Leo Lab Landing

Monday morning Jai and Wal floated into Leo Burnett to find a buzzy place full of super friendly people. The office is crazy spacious, great for throwing our beloved hacky sack around. One of the other teams arrived with us yesterday, the third team of the Leo lab join us today. We spent our first day introducing ourselves, admiring serious finger boarding skills and acquainting ourselves with the two floored cafeteria.

Ready

More Creative Blogs

Lately lots of creatives have started blogging, we like that! So we thought we'd feature them. Without further ado. Lo and behold, new blogs for your creative advertising pleasures.

Carb Free Creativity – http://carbfreecreativity.blogspot.com/
Big G and Digital Roy, two young creatives from glue London are writing this fun blog about random geeky stuff they stumble across and some bits and pieces about their sandwich revolution.

Ping – http://lookingforping.blogspot.com/
Conrad and Alex are looking for ping, a creative team studying at Manchester Met, they documented their journey through the D&AD Workshop and share some of their work with you.

All about the Crit – http://allaboutthecrit.blogspot.com/
Rachel Dutton and Debbie Castaldo, two young ladies trying to break into advertising, relentlessly going to crit after crit and reporting back from the opinion front.

Happy Thought – http://happy-thought.blogspot.com/
Matt Squarebrain is a guy with a pleasantly positive attitude. He works at AQKA London and writes about all kinds of fun and thought provoking stuff around our favourite topic – advertising!

The naked Copywriter – http://hayesthompson.blogspot.com/
Hayes Thompson is a freelance London based copywriter bringing us amusing rants about interesting and annoying things.

After the savoy truffle – http://afterthesavoytruffle.blogspot.com/
Chris is from Canada and gives us a peek at what's going on on the other side of the pond. Great read.

Tom's Blog – http://www.tomandmike.com/
Tom is trying to get in, like most of us. He blogs about findings and bits of his work.

Inspyed – http://inspyed.blogspot.com/
Bernd is a good friend of ours, a great art director (he's looking for a copywriter, give him a shout) and posts things that inspire him, and all of us sometimes.

CREAbites – http://creabites.blogspot.com/
Natalie's blog is at the very beginning but we saw her stuff and we think it might turn into a cool place. She's a Spanish art director now trying her luck in London.

Averything Else – http://averythingelse.blogspot.com/
Recently discovered we cannot say much about Adam's blog, besides that he posts lots of work, some quite good work!

Pisspoorenglish – http://pisspoorenglish.wordpress.com/
A copywriter from South Manchester sharing his work in progress and portfolio on his blog.

No More Suits – http://www.nomoresuits.blogspot.com/
Mark Lewis is currently on the Watford course and entered the Blogosphere quite recently, yet we think it's gonna be worth keeping an eye on his blog.

Seemore – http://seymoursees.blogspot.com/
Tom Seymour is a young 3D designer who graduated from St. martins a couple of years ago, now he is working as a hybrid creative at Wieden+Kennedy London. He works on pretty exciting stuff – not to miss out on.

Puh, that'll keep you busy for now. Of course there are lots of other 'older' blogs but we've linked them before. Sorry if we missed anyone new, drop your link in the comments and we'd love to have a look at your blog. Happy lunchtime!

Six weeks at Lowe

We had a brilliant last Friday at Lowe, cheers fellas. Today we've been reflecting on our six weeks there and here is what we walked away with. A big thanks to everyone at Lowe, Take CARE.

• Considering how much effort goes into coming up with an idea, we've learnt it takes just as much, if not more, to hang onto it. We've learnt ideas don't take care of themselves and although it would be a lot easier to just let them go, it's just not worth the agony after. Note to self, take care of your work.
  
  
• We were surrounded by truly brilliant creatives and it was really easy to feel intimidated but you just cant afford to let that happen. For one, they'll never know who we are and more importantly, we won't know them. It's important that we make the most of these opportunities and these people. Pick their brains whenever we can, wherever we can. We learned more in five minutes chatting with Lowe's creatives than we did in a whole day spent with a brief behind our desks.
  
  
• Fair enough, getting stuff run was great, but it wasn't brilliant. We crafted work to tick everyones boxes - and forgot about ours. Granted, that got us from A to B, but in the long run it's not something we'll be telling the grand kids about. So now - we'd rather focus on doing great work rather than getting work out.
  
  
• One thing we noticed was, we spent ludicrous amounts of time 'answering' a brief only to have the solutions skimmed over. It was strange, but the ideas that got the attention were the ones, that were a little whack. Lesson, don't stick to the brief, or you might miss out on something.

Test Tube Creatives

Our six week stint is soon to come to a close this Friday. Life after Lowe will continue as another door opened today leading us further west. Leo Burnett is running a placement scheme called 'the Leo Lab' which puts three creative teams in a melting pot to see who survives – hell yeah we're up for that.

So after a bit of pestering, some good fortune and a little elbow grease we've managed to swindle ourselves into the Lab and start on the 7th of April. This gives us a week in between to get our beauty sleep and some well deserved and needed haircuts.

Say cheese!

The new sign on our office window, for this last week.
Thanks for the suggestions.

Vodka

We're participating in The Kaiser's Ultimate Beverage Bracket. A fun bit where two blogs argue for their cause in order to determine the best drink. We're fighting for Vodka, and in the first round we're up against White Russian, represented by Charles. Of course we're more than qualified to argue for that, as Wal was born and raised in the former Soviet Union.

Here are our thoughts why Vodka is way better than anything else, and far better than White Russian (and believe us, back in the days when you'd try to put coffee and milk in your most precious Vodka you'd be punished with a naked bear dance, not fun.) If you agree, take a second and vote for Vodka here. Thanks.

Please remember, drink responsibly as Vodka would like to entertain you for many many more years to come. За Здоровье! (cheers)

Orphanage, Ranch or Cave?

There are a few moving desks at the agency at the moment and we’ve been jammy enough to be given our own office. Granted it’s probably only for a couple of days but what the hell, we say make the most of what you’ve got an all that! So in celebration and to make the blank walls a little more interesting we thought we’d name our temporary abode. Below is what we’re thinking; what should we call it?

Name our office

Jai & Wal's thought bubble
The meadow for free range pencils
Shoehorn ranch
Recruitment office for brain cells
Frankenstein's spare parts
Magic cave of nothingness
Jai & Wal's orphanage - the place where
lonely ideas come to grow up

Results

Fuck Green

In june we wrote a paper for the account planning school of the web on HUMMER. The strategy we drew out of it was 'Fuck Green' which we made into a poster campaign. Here we go.

We thought about reworking it for quite some time, and found a different route on the same strategy. We're deciding which one to pick up, to refine and expand. Opinions?

The Rise and Fall of the Ad Man

'Cultural commentator Peter York takes a look at the changing fortunes of British advertising, through the story of the personalities who led it through its highs and lows.' Ah, jolly good ol' days, the golden era of the Ad Man. Watch the whole program here (online for 5 more days) and learn about advertising history.

They say the un-corporate and flamboyant ad man is gone? We shall all prove them wrong, shouldn't we?

Step by step

Today we signed off our first ad as a creative team. Last week we've written a trade press ad for John Lewis here at Lowe – it just got approved by the client. Given the restrictions we were still able to put in some sweetness in the headline and are quite proud of it. It is a beginning, a first step – Yay!

The Pearce Sisters

The BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards took place a couple of weeks ago here in London and there are lots of great films to be explored from the nominations. The winner of the category 'Short Animation' is one of our favourites, we discovered this one earlier in the year at Short & Sweet. It is called 'the Pearce Sisters' and directed by Luis Cook. Fabulously twisted and evil it is very much worth nine minutes of your time. If you like, come along to Short & Sweet next week, we'll go to the one on tuesday, as they will show more BAFTA nominees and winners. You can watch the full short film here at atom.

For anyone who's ever hated

The Lowe Law

Two weeks at Lowe has gone by and like always there are times we are overly busy and times we have a spare minute to post, so we seize it. It's very interesting here, we like the agency, there is great talent here and the client list promises good fun. We've been doing lots of writing on John Lewis and exciting brand work on Saab.

One thing we cannot miss out on sharing with every young (and old) creative out there is this sheet of paper which greeted us here on the first day. It told us straight what Ed Morris, the Creative Director of Lowe London expects from a junior team. We like this approach - it's inspiring. More placements should start with a manifesto.

Advertising on the BBC

Just a quick one today peeps. We wanted to let all you ad hounds know of a new TV series called The Hard Sell starting today on BBC4 at 10:30pm. This evenings topic is sex and advertising. Sounds like one to Sky+. Anyway, we found out about it at work as Ed Morris our CD is appearing on it, alongside Sir John Hegarty and the like. Set your reminders and tune in.

Portfolio Night 2008

ihaveanidea.org is doing it again. Portfolio Night 6 is coming up in a couple of months. On the 8th of may young creatives will have the chance to put their books in front of local & international creative directors in at least 17 cities around the world (face-to-face as well as online response after uploading your book). It’s the second time in London and Wal participated last year with Kristin, it was awesome and we can recommend it to everyone looking for adivice, jobs or placements. A review about the last one is to be found here. The tickets will be around 20 quid and will be available from the 21st of march.

Now why should you pay for a bookcrit you ask? It will save you the (sometimes impossible) trouble of getting in touch with great creative directors and putting your book in front of them.

Last year we’ve waited to see the list of CD’s ( here is last year's list) before getting the tickets, this time we won’t as we’re pretty sure about a great turn up. The London night is hosted by JWT and will take place at their Knightsbridge office. And there's free beer...

makeryanaircheaper.com

The amount of feedback we got for Evian was fantastic, we really appreciated all the comments. We'll let you know how that turns out. In the mean time here's another thought for you guys to mull over when you have a spare sec. What do you think folks?

First day at LOWE

Today we had the day of the snap at Lowe. We started at 10 and caught a delicious breakfast just before at a caf in wonderful South Kensington. After arrival we were shown around the place and met some familiar faces, people we've met before, randomly of course. We spent the first day of our placement connecting our brains to this place and working on our first brief. More to come.

Secret Cinema

Shhhhh...we're not really supposed to talk about this but we thought we'd risk sharing it with you guys. Wednesday night we discovered Secret Cinema for us for the first time. It was awesome. We had to sign up online and pay for tickets on Tuesday, and believe us it’s quite odd handing over hard earned cash for something that is a mystery. However we gave it a punt and it was no disappointment.

So yesterday morrow an email pinged up with a reference number and time, telling us to meet at the Royal Academy of Arts; quite plush, not what we were expecting. Anyhow we turned up and witnessed the most disorganized and perhaps most immoral queuing system known to man. We thought we’d be a bit clever and ‘bad’ and jumped the swarm bringing us closer to the entrance; however to our dismay there were people rather more cunning than us. As a result we quickly found ourselves nearing the last people that entered. Note to self - never underestimate a Londoners creative queuing resolve.

Still, the atmosphere was beaming with excitement, with performers in pink outfits running around and mumbling nonsense to one another, a mini orchestra blaring and a Dick Tracy type photographer with an old fifties camera taking pictures during the queuing chaos. Clearly a clue to the movie but we weren’t cultured enough to guess which one. Eventually we got in to see even more performers, even stranger now.
Secret Cinema were also kind enough to provide lots of freebies and after a great short the film - The Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn. Certainly not something we would have watched if we had not gone, but it was a pleasure indeed. A motion picture full of wonderful acting and marvelous dancing. The movie choice seemed to accompany the London Fashion Week very well and everything around it fitted the plot. We found out about this through le cool magazine, give it a go.

All good

That's us. After six weeks of lots of work on our portfolio we are having a great beginning of the week. Yesterday morning we saw Fabian & Ida at W+K and we're going there for a placement around May, yesss! Afterwards we saw Scamp and his partner at BBH who gave us an ace of a crit with great advice.

A quick rest and we made our way to drop off the book at Lowe where it was to be seen by the creative director, Ed Morris (forwarded by The Talent Business). We're glad as he seemed to like the book and we'll start our first placement as a team this monday there. We cannot wait!

L'eau de vie

A work in progress idea for our book. We've been turning it around in our heads and on paper for the past couple of days. We'd appreciate your comments on it. What are your initial thoughts? What do you get out of it? etc…

Cheers!

Things you do not need…

…but love to get for free.

Matter, the direct mail experiment – I've read about it on Russell's blog. It is a box full of stuff you actually enjoy receiving. Intrigued by this idea and being within the target audience (for males, aged 25-35) I signed up just before the deadline and received the box on Saturday. First I was surprised by the nice packaging with it's stylish colour and branding. Carefully I unpacked it and was pleasantly overwhelmed by the things inside.

My flatmates gathered around the box quickly and forced me to forward them the details so they can receive the next one as well. Which will happen summer this year, as far as I know. This first Matter pack contained nine items from different brands. Ranging from a calender (Virgin Atlantic) to a simple product sample of Original Source (mint and tea tree, most refreshing shower gel ever).

'In an increasingly virtual world, we're beginning to appreciate the value of real things. Matter is a box full of interesting stuff–a way for companies to talk to people by giving them things.' We like this approach. You can find out more about Matter here.

Our favourite pieces are to be found below, a wristband for Wii, simple and great. Music Monster, a cute mini-toy / phone pendant for Sony Ericsson and a double pack of Play-Doh for Sony Bravia. The later two are done by iris.

Frozen Grand Central

This is today's best video. What a great idea. We love it. Good job by ImprovEverywhere.

Gone are the days

It's been nice, January, sitting in cafes, moseying around town, taking in the sights, sipping cappuccinos and Friday nights drinks on a Wednesday over some furiously battled Wii tennis contests. However all that productive fun seems to have come to a sudden hold of late. Instead, the past few days; yesterday in particular have been a crotch kicking wake up call. Our casual emails of a "Hi we're Jai and Wal it would be great to see you" are being answered at an alarming rate.

Entering defcon 5 now. Night and day becoming a little hazy, Nescafe our new lover, magic markers extensions of our fingers and we're probably on Greenpeace's most wanted list for deforestation. But you know what, we're loving it. So if anyone else would like a chat, feel free to provoke us into an even panickier state of panic! Bring it on. Hello February.

Friday Night Fun

We recently went to see a Omid Djalili perform at the Beck Theatre in Hayes. Granted not the most glamorous location for someone who has starred in their own TV show and Oscar winning movie. Nevertheless it was a quality night. He was expectedly funny but the real discovery was Ian Stowe, Omid's support act, he was genius and a couple of guys out from the front row would have seriously needed therapy after receiving such a belting from him. We're on the look out for any other performances and will let you know if our paths cross with any.

London advertising school

Creative education. Undoubtedly, there are great courses here in London to learn the craft and essence of creative advertising. Both of us graduated from Bucks, and we talk a lot about the course – what it gave us and where it lacked. The other top courses in Britain (=London?) are Central St Martins and Watford.

Now we received an email last week from a caring father from Italy who wants his son to attend a creative advertising school in London, not a bad idea we agree. He wrote:

'I would like to ask your advice for a top undergraduate course in Creative Advertising in London area. My son English mother tongue, now 19, but living in Italy is a very creative person born with this gift. His dream is to become an advertising art director. He has just completed Art School Diploma in Italy specialized in Visual Graphics. We have some confusion for the best choice in view that we have to apply soon for 3 choices with UK education system. These are the ones we have identified of course if any better suggestions is always welcomed.

• Central St. Martins
• Buck New University based in High Wycombe

Which would be the other 3rd good choice ?'

Looks very like he made his homework and is spot on with the first two choices. What shall the third one be? We would say Fallmouth, as they seem to produce good people as well recently. Would you agree? What would your third choice be? Any ideas on the Gloucester University? Other tips?

Remember, the Watford course is out of question as it is a post-graduate course.

Certainly, graduating from a top course helps, but it's not everything, it's always up to your initiative, no matter what course you're from. For me, more intriguing but out of reach, are other places that seem to be leading the field of creative eduction. Alternative and non-UK places like WK12, VCU Brandcenter and Fabrica – that's where the fun seems to happen. Also MiamiAdSchool, they seem to be in a transitional place from advertising school into a place where you can learn to 'change pop culture', a big claim yet interesting.

Although I reckon they are all more post-post-graduate courses. Maybe even post-first job courses.