The Feudal Cystern

Garp Dawg turns 1 today!

Happy Birthday ya big ol' hound dog! King James' favourite puppeh Garp turns 1 today, so be sure to give him some extra pats when you walk past Al's office. There will be bones in the library at lunchtime.

 

Farewell to a finance legend

Hi all
 
Today we say farewell to Megan Paulse.  Megan’s been with us since March 2008 and leaves to take up the position of Financial Manager at Saatchi & Saatchi. I guess we must be doing something right when they start poaching the finance staff as well.
 
In her own quiet way, Megan made a huge impact on the efficiency of the finance department and significantly contributed towards my lower heart rate and normalised blood pressure. Having briefly checked the creative and general accolades in the industry over the past year, I can honestly say that Megan will be Saatchi’s best “acquisition / win” for 2009 (ok – I’ll stop now).
 
From a company’s perspective, the worst time for an accountant to leave is at year end – and the best time for an accountant to join is obviously also at year-end – so we can’t really hold that against her.  All of the best M_eggy and there will always be a seat for you at the KJ bar...or a bench on the balcony...or...never mind. 
 

Cameron Benjamin

And from the rest of us, good luck Megan :)

his master's office

Garp enjoys a little downtime while Alistair works.

Steri Stumpie wins Bronze at the Bookmark Awards

Congrats to RSVP (Alex van Tonder, Ryan McArthur, Mark Stead), Atmosphere (Dan Pinch, Tessa Kidd, Jenn Rawlins), Mnemonic (Bruce Wright, Annemarie Blaensdorf) as well as Laurel Mader and Carey Taylor aka the  Steri Stumpie team for picking up a Bronze at the digital Bookmark Awards in the Social Media category in Joburg last night. Click here to see all the finalists.

gone, but not forgotten

We bade farewell to 2 very long-standing members of the KJ crew last weekend. The first was copywriter Jabu Sigege, the man notorious for inspiring the phrase 'to get Jabued' (which means to get drunk enough to call your boss a racist homosexual). The second was to Anthony Buckland, super Mnemonic-coder, who has been known to give Jabu a run for his money in the getting jabued department. Incidentally this was Anthony's second farewell, and he gave a very strange speech about proper nouns pertaining to The Client... it was all a bit confusing. We're sad to see both go, and hope they go onto great things, and that Jabu's new boss doesn't mind being called a racist homosexual.

 
Al presents Jabu with his farewell gift: a family feast (Jabu likes the chicken).

Anthony giving his strange speech. With a strange bat above his head.

Scared of raising the bar?

No need. Atmosphere hosted a Halloween party at the bar last Friday, and boy, didn't they take it to a new level. A live band - Captain Stew and the Pirates of the Caribbean (starring Ryan from RSVP) - provided the dulcet tones to sooth those client blues away. And friends and family came dressed up to make sure they stayed there. 

they grow up so fast

A few snaps of Garp Dog, who now comes to just under Alistair's nipples at full height. Garp can be found wandering around the agency with a selection of semi-chewed objects he's picked up from rubbish bins, presumably keeping them in his jowls as snacks for later.

'The Collector'

Ad guy by day, collector by night, Alistair's just been featured in the new issue of Words etc. magazine. The article is all about his passion for hunting down rare books and sought after first editions, or even just some favourite sentimental ones.

Check out the scanned in article below.

Nice one, Al. 

 
 
  

Next phase of Steri activations: Steri-inspired Levi's Tee competition

In addition to our Steri Social Media ongoing fun, we've now launched the new phase of our Steri activation, namely the What's Your Flavourite competition, which gives you the chance to win a Limited Edition Steri-inspired Levi's T-shirt. Cherryflava covered our launch 'event', which was really a treasure hunt up and down Kloof Street (and was good fun despite their 'oomph' comment :). Look out for the special Steri competition packs to find out how you can get your hands on one of the awesome T-shirts.

Allan Gray team scoops Ad of the Month

 
Much congrats to Paige and Karin for getting 1st place for Creative Circle's Ad of the Month campaign for their Allan Gray Kids (Soccer/Seamonkeys/Karate) campaign.

They also came 2nd in the outdoor category for their Allan Gray outdoor campaign. Which depicts kids starting to master skills early, in the hopes that it will pay off later. Such winners!

Click on the PDFs to download the hi res versions of the print ads and i'll upload the outdoor campaign tomorrow:

Download 16004_Karate_276x210

Download 16005_seamonkey 275x210

Download 16734_Soccer_276x210
 

 

Allan Gray makes YOU magazine

What a compliment! We don't think we've ever had an ad covered by YOU before. It is wonderful to see so many appreciating the Allan Gray James Dean commercial. We thank all of you for your support and the attention. Click on the links below to download the PDFs of the articles.

Download 2210YU022

Download 2210YU023

Loerie Awards 2009

King James walked away with 5 awards this past Loeries, which we're most proud of. Click here to see a list of what we won for. We also managed to have a lot of fun this year, which is really the most important part of the Loeries after all.

Barry Ronge calls new Allan Gray ad "perfect"

Barry Ronge likes Legend :) Presenting an excerpt from this article in the guardian:

Film critic Barry Ronge described the minute-long film as "the perfect blend of simple storytelling, superlative camera effects and the smartest use of a celebrity we have seen in a decade".

Allan Gray "Legend": some good feedback

Thanks to Seth for this. We're seeing some really good feedback on our latest TVC for Allan Gray - Legend - on this post about it at Jezzebel, who say that it's been called an "instant classic". Some of the comments even suggest follow-up ads featuring JFK and Buddy Holly. Congrats Paige, Karin, Al, Keith & everyone else who was involved in the making of Legend. We're glad you guys like our ad. Don't forget to check out our behind-the-scenes, in case you haven't already.

On Agency Business Models

Read this interesting article on MarkLives about how agencies have neglected to change or adapt their business models to meet today's needs. Alistair even offers his opinion about what the future of advertising may hold.