Eye of the Tiger (GRRRR!!)

Pardon the post title, it's just a musical way of describing how me and Sarah feel today. Or in simple terms - frickin' awesome!

We're currently in the fourth and not-so-final week of our placement at AND Partners, and have had the good news that they'd like to keep us around a little longer. This makes us happy : ) Been working on some great briefs, with some fantastic people, and have thoroughly enjoyed the time we've spent there so far. Particularly as most of it has involved squishy couches.

Sarah in squishy advertising action

That said, we've still been keeping our fingers in some other advertising pies, as now more than ever we understand that no job is safe! So late this afternoon saw us heading for a third meeting with Paul Burns at TBWA having worked some more on his advice from last time. As ever, he was supportive and constructive and just a general pleasure to speak to. And as mentioned the last time we visited him, there had been talk of a possible placement opportunity somewhere in the near future, today being the day in which it came to light! In order to save our souls in the hectic run-up to Christmas, we've been offered an initial 2 week placement to begin in January. Chuffed! : )

Since having visited the church while we were still just lowly students, both me and Sarah were a tad fixated on working for TBWA some day, and whether it only be for a fortnight or for longer, we're so happy for the opportunity to be involved with them, and the experience to come from it.

Our excitement evident through facial expression

Our excitement expressed through the medium of chocolate treats

But for now January is a long way off, so we'll be happily carrying on at AND Partners and working on our book, and will just have to wait and see where the winter takes us!

Kentucky Fried Chicken and a... Pasta Hut?

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for healthier options, but to totally re-brand the company is taking it a step too far. As you'd expect, Pizza Hut made its name with pizzas, and no amount of re-branding will change that perception. But in changing all of their outlets (albeit only for a trial period), is there not a greater risk of putting their customers off instead?

Supposedly pasta dishes are to become the predominant choice, with pizza taking a backseat. This feels as wrong as when MacDonalds introduced salads to their menus, but at least they didn't overhaul the brand to achieve it. Maybe I think too much with my advertising head, but surely a clever little campaign to promote a shift in the range of meals being made available would have been better, not to mention a hell of a lot cheaper!

Having said all that, I'll no doubt be heading in there some time soon to check it out. Never been one to let a bit of branding get in the way of my love for food! But until then, I'll be looking out for my nearest Kentucky Grilled Chicken or Salad King.

Placement weight (part deux!)

Quite possibly the oddest first day of placement ever! As instructed, me and Sarah arrived at AND Partners at 9:45am (after a slight rush with us both having train trouble - grrr!) and were introduced to the AND team. While we waited for Andy to come in, a nice design fellow called Sam sat and chatted to us, and besides discovering that he too had been to UCLan, we also found out that he'd jacked it in for his first job at Iris in London, when it was still just a fledgling agency - tres impressive!

Not long after, Andy came in and sat us in the boardroom for our first briefing on one of their biggest clients (again, not sure what I can say, so I'll keep schtum for now). We went over some of the work that was recently pitched to them to get a feel for what they were looking for, and then we were asked if we knew where the business in question was. Though we didn't know, we were soon sent on our way to find it, petty cash in hand to sample what the client had to offer. So off we went on our merry way - out of the office by 11am, and not to return!

Lunchtime arrived and we found ourselves in Ashton-Under-Lyne feeling rather peckish. And as our aim was to tuck into some grub, we thought it rude not to do so immediately. Still of student mentality, an expenses-paid lunch went down very well!


After considerably feeding ourselves, we took to the notepads for an ideas session, and chatted to a few of the staff too (as they knew why we were there). The whole time we were there we saw cameramen and some kind of entourage wandering around, along with a whole load of birthday balloons adorning the bar we were in. A little more prying and we discovered that it was all in aid of none other than Ricky Hatton! Not before long, we spotted him out in the foyer surrounded by various crews for interviews. Though we didn't get the chance to actually meet him, we later spied a large silver platter doing the rounds of the bar. Salivating as always at the prospect of more food, the tray soon made its way to us, only for us to find it covered with the remainder of Ricky's birthday cake! So chow down we did, and yummy it was!




And if anybody asks of our claim to fame? We shall simply say: "We ate Ricky Hatton's cake". And all shall bow before us!

Numero dos!

After a slight dilemma this morning regarding whether me and Sarah would opt for a month long placement offered to us by AND Partners, or a two week placement at The Raft, we finally decided to go with the former. So a weekend of freedom before we start on Monday!


As I said in the previous post, we've both been so pleased with the response we've been getting so far, and we can't wait to get back into agency life and learn even more to take with us and improve us as a team along the way.

Be sure to expect some more random photographic delights come Monday!

In search of the advertising dream

And so it continues! After a good start on our northern advertising trek last week, we set about giving our portfolios the mash-up treatment - 4 dollops of Hayley doo-doo, with 4 splodges of Sarah sparkle and we finally had a joint book of stupendous advertising to present for our crits this week. I'm sure many would scream in terror at some of the things in there, but for now it's serving us well until we have more time together and develop as a team to produce new campaigns. Our line-up at present is:

*Play-Doh
*Organ Donations
*Best Beginnings (breastfeeding)
*Slavery
*GHD limited edition black and white straighteners
*Andrex Moist
*Talk (Department for Transport)
*Royal Opera House

Yes, there are indeedy two charity-type campaigns in there. And only 3 products. Of course we'll constantly be improving our book as time goes on, and any advice or feedback is always appreciated, so feel free to set your disgust loose on us! : )

Anyway, back to this week! Not quite as many miles traversed in search of the dream, nor as many crits to attend, but we've been left feeling even more excited than last week!

Our week only began on Tuesday this time, with a visit to Phil Howells at The Raft in Wilmslow. Phil was one of the original partners at Pravda when it was just a wee bairn, but last winter he headed to The Raft in an attempt to create a thriving creative department there over the coming years. Pardon my common northernism, but he was a top bloke! As we've found with all of our crits, you have to be a sociable lot to do what we do - true to form, Phil continued that fuzzy advertising feeling that we love so much. A fair chunk of praise with some good advice thrown is more than we expected, and we were really happy to find that he was interested in us as the bright young things that we are, and the prospect of a junior team adding a little something more to the mix at The Raft. We left with the possibility of a placement, and kept our fingers crossed as we headed over the road to Driven (the agency founded by the likes of Graham Drury and Chris Lear) to see whether anybody was free to see us. Unfortunately they'd just been whisked off to a meeting, but we left our book there for them to peruse at leisure.

We do "Grrr" a lot (not sure why!)

Another break in the week on Wednesday saw us having our first proper chance to work on the brief which Paul Burns gave us last week, for which we hurried out our scamp ideas in the car this morning before seeing him again (and yes, we did tell him this!) So 11am today saw us back in good old East Didsbury. Cheery as ever, Paul led us back to the "soft corner" (squidgy couches - we like!) and had a gander at the progress we'd made. To our slight surprise, he really liked a few of our concepts and gave us some guidance on where to take the ideas from here. Again, placement was discussed, and we were over the moon when Paul said he'd like to bring us in some time. Though, as with many agencies at the moment, the present climate is seriously hampering any permanent job prospects. We'll be heading back to see Paul very soon having worked on his advice, and we may well be heading in for a while in November once there's room for us. Watch this space!

Then this afternoon we headed over to Deansgate to visit Stewart Dally, the head of design at BJL. Another great feedback session, laidback as ever and a good laugh (with our smut, it's always sure to be a winner!) and some more great guidance on where to take some of the campaigns in our book, though overall he said it was a very good book with lots of great concepts in there. Again, no room for us at the inn, but he was very keen to speak to Billy Mawhinney about us (unfortunately he was on a shoot today) in order to get us back in to see him and see if he agreed that we were placement-worthy. So we're very excited to be heading back to BJL soon too!

As the week stands, we're currently discussing the best time to begin placement at AND Partners, so it's unlikely to be Monday now. But Phil Howells got back to us today to let us know that he's just waiting for the go ahead from the MD to maybe get us in as soon as Monday - our empty gap may well have been filled, we shall wait and see! And we're just waiting on word from Driven about our book and whether they'd like us to go in to see them in person some time. So it's still all stations go, go, go here!

Hmmpf! Darn this pesky recession making things difficult for agencies and graduates alike! It is a little worrying to think that it could mean a seemingly endless array of placements over the coming months, possibly even years. But it just stokes us up to work even harder, hopefully giving even the most strained of agencies a reason to keep us on permanently in time. For now we're happy to be getting the response we have been, and looking forward to continuing that by whatever means possible.

There may well be more times of economic depression ahead. But this has been a good fortnight for us. And we're going to keep fighting for it until we get it. GRRRRR!!