Magnolia In The Lounge & Rape In The Bedroom

On my way to work this morning I saw a decorators van. The company name was Touch-Ups. Their slogan:

"I've been touched up today"

Made me smile. Won't be ringing them though.

Submissions

Not many thus far...


I have found it to be arthritis inducing crippledom to perform most agency names though, so I can understand.

Either that or no fucker is reading the blog. Which I can't really tell 'cos blogger seems a bit cack. Might export...anyhow...here's a couple:



BJL - maybe that little finger coulda come down a bit further for the J




LOVE - the V needed to be slightly more prominent

Can you beat them?

Make An Agency Hand Sign Challenge

'Stacking'...'Throwing Up'

At some point in your life you've probably done it. Probably badly if you're a middle-class honky from a northern town in England. I'm talking about gang signs...





Yes, that does say blood. . . Aint nuffin cooler than dat shit rite der.


Here's a blog version. . .

Well shoot me with a 9mm if throwing a gang sign doesn't perfectly lend itself to the weird world of ad agencies and their intialized company names.

So here's a challenge: try to make a hand sign for your agency. Get one of your dawgs to snap that shit and send it to me at hairingtons@yahoo.co.uk

The best agency hand sign will win a special prize that is yet undetermined, but could be something cool like a crack pipe or yellow bandana.

Deadline: 28th February 2009 (Agencies with normal names can improvise and enter too)

And don't worry, if you don't wanna get caught my the Five-O or the erm HR department, you don't have to identify yourself to me or on the blog if you don't want to, though I'll treat you all with discretion.

Get stacking.

Philosophy

Never run for a bus or a woman, there's always another one round the corner.

More Evidence To Suggest Nothing Is Original

I always knew she took her look from somewhere. Now the quesion is, where did Burt take it from? And so on...

Is It Brilliant?

Yes it is.

North vs South

A recent chart on Scamp got me a bit angry. The age-old South is better than North debate was struck up by means of the Top 50 agencies list, which Scamp then converted to also show the creative output of said agencies.

Not much argument with the list. But you've got to ask the question why many of the Northern agencies don't have the creative output their Southern counterparts?

It's not down to lack of creative people. That's for sure.

Is it a difference in client base?

Is it a difference in spending power?

Is it a difference in the quality of the suits?

I don't know the answer, I wish I did. My gut tells me that it's a lack of good leadership and lack of people willing to actually serve their clients properly. Too many people are happy to sell in any idea, instead of selling in the best idea.

In recent weeks I have seen these ads on TV which have directly scuppered my own plans for ideas I had in my top draw.

Audi - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=N7ZsNieEUSY Not a particularly great ad, but I had that song attached to an idea of my own for a car ad. Scuppered.

Tmobile - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM Some people love it, some people hate it. I wish they hadn't done it in a train station. But it is a good ad. Unfortunately for me, I had a 'flashmob' ad sold to a client and it was certainly a bigger and better event than this one, if I do say so myself. Scuppered.

I guess what I'm saying from my point of view is that there are creatives in the North who are banging out some really good ideas, but for whatever reason they aren't always seeing the light of day.

In a grass is greener kind of way, I always had this thought that difference between North & South was who had the power: suits or creative? I thought creative had more rights in London and so they get their work through.

It always seems kind of paradoxical that we have a load of creative people making ads and then suits or non-creatives are the ones with the final decision on what idea goes forward. I know agencies nowadays are supposed to have creative tea-ladies and creative receptionists and that ideas can come from anywhere - but we're kidding ourselves if we think that's true.

There's another problem inherent: the more suits and planners we employ, aren't we just chipping away at the creative teams' need to do their own thinking?

So, anyway, you end up with people who actually don't understand ideas, but look pretty, making decisions on the agencies final output. Nuts.