Advertising Feature

Looking for a new kind of creative agency? Then cut out the middleman, and work with a bluesman.



The BB King Agency is a 30 strong team of creatives who sound and play just like BB King. No suits. No prima donnas. And no uneccessary drum fills. By cutting out the middleman, you get faster decisions and more Blues for your budget.

Call the BB King Agency now and see how the Blues can influence your business.

This is the sort of thing you should Twitter about really but...

Has anyone else noticed how W+K London seem to have quite a lot of blogposts about people in the agency who dress the same?

Here's the latest one.

Now, that's not very fucking creative or imaginative is it. I mean, surely they should all dress like George Melly or Wilf Lunn (Prof. Heinz Wolff for suits). Going to work would be like attending some kind of dadaist convention from the 30s, with people in diving suits and women dressed as fish. Instead, they all just look the sort of preening townie cocksquirts you can find anywhere.

Anyway, top-button done or undone today?

Frank's Fantastic Funeral

Like all great artists, it seems Chris Seivey (aka Frank Sidebottom) died almost penniless. So doubley-sad news in some ways. However, Twitterers have already raised nearly £3K in just over an hour towards Chris's funeral costs. Anyone wishing to give Frank the send off he deserves should go hither. Now please.

DEViOus

Pop-pickers might've already heard DEVO's new single playing on the wireless or in fashionable coffee houses full of supple young flesh. Er, but what you might not know is that the band rather deviously collaborated with, ahem, "Mother LA" to market the album.

At the centre of the campaign is this brilliantly subversive PowerPoint presentation which leads on to a series of ersatz "focus groups" about the new record. I won't get bogged down in the whole "death of the record industry" debate. Suffice to say, this is DEVO doing what they've always done - employing a method that pokes fun at it's means. The result? A hilarious parody of advertising methodologies old and new in which (arguably) one of the coolest ad agencies in the world is entirely complicit.

Anyway, check out the You Tube channel for the rest of it. It's a great piece of work, with or without Mother's "involvement." Kinda reminds me of Look Around You. Enjoy.

RIP Frank Sidebottom

This is terribly sad news. The word genius is over-used but for once I have to agree with Mark Radcliffe.

I'm rarely genuine on this blog but if I could observe a minute's silence without, er, simply not typing anything then I would. But what good would it do? Instead, I suggest you all go on You Tube and watch all of his old Queen tributes, betamax cassette-bobbings, sublime Granada Reports interludes, and entire back-catalogue of homespun provincial punk daftness. For there shall never be another like him.

God bless.

News from The Drum: Advertising kind of pointless, really

The Drum's reality correspondent: Karl McGargling

In a rare flash of insight yesterday, everybody at The Drum suddenly realised that, actually, in the scheme of things, advertisings not really all that important.

The unexpected change of opinion came in the wake of Father's Day when the majority of the advertising magazine's employees spent a pleasant afternoon in the company of their extended families, talking about old times, chewing the fat, and putting things in perspective.

A spokesman for The Drum sighed, "Seeing dad yesterday really made me sit up and think about the big picture. I mean, i don't know how long he's got left now - it could be 5 years, it could 30. But what's more important: getting to know my parents, or getting an interview with a man who makes posters for cat food? Don't get me wrong, it's an exciting time to be involved in the creative industries, but... Aw, who am I kidding?" And with that he threw his mobile phone in the bin and walked barefoot on to the street. Meanwhile, another insider was heard to be muttering "Bullshit man, bullshit. This is ALL bullshit..."

Regular Drum reader Gareth Ramps reported "There's been a a nagging futility about the magazine for a while now. Something hollow and unresolved about it. It's spooky. Like, at work I'm all over it, commenting on the website like I genuinely care about all this stuff. But once I get home, it doesn't even cross my mind. It's as though nothing in it matters, or has any significance or bearing on the outside world."

Chief editor of The Drum, Nobby Clamps, is expected to issue a statement later today apologising for the time and effort the magazine has wasted over the years, and suggesting ways his readers might better spend their time.

A Pig Called Mordecai

Have you noticed how everyone in adverts is some kind of brilliantly uncanny quirk-addled genius these days?

There's the Credit Expert...


Then there's The Most Interesting Man In The World...


Not to mention the "Most Interesting Child In The World".


It's as though they all stepped straight out of this film about brilliantly uncanny quirk-addled geniuses...


Oh, and then there's these brilliantly quirky blah blah blah...


Who could've stepped straight out of this film...


Now, I haven't seen this new ad yet because my plug-ins are playing up. But would it happen to be about a brilliantly uncanny quirk-addled genius with a humourously named pet by any chance? Although, judging from the stills, it seems Luke Wilson wasn't available for that particular project.

Happy Bloomsday Everybody

June 16th. The day of the events of James Joyce's Ulysses. For those of you unfamiliar with Joyce's masterpiece it's basically a less fascist, but just as pretentious version of 24. Like Jack Bauer, the central character Leopold Bloom, experiences time as a kind of solipsistic microcosm of the past, present, and future, where the weight of history renders everyday life as an epic, heroic struggle. Where 24 does this quite literaly with guns, bombs, hostage situations, deaths and tragedy, Ulysses on the other hand does it with literary allusion and high-modernism. Er, which is possibly why it's not quite the airport thriller it could've been.

Still, if you're keen to give it a go, some helpful geeks (ya gotta love the geeks) have now created a thick person/art director-friendly graphic novel version for you to point at and flick through.



You can even download it for your iPad. If you didn't already look enough of a knob .

When did you last do some good work?

Well, as a perfectionist I'd say never.

As a magnanimous arse, I'd say not that long ago but it was a team effort mwah mwah mwah.

But as an honest to goodness hold my hands up geezer I'd say, um, somewhere between the two maybe?

To use the analogy of a teenager whose parents are perpetually telling him to keep the noise down, I guess I'm seriously wishing my parents would fuck off on holiday today and let me party. It's a nice day too. We could have the girls round playing in the pool right now... I could get my friend's band over to play... It'd be sweet. Except we haven't got a pool. And my friend's band are shit. So if my parents did go on holiday and I had free reign to do whatever crazy stuff I wanted, I'd probably just end up sharing a bottle scotch with a mate and listening to the radio in the shed, wishing we had a pool with girls in and a shit-hot band playing on the patio with all the beautiful people there, and I'm the most popular guy in the world - they all love my work- and then God pulls up in his Ferrari with a beagle (I quite like beagles) and hands me a beer straight out the glove box like...

Beautiful.

But, as I say, it's not like that. I'm a teenager in a bedroom in a shit neighbourhood with very conservative parents. And as a result, I have a rich internal life and a healthy interest in pornography. Or at least, I do for now. It might still go very wrong as I get older.

Advertising Feature

Can England go the distance? Will they be "on a roll"?

With The offical England World Cup 5m Tape Measure from Stanleythe answer is (quite literally) YES!

(Actually, I didn't make this one up. Wish I had. But I didn't. You can get yours here. Become the envy of the scaffhold or something).

I wonder if they do England hammers?

The person who wrote this is obviously some kind of creative genius...

I imagine they're incredibly handsome as well. Whoever they are.

I'll give myself three guesses, shall I?

Anyway, I do love Music. And their website.

(Hello chaps).

Beautiful

This is the sort of thing Ben Kay posts on his blog but I never usually watch because I just skip to the comments so boo hoo if you've seen it before.

Actually - no. I take that back. You can damn well watch it again, it's that good.

News from The Drum: Pitch jeopardised by ECD's Aston Martin, handmade cowboy boots, and whiff of "Cheshire Cheese"

by The Drum's new business beast, Frisky Chunks

Ramsbottom: Plans to advertise a new kind of sausage were put on hold today as Bill Crayons, MD of "The Big Fat Lancashire Sausage Co." failed to be impressed by a presentation from Manchester ad agency Thrust Communications.

It's understood that Crayon's invited Thrust to pitch for his business after being recommended from a man he met in a park whilst his dog was having a shit.

Crayon's told The Drum, "We're a small business, with a relatively small turnover. However, we've got a great product, and we're ambitious. We're passionate about bringing the Big Fat Lancashire Sausage to a much wider audience.

"But having never used an ad agency before, I didn't really know what to expect, and you know what these creative types can be like...

"Anyway, when this prick with an Aston Martin and a ponytail turned up, and starts banging on about his experience and his team... Said he was the executive creative director or somethingorother? I thought this all means bugger all to me, mate. Next thing he gets all these scrappy bits of paper out and tells me he wants £25K for a drawing of a smiling pig. I said, Christ almighty, I suppose that's where all this came from, pointing at his Barbour jacket and cowboy boots, and he says -with no fucking irony- 'Nice arent they, they're handmade, from a little shop in Wilmslow' then he starts asking me what car I drive, and telling me about his house in Alderly Edge and the poker club he's in in Sale.

"Well, if you think I'm paying some tasteless tuppeny millionaire like him to piss all my money away on Range Rovers for his wife and designer doorbells you can think again."

When asked about the impression he may have given his potential client, ECD of Thrust, Mike Toshkindale explained: "Whilst I'm clearly no stranger to luxury brands, neither are my friends, neighbours, or my friends wife's neighbours and husbands. Advertising is all about perceptions. And I'm no stranger to those either. I see perceptions every day. In brands. On shelves. Or on the faces of my poker buddies. And anyway, that Aston Martin is two years old. People need to stop thinking about the short term. Which is why we're always looking to future at Thrust, and why we're all so xcited about this recent push for new business - about paying off my ex-wife, and getting Georgia back into private education."

Advertising Feature

From the people who brought us the Twitter Glove and the Linkedin Business Garter, comes the ultimate in social net-wear.

IntroducingThe Facebook Mood Belt

38 inches of high quality full-hide leather you can synch to your Facebook status anytime and anywhere.

Feeling sad? Then let the whole world know by tightening it up a notch and posting an image of it to your profile page.

Maybe you enjoyed the party last night? Well, just loosen it off and update your status.

The Facebook Mood Belt's patented adjustable notch system offers a compelling metaphor for your innermost thoughts... in real-time! Live life though your belt and create a fascinating glimpse into your emotional state that'll become the talk of all your friends... AND THE INTERNET!

"Whoargh. Fishfingers for tea tonight. Down two I'd say!"

"I feel so ashamed... I should've worn it tighter."

"I wish he loved me... I must be punished with an extra-notch!"

"Job interview today. Time to take up the slack... Raaaarrrr!"

Hideous inbred offspring of advertising freaks

This is what happens when advertising-cousins (namely branding and endorsements) get drunk and do unnatural things to eachother.


If anyone can spot the missing creative-chromosome between sellng cars on the internet and a live football demonstration please let me (and social services) know.