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A Full House

A busy week again with the photoshoot for La Maison Fontaine on Monday and Tuesday. We’ve got some beautiful shots in the bag, as well as some amazing new cocktails. Everyone’s getting very excited and it’s looks like the 19th March at Shoreditch House is going to be the 1st time more than just PrettyGreen will get taste them.

Strings has also jetted off to Pontarlier, to see the 1st bottling test run for Fontaine. He’s just sent us back this picture of a spoon!!!! We needed to read an email to see why. It’s actually the the most expensive Absinthe spoon in the world. The initials at the top are actually Toulouse Lautrec’s and apparently the spoon is from his personal collection (Strings got caught trying to stir his coffee by Sven at the Distillery, naughty boy).

IMG_0960

We’ve heard he’s bringing back a suitcase full of Absinthe tonight, lets hope he’s not pulled over, as you might remember last time we thought he was going to have the long rubber arm of law feel his collar as he brought back a big bag of the 15 secret herbs that looked like he’d been to Amsterdam.

The Flake team are also flat out for Thursday as we’re putting on a very glamourous One Million Lips Party for Flake at One Marylebone, to celebrate the Flake Benefit promotion. We’ve a few special guests and DJ’s lined up(including Neeve from Kiss), and a photoshoot tomorrow afternoon with someone who can only be described as beautiful. We’re not sure whether the excitement in the office comes from the thought about sampling a few of the exclusive Flake cocktails (responsibly) or it’s delirium from burning the midnight oil.  IMG00068-20100310-1640

If you have been listening to the Kiss FM Breakfast Show recently, as well as hearing the Flake activity you’ll also know that Ricky, Melvin, Adam K and Charlie have all been attempting to give up something for lent – that’s 40 days and 40 nights. Torture.

Melvin, who is a self-confessed chicken addict, was putting his will-power to the test by giving up his passion for poultry. So, on just the second day of this challenge, we thought we should test his resolve.

Cue Emma and Mandy with some delicious Nando’s wraps and Peri-Peri chicken-wings…

Now, we’re not sure if the girls knew there would be a camera at the time, but we are sure that someone finished all of the chicken. Melvin, something to tell us?!

Click here to see the Mandy and Coco seducing Melvin

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Posted by The Green on 10 March 2010

The LTA Needs Some (New) Balls

Another weekend, another disappointment in British tennis. Britain’s loss in this weekend’s Davis Cup marks the teams worst run of form ever, with five straight losses putting us on the brink of  group of death: Europe / Africa Zone Group Three.

You can’t blame Andy Murray for not wanting to play. He can only carry the team so far. What’s the point in him risking injury when we’re never going to win the tournament with only one good player in the team.

The LTA must face up to the fact something is still not working. £43million a year should be enough to generate four players good enough to beat the Lithuanians. We’ve blamed the weather in the UK for not being condusive to tennis but it can’t be worse here than it is in Russia, Sweden and Switzerland and they’ve all made it through to Group One.

We blame the lack of role models but tennis has never had better characters on court, with anti-hero Murray in Britain and Nadal, Federer and Del Potro overseas. We’ve said tennis only matters for two weeks a year in the UK but the sell out crowds at last November’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals proved there is a year round appetite for the game.

Success in tennis is as lucrative as football or golf – the LTA needs to make it as desirable to be a tennis player as it is a Premier League player, as it’s a sad day when English need to become British to find something to cheer about.

Blaming/ sacking/ changing the coach may help (certainly Roger Drapers had 4 years to do something other than open a tennis school that currently it looks like the can’t give places away at) but the LTA’s tennis scouts should work better, like football scouts do, picking up players with potential in primary school. And every tennis club in the country should be made to have a junior programme manned by Dads at the weekends, that are incentivised to work with the LTA.

And if all else fails, perhaps we should encourage Murray into a few sex text scandals – that’s clearly what grabs the attention of the masses and turns a good sportsman into the icon they all aspire to be!

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Posted by The Green on 9 March 2010

James Bulger a Lose Lose Case

The James Bulger case for many is the Moors Murders of our time. There’s probably nothing more emotive than the death of a child, change the word to murder and the temperature quite rightly races past boiling point.

The dilemma that the Bulgar case throws up, is what to do with two 10 year olds who are failed by their parents and society, possibly inherently evil, who commit such a shocking crime. It’s an exceptionally difficult one to navigate around. The fact is, it’s a lose lose situation for everyone and anyone.

The parents of James, can never be compensated enough for their loss, but more importantly our system and society is now more geared to help the perputrators of such crimes, not the victims:-
- Are Ralph or Denise provided for in the same way as Thompson or Venables?
- How much money did our system give to the Bulgar family to help them survive this ordeal?

In our desperate attempts to prove that 10 year olds are turned evil by our society and it’s failings, we pump millions into two retraining and protecting two individuals. But today’s headlines seem to indicate that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Jack Straw and the media are somewhat tied by the legal issues around “fair trial” and “presumption of innocence” which means the rumour mill is in full flow, but it would appear that despite so many peoples good intentions, at least one bad apple still would appears to be rotten to the core (or once again have the Authorities failed to act when they should have done).

It’s all to easy to become pious and indignant at others failing, but the reality is we all have our part to play. Someone has to make the difficult decisions around these issues. However if such an evil crime was ever committed again by two 10 year olds, should or would we just throw away the key. The answer should be no, aren’t we a better society for still believing in the goodness of the human spirit, without that aren’t we destined to become another Roman Empire?

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about something must more light-hearted, like can you ever eat too many Flakes in the name of work, should Absinthe become the new drink of choice, why don’t Nando’s offer gloves to men who go to the toilet after extra hot Peri Peri chicken wings.

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Posted by The Green on 8 March 2010

No Winter Blues From Vancouver For Us

skier-cross-racers-coming-over-a-jumpPeople keep talking about the Vancouver Winter Olympics as if it was a disaster….how can that possibly be the case when it was the launch of Ski and Snowboard Cross as an Olympic Sport?

Surely that was the coolest thing to hit the slopes since one-piece ski suits? It had speed, aggression, impossible jumps and massive wipe-outs all in one. Maybe it’s because we’ve been living in a snow field since December, but this new sport had us glued to the coverage of the Winter Olympics for the first time. It definitely makes us think that skateboarding, which has been mooted as a Summer Olympic sport, should be re-considered. The Olympic Games needs to bring in a younger generation and the IOC definitely got it right this time round.

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Posted by The Green on 7 March 2010

A Perfect New Business Letter?

We managed to get our hands on a new business letter to one of our Clients from a very high profile London Agency. Clients always love hearing that all their hard PR work isn’t quite good enough!

Two games we’re letting everyone play in the office
1. Guess the Agency
2. Use the phrase “neighbourhood gathering space” to win extra BS Bingo points

theft

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Posted by The Green on 5 March 2010

Where’s Jack Bauer When You Need Him?

Currently feels like we’re in some crazy 24 type film where every hour there’s a different twist and turn on a number of projects. Although everyone’s feeling the pain and pressure with a number of campaigns going live at the same time, it’s actually quite exhilarating, if not exceptionally stressful.

What’s fantastic is the team spirit, camaraderie and pulling together to deliver work. Needless to say, as with every campaign the twists and turns can be somewhat frustrating and yesterday a Client was questioning why we put ourselves through such pain, the reality is, it makes you feel a live.

Fundamentally what we do isn’t rocket science (well Red Bull Stratos, might be close), we don’t often save too many lives, and actually it’s not that important what we do. The harsh reality is that we’re partly to blame for the over-consumption society that we’re in (Justin Basini’s got an interesting perspective of what we need to do, but maybe more of that another day), but in amongst all the social woes and doomsayers, what we’re involved in is something that we love.

The sense that you’ve had an idea, created it and then seen it come alive, means we can actually touch and feel what we do. It might be abstract and be immeasurable, but the sense of worth and satisfaction from knowing that your idea, your hard work, your team work delivered something is all worth it – That is until the next twist and turn jumps up and slaps us in the face, then we’ll be back to questioning why we do it.

Currently we’re pleased to say that PrettyGreen’s got 21 Jack Bauers every 24 hours, not just one.

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Posted by The Green on 4 March 2010

Scratching Your Virtual Head

Just can’t help but like this.

Neurosonics Live from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

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Posted by The Green on 2 March 2010

Brief History of Pretty Much Everything

We’re absolutely loving this art project. Genius.

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Posted by The Green on 1 March 2010

A Wapping Week

So we thought that with mid term break for RBMA that it might be a little calmer in the office. Oh how wrong we were!

We launched the 1st part of our Trident Perpetual Festival promotion on Tuesday with George Lamb, Rob Da Bank and  Steve from Virtual Festivals.

It was a tough brief following the success of the Beyonce campaign (100 single ladies is still doing over 100k views a week). Made tougher by a brilliant briefing from the Client.

As one particular Client of Strings used to say “it’s all about lose briefs”. Partly, it’s also about creative ambition and the ability to allow great ideas to actually see the light of day. Which was what the Client wanted.

Ourselves, RPM and PHD have worked as a really close virtual team to pull this one off from the initial briefing. And what’s been really refreshing has been the collaboration between all parties. The original concept for Tridents Perpetual Festival might have been PrettyGreens (think Claire’s trying to actually own this one), the reality is that it’s the integration of the 3 Agencies, often working without the Client that has delivered this promotion.

We couldn’t have made it happen without RPM’s on-pack and digital skills (or Di’s spreadsheet management) or without PHD’s media approach, by working together, demarcating our own roles, we’ve worked much more effectively.

So we’ve 2 weeks to go before we close the 1st phase (30 Festivals, 30 Weeks, £30k) and then we’re in to shorlisting and assessment centres. We’ve already got 2k applications so it’s going to be fun, but the planning for the interviews is nearly finalised. It’s tough not to become quite sadistic, we think it’s Wipeout, Big Brother and The Apprentice that make you think that way.

On the same day we were also helping develop a bigger plan for Nandos Xperimental, which always causes a heated debate, which shows how much everyone cares. What’s exciting is that after months of planning, we think we’ve found the solution.

Lipsticks and chocolate are still a plenty in the office and we’ve got a great event in the pipeline we’re just trying to finalise. More to follow…..

We’re also on the Easter Egg hunt trail, which is a great new project we’re working on, plus we’ve got a couple of really exciting new business opportunities that we’re close to being able to reveal (we’ll know more by Friday).

And on Thursday a group headed out to the Wapping Project for a late lunch (a very late Christmas lunch party). An nightmare to get to, but what an amazing space/ restaurant/ gallery. The downstairs gallery somewhat scary as it got dark, but gets our vote as one of London’s most interesting venues.

A fun time was had by all, but it did feel at times like we thought that the prohibition was about to start as we tried to drink Shoreditch dry after the Wapping Project. Some very very sore heads on Friday (Folu didn’t make it in to the office at all, ok he did eventually in body, but that was about it). Ravi did a brilliant 2 hour conference call, whilst having lunch which was entertaining to watch (not sure Lisa dialing in from LA would have been too impressed).

Luckily Emma’s back from New York next week so Strings won’t be able to drag people off to the pub so easily. That said we’re up for another Award on Thursday as Best Newcomer with the MCCA, so more Top Trumps and drinking to follow.

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Posted by The Green on 28 February 2010

If Only The (Alleged) Bully Was Stylish?

So the weekend was dominated by 3 things Fashion, Film and Fists (well actually lapels).

Poor Mr Brown, not only is he accused of putting the country in so much debt that our childrens, childrens, children will still be paying off our Bankers Bonuses, but now he’s accused of bullying.

Now, the issue this throws up is, if Obama, Clinton or Blair had that complaint levied against them, would we be horrified or would be use words like passion, commitment, strong leadership.

Regardless of your political leanings, there’s an argument that says because Gordon’s not that stylish, charming or cool. That when he’s accused of something that shows a human flaw, he’s rounded upon. The fact is, if any of us were running the country, working 18 hour days, under that type of pressure, I’m sure we’d be stomping around No. 10 trying to kick the cat and a few Oxbridge grads who didn’t agree with us.

We can’t condone his behaviour, and still don’t necessarily think he’s the best man to be pressing the flesh on the world stage or keeping the country from the dogs. But don’t we want strong leaders who bang fists on tables and lead from the front.

Think of London’s biggest club Manchester United, you can’t help but respect what Alex Ferguson has achieved by managing his players and coaching colleagues with an iron fist. Would he ever be accused of being a bully, no. Yet somehow when someone does it in politics it is – Seems to us like there might be an election round the corner.

Maybe Gordon would have been better off spending more time in the fashion and film world with the likes of  Colin Firth and Tom Ford. We’re sure if he was as stylish a Colin the world would be forgiving him.

The one area that does feel wrong is the riding of the bandwagon by a bullying charity. We get they want to comment and they are the best placed to do it. But to actually state that they have had some kind of dialogue with No.10’s staff is over-stepping the mark. Think of every child, every office worker, currently petrified in case it comes out that they contacted a bullying helpline. There’s a line that we all have to tread carefully along, but we’re sure every “helpline” is currently cursing Christine Pratt from The National Bullying Helpline for looking like she’s betrayed the 1st rule of any helpline, it’s confidential.

Anyway, we’re looking forward to the weekend papers for Round 2. Lets see what the Labour Spin machine can come out with for Cameron. Haven’t had the Eton drug card played in this election run-up yet.

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Posted by The Green on 22 February 2010

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