Articles from AdWeek Advertising and branding

Thanks to the country's anti-gay laws, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia have turned into a de facto platform for LGBT marketing. Earlier, we had the Canadian ad that said the two-man luge is "a little gay." Now, we have this crazy spot from Norwegian sports apparel retailer XXL. It's an over-the-top, absurd blockbuster of an ad, with overly slick visuals, overly cheesy music and a "twist" ending you could spot from Moscow. And yet … somehow you have to love it. Its heart is generally in the right place, even if it plays out like a male fantasy.

Sweden's One Hour Agency is the brainchild of interactive art directors Ben Langeveld and Ingmar Larsen, who, along with a half-dozen other creatives from the Hyper Island program, want just 60 minutes of your time. "You give us one hour. We generate quality ideas," they say. At typical client-agency meetings, awkward pauses and efforts to reboot PowerPoint can last longer than an hour, but this startup remains undeterred.

If you still needed proof that selfies have taken over the Internet, here's a telling infographic about how brands went into pic-snapping overload in the past year. To help promote the upcoming deadline for entries (Feb. 18) in The Shorty Awards' Best Facebook Campaign category, contest sponsor Unmetric decided to analyze how major businesses embraced the selfie in all its ego-stroking glory over the course of 2013.

I just did a search for "working woman" on a popular stock photography site, and got photos of women in pantsuits wielding brick-sized cell phones, photos of women pouting sexily while adjusting their glasses, and not much else. Stock photography is easily accessible and way cheaper than hiring a photographer to produce images for a brochure or an ad or a website, but it is rife with stereotypes. Getty Images and Sheryl Sandberg's LeanIn.org have partnered to produce a collection of images that represent women and families in more empowering ways.