A host of artists’ prints and canvasses for sale? In a temporary shopfront in the heart of London? Just before Christmas? Yes, it’s time once more for Santa’s Ghetto. This is, apparently, the sixth year running that artist Banksy’s alternative Christmas gift shop has taken over an unused store front in central London and stuffed it full of subversive artwork by the likes of Banksy himself, Jamie Hewlett, Ian Stevenson, Insect, D-Face, David Shrigley, Nick Walker, Eric The Dog…

Here’s a selection of our favourite videos that have passed through the office this week, kicking off with Valerie Pirson’s super-sweet promo for Olivia Ruiz’s La Femme Chocolat. Pirson is repped by Partizan and was recommended to the production company by none other than Michel Gondry, after she created a series of animations for his forthcoming feature The Science of Sleep.

A great nostalgia fest and an indication of how much things have changed in the gaming industry, this journey through the evolution of video games shows how the various genres (war games, sports games, etc) have advanced with the available technologies. The clip was produced for a presentation made by game developer David Perry at the TED Conference.

One of our very first blog posts here on CR Blog showed a selection of posters created by Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam for Nike Italy. The campaign was for new Nike football boots and each poster celebrated one of the members of Italy’s World Cup winning team in the style of 1950s advertisements. As we reported in that original blog post, each poster is the starting point for an animated spot and W+K have kindly just showed us the first spot to be completed…

2006 YoungGuns of the Year has been awarded to Matt Devine and Luke Crethar of The Glue Society, Sydney for their Jason Donovan campaign for Virgin Mobile. The campaign was based around the premise that Virgin Mobile’s rates are so low that people will use their phones to make non-vital calls - just because it’s really cheap. In the campaign Jason Donovan’s phone numer is leaked on the internet. As a result his phone is inundated with calls. Virgin Mobile respond with a pseudo damage limitation campaign asking people to stop calling Mr Donovan. Finally TV and cinema ads showing pranksters calling up the ex neighbours star were screened - with the message to stop the harrasment. Over 60,000 people visited the www.responsiblemobileuse.com/au site and over 670,000 calls/texts were made to 0403JASOND. Devine and Crethar won a Gold Bullet, 20,000 USD and an invitation to sit on next year’s YoungGuns jury.

Seven international ad agencies have joined forces with the Global Media AIDS Initiative (GMAI) to create a series of spots to raise awareness of AIDS. The first 24 spots in the campaign will debut on MTV channels globally on World AIDS Day, December 1.

The ads forms part of the Staying Alive campaign, which launched nine years ago with a one-off documentary and now encompasses documentaries, a website, concerts and forums with leading politicians. This is the first year that the advertising industry has been involved with the campaign. “We realised that the GMAI needed to involve advertising agencies, so we approached people in Cannes,” explains Georgia Arnold, VP of Public Affairs for MTV. “There were no restrictions placed on the agencies. They were given background info on each of the core subjects, and then the scripts were only reviewed to check that they were factually correct, there was no creative interference.”

This freedom means that the films cover a broad range of styles, from the humorous to the heavy. I80 Amsterdam, for example, has contributed a simple animation of a talking penis, while Ogilvy has created a 70s style commercial showcasing the joys of not having sex (see still above). On the more serious side, Ogilvy has also created a chilling film, directed by Stink’s Neil Harris, which shows three men pulling out handguns and shooting their partners after having sex, with the guns representing the killer virus they have just passed on. On a similar theme, Y&R has created a commercial featuring a couple engaging in casual conversation while playing a game of Russian roulette.