You might not have heard of Standard Time, the L.A. based small agency headed up by Michael Sharp who does his name justice, but that would only be because they're too busy working to toot their own horn.

While you were pouring over various adnews, Standard Time nabbed a large national client in competition with agencies ten times their size. They were also working with major retailer CVS, Starbucks Doubleshot, Veggie Grill, Stila Cosmetics, Skullcandy Gamin, and they did work for DC Shoes, Williams Sonoma and Quiksilver. The work spans from perfected identity design to apps, digital sites and commercials airing on MTV, proving that each one of the people at Standard Time has many talents. They may only be nine people, but they're nine eclectically talented people.

Greetings students, welcome to the the ongoing Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial. Today we will teach you about the swiss army knife that can stab the talking head testimonial ad in the back, the Manifesto ad. You can use the Manifesto ad for anything. No, we mean anything. Add a stencil grunge font and it's for sneakers. Add poetry-slam reading and it's for skinny jeans. Add neon-haired celebrities and it's for hipster sports gear. Add Denzel Washington and it's A Very Serious PSA™.

The creative Director is running in circles all over the place yelling "Bring me a big idea! Bring me a big idea!" The smug VP gives you the friendliest of smiles while chanting the usual meaningless war slogans: "bring me a campaign that no one has seen before. Bring me THE new idea. Bring me an idea that is like nothing that's ever been done. Not even close! Don't worry, I have the client eating out of my hand, just get it and I'll make it happen". And suddenly, you start believing. The fumes of battle are blinding you, the old addictive aroma of gun powder takes hold of your senses and you start sweating. You are telling yourself that this time its for real. This time they actually mean it. It is not you against the client, it's you against you.

Meeting with Mistress in their space, at the very epicenter of Venice beach from where they can see surfers, skaters and even bank robberies, I am treated to a tour of the office built with reclaimed wood and passionate ideas. Their large windows will let the sunlight in, as well as serve as dancing space for their parties where suddenly the entire neighborhood thinks there's a new nightclub in town. Mistress tend to do everything with the essence of their brand name in mind, the agency party date they own is of course Feb 14, Valentines day, and the time it begins is right after the quiet fancy dinner you've had with your spouse.

She's been mentioned by name in another Ad Chat but this time we go in-depth with the talented Kim Rushton, a Planning Director at BBDO.

In 2010, David & Goliath made a cute spot for Kia that aired during the Super Bowl called "Joyride Dream". Oversized stuffed animals, including "Sock Monkey", Muno, Mr. X, the Teddy and a vintage robot, do wild jet ski stunts, go bowling, ride a mechanical bull and more. And in the end, we see them in their real form, sitting on the back seat of a car. The ECD, Colin Jeffery told us (way back when): "Inspiration can come from anywhere. Many of the people involved with this project are young parents—we found the idea, and our cast of characters sitting in the back of our cars. The idea was quite literally staring us in the face."

The advertising and media industries have teamed up for about the past 50 years to train people that 30 seconds is all the time they need to dedicate to a message. For a while, I thought this long-taught learning only applied to advertising, but I’ve realized now that it applies to videos, news, your portfolio, websites, weddings. Everything.

For an ad a minute can sometimes seem special, but in most circumstances just seems long. A three-minute sponsored video seems to last forever. Most websites users get to, tick off most of the time on site looking for the one thing they need, absorbing that and getting out. Personally, if I am greeted by a load screen, I get itchy.

When it was easy it was still overwhelming. Even with the old media empires and a few standard shapes and sizes of what were then known as "ads", it was a near impossible task to produce something you could be proud of. It was still rare. There was TV, radio and print. I started my career in the apocalypse of this time. The end times. We knew it was happening, but we didn't know what was happening.

This isn't a good-old-days piece. F that. I was there. They weren't so much better than now. Like everything there are plusses and minuses of every situation. But realistically, to appreciate the plusses of today, it helps to understand where we’ve come from.

As we get close to another year’s end, today I’m turning the tables on the CEO of Adland to get her perspective on the current state of advertising vs. when she started this site back in 1996 when Clinton was President and Quad City Dj's had a hit with C'mon N' Ride It (The Train).

1. You’ve been doing this since 1996, Other than the obvious media changes, what other changes have you seen?

There's a lot less branding and a lot more "storytelling" these days. Not that there's anything wrong with telling a story, but sometimes it's so far off the map of the brand that one wonders why brands are putting money into it. Brands have given up their adjectives. Volvo is no longer "safe", Volkswagen is no longer "reliable", the Economist is no longer "informed." Instead brands are entertaining, or trying to entertain you, like they did in the late 90s with the BMW films. They hope that by catching a viral wave, they might sell some product.

Robert Taylor, A.K.A "Robot Terror", accidentally became a Social Media professional from 2008 to 2011 while at Rackspace. He has since returned to his customer service roots and lives in Seattle, WA, which, appropriately enough, is home of the Cloud. Since Adland has been watching how brands engage in social media, with Kidsleepy listing the heroes and scoundrels of superstorm Sandy, and me discussing dark social in Adweek, we thought we'd talk to the people who have been the brands in social media.

Once upon a time, a little red TV wondered aloud Dear Lee Clows beard... did any birds build a nest in you?...

I hate wrens.

Take this Lollipop, the creepy stalker thing, was seen by over 120 million people and had almost 14 million Facebook likes. It received Best in Show at SXSW, 4 AICP Next Awards, Webby Award, Clio, Art Directors Club and most recently it won a Daytime Emmy Award. Now they want to kickstart the sequel.

So I asked Jason Zada director of Lollipop; With the wild success of Take this lollipop one - why do you need to kickstart a second one?

On the subject of the collateral damage online piracy is doing to advertising, we’ve heard from David Lowery and Adam Weber.

Now Adland has an exclusive interview with former executive editor of Billboard , journalist and author of “Free Ride,” Rob Levine.

Did you hear about that copywriter who is attempting to get his foot in the advertising door by using the oldest of old media, telegrams? For one thing, I had no idea that one could still telegram. Where do you send them off from? Are they hand delivered to the agency by a guy in a neat uniform and hat like in the old movies? I've never even seen a telegram, you've piqued my curiosity for retro-tech, tell me more Zack Filler the telegramming copywriter.

Zack: "There is a website called telegramstop.com and they will send the telegrams to any address you like. All over the world. They get delivered to the agency, barring any complication in the mail room. I've never seen a real one either. "

Everyone knows about that dude Tom Waits. Gravelly voiced, make your heart break in a million pieces singer songwriter artist with hobo beatnik persona.

You know what else he is? He’s smart enough to know that Tom Waits is also a guy with integrity, who knows the the thing he offers to the world--his talent--is unique, and shouldn’t be copied or stolen by anybody. And he’s willing to keep suing every time it happens to maintain that integrity.

A funny thing happened on the internet last week. On Sunday, an NPR’s “All Songs Considered” intern named Emily White wrote an intriguing post called I never owned any music to begin with. Miss White is 20 years old and missed the milestone when we changed how we acquire music. In the post, she speaks of having 11,000 songs, despite only having purchased 15 cds.

In the short post two things jumped out at me.

“…I honestly don’t think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.”

Today we bring you Part Seven of the ongoing Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial. This time, we thought we'd share some helpful (and not so helpful) advice on creating The Case Study.

Professors teaching class today: Kidsleepy and yours truly Åsk Dabitch Wäppling.

Chapter One: Sincere advice for those unfamiliar with sarcasm.

• The longer the better. Five minutes is your minimum amount. Think of it as a logo: The bigger, the better.

There is no word quite as versitile as the Australian "mate". Down under they can use it to mean almost anything, for example mate number eight means "Liar" and mate number three means "this is actually seriously bad news and I have nothing else to say". My personal favorite is mate number eighteen, as I've used it a lot.

BMF Melbourne is bringing back a famous Australian advertising icon: SOLO Man. Gone for over 20 years, the new campaign is a take on SOLO's history and shows how the Australian legend began.

"Our aim was to reinstate SOLO as the best reward for a big thirsty effort, and we felt there's no better man to deliver this message than SOLO Man. He's demonstrated SOLO's thirst crushing powers to generations of Aussie men, so we're really excited to see this campaign introduce a new chapter in his history." sad Meg Terrill, SOLO Brand Manager.

In todays Ad Chat we get to pick the brains of Fernanda Romano, the self-described geek and all-round creative who has been Creative Director at JWT, Global Creative Director Digital and Experiential at Euro RSCG, and even spotted in Madrid as Global Creative Director at Lola Lowe. Starting her ad career in Brazil she's been bouncing around the world ever since, and she did us the solid of replying to questions while on a flight somewhere above a large body of water. Dedication. She has it. You can track her down by following her twitter at @fefaromano

What's your favorite funny story about yourself?

When I got into university, as it's customary in Brasil, I had to go asking for money in the streets to buy the senior students booze (yes, we do that).