New NatEx game from One Black Bear

Our sister digital agency, One Black Bear, has developed a new online game for client, National Express Buses. Launched for Christmas, the task is to drive through the festive traffic collecting presents, puddings and snowmen along the way. Play it here.

Probably the closest we'll ever come to Mad Men

Here's the positioning of one of our ads for Helps Stop Snoring in today's Telegraph.

Rangemaster ads make it on to The Drum

Click here to read all about it and see the ads.

As seen on TV...well almost

In one of the world's weakest claims to fame, we had an image we shot for EIC last year appear on tonight's Gadget Show thanks to Sony World Photographer of the Year and friend of the agency, Martin Brent.

It was used to test the best photo printers. Well done Mart, you're a star in the making.
You can watch it here in all it's full colour glory.

Please vote for B-Hive

You may or may not remember that we worked on a campaign last year for the brilliant student placement scheme B-Hive. Well, the scheme and website (created by One Black Bear) are up for an Invisible City award, which is promoting the creative talent of Birmingham. So, be a darling will you and add your vote. Just click here and then click a star. It's that simple. Voting closes on August 13th so don't hang about. Thanks.

That's surely in contravention of Health & Safety.

We're doing a mailer at the moment for Rayburn to support the launch of their website, which was built by our sister digital agency, One Black Bear. We needed reference to the lids, so off we went, camera in hand, to the AGA shop in Mailbox, only to find we needed to get higher for the perfect angle. Cue very nice sales chap who instantly lent us a step ladder. Mailer will be ready to see at the beginning of next month.

A sad divorce in Adland

I was sad to read today that one of the greatest agency-client partnerships in advertising came to an end this week after 28 years. Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has resigned one of its founding clients and the basis of its legendary creative reputation, Levi's.
My favourite (although let's face it, if you're of a certain age, you grew up on this advertising and they were all great) was the 1992 ad "Swimmer".

James and Matt are toast

So, James and Matt have left us to head down to the smoke on a placement there. Obviously they won't like it in that there London and will be back where we'll be waiting behind a big wall with Cilla and open arms like some long lost twin sister (80's TV references are great when referring to people who are just into their twenties).
In the meantime, we'll have this lovely toaster they bought for us as a reminder of their HOT ideas - geddit?...Sorry.
Good luck guys.

Ooh we are flattered.

Back in the 90's (when everything was brilliant) we did an ad (press and poster) to launch the Subaru Forester Turbo. Simple idea, as this was an offroad vehicle that went very fast we put a speed camera on a forest trail. We won loads of awards with it both here and in the states and it appeared in quite a few books and journals as well as making the cover of a Contact (Automotive photographers) book.
Everybody was happy, especially us, as this lead to quite a nice pay rise and bonus.
Now, ten years on and with the help of a couple of students (Matt & James - very good by the way) here on placement and that thing they call the internet we've found quite a few other people who liked the ad too.
Named and shamed, they are: McKee Wallwork (USA) with their work for Porsche; Ogilvy & Mather (Austria) with an ad for Ford; Gramm Werbeagentur (Germany) for Range Rover and most recently Saatchi & Saatchi (Australia) with an idea for Toyota.
So, pure coincidence or a little plagiarism? Whichever, we're just proud to have had an idea all those years ago that seems to have gone on to win so many awards around the world and worked hard in shifting product for so many different brands.

Original links from here.

Hospital work gets picked up by the Birmingham Post.

If you click here, you may also see the online ads in action. They're the one's with the plasters on. Click here to see the posters etc.

Hospital work gets coverage on The Drum

Read about it here. See it in situ here.

Unsuitable win a Heist Award

We're proud to announce that we've won a Heist award for our BCU work in the 'Best Integrated Campaign' category. Rich and Steve joined the BCU marketing department at the Palace Hotel in Manchester to collect the award and have a few celebratory drinks.

Woo hoo, another bit of new business.

Read all about it and how excited we are on weareunsuitable.com

Everybody say hello to Helen.

Read all about her here.

Pixels takeover New York and then the world

How long before it becomes an ad for Sony?

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. - Arts and animation videos.

Made it...just.

By the skin of my teeth - thanks to all who voted (looking at the position, that's all 3 of you). Now just need to sit back and watch the new business fly in the door. Read more here.

Does not breaking the law break the system?

The other day I was reading Unpaid internships 'breaking minimum wage law' on the BBC website and started to worry.
You see, here at Unsuitable (and our sister agency One Black Bear) we often take design and advertising students on placement, as well as kids from schools who are thinking of taking up a career in the business. We don't actively pursue them and we have no set policy on how they're treated, what they'll do or how long they'll stay.
We don't offer any sort of payment (except in the case of the B-Hive winners or those like our latest recruit, Helen, who impressed us so much in her first unpaid three weeks, we asked her to do another 6 months paid to make sure it wasn't a fluke - it wasn't and she's now on the full time pay roll).
This non-payment policy, it appears, is breaking the minimum wage law. So, what is to become of the humble placement?
Well, according to the article, you can only get away with not paying them if they're an observer and not asked to do any tasks that you'd normally pay someone to do.
When we take on an individual or team, we don't want them to just sit around looking over your shoulder and making the odd cup of tea. We want them to get involved and experience the real world and what they can expect, should they break into this industry.
And that means answering live briefs - if the ad/design was to get through, not only is it a great thrill for the originator at having their work become real but we would also pay them (or buy a gift as a reward) - it hasn't happened as yet though.
Now some of the students who come in are really keen and a pleasure to have around the place, others, well quite frankly I don't even notice them being here or them leaving. The one's who are buzzing around, asking advice and interrogating why things are done the way they are, I'm sure get more out of the experience than those who sit quietly in a corner and try to sneak out of the office at 4.30.
If we are breaking the law, we need to assess how we do this. Do we start to pay? Well, no. Not for two weeks but anything longer, yes we would and rightly so. Do we stop them working on live briefs? Can't see who would benefit from this. It creates more work for us and less reward for the student, so I can't see that happening. Or do we just put a stop to doing placements (internships)? I for one think that would be a sad, sad day for agencies and students alike.

New account win.

Read about it here.

Johnny Cash Planner

We here at Unsuitable and One Black Bear have got ourselves involved in setting up and launching a company to help people better manage their money and educate school kids on money matters, so we hopefully don't see the financial meltdown again that we're just going through.
A new website is on the way (johnnycashplanner.com) but in the meantime we're trying to build up a social side to it. So, if you'd like to help us transform the nations finances and the future of financial learning, please become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and help us spread the word.
If you'd like to get involved as a Beta tester once the site goes live, you can sign up here. Thanks.

The most frustrating part of running an ad agency is that sometimes you are at the mercy of people you wouldn't hire to sweep the lobby.

Quote c/o The Ad Contrarian.