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Archive for the ‘Public Relations’ Category
Mar
2012
March! Spring! Hares! Yes, all of that stuff. Whatever this morning’s commuter rag may have told us, Web Curios is declaring winter over. So there. That’s ok then.
Feb
2012
I AM BORED OF FOOTBALL. Or at the very least the in-no-way-criminal, potentially racist / definitely racist, stroppy foreigner elements of it. Does anyone remember when football used to be a fun distraction from the woes of the world rather than a major constituent part of said woes? No, me neither, but there must have been a time. Personally I blame social media. Could everyone stop talking about the DAMN FOOTBALL PLEASE?
Jan
2012
So we near the end of the first month of 2012 – WELL DONE US. Except that Italian captain. And Tom Watson’s intern. And all those naive enough to believe that the SOPA/PIPA thing has gone away (if those words mean nothing to you then read this). And Snickers. And unwitting singers at American churches. And the Russian police. And Bayern Munich. And Uzbekistan. Everyone else, though, pat yourselves on the back – especially me, who found my very own doppelganger last week! We survived the most depressing day of the year, and from hereon in everything will be just peachy.
Jan
2012
New Year, everyone (I feel that it’s inappropriate to bother with the ‘happy’ charade after nearly two weeks of workaday tedium). Well, it’s been a while. HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED! A new era has been ushered in, where a man’s political fate can rest on a small-if-perplexingly-executed typographical error, and where said typographical error causes the entire country (or at least the white-collar, desk-bound, twitter-using part of it) to down tools and descend into some horrendous infinitely recursive spiral of non-humour; in which a new way of drinking whisky is almost certainly the first harbinger of the forthcoming Mayan apocalypse; in which a bunch of apparently sentient adults chose, of their own volition, to spend a night in a furniture warehouse; and, hopefully, in which this particular Italian politician will never again be allowed to make videos.
Jan
2012
I’ve been enjoying the entertaining farewells to 2011. Videos, memes, and pretty much anything digital. But I think the more important part of any happy new year reflection is gazing forward at 2012. I won’t detail my theory on the future of agencies in general, or give advice like this. Instead, my crystal ball shows very clearly the immediate future of my own agency. Because — as with any business based on talent — our fate is clearly written in our open job opportunities.
PLEASE PASS THE LINKS BELOW ON TO SUPER SMART, NICELY AMBITIOUS FRIENDS. While the specifics are all about H+K Strategies 2012, I truly think you’ll find this list serves as an accurate prediction of the marketing and communication industry as a whole. Happy New Year.
Stay with me after the jump, or go straight to the job specs:
Dec
2011
Launching the world’s first snore absorption room; creating the world’s biggest shave; reinterpreting art with technology; revealing the best place in the UK to bring up a family… As 2011 draws to a close, we take a look back month by month at some H+K Strategies campaigns and work throughout the year.
You're hired: Karren Brady+ City & Guilds' Chris Jones
To start the new year, preparations to launch City & Guilds first ever Apprenticeship Summit went underway early on. The aim of the campaign was to help ensure one million Apprenticeship starts by summer 2013.
In January, we commissioned a report to identify the barriers employers face in hiring apprentices with the findings discussed by key political and business leaders at the Summit, hosted by Apprentice star Karren Brady.
Nearly 100 pieces of coverage resulted from this campaign as well as a request from Professor Alison Wolf to receive a copy of the full report after seeing the articles to include in her Government review of 14-19 education.
Shortlisted for various industry awards, our Technology team created an exciting art campaign- Intel Remastered to showcase the creative application of Intel technology. The project saw 13 modern artists reinterpret iconic masterpieces using digital technology and techniques.
Pushing the boundaries of art and creating one of the most talked about art events on the year, the stories and inspiration behind classics such as Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ and Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’ were retold and presented to a digital-savvy audience.
Nov
2011
I believe it was contemporary urban philosopher Ferris Bueller who once said ‘Life moves pretty fast; if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it’ (NB – on reflection, I don’t know why I wrote that; I hate people who ascribe deep significance to the throwaway utterances of fictional characters. IT WAS WRITTEN BY A SCREENWRITER, YOU CHUMP). This edition of Web Curios is brought to you by the whooosh-ing sound that time makes as it flies past your ears; it seems like only yesterday that I was writing the last one of these, talking about holidays and the end of summer and stuff. All of a sudden it’s December, I’ve not written a Curios for a month (not that any of you CARE, you unappreciative whelps), and you can’t turn on the television without a famous trying to sell you stinkwater. On an unrelated note, I am yet to eat a mince pie in 2011. If anyone would like to courier some over to H&K towers, I will be very grateful and possibly do a small happy dance in gratitude; thanks (in the unlikely event that HRH Prince Charles is reading this, I am a massive fan of Duchy Originals).
Oct
2011
Phew. Three weeks since I last did one of these, and my word has there been a lot going on. Bankers have shut down a church (well, you know, indirectly)! The Sun gave us possibly the most tasteless frontpage in years! One of the most appalling hatecrimes of the (admittedly newish) decade was committed to little or no mainstream media fanfare! France and Germany mocked Italy’s sexually incontinent Premier! The filthy rich just keep on getting richer! And loads more besides, much of it even more dispiriting than those few links I’ve just shared.
Ignoring the fact that world is going to hell in the proverbial handcart, though, I’ve actually had rather a lot of fun (because that is obviously the MOST IMPORTANT THING). I’ve seen comedy; I’ve been to an awesome gig;I’ve been to the theatre and seen probably the most harrowing play I’ve ever seen, ever (actually, make that the second-most harrowing - this was probably worse); I’ve eaten some truly tremendous food; and I got to see a truly tremendous rapper live in a tiny venue. So, you know, I’m alright. Are you alright? I’m starting to worry.
Anyway, enough of this. Make yourself a cup of tea, settle down in a suitably confortable chair, and imagine my soothing, dulcet tones reading this out to you (and, if you like, imagine my malcoordinated body acting out every single video too. You pervert). You may want to get some biscuits too; this could take a while.
Image courtesy of Neutron, LLC
Oct
2011
The pretence that this blog is a weekly thing really has to stop. One month since the last one, fact fans. I’ve had THINGS TO DO. Not least going to Brussels and Croatia, where I went on holiday and did NOTHING other than read and swim and be horizontal. It was awesome, and as a result I now look less like this and more like this. No really, I do.
BUT that was then and this is now; I have returned to a world in which the internet spends all its time railing against the evil of corporations and then…er…goes incontinent with grief over the passing of the head of one of the world’s largest corporations; in which Silvio manages to somehow become even more ridiculous and offensive; and a world in which somehow one of the members of 1980s pop combo Hue & Cry has become a consultant on games, play and ludic theory. We live in interesting times. Here are some totally insignificant bits of online ephemera to help distract you from what appears to be the total meltdown of civilisation which is going on all around us. Christ, I sound like an old man.
Socially responsible graffiti on a Croatian beach hut
Sep
2011
So, did anyone see this over the weekend?
Copy reads: “When we launched 15 years ago, those four words summed up what we believed in. And they still do.
“We don’t need to paint them on the tailfins, like some advertising slogan. That would just be wasting your money.”
Ahhhh….there’s nothing I love more than good old mile-high brand rivalry, fighting it out over the pages of our weekend papers. BBH has clearly spent many many hours, weeks and months wallowing in nostalgia, crafting the detail that went into the £20 million British Airways campaign ‘To Fly To Serve’. Thinking through all the ways to imbue their hard work into our public consciousness, right down to painting the tagline onto BA tail-fins. And then Easyjet’s agency VCCP goes and knocks up a dismissive print ad in a couple of hours. Awesome.
