to guess what the mystery ingredient was. Now, first of all, I don't even like cake. Second, Rob baked the cake, and third, all three of them wanted me to guess a mystery ingredient. Clearly this was not safe cake to eat. Upon viewing the baked creation, I was even more convinced that tasting this cake was a bad, bad idea.

After carefully sniffing, poking and examining the cake, I concluded no weird bugs had been ground up in the icing. Time for the next step. How could I lead everyone at work if I was clearly afraid of cake? I had to taste it. So, down the hatch it went. No foaming at the mouth. No side cramps. All was good. In fact, the cake tasted.....well....kind of.........yummy. It was yummy cake. In fact, it tasted almost like carrot cake, with cream cheese icing. Despite the fact that it was pink, poorly blended and lop sided, Rob had baked a good cake (in his defense, I found out he doesn't have a mixer). The trouble was, I still could not guess the mystery ingredient.

So, what was the mystery ingredient? Well, it was in fact, ketchup. I was eating a ketchup cake (as I breathed a sigh of relief). Try it out for yourself at your next party, just remember, don't tell everyone until after they have tasted it! You can find the recipe here.

The winner of the Chili Cooking Contest has been decided! The contest was a close one, but I managed to narrowly beat out Sherry for the prestigious title of Studiothink Chili Champion - 2009.

That title brings with it...well, not much. But I am now entitled to office bragging rights, so I figured a blog posting was in order. Plus, I got this sweet trophy!

Yes, it was a long, hard road, but it was worth it in the end. Just call me the Sultan of Spice, the Hero of Heat, the Champion of Chili!

Every morning we smell something yummy coming from the kitchen area, making us all hungry, and finally tracked down the scent to strawberry milkshake Pop Tarts! I haven't had Pop Tarts since I was a kid, and even then they must have been bad for you, because my parents never kept them in the house. However, Mike seems to have rediscovered his inner child with his recent Pop Tart addiction, as we found him getting a box out of his desk—obviously he doesn't trust any of us enough to keep them in the kitchen. Obviously Pop Tarts is doing some great marketing to capture that new adult market......or is it just Mike? hmmm.

Every day as I walk by our graphic designer, Dave's desk, I am greeted by a plethora of strange characters. He collects these bizarre but humorous designer toys known as urban vinyl, due to the fact I guess, that they are all made from vinyl. Some smoke, some have removable parts, some are just plain strange. What's even stranger, is that I can't help but smile every time I walk by and look at them.

Last week was his birthday, and he went downtown with Mike to get a few more for his collection. I'm thinking that if something this small can make people smile as they go past your desk, maybe I should start collecting some of my own.

p.s. If you are wondering where he gets them, here is the link to the Vancouver store called Voltage: http://voltageland.com/shop/