Adorable animation. Super creepy short film.

Detailed, engaging, warm and fuzzy animation – it’d be great to see more TV commercials using it.

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

It’s going to be a scorcher today. Not just hot – ice-cream-melting, shirt-sticking, proper revolting hot. The type of weather that leads to a total fire ban.

Speaking of fire bans, now’s the perfect day to check your smoke alarm.

It’s a reminder we recently made on TRUenergy’s behalf with a series of small space ads and it’s easy to do (checking the alarm, not writing the ads).

Besides, you’re probably stuck inside trying to hide from the heat anyway. So grab a chair, hop up and press the test button on your smoke alarm.

Easy, huh?

Nobody on the internet is an island.

And because we’re a sharing kind of agency, here are three of the blogs we check out daily:

Copyblogger is essential reading for anyone who writes.

It describes itself as providing ‘copywriting tips for online marketing success’ but it offers far more than that. Not only are the tips useful, but the way each post is written is a demonstration of good, clear writing.

For more persuasive business writing, start reading.

Three of our favourite copyblogger posts:

Now featuring benefits

The art of the paragraph

Seven bad writing habits you learned in school

Again, this is a blog that is easy to read.

And damn inspiring!

Dave Trott illustrates his points about creativity and marketing with anecdotes from his life in advertising to create the type of posts you print out and stick on the wall.

So if you need inspiration, food for thought or a kick in the pants, you’ll find Dave’s posts here.

Three of our favourite Dave Trott posts:

Shake things up

If you’re creative, create

Objective – good, subjective – bad

Seth Godin is the American business author and entrepreneur who introduced the idea of permission-marketing. His posts are short and sweet and tend to get you thinking about your own business from a different perspective.

Three of our favourite Seth Godin posts:

Fear of bad ideas

How to protect your ideas in the digital age

Some people are better than others (this is the philosophy CUBED has embraced from Day One)

We recently tweeted about a fantastic social networking presentation found by our general manager, Troy.

The quote that stuck with us was “if you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the internet”. Wise words.

And the screen grab below is a good demonstration that this is true.

We get 10 hits on the first Google search page. Six of these are from our social networking sites – linked in, flickr and twitter. Looks like something’s working…

Of course, the longer you’re around and the more active you are online, the more often your business will show up in searches thanks to sites like these.

So if your business is also networking on the net, we’d love to meet you.

Just comment on this post with your twitter, facebook, flickr or linked in address, or drop us a line, and we’ll hook up with you -  wherever you are on the world wide web.

Ahhhh, moving day. Hours of pain and torture followed by not being able to find your kettle.

So TRUenergy is making it all that little bit easier with their moving home team. And they’re not being shy about it – we can’t open a metro newspaper without seeing our latest advertisement promoting their service.

So if you happen to be flicking through the Herald Sun this week, look out for the ad. And if you happen to be ready to move, give the guys at TRUenergy a call.

A constant source of amusement at CUBED is our wall of CUBISMS.

The golden rule in the agency is ‘be careful what you say’, because someone somewhere will have a pencil, a notepad and access to a printer.

Here are a few of our favourite CUBISMS.

You’ll find more on Flickr.

PS. It seems our mate, Stan, over at Brand DNA is a fan of Laura’s classic.

Dubbed a ‘creative early-warning system’, Contagious Magazine is a quarterly publication that keeps you bang up-to-date with all kinds of non-traditional marketing and the latest trends, technologies and ideas impacting the world of marketing.

It’s fantastic.

And fantastically expensive.

Fortunately, if you don’t want to dish out the £780 for an annual subscription, the folks at Contagious are generous enough to release an annual report.

Click the image below for your own copy of ‘Most Contagious 2009′.

Yes. Our new commercial for the University of Ballarat.

Most of us have managed to get a glimpse of it live in our living rooms, but if you haven’t seen it on your TV yet, you can always watch it on your computer right here:

We’re proud as punch of our ‘Learn to succeed‘ campaign for the University of Ballarat.

Not only have we been able to create a new brand from scratch – one that sets us apart from other universities – but we got to shoot a live action television commercial involving a Lamborghini, a Maserati, 18 stationary bicycles and a nurse.

Naturally, the boys couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be photographed with a couple of prestige cars.

The University of Ballarat’s colourful new campaign is rolling out over the next few months. So soon you’ll be seeing our TVCs, interacting with our online banners and microsite, hearing our radio commercials  and reading our press.

Enjoy!

We’ve just seen these gorgeous typographic paper-cuts by UK illustrator Kate Forrester, who created 10 different illustrations for the John Lewis (UK department store) Christmas campaign.

The detail in these pieces is incredible.

And the hand-created typography gives the advertisements a warmth they wouldn’t otherwise have, making them incredibly engaging and impactful.

See more here.