Grand Singing Union

The agency is going crazy about singing at the moment, everyone is getting in shape for the SingStar presentation tomorrow. We're trying to contribute something as well, so we work on ideas and stuff. Our desk is very tiny (bad) hence it looks always busy with only a few papers on it (good).

When an idea recession hits us we tend to look very desperately at our tiny desk and search the walls for inspiration.

Since the best way to help seems to be singing we are left with no other choice than sing along – Val enters the agency’s history with the lowest score on SingStar ever (I think it’s because of Kristin’s voice in the background!).

To enjoy more wonderful Grand Union madness visit their wonderlicious blog littleunion.

Also - check out www.flickr.com/photos/debauchee/ for much more impressions from the podfight last week. Very nice pictures there, can anyone spot the one with us?

Podfight

“8 teams, 1 winner! You decide who lives & who dies!”

Yesterday night the first official Podfight took place in London/Shoreditch. It was an unbelievable spectacle - full of crazy people ready for this big battle. For those who don't know what a podfight is - I'm gonna explain the rules quick: 9:30pm and eight teams are competing against each other in four rounds (for the first time). But there are only two teams fighting in one round at the same time. Teams are chosen randomly. Each team plays one song alternately. After five songs from each team the audience has to decide which team they want advance into the next round - so you have to make some noize! The loudest one measured, was 120dB. Guys, 120dB that's louder than standing next to a jack-hammer. And it goes on like this till there are only two teams left. Musicwise there are no rules, a energetic drum n' bass song is followed up by 'I'm a barby girl'! 2:00am and we have a winner - M.I.A. & friends, actually I am not quite sure, later it became just a great party with bizarre music. Anyway, if the Pods are fighting in your town next time, don't miss it! This was like the best party in London for us so far. For more infos, the line-up and maybe pictures visit their myspace page.

Nightmare dentist

Today I am alone at the Grand Union. Val flew out to Germany this morning to get his teeth done. I just hope everything worked out well and the 'hey what do you think about having soup for lunch today?' period is over. Even Pret only offers 5 different soups to choose from. Well. In the meantime I was finishing stuff off for EST, Energy saving trust and did some concepts for Sony Singstar. It worked out quiet well as I was working together with Stu from the GU. Val, get better sooooon ;-)

P.S. The Grand Union welcomes the two new Playstation3's on board

Book naming

Just received this email from Siobhan, from NABS. Sounds like fun we thought after reading it and gave it a very quick fifteen minutes brainstorm. Here the first results, some pretty random, some not funny at all and most of them quite sad. Sorry. Here's the stuff. Any thoughts? Ideas?

• Out of the frying pan into the fire
• How to make good tea
• CD, Abbreviation for Compact Disc, not
• From Z to A to G
• The last warning
• Adadadad
• Mummy, where do ideas come from?
• Get the skills to pay the bills
• No mercy
• The last great mystery
• Selling is okay. Start with your Grandmother
• Learn to fail

Back and alive

Ah, it feels good to be back again after our long break. On Monday we started our first digital placement at the Grand Union - so far it's been wicked. The agency is mid-sized (we're still counting people) and located in Notting Hill. The whole bunch is nice, we'll get to know more and more people - mainly in the kitchen - we have a challenging brief and we're getting used to know our enemies - banners. Two things to know about this placement:

1. Creative digital advertising can be very very good fun
2. Making tea is essential for making friends

Now. Lots of stuff on our to do list, we have to catch up with lots of people, write lots of emails and get a lot of stuff done. Phew! Let's start.

Sayonara

Our placement at JWT has come to an end after seven weeks. We've been working on brands like After Eight, Kellogg's, Rimmel London, Kenco Coffee, Benadryl, Milky Bar, Sunsilk and Aero. We learned very much, we went to a shooting, we had lots of free chocolate and met a big bunch of friendly people - a good experience overall, thanks a lot! After such a big agency we'll changing to something smaller.

First we'll take two weeks off though. Kris is going on a trip to Tokyo and I will be traveling around germany a little bit.

We'll be back on the 19th of march to start a two weeks placement at the digital agency Grand Union. Getting hands-on web experience, yes we're looking very much forward to that! I'm hoping that Kris will take time and post some nice pictures from Japan on the blog, if not you'll get a proper review when we're back in two weeks time.

Young creatives doing it all

What do you think, what would young creatives do for a placement in a hot London agency? More than you imagine. They would pick up a chewing gum from the street to chew on it, dance on the street with a face painted on their naked belly, dress up as a granny and jump around in a retirement home or they would even pull a shoe lace through their nose.

Here's the deal: Students from the 3rd year advertising course from Buck's university are competing against each other for a placement at Mother. The teams have to make a short video and upload it on youtube. The video which gets the most views will win the race, and the team can enjoy the placement. Sounds like fun. Underneath are most of these videos, we'll update this post when new links will arrive from their tutor in our inbox. Have a look at them, and if you like any, pass them on.

• Living with Pro Evolution 6
• Party Popper Russian Roulette
• Kissing a gran
• Up her Nose and Out again...
• The Magic Number 10
• Chew it
• Belly Dancers
• Fit Granny's
• My gran complaining about pigs and ham
• Panto montage
• Lift giving birth
• The meat off
• Cardboard box game
• How to look hot on the dancefloor

What's your favorite so far? Did you do any strange / intersting things in order to get a placement? We're curious, tell us!

Russian 1/2 year celebration

Today is a wonderful day, the sun is shining in London, it's slightly warm, we think about summer already and we have the taste of vodka in our mouths. We went to short trip to russia yesterday, just for a couple of hours. We had drink (and dinner as a sidedish) in the Borshtch n' Tears russian restaurant, with our friends Marco & Daniel. Usually real russians don't go to a restaurant in order to eat or drink - they do this at home - they go out to celebrate, dance like crazy or swing around the chandelier. So did we. Our reason was that Kristin & Waldemar have been a creative team for more than half a year now and also came to London on this day, six months ago, the first of october.

The food sure must have been good, but we don't really remember. Only by looking again on the bill today we found out what we had, and why we cannot remember, all this vodka - Nazdarovye! We shall drink to another six months!

After looking at the bill we needed another vodka, we all spent to much

Name Variations

Krisn
Kriston
Kristian
Kristen

Wakdemar Wedgelin
Waldermar
Valdemir
Miss Waldemar Wegelin

Confession

Found on Brighton Beach last sunday

When you rolled into my life, you really hit my heart and took everything of me, and of my room, and my garden, and my friends. Together we grow big and bigger and I am sure... we gonna roll on till we are old and gray.
I love you Katamari.

Murder!

What a mess...