Why????

First there was McCanns with that awful "Show me the way to integration" and now this from Publicis. Why do agencies feel the need to do this?

Get that B-Roll

The 2009 Bully Awards

Over on the supreme Ad Contrarian's blog, the votes have been counted and the stiff competition whittled down to one amazing piece of marketing bullshit. If you're unaware of the masterful piece of nonsense, that is the 'Pepsi Breathtaking Design Strategy take a look at it here.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

The Christmas edition of Family Time, the magazine we bi-monthly produce for Colourful Tree went to print today. Last big Christmas themed job of the year (unless someone's got something i'm not yet aware of).

Cream Awards winners

Last night (25/11/09) saw the 2009 Cream Awards ceremony take place at the Jam House in Birmingham. We had a nomination in the 'best business to business' section and were kindly given a bronze for our ad "Web".
Although we're not going to get carried away with winning a bronze, it was nice to be collecting a Cream again after a few years in the wilderness.
The event took on a new format (well, times are tough at the moment for most agencies) and gone was the massive hall at the ICC, complete with black tie and dry chicken dinner. Now we were in a pub, wearing casual gear with no seats and miniature burgers to mop up the drink.
It was different but was it better?
Well, there were a lot of mixed feelings on the night depending on who you talked to but my two penneth, for what it's worth, is I thought it was a good night. The whole thing felt a lot younger, there was a lot more chance to catch up with colleagues and peers from years back and the room appeared to be almost 100% agency people rather than 40% client guests that needed looking after.
Maybe as I get older, the evening was more about the social catch up rather than the winning bit (I would say that, having not won much) but it was good to spend the majority of the night chatting to old mates rather than spending hours waiting for someone to travel 200 yards across a vast hall and climb the steps to a huge stage (repeat this 40 or so times and it becomes a tad drawn out).
A big congratulations must go to Golley Slater Cardiff for their excellent Army ads that picked up the Grand Prix - absolutely head and shoulders above anything else and deserved winners.

We've won a CIPR award...sort of.

Well done to the PR team at Sandwell MBC on picking up a silver at this year's CIPR awards. It was for the rogue trader campaign that we produced the Yee-Ha!! work for. You can see it here.

Please vote for us.

We've just received 'The Drum Power 100 2009', nomination list and Ross Riley & myself (Jon Harrison) are on it.
So, if you've got 30 seconds spare, please pop over to the site and click on our names (the list is first name alphabetical). We're not a big agency, so we don't have the power to instruct hundreds of employees to use their vote. So please, be a love and tick our boxes. Thanks.