Christmas Cheer

Tache Off 2009

Calling all Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds and Ian Botham fans - we're holding a 2009 Tache off!!

It begins on 6th Jan and will end on Fri 23rd where a panel of judges will announce the winner for 2009.

Please come in on Tues 6th clean shaven so pictures can be taken (don't worry, we'll remind people on the 5th).

It's been agreed that you can grow a beard and groom the tache on the final day incase any of you feel embarrassed having a tache for so long - but we'd obviously prefer it if everyone sports their tache from start to finish.

Oh, and it goes without saying that girls can enter too.

Christmas frollicking

Oh yes, it's Christmas and the annual agency fight to prove just how crazy, creative, brilliant and brave we all are has begun. You already know about our offering, but here's a few others of my faves this year.

Wunderman have produced their very own rodeo, which my best mate Eliza Flynn came a rubbish 8th in - nice posing eli fly. All the proceeds from the flailing limbs go to this charity.

Saachi released this Christmas vid to show how charitable they are. Very touching - our Angela Donno nearly cried when she watched it.

Last year, AKQA's Christmas card was my favourite - the running hamster was ace, this year they've done tech-craft number with a whole bunch of microwaves - heart-warming stuff.

Has anyone seen any others? It'd be great to have a record of all of the good ones.

GNM CHALLENGE : MAKEOVER MILLS & BOON

Following Mills and Boon's recent appointment of St. Luke's to develop its first advertising campaign in six years, Guardian Media has challenged its readers to come up with their own ideas for the campaign.

Suggestions so far include a reality TV show where the winner stars in the next M&B book. St. Luke's Creative Director Al Young is currently undecided whether Guardian Media Ed Stephen Brook's creation Caspar Campbell-Jones should have his own starring role in the campaign.

Mills and Boon, which sells 7 million books in the UK each year, has also tasked St. Luke's with redesigning the iconic book covers.

Global Snowball Fight

After much blood, sweat and tears the St Luke's 2008 Christmas e-card is finally up and running!

Big thanks to all those involved especially Enrique and Borja who have been absolute legends in sorting this out, working into the wee wee hours for the past few nights. The hard work has definitely paid off guys!

Visit www.globalsnowballfight.co.uk to throw personalised snowballs at your family and friends.

Tim

Blogscotch 14: School of Life

Now here's a first. 14 hops in and while rummaging through things extensive blogroll I found a client of St Luke's, the lovely School of Life, for whom we recently developed the daily aphorism. The aphorism campaign cost next to nothing to produce and even less in media costs yet, with the help of some PR detonation in the Guardian and Scotsman, generated a ton of traffic to the School of Life. We're very proud of it.

By the way, if you are an obsessive completist and the numerical gaps in Blogscotch are anoyimng you, then check blogscotch the blog. You could even be the first to comment!

A Very Wooly Christmas At St Lukes

Never ones to conform, our Christmas tree is not a Fir or fibre optic or even made of feathers.....
A couple of years ago we commissioned knitting needle expert artist Lauren Porter to create a one off tree complete with roaring fire wooly presents and decorations. It sits in pride of place every year in the hub, check her website below for more knitted treats.

www.lauren-porter.co.uk

WHO IS THE GREEN BANKSY?

A crusader being dubbed the "green banksy" has been credited for creating a 2 per cent drop in carbon emissions by flicking one switch. After scaling two ten foot barbed wire, electrified fences and eluding CCTV security, the campaigner walked into the power station and shut down the 500MW turbine (enough to power Bristol for a day). He left a banner proclaiming "no more coal", a war cry rallying against E.on's plan to open the first coal- powered station in over 30 years.

Nobody know's who it was, but he must've been mighty brave putting himself on the line like that - how many people have the confidence (audacity?) to get into a power station turbine and know they won't be hurt if they shut it down?

An amnesty on crisis

I was watching the news last night - sorry in advance for the rant - but I was increasingly annoyed by the overuse of the word "crisis". In a half an hour broadcast I counted 34 uses of the word.

This is what wikipedia said a crisis means: "A crisis (plural: crises) may occur on a personal or societal level. It may be a traumatic or stressful change in a person's life, or an unstable and dangerous social situation, in political, social, economic, military affairs, or a large-scale environmental event, especially one involving an impending abrupt change."

Granted some things warrant the use of the word - famine, war, oil spills, nuclear leaks, genocide. The Greek violent protests maybe, the war in the Congo probably. Some vague worries about Pork in Ireland being infected with bacteria that you'd have to consume in quantities so large that you'd die of your stomach exploding before you could expose yourself to enough bacteria to get a mild stomach ache - not a crisis. Gordon Ramsey's marriage? Crisis? I think not.

It didn't help that the dour BBC delivery makes everything sound much more serious than they really are. My point is, if we use language like this for the most banal of events, how are we to recognize a crisis when it really happens? I call for an amnesty on the word.

lookalike

Against Drugs

New ad by Mother for Frank.

Against Drink Driving

BLOGSCOTCH 12: on a bus

BLOGSCOTCH 11: pedals

Still messing around on things I found Boss virtual pedals. They sound great and look even better. Try the acoustic ones.