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.

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 …

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 …

read more…

Inspired by Laurie Anderson’s 1986 concert film “Home of the Brave”, “Drop The Beat” is a wearable electronic drum set that aims to elevate the artist’s presence during live performance. Each drum pad is embedded with a piezo sensor and is attached to the vest with velcro. The audio was recorded with the vest and GarageBand.

Thought that this was one of the best pieces of “branded content” around a sports sponsorship that we’ve seen since the last really brilliant piece of branded content from Heineken …

News came last week that we’ve won the press office account for home furnishing retail icons, IKEA to become their retained press office agency

We’re going to be working alongside the lovely IKEA in-house team to manage and strengthen the IKEA UK press function.

The account is going to see us bringing a spot of Hope&Glory creative thinking to the account, while it also encompasses the hard graft of running a super-efficient day-in, day-out function. We’ll be working on building a proactive product placement programme, helping to build stronger relationships with interiors and lifestyle media, events to present new collections and news and features generation.

We’re also going to be contributing to the IKEA corporate-to-consumer communications and sustainability activities.

To say that we’re looking forward to working with IKEA to contribute to a transformation and revitalization of the brand would be an understatement.

Can’t really think why I didn’t post this when i first saw it about a month ago.

Top and bottom, Coke asked DJ and Inventor Jun Fujiwara to make them something that would capture sounds that make people happy “in” a bottle of Coke and would then remix them there and then to play a tune of happiness when the bottle was re-opened.

Which is exactly what Jun did. Bloody brilliant …

These are some of our favourites …

Thought that this was oddly fun.

Created by BBH for #TEDxSydney 2013. It just shows kids trying things for the first time. I really slow motion …

We haven’t quite worked out yet, we have every intention of finding a good reason to work with the artist Buff Diss.

He’s a graffiti artist. But he works in masking tape in his home city of Melbourne.

As he points out …

“Because it comes off, a majority of authorities doesn’t know what to do. When I see that it comes off and it doesn’t affect the architecture, I enjoy the confusion it creates.”

So we’d quite like to create some of that confusion in the not too distant future …

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