« February 2008 | Main | April 2008 »
While we might have invented the medium, like football, cricket and rugby, we’ve ceded dominion to other nations. Witness the ever-brilliant Onion - miles ahead of 99 per cent of British comedy writing, even its imaginary weekend magazine is a stroke of brilliance.
Simon Learman, one of our Executive Creative Directors, is on the judging panel for the Awards for National Newspaper Advertising. Read what he thinks about February's winner - Land Rover's 'Built to tackle anything' ad - here.
We are already 79 days into 2008 and what a year. Pitches galore, our broadcast teams seem to have de-camped to NZ and South America for the winter...shoot schedule, three web site launches since January, Man U on the way to a spectacular double and Neil and Jay have had zero HR issues. What a happy quarter. So to send everyone off to their four corners of Britain, Portugal, Brazil, Malaysia and China, the Easter Bunny dropped in to spread a little love.
Happy Easter everyone.
Unless your head's been stuck in the sand - or up the slopes - you can't have avoided the hype surrounding Mad Men.
And it's deserved: this is great television; beautifully filmed. Lines like, "What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons," show the sharpness of Matthew Weiner's writing. There's all the excess you would associate with Madison Avenue in 1960 (even if you weren't there; even if you weren't even born).
The New York Times sums it up: "There were seven deadly sins practiced at the dawn of the 1960s: smoking, drinking, adultery, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and racism. In its first few minutes, Mad Men taps into all of them."
And into this world, the history of brands - from the ad-men's confusion at the Volkswagen Think Small campaign to Lucky Strike's It's Toasted slogan (pedants: it may have been invented in the 40s, it still works here!) - is interwoven. But beneath the hedonism is a plot about personal identity that isn't bound by era or industry - though turning slowly insane in suburbia seems a lot more romantic in an elegant frock. Well, certainly more romantic than facing thwarted dreams while dressed in some dodgy old tracksuit.
We've been lucky enough to have a sneak preview of the rest of series: look out for episode nine where McCann gets a mention as it sharks for talent from rivals. We were tickled.
So that's Sunday nights sorted for a while.
It's not new news that this is a great film. We are big fans (especially of Josh Brolin's performance) and recommend you go and see it before it leaves the big screen.
