Is this not the most VOM-INDUCING mousemat you've ever seen?!

I never get post at work. NEVER! So I was like stupidly excited this morning when a A4-sized envelope arrived on my desk. Little did I know I was about to be totally sickened by its contents...

Erreuggghhh! This mousemat demonstrates a shocking lack of any kind of creativity or understanding of its audience on the part of its sender. Why send a creative agency a mousemat..yea, hang on just the fact that its a mousemat makes it totally boring. And a mousemat that was seemingly designed in Word...even more disgusting. Waaa, why would I want this on my desk I ask you?!

Am I being a bit harsh? Maybe. Maybe it's our job to be creative + our suppliers job to communicate what they can supply. But I can't help think 'just don't try' or 'try a bit harder, yea?' Or send us what we want + need instead. Chocolate on a Friday afternoon (+ not that awful advent calendar chocolate), headache tablets on a Friday morning, oompa-loompas to sing + help us get into the swing of things on Mondays.

But guess what? This fine example of bad design is now a feature on my nextdesk neighbour's desk! Yes, he claims it's so ugly that it's cut through the clutter of the averagely designed mousemats sent by other suppliers. So maybe I'm totally wrong + these guys have a complex understanding of how to engage the agency world. Hmm..or maybe not.

Woah - seriously naughty stuff on wks09

So I suddenly became really popular in the office when this was playing on my machine. Boys swarmed from all around to get a peek.

www.wks09.com

Sinister goings-on in Who Killed Summer?

Not sure what's going on here but some warped blogger is messing with Who Killed Summer?

He posted a blog about Claire a couple of weeks back, calling her 'boring' and now he's posted these pics of Tete and new man, Billy from INSIDE THE BUS?! We can't work out how the hell he's done it, but it's all a bit freaky.

Having read some of his other posts it's clear he has an issue with reality shows, bit dark? But clearly all is not what it seems on the bus..!

Our Tom interviewed about Who Killed Summer?

Brand-e.biz interviewed MWorks MD, Tom Thirlwall about our current online drama, Who Killed Summer? You can see the whole thing over here.

And you can watch Who Killed Summer? over here. Is good!

Who Killed Summer Episode 2 - recognise anyone our kid?!

Episode 2 of Who Killed Summer? is live!

Filmed last weekend at Benicassim Festival in Spain, this episode follows the 'contestants' as they plot how to get backstage to meet a celebrity and win this week's task..I'd say they did alright! See the whole episode here.

To keep up-to-date on what's happening in WKS09 and to be informed of upcoming episodes, join the Facebook group.

Who Killed Summer? LIVE! LIVE! LIVE!

After a mere 2 years in development (!), Who Killed Summer? is finally live!

Visit the site, watch the first episode, tell me what you think? I'm desperate to know.

Who Killed Summer? Starts 16th July

Who Killed Summer? is a new online drama that sees 6 hot young music lovers from across Europe brought together by Vodafone for the summer of their lives. They'll hit the hottest gigs, the best festivals and the wildest parties, capturing content on their mobiles, whilst a film crew record every intimate moment in high definition.

..it should make for the most amazing summer ever, but will it?

When our snowmen went all charitable

As yesterday progressed, we noticed that not only did our homeless snowfamily attract a constant stream of people stopping to take photos, but many were actually leaving money in Snowdaddy's coffee cup too!

That's when we realised that what started out as a bit of fun could actually be used to get people thinking. We added another sign encouraging passers-by to consider the homeless in London during the cold snap - to whom the snow wouldn't be nearly as much fun as it is to us. The sign featured a url to use to make a donation to Shelter, the homeless charity.

At the end of the day our coffee cup contained almost a tenner in donations too, which we'll be passing on to Shelter.

Sadly our snowfamily had disappeared by the time we came into work this morning. But they certainly brought us a huge amount of joy yesterday + hopefully helped some other Londoners too.

If you would like to donate click here.

The Snowmen of St John's Square

Hmm, so we've been busy at work this morning! But I reckon the few of us that actually made it in through the snowstorm deserve to have a little fun, right? (ok, I got a cab, but anyway). A whole gallery of photos can be found here.



Tom + Jamie's combined effort.

Tach's snowbaby.

My slightly confused snowteenager.

The whole family.

The making of.


Passers-by + even those in vans + taxis have been stopping to take their pics..and some have even donated money to help the family survive the cold patch!

The Riff Raff attracts 47,156 Bebo fans

Quick update on The Riff Raff Bebo campaign launched by our friends at Hideous Productions. When I originally wrote about this (here), the guys had 5 fans..basically us, them + the band!

..but since then they've managed to attract an astonishing 47,156 Bebo fans with large numbers of them interacting with the page on a daily basis by leaving comments on the wall, posting pictures, responding to the polls + inviting their friends to join. Hideous is now looking for a brand to sponsor the full campaign which should roll out towards the end of the year. So watch this space..

Calling all vampire-loving, synthetic blood drinking bloggers!

Err, a slightly bizarre, but very clever campaign that takes product placement to a whole new level. A new show soon to air on HBO in the U.S sees vampires living among humans thanks to the creation of a synthetic blood substitute in Japan. And at the same time a new drink is to launch in the real world called True Blood..you guessed it, a blood substitute from Japan!

Entertainment agency, Campfire discovered that vampire enthusiasts (yes they do exist!) are no strangers to the internet + are in fact keen bloggers. So they shared sneak previews of the script with them to encourage comment + discussion in the various forums + blogs that they frequent - resulting in huge buzz online around the show. The next phase saw a second website launch, along with TV, online + print ads plus experiential activity communicating TruBeverage.com – making the explicit link between the show + the drink. The campaign was a huge success with stores + vending machines across New York + L.A selling out of True Blood. And now this week sees a full True Blood website launch containing episode guides + making the link between show + drink crystal clear. The show itself premiers on HBO on 7th September.