PR, marcomms, recruitment and all the bits in between

Public Affairs News Awards 2008, Café Royale

Congratulations to all of the winners this year!

 

 

Picture (left to right): Host Cathy Newmanwith Will Tanner from winner Campaign for Crossrailand Alice Weightmanfrom Public Sector Public Affairs Campaign sponsor Hanson Search.

 

A special mention to our client Open Road who won New Consultancy of the Year amidst tough competition from Cogitamus and James O’Keefe’s Tetra Strategy

Rock n'roll awards in Paris

This year’s Strategies Advertising Awards in Paris celebrated the Rock n’ Roll Scene which was highlighted by advertising campaigns designed by agencies such as Leg for the French radio station Oui FM.

There was a special reward for the “press campaigns” at a time where video clips are the winners. Once again Leg led the way designing a very graphic campaign, together with insider and cutting edge quotes which positions the radio station as a reference on the Rock n’ Roll scene in a very subtle way.

 

Present at the ceremony, Julie Jeantet, Consultant on the French market at Hanson Search, commented on the outcome of these elections: “This award reflects the excellence of the creative human capital of Leg Agency.  This campaign is indeed very up to date with today’s air du temps!”

The ceremony took place in the Folies Bergères known for its great Parisien parties and sexy dancers where various works were congratulated in a great atmosphere, and with plenty of good champagne.

Caption translation: After their death, These guys knew a faith worst than hell, They became a Zadig&Voltaire T-shirt.

Marie Barriere

Lowe, my fashion advertising client!

A new French road safety campaign

We couldn’t ever imagine that iconic figure Karl Lagerfeld, associated with such brands as Chanel and Fendi, would become the face of a road safety campaign in France.

The latest outdoor campaign of the agency Lowe Strateus shows the fashion designer wearing the yellow light-reflecting security vest, which is compulsory for French drivers to keep in their car, along with flashing red warning triangles, as of the 1^st of July. This campaign has just created a real “buzz” all over the world. All of the French media, and even overseas press like El Pais, Times, Vogue USA and Bloomberg, are talking about it!

Take a black suit, trademark fingerless gloves and black sunglasses – plus the infamous vest – and we have an accurate description of Lagerfeld, the road-safety cautious citizen, doing his duty to society.

The campaign’s tag line bears enough irony to satisfy Lagerfeld's rather caustic sense of humour, as it reads: “It’s yellow, it’s ugly, it doesn’t go with anything, but it could save your life.”

I love advertising!

Who knows what the future Chanel Couture collection will look like as a result?

Desperate times

Recruitment in the PR world seems to still be going strong despite all the economic problems, so luckily we don’t think any PR people have had to resort to such desperate measures as one US banker. Joshua Perky, who lost his job in a New York bank six months ago, is walking around Manhattan wearing a suit and a sign saying “MIT graduate for hire”, giving out CVs at lunchtime. We guess that’s one way to do it, although it may have been easier to talk to a recruiter.

Not by Kayode Dauda

The buzz of the Middle East

The sun shines, the beach is on your doorstep and there is always the option of avoiding tax! Recruitment in the Middle East is at its strongest ever. The PR industry is booming and there is a constant demand for international talent. As the industry grows in this part of the globe, more and more PROs (from juniors to CEOs) are moving to join the ever growing expat community. The Middle East provides a great working environment and this is set to continue through the ‘credit crunch’ that has been leashed upon us tax-paying, rain worshippers!

www.easternexplorer.com/feature/living_and_working_in_dubai

Ragini Shah (Hanson Search Middle East)

From Tech Corner….“Download Day” sees Firefox set a Guinness World Record...

Firefox has set a new world record for number of software downloads in a 24 hour period.  With the launch of Firefox 3.0 on 17^th June, Mozilla’s “Download Day” promotions resulted in a staggering 8 million plus downloads in just 24 hours. With downloads peaking at over 9,000 a minute, it took only 5 hours to surpass Firefox 2.0’s record of 1.6 million downloads in 2006!  As of 3^rd July, 2008, more than 28 million people have downloaded Firefox…and counting…

 

M&M’s Fun!

Waggener Edstrom’s digital guru Ged Carrol flagged up a genius little gimmick in his blog… My M&M’s® - Get Your Favorite Faces on Your Favorite Candy - Upload a Picture and Message…great fun!!

Maddy Bower

Hanson Search FC do it again!

Hanson Search claimed the City Chadwell Premier 5-a-side league for the second consecutive year, remarkably going through the season unbeaten:

   

Special mention must also go to longterm client FD (formerly Financial Dynamics) who in sharp contrast, went the entire season without a victory. For the final table follow the link:

http://www.theelms.co.uk/horizon/110171202304SOEL071lge1.htm

Album Review (unashamed plug)

Please go buy Dirty Pretty Things' new album ‘Romance at Short Notice’. It is the best thing you will hear all year:

Look I have even given you a link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Romance-Short-Notice-Pretty-Things/dp/B0018CWW3M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1215016816&sr=1-1

And another: www.apple.com/uk/itunes

Jamie McLaughlin

Keep summer Ice-cream disasters at bay

Finally a solution to a problem we all lie awake at night pondering on. You know the feeling when whilst eating an ice-cream you can’t quite get your wrist to turn the whole way round allowing you to catch those irritating drops of sticky dairy? Well fear not. At long last a US firm have only gone and invented the motorised ice-cream cone.

 

It’s a scenario we’ve all pictured – you’re at an important meeting with a potential client at the height of summer, both standing there with your 99’s and before you know it the cuff of your sleeve is soiled - could your sloppiness jeopardise the whole deal? Well don’t let it be an issue. The motorised cone will turn 360 degrees as you hold you tongue against it, thus allowing all drips to be skillfully caught! In fact filling it with ice-cream is about as difficult as its gets.

 

Most of us out there will probably find the invention pointless as, let’s face it, the cone is often the best bit.

Bigger head, bigger brain, but not more intelligent

New research has made a discovery that will have women the world over feeling slightly smug, and rightly so. According to a study carried out by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, bigger heads do not equal bigger brains.

 

For decades men have gloated over their evolutionarily larger bodies and believed that they are more intelligent than the female species as a result.  Sadly fellas it’s not the case. In fact it has ironically been referred to as a ‘simplistic belief’.

 

Professor Seth Grant of the institute suggests that it is not size alone that matters when it comes to intelligence, but a sophisticated molecular processing of nerve impulses which have allowed us to evolve with more complex behaviours.

 

Aside from the smart and no doubt complicated science of the argument, the point remains: guys, size isn’t everything!

Time off for a sick heart

We’ve all been there and we all know what it feels like to suffer from a broken heart. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep and inevitably everything you see and do seems remind of your loss.

 

However, a Japanese company is now taking measures to support its staff should their hearts get broken by offering compassionate leave of up to three days. Of course the ravages of separation may not stop after three days, but it certainly gives you chance to check your mobile for ‘I still love you’ texts, behead old photographs, and start deciding who gets the dog.

 

And it only seems fair that we receive such time off considering birth and bereavement are both recognised rites of passage we endure. And lets face it, we have time off when we are sick- is a broken heart not a sickness?

 

With this in mind the Japanese firm Hime & Company seem to have the right idea. Surely those suffering such trauma will indeed be less efficient at their roles in the workplace. However guys, you’re only allowed one break-up a year, lets not be greedy.