"Gentleman Callers" candles. "Fat Pig" chocolates. "Dogmatic" gourmethot dogs. It's no surprise this slew of new tongue-in-cheek brands comestraight from the front lines of manufactured hipness: ad agencies. Intoday's Advertising Age, Rupal Parekhwrites about a trend I highlighted in Fast Company's Annual Fast 50awards; Madison Avenue's latest fetish--intellectual property.Nowadays, as the industry grapples with how it's actually going to makemoney now that media is no longer the cash cow, these brand mavens nowwant complete equity ownership of these products ("We would ratherinvent the next VitaminWater than do the ads for VitaminWater," Anomaly partner Carl Johnson told me when I interviewed him earlier this year).

In addition to Anomaly (our Fast 50 pick which just launched its new shaving line Eos at Target), Parekh roundsup other IP-hungry brethren like Mother, Brooklyn Brothers, and Taxi(incidentally, note how many of these mad men hail from across theAtlantic pond). While many of the new product lines are quirky andirreverent, the truth is, most of the crop including Anomaly are smallscale and appeal to a limited hipster demographic parallel to the onethey derive from. That said, it's not just these boutique shops chasingthe intellectual property train. Agency heads I've spoken to from muchlarger shops--from JWT to Crispin Porter + Bogusky--all proclaim the next frontier is IP.

Which agencies have succeeded in creating a real, viable, disruptor product, like the green cleaners at Method? Or is all this IP hype smoke and mirrors, which ad agencies are acrobat at?

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