It's really a sad commentary on the racial and political tensions still permeating our society when someone's big idea is to create underpants with messages like "Please Don't Shoot" and "I Am Not Armed." But it just might work.

It looks like the organizer of the Cannes Lions festival -- Ascential being the parent organization -- has a holding company problem to deal with. Publicis Groupe has opted out of next year's Festival, and WPP may be next.

Special kudos to Brightcove, which has been tasked with live-streaming every event being produced at the weeklong conference. A top-notch performance by the Brightcove team responsible for the streaming. (But not without its flaws.)

No doubt they're both heavyweights in their industries, advertising and journalism, respectively. But their one-on-one Monday at Advertising Week New York was hardly the 14-round slugfest that the event's CEO Matt Scheckner declared it would be.

Just in time for Adweek, Rubicon Project, one of advertising's biggest programmatic players, and the Ad Council have announced a collaboration through which Rubicon Project will donate unsold advertising inventory to the Ad Council's national public service campaigns, which now have the potential to become global.

Every year I marvel at how much marketers spend on a 30-second spot in the Super Bowl. Last year it was about $5 million for 30 seconds of ad time. Think about how that money could be put to good use in Houston, Florida and Mexico.

Magna forecasts U.S. media owners' net advertising revenues to grow by 3.6% this year (excluding the impact of political and Olympics) to reach $185 billion, which the Interpublic intelligence arm said would be a record.

That's got to be a big relief to the agency, which has held the account for more than a decade, reaping tens of millions in annual fees.

The Omnicom agency announced new U.S. and global CEOs Monday and confirmed that its global HQ is shifting from New York to London.

No surprise there, but here's the unexpected part. According to Ascential, all entry fees generated by the new awards will be donated to projects that advance the UN's sustainable development goals. Well played!