Hello and welcome back to The Weekly LOdown - where every Friday we gather our favorite links from the depths (or sometimes shallows) of cyberspace and share them with you.

This week we have a bit of a potpourri of advertising and design related links.  Everything from laser-etched food to artsy trash cans (where the potpourri might come in handy). Here’s what we’ve been clicking:

©Kellogg's

Allison

As part of an advertising and public relations agency, I understand the importance of brand marketing and recognition. People need to know who you are before they will want to buy what you’re selling - I get it. What I don’t get is Kellogg’s latest marketing strategy. The well-known cereal and snack tycoon plans to produce trial batches of laser-etched corn flakes to reassure customers that they’re buying an authentic Kellogg’s product. There’s so much I could say about this, but I think it can be summed up with one word: Why?

Courtesy Metropolis

Lauren B

I loved Metropolis’ feature on “Trashy Design” this week. From a cactus shaped can to one emblazoned with “Are you sure you want to throw that away?”, these trash cans are just plain cool.  A group of celebrities and artsy types designed the chic cans in honor of Vipp’s 70th anniversary. Proceeds are being donated to DIFFA, the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS.

Nick

Courtesy Converge Magazine

This post about social media and viral marketing is really quite simple: Great ideas trump everything else in advertising.  Dave Trott uses a succinct stage-dialogue storytelling style to emphasize the fact that we’re getting ahead of ourselves by trying to suit concepts specifically to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. or trying to create “viral marketing campaigns.”  It limits us.  If people like what you have to say, they will make it viral. They will make it social.

Any thoughts or opinions? Any links that you found particularly interesting this week? Post them below in the comments section.

Thanks for reading!