Philips Worldwide Account Comes To Ogilvy

It has been a hard year of pitching at Ogilvy London and none was bigger or more prestigious than the Philips pitch that happened over the backend of 2011. It's no understatement to say that this took a staggering amount of effort to be a contender, let alone win. I was lucky to enough to be a very small part of a very committed team from offices  round the world who have done themselves proud. You can read what AdAge have to say about it here. I think a few industry people will be surprised by this result, it's not something you'd expect from Ogilvy. Except it's not your dad's Ogilvy anymore.

November & Matisse

Matisse - from the Metropolitan Museum site

It's coming up for only 2 years in London yet it feels like a lifetime ago that I left Canada to do some work on this side of the pond. Ogilvy London is a very different place from when I started, so progress is being made. The conversations are quite different even though frustration abounds. That's advertising. The system is built from, and in, chaos. Which is lovely.

Recently I've been thinking about brand restarts, staffing up and art. Not always in that order, and sometimes not at all. Visit The Met and Art Tattler, they're a welcome breath of fresh air and brain food. And I'm very keen on the Gerhard Richter exhibition at the Tate.

The world is being shaken this year. I might as well shake with it.

Inspiration for Truth & Spectacle

Truth & Spectacle comes from an interview I saw with Tony Kaye, the director, talking about Stanley Kubrick. He describes Kubrick’s films as being filled with spectacle and truth. “Spectacle and truth are the two most important things in film making. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the story, or how implausible the scene, if it has truth and it has a special look, it will infiltrate into your audience.” Sounds like good advertising.

Dove Body Language App

The first of my Dove integrated campaigns has now gone live in some countries. This campaign has all the usuals, TV/Print/Digital/In-Store/Social and took the team over a year to create. Here is the link to the best bit, the Body Language message app on Facebook. 

Here's some press:
Brand Republic 
Campaign 

ps. This campaign picked up a Silver and Gold and the 2011 DMA's. Which was nice.

Hellmann's Wins A Grand Prix At Cassies

It's remarkaby pleasant to find out that a project I spent two years on is still going strong a year later. The Hellmann's Eat Real (see the earlier work here) campaign picked up two Gold Cassies, for Best Integrated and Sustained Growth, on the 24th of January in Toronto. The campaign also picked up the big prize of the night winning Grand Prix for Ogilvy Toronto. Congratulations to everyone.