Wednesday 31 March 2010

Kit Kat Chunky Jesus

The face of Jesus has been found in a Kit Kat Chunky!

"I was amazed. I just took a bite and then I saw the face of Christ in it," the finder told the NU.nl Dutch website.



Other people aren't so certain:
"This is ridiculous, it looks more like a troll face than Christ. And to be fair, no one really knows what he looked like". Hailey, Canada.

Round 2



On Monday and Tuesday we spent some more time daaahhnn in Landan for a few book crits. We began the week with a meeting at CHI & Partners. Although they don't offer placements the guys we saw were really positive about our book and gave us some great ideas to push our work further. The meeting was slightly tarred by the fact that I ordered a 'Cup of tea' from their coffee shop, only to receive a cappuccino. I was too embarrassed to say anything and proceeded to sip disgusting coffee throughout the book crit (silly me).

We then made our way to Farringdon to meet with the CEO of a start-up agency called London Advertising - www.londonadvertising.com. He seemed to like our ideas but picked us up a few times on presentation, which was odd as CHI had said: "wow, your book is so much neater than mine was". However, he did say he would like to see us again and that he found our book interesting.

After a short trip to Spaghetti House (yum), Vicky and I made our way to Saatchi & Saatchi. Through some very posh steel doors where we were told to wait in the very clean reception area, we were given clip on name badges, which we attached while looking at a wall stacked with yellow and black pencils.

We were taken upstairs to the creative department by Jonathan (his partner was away). He took a long time going through our book and getting us to talk about our work, while giving us some very useful tips and advice on how to get more from our ideas. He seemed to pick up on some obvious ideas that we hadn't ever thought of and gave us a very long to-do list to complete for next time. He said he'd love to see us again as he thought our ideas were great and he wanted to help us get better !

The next day we visited our first all-digital agency, AKQA. We were taken into the canteen for our book crit and had a really funny chat with the team. They went through every campaign, even though not all of them were digital and told us it would be great if we could come up with something digital for all our briefs. This all took place while about 20 people were singing happy birthday to a colleague next to us.

They gave us ways to improve and some really interesting thoughts on digital. When you should use certian social networking sites, how you should use them, getting the right tone of voice, etc... They were so friendly that they actually thanked us for finding the time to see them! We'll definately be going back to see them.

Sunday 28 March 2010

Vix & Ric

So we had a team from DDB talk to us (3rd year creative advertising) yesterday. Vix and Ric. Vix was one of the first students to graduate from our course, back when it was called Advertising Art direction.


They're so famous, I found them on Google images!

They gave us a really interesting talk about the sort of things they did wrong and what they did right. They also showed us a couple of examples from their original book. They highlighted the importance of digital and having just a conceptual idea for an event or stunt instead of a couple of billboards.

They also showed us an ad that they had done for Esso Optiplus - The oil that heats your house...



A really simple ad that is nicely executed through illustration.

Vicky and I will hopefully get a chance to meet them on Tuesday as we are daaahhhn in Laandan for book crits anyway (a blog post shall explain soon).

Sunday 21 March 2010

Lizzie & Sarah

Whilst flicking through television channels lastnight, I happened apon the best offering I have seen from the BBC in a long time.

Lizzie and Sarah is a one-off 30 minute drama from the makers of Spaced and Nighty Night. It's about two fiftysomething housewives who are completely unappreciated by their husbands. Very funny. Like the First Wives Club but funnier and British and less cheesey.



Its on BBC iPlayer and available until next Sunday (28th March). Watch it.

Saturday 20 March 2010

Learner Driver.

I am finally learning to drive! I had a lesson yesterday and now I am basically a 3 point-turn genius. I don't really understand reversing yet, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it soon enough. I have also successfully avoided hitting:

4 pheasants
1 squirrel
2 cats

I've discovered that driving is very difficult to get the hang of for maybe the first hour and then it is pretty easy. As long as you have good control of your feet and you're not blind, its actually enjoyable. I can't wait for the day when I don't have to think what gear I should be in and I can concentrate on singing along to some pumpin' jams.

What is most odd about me not having a driving license is that I already own a car. I have a 1992 Mini City in a lovely shade of Henley blue. My very helpful boyfriend is currently doing it up. As we bought it with crash damage, for a very good price. It should be ready to go by the time I pass hopefully!



When this beauty is ready to roll, I shall probably be the coolest road user around.

Sunday 14 March 2010

Will Ferrell



Now if you don't think this song is the greatest song ever...
I will fight you. That's no lie.

Why can't Will just make films constantly for my personal entertainment? I've been left high and dry since Land of the Lost and let's face it - it was no Step Brothers (there just wasn't enough room for activities). I have to keep watching clips of 'Bat fight' on YouTube to get my Will fill. Although I highly recommend this, I just want some new material to chortle to.

Love it or hate it



A recent news headline on the BBC news website caught my eye. A welsh family claim to have seen the image of Jesus in the lid of a jar of Marmite.

"When I first looked at it I wasn't sure, but when I moved it away from me it started coming out. I thought yeah, she's right - that's the image of Jesus."

After making me laugh out loud, this reminded me first of my God bothering sister and second of some recent adverts from DDB for a new Marmite cereal bar:






Love the ads, still hate Marmite.

Friday 12 March 2010

6 Words

Another excersize we did with Roger Horberry: The six word story.

So the Guardian ran a blog competition for readers to upload their own six word stories:

Where the fuck's the door handle?

Life. I want my money back.

They also published a few from some more experienced writers:

Armageddon imminent. Make list. Tick most.

Ian Rankin

Found true love. Married someone else.
Dave Eggers

Big bang. No God. Fadeout. End.
Stephen Baxter

And here are some of my attempts:

Hit pheasant. Should have worn glasses.

Red wire? Blue wire? I'm colourblind.

Sunday 7 March 2010

We ♥ Ogilvy



Last Thursday Vicky and I made our way to London town to see a couple of agencies. Our first visit was to Adam & Eve in Covent Garden, where we showed our portfolio to a creative team. They were really helpful and went through each campaign telling us what they liked and what they thought we should change. They also gave us the great advice that it is OK to stalk creatives for book crits as they would've had to do it too at some stage. So watch out creatives, we're going to harass you until you give us a restraining order, or a book crit.

Next our journey took us to Canary Wharf to meet a female creative team at Ogilvy. They were both really friendly and positive and probably the most helpful people we will ever meet. Also, they said that we could come back the next day as we were visiting Ogilvy again anyway for our course. So we left extremely happy about the day's events and with plenty of ideas about re-doing some ads.

Friday came and we met up with some people from our course to go to a proper crit at Ogilvy. We met a team called Serge and Steve who seemed to have worked at just about every advertising agency going. They went through all our work and gave us feedback and definately didn't hold back. Its always good to get an honest opinion! They also suggested that the future for us graduates may not be that bleak. Agencies will undoubtedly be looking for cheaper employees - and what comes cheaper than a work placement team at £80 a week?

Once our crit was finished we went back down to the creative department at Ogilvy 1 to see our best mates in the world. We were shocked to discover that they required another look at our portfolio, which we had not brought with us! A journey to my home in St Albans and back (with book) ensued. Finally managed to sort out a photocopied portfolio for them (scary shit), and we should hopefully get some more feedback this week, hurray!

So all in all a very successful trip. We're already planning to visit both agencies again in Easter and hopefully a few more, if we can do enough stalking!

Tuesday 2 March 2010

The Horberry

A couple of weeks ago I attented a copywriting workshop wit a man called Roger Horberry. Why am I only telling you about this now? Well I've had things to do and people to see.

Roger has a book:

(No you can't click to look inside, I just stole the picture off Amazon)

He got us to do some really fun exercises to get our creative juices flowing. One of which was to re-write a paragraph selling a product in the style of a celeb we would get at random. I was given the name of Peaches Geldof and decided to get her talking about wine...

"This wine is like totally epic, and like really fruity. It's got loads of grapes in it, not that I give a shit. I've got better things to do. It comes from Burgundy - my dads probably been there, he's like... really famous. You can buy it from Asda, I've never been there, but you could send your assistant? That might be cool."

I really think I captured the Peaches we know and love.

Roger also told us a few things about tone of voice:

It is content + expression + audience.

It is personality in print.

It is everything you don't have to say, but probably should.

He told us some other interesting things like how we could summarise text down into bullet points but it would take out all the character and tone of voice. He showed this by getting us to cut down famous speeches into bullet points - they were very uninspiring after that.

I would probably buy Roger's book if my Amazon wish list wasn't a mile long already. I still believe that I will one day win the This Morning competition, pay off my student loan and buy all the books I want. One day...