Of all the ideas that caught my eye this week, it was one from Sweden (mentioned to me by my esteemed colleague @GrumpyChops) that made me smile most.

The schtick is kinda simple: Fogg does borderless SIM cards for mobiles (I confess I didn’t, before I had to write about them, trouble myself to find out what this actually means).

Anyway, in order to promote this mysterious offer, they have enlisted the services of some racing pigeons which they are set to release from Malmo in Sweden on 18 June.

The tenuous link, it transpires, is that the Pigeons (Hans, Jean Claude, Wilma and Engeli – AKA the Pigeon version of ABBA) will live Tweet their journeys from Sweden across Denmark, Germany, Holland and assorted other European nations.

We are to gather from this that they are doing so because, with a Fogg SIM, you can access web apps and data anywhere in Europe on one flat rate.

Clever eh?

Here they are in action. Or training. Or something.

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Sometimes, when you’re a press office agency, it’s really a question of using your nose to spot a story, all too often tucked away in a new range catalogue that catches the eye.

And that’s just what happened this week with our (still relatively new) client, IKEA.

We were browsing the August launches press materials and spotted Huset (Swedish for “the House” if you’re interested).

Perfect, miniaturised reproductions of some of IKEA’s most iconic pieces of furniture ideal for the girl (or boy) who wants some contemporary design in their doll’s house and is ready to (as the legend had it many moons ago) chuck out the chintz.

A quick photoshoot later and the piece above was the result. Page 3, METRO (with thanks to James’ daughter for modelling the range (you can see the piece here)

Done. And done.

But we also snagged some crackers in The Independent, The Guardian and MailOnline as well as a crop of others including RYOT, Curbed, Dezeen, DesignTaxi, TrendHunter and the lovely folk at PSFK picked it up too.

More to come on that front. But we’re chuffed so far.

Yep. That’d be the trio.

We’ve been busying ourselves with a rather cool little campaign over the last week or so. Of all the weird, wonderful and downright enjoyable pieces of work we do for O2, this has to rate somewhere near the top.

Why?

Because it’s a game changer for the young people involved. Given we’re talking about a PR campaign here, something that will genuinely make a difference can’t be fun too, can it. Well yes actually, it can.

O2’s work experience initiative GoThinkBig offers young people a leg-up onto the career ladder by showcasing thousands of work experience placements from a host of the UK’s top organisations.

The clever people at GoThinkBig have partnered with chart-topping Brighton-based pop/hip-hop act Rizzle Kicks, to offer up to 150 work experience placements on the set of the music video for their new single “Lost Generation”.

And we get the enviable job of promoting the whole thing, which makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside.

We kicked off earlier this week with an announcement to the UK’s media, opening the application process.

The team bagged just shy of 200 pieces of coverage over a 24-hour period, across titles like the Daily Star, BBC.co.uk, Independent, Evening Standard, MSN, Yahoo, Digital Spy and MailOnline to name-drop just a few of them. Pretty impressive even if we say so ourselves.

Our work boosted the application process and the GoThinkBig site was hit with thousands of young people logging to see what all the fuss was about. We’re now four days in and we have well over 600 applications in for positions like camera crew, make-up, set-build, director and post-production.

The video shoot happens over three days early July. By then we should have a team of excited and talented young people ready to take the first steps into what could well be a life-long career. See what we mean? Meaningful AND bloody exciting.

The finished video will be available for all to see at the end of July but in the meantime, here’s Rizzle Kicks asking for your help …

When I saw this piece of work (by Ogilvy Paris for IBM), I rather fell in love with it.

A neat, simple piece of thinking, brilliantly conceived: useful advertising that doubles as street furniture. And an idea that gets the brand campaign message across really rather beautifully.

But then I got interested in who exactly the message might be reaching. Because, with three executions, there aren’t a lot of eyeballs heading towards these ads, let’s face it.

Then this quote (from the Creative Review blog) caught my eye as I wandered the web trying to work out just how shared this piece of work had become …

“This blurring of the lines between what’s ‘real’ and what is a ‘stunt’ is increasingly prevalent and interesting. More and more we are seeing ideas from agencies which seem to have been made principally in order to generate a secondary life online. Does it matter if your poster or live stunt was only seen in reality by a handful of people when it goes on to be viewed hundreds of thousands or even millions of times as a Vimeo or YouTube film?”

Because that really is the nub of it: tactical creative designed to be editorialised rather than seen in situ.

Welcome to the world of public relations, folks …
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We’ve kicked off our work with The Royal Mint in earnest and last week saw the team pitching a flogging and just generally doing a proper publicity job for them.

We’ve been showing off the art of those at the Mint by way of the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation – for which there is a special coin – and have been getting the media talking about the craft and art that goes into making the nation’s coins.

Thanks to some smart news handling, we’ve a cracking crop of stories to show for our troubles, with features ranging from an infographic showing what £5 would buy at each stage of her reign to features pieces on her changing face across the four portraits.

However, the crowning glory has been finding the story of Jean Emerson who, it transpires, was the Queen’s body double for her first portrait – modelling astride a horse in Her Majesty’s stead (presumably while the newly crowned Monarch had better things to do).

The coverage has come from across the board, with this feature on SKY …

Elsewhere, we landed top pieces in the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express again, the Daily Telegraph, METRO, The Times, City AM and … the Daily Express (c’mon, it’s a royal story, what did you expect?) amongst a bucket load of others.

Belting work from the team. Though we do say so ourselves.

So what would happen if Honda’s humanoid robot ASIMO met The Stig, Top Gear’s tame racing driver?

In many ways they are so alike – both are famous white suited, helmet wearing characters in the world of motoring.

But would they get on? Would the Stig be impressed?

Well, working with Honda and Top Gear Magazine, we were keen to find out.

A lovely five page feature about the meeting followed, along with this exclusive video of the encounter …

Sod knows that this is all about.

Actually, figured it out. And it’s a bit of a shame really. A couple of employees are teasing a handful of folk. But unfortunately they’ve mentioned in their timelines where they work. A swift Google of first direct and Unexpected Tweet throws up their new strapline – Unexpected Banking – and it all stacks up from there.

And I am a serious ad geek. What a pointless way of spending ten minutes of my life!

Anyway … it’s still worth watching …

The spot below aired across some select national TV slots with the simple endline #unexpectedtweet and featuring what sounded suspiciously like Beardyman to me.

It was at that point that Twitter lit up.

No one, but no one appears at this stage (9.00 am) to know what any of it’s about. Reading through the comments on YouTube, it looks like there might be a reveal as far off as next week. We shall see.

In the meantime, enjoy the #unexpectedtweet clip …

Er. Well we are.

And very lovely it is too.

Jo and Carl made our annual pilgrimage to the London International Wine Fair even more pleasurable this year than is usually the case.

It was there that the great and good of the drinks marketing industry gathered to reward those who have done some great work in the category.

It was there too that the judges noted that we’ve done some of that work. They agreed that campaigns like Meantime Hops in a Box and our Berrys’ whisky launch and the media work for the launch of their Jubilee Port warranted our bagging the award.

And that the pair found themselves taking to the stage to accept a rather attractive piece of glassware.

And the rest of us whooping gently when the news got back to us.

Big ups go of course to the whole team. But also and especially to our lovely clients who have supported our daft ideas and given us some belting projects to work with them on over the past 12 months.

Over ten years ago, artist Peter Gibson began a guerrilla street art campaign to encourage the city of Montreal to build more bike lanes. By all accounts, his project continues today.

He’s assumed the name “Roadsworth” because “where Wordsworth is a poet of words, Roadsworth is a poet of roads”.

He modifies roads, pavements and road furniture with paint. We love him a LOT …

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