I love single-use ads.

A lovely one-off ad released yesterday by DDB:

Obama-rama.

Today, the US will have a new President, its 44th President and its first African-American President.


The former Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, once said: "You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose". Today, this line is repeated in reference to the impending presidency.


So how will the inauguration of President Obama affect the world of advertising? Not an easy question to ponder. Perhaps a lease of new life for positive, genuine adverts? Even enough to inspire us cynical Britons? Perhaps, in the protection of the ‘little fish’ in the US, they will produce a greater diversity of advertising?


Perhaps Cuomo’s quote will become true for the advertising world as well. That anyone who isn’t market leader will produce brilliant creativity that will be like marketing poetry; that those who lead their markets will write the rules. Let’s hope not.


No matter the perceived strength of a brand, even as the best in any sector, it still has to strive to maintain that position. The world now is too complex, too dismissive and too ruthless. A slip-up from Obama and the critics will swarm and the satirists will mock. Brands are given the same treatment.


Then again, maybe nothing will change. Inspirational as he is, he is thousands of miles away…in the land of dreams.....(cynical British, can’t be inspired by genuine optimism, don’t know what you’re talking about…)

Miss Eager Beaver at work

My first success: We produced a so-called "Guard book" for SaBRE, in which all the campaigns we have ever made for this brand are collected - very useful especially for new people who want to get an overview of what the brand is all about. Making a Guard book first sounded pretty straight-forward to me, but there is actually quite a lot of work required: The account team compiles a list of all work created, gets all the digital files together and provides these to the Campaign Director. The Campaign Director has to book time in the studio so that they can create layouts of all the mailing packs. They will also ensure these have the correct resolution and will then produce print outs.

The challenge in this I found is to coordinate peoples' schedules, as people are in and out of meetings and creatives are often out on shoots. Anyways, thanks to the great team I was working with we got it all done in a few days and the final Guardbook was given to the client.

After successfull completion of this mission I am now off to my next project: the monthly competitor analysis for Zurich insurance. I will keep you in the loop about anything remarkable or unexpected I encounter on my journey. So long, dear readers, take care!

What Ian, Davina and Paddy don't want you to know...

These three sneaky grads have tried to keep the most exciting Publicis-event of our winter completely hushed up! I am appalled. Luckily for you I have managed to snatch some photos from Davina's camera and will report here about our little Business-trip to Paris - in all juicy detail.

Here you are treated to a rare picture of Ian in real life, not the tea-making sunnyboy you may know him as from the agency: as soon as Paddy falls asleep on the Eurostar, Ian grabs all his food and does not stop munching till Paris Montparnasse (which is even more meaningful since the train stopped en route for 2 hours). And they say I am the food-junkie!

On our first night we found this lovely (ok, the boys called it "airy-fairy") little bookshop/bar which we spent a fair amount of our hard-earned Euros in.




The next day it was all about sightseeing (or shall I call it "posing"?). Please note Ian's broken arm which to Paddy seemed a fair punishment for the stolen food. Paddy later admitted he may have gone slightly overboard with his reaction.



This is Davina doing a first (of many) shoot for her audacious proposal to Garnier the next day - the woman seriously suggested to the French Garnier-team that Davina McCall be replaced with Davina Hall, can you believe this?



Please note the professional photographer next to me who is braving the Champs Elysee traffic in order to get a piece of these yummy models and their perfectly natural pose!

Ian and Davs were not the only ones that got on well: Paddy and my sister soon discovered they had a shared passion for beer (and French men, but I won't get Paddy to admit this - yet).



While most of us had to stick to beer the whole night because Paris was intent on ripping us of our last cents, some of us stuck to cocktails the whole night - resulting in some shaky midnight-midstreet posing like the above!



Finally, the real reason we came to France! Oh no, wrong photo!



Yes, this is the right one! The real reason we went to Paris was to visit our Publicis France Headquarters in order to do a case study on Garnier - and to have a look at the amazing agency building situated directly on the Champs Elysee - about Ian's arm's-length from the Arc de Triomphe!

Thanks to the great team at Publicis France we had a very enjoyable and instructive workshop and an excellent lunch at the exquisite Publicis restaurant. My special thanks go to my sister Frieda who let us stay at her fantastic apartment and to Sira who gave me some life-saving instructions to the airport. (This did not stop my plane from being 5 hours late, but left me with the great feeling that this time at least my delay was utterly not my fault).

The end of the beginning, not the other way round.

So, our three months of whirlwind tours, handshakes and important introductions has come to an end. Now we have been split up and sent to different parts of the building to fend for ourselves.

Jenny is doing her Dialog placement for SaBRE. Davina (Hall as well as McCall) is working on the above-the-line Garnier account. Patrick is doing his first placement with the Army team making TV, radio and posters and I am working for Dialog on the Renault team.

Responsibility now rests on our heads alone and we can't just blame everything on Jenny anymore but on the flip-side, it gives us all the chance to show why we are employed here and I for one am relishing the challenge.

As well as our new accounts, we are also getting involved in new business, contributing to this super-fantastic blog and helping with all the graduate applications. If you haven't already applied, the dealine is February 1st so get thinking and good luck!

New year, new (immense) responsibilities...

While other people slowly recover from their NYE-excesses, work has already caught up on me with full power - much to the enjoyment of the industrious soul buried deep within me.

For the first four months of 2009 I am working in Publicis Dialog on the SaBRE account, an MOD campaign to support Britain's Reservists and Employers. We create communications that help increase employers' goodwill towards Reservists. This task is particularly sensitive at the moment, as the general public are not wholly supportive of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan but also because businesses have to survive in the current economic downturn without their Reservist employee. Within this climate its vitally important to remind employers of the contribution of their Reservists and their own business to the positive actions of the armed forces around the world.

Please find below a piece of communication that I think illustrates this very well - you may have already been impressed by the similar newspaper-ads we ran in September 2008.