(Thanks, P).

http://www.dailytorygraph.com/

Santa answers your questions (thanks, P)

Anti-Grinch song is hatespeak (thanks, P).

Best own goal ever:

Kim Jong Il dropping the bass (thanks, W).

Simpsons/Breaking Bad mashup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t4Qv2hCprbs#!

Thriller fingers:

Denim. Trending in ’87:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7xH86zSLS70#!

(Interest declared: I loved working at the agency that did it.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Droga5 Taps McGarryBowen for Its Holiday Card Business

NEW YORK, NY – December 19, 2011 – Droga5 today announced its selection of McGarryBowen as the advertising agency of record for its holiday card business. The hard-fought win caps a stellar growth year for Dentsu-owned McGarryBowen. The agency will handle lead creative duties for the Droga5 holiday card account.

“We’ve decided to go with McGarryBowen,” said David Droga, Droga5’s Creative Chairman. “After a lengthy review, we simply couldn’t ignore the strategic insights into holiday cheer that McGarry brought to the table.”

Droga5 spent more than $.0005 million in measured media on its holiday card business in the U.S. in 2010, according to Kantar Media. McGarryBowen beat out a host of shops believed to include Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Ogilvy & Mather, Slingshot Dallas, Wieden+Kennedy and Digitas, as well as longtime incumbent Droga5, which was cut from the shortlist in October, marking the end of a nearly five-year relationship between Droga5 and the Droga5 holiday card account.

“We’re surprised about this loss,” said Andrew Essex, Droga5’s CEO. “We helped build the Droga5 holiday card business from the ground up, and we thought we nailed this year’s brief with our integrated idea, ‘Happy holidays to all our friends.’ This was the one blemish on what could only be described as a spectacular year for us, financially and creatively. We wish the Droga5 holiday card team the best.”

For McGarryBowen, which will run the account out of its New York headquarters, the Droga5 holiday card win thrusts the agency under perhaps its brightest spotlight yet.

Ever optimistic, Mr. Essex said, “When one door closes, another one opens. With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we’re excited to show the world more pithy card magic.”

About Droga5
One of AdAge’s A-List agencies, Droga5 is an independent, award-winning creative and strategic agency based in New York. Founded in 2006, Droga5 now counts as its clients PUMA, Prudential, Amstel Light, Unilever, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Hennessy and UNICEF, among others. For more information, please visit www.droga5.com.

I thought I had deleted this, but a kind reader called Copy and Paste seems to have saved it:

The week before Christmas is the perfect time for a round up of the year.

And as Campaign have printed several of my posts with whatever changes they deemed appropriate, I now present for you their top ten ads of 2011 with their commentary (small alterations made to fit the space):

John Lewis ‘Same Ending As Se7en’: Yep, it’s really good because it’s darn, darn, darn hard to do an ad that makes people cry for the right reasons (as opposed to boring them to tears). Hats off. If that doesn’t win all the top awards next year, we’re Chinamen (we’re not Chinamen).

Stella ‘Apartomatic’: The latest in the series of Stella ads that makes people miss the old Stella ads. We heard a rumour that Wes Anderson said he’d be co-directing it with Roman Coppola but then rarely turned up for the shoot. A bit like Robin Van Persie promising to co-play with the Campaign five-a-side team then fucking off down the pub. So it’s another one of Mother’s disappointing Stella ads, but the thing is our tongues can’t get enough of Mother’s orifi, so we also gave Stella Advertiser of the Year. And if you think that’s the end of our Mother bottom-love, you are of course wrong.

Cravendale ‘Cats With Thumbs’: Another year, another good, yet inexplicably fawned-over, ad with cats in it.

Pot Noodle, ‘WAG’: Mother at its comedic best. And if that’s not damning the place with faint praise, we don’t know what is.

Barnardos ‘Life Story’: Good one this. A couple of the performances are quite poor (guy one and guy two), but overall, it’a cracker. Thank god, because it gives us a good, credible opportunity to start smooching up to our other favourite agency.

Weetabix ‘Fuel For Big Days’: Do you think we’ll get away with putting this in the top ten of the year? Hmmm… It’s really dismally sexist, and the strategy is as old as dirt, but maybe people will think it’s the one with the girl and the teddy bears, which still ain’t great, but at least it’s memorable.

Yeo Valley ‘Boy Band’: Yes, it wasn’t as good as that one from last year, but as you might have noticed by now, this year has been so awful that you could pretty much put anything at this end of the list and no one would complain.

Thomson ‘Quality Time’: Nice. Beautifully shot, well-observed. Better than Weetabix, but not done by BBH.

Wall’s ‘Thank You, Kitchen’: Proper good. Funny. Sausages are hard to do, but these are top. Funnier than Pot Noodle, but not done by Mother.

Lucozade ‘Yes’. Almost good enough to balance out the one with everyone skating around on Venice Beach. Quite an achievement.

Earlier today I wrote a post about Campaign’s top ten ads of the year.

It was sort of funny, but a bit mean.

Then I watched this and took it down.

(Thanks, Fabian.)

Coogan in Alan Partridge book reading:

I don’t understand what anyone is saying.

So much great stuff in Drunk History (thanks, P):

Rudolph the Red Nosed Rehab (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIDrv3ax1Qk&feature=youtu.be

Tom Kuntz incredibly fucking brilliant Christmas goodness (NSFW. Thanks, A).

Old Spice explosions (thanks, K).

Ice Cube on LA/Eames (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRWatw_ZEQI&feature=youtu.be

The Spielberg Face (thanks, G):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VS5W4RxGv4s

2011’s movies in under five minutes:

Blog comment wankers categorised (which one are you? Thanks, C).

Download this Louis CK gig for $5. It’s a great bargain but you might have a coronary thrombosis from laughing so hard.

WherethefuckshouldIgofordrinks.com (thanks, C).

And you already know this, but bottled water is the tears of the damned (thanks, P).

They’ve done it properly and some of the gags are TV sketch-show worthy (I don’t mean to damn them with faint praise; I think that standard is way beyond most ‘funny’ ads).

Well done Fold 7.

What do the following ads say about our good nations?

I have no idea, except that we seem by far the least bat-shit crazy…

Russia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zojkbkaZwo&feature=youtu.be

Asian:

UK:

(Interest declared: the very nice UK one was done by my friends Cam and Elliot.)

Here’s an ad I’ve made for my Water Water Everywhere campaign:

It cost me absolutely nothing because the following people are so kind:

George@Academy Films was a brilliant help from start to finish. He offered his help even before I needed it, then found me most of the people below for nowt. And Academy is a brilliant production company with top directors.

Gus Filgate (director) and Sophie Cowling (producer) @ Little Fish Films. They took the brief on with a smile and were a complete pleasure to work with.

Stacia, Mark and Jon at Big Buoy Post – several thousand pounds of making it look great for absolutely nothing (also lovely to work with).

Andy and the others at 750 mph. I work with Andy a lot in my day job and he’s one of the nicest blokes in advertising.

The editor was the excellent Matthew Felstead @ Loaded Dice. Great work and a top guy.

Also a great help were Daryl Corps and Adam Tucker who helped with the design and the script respectively. Cheers, guys.

Anyway, all that aside, I need to get this thing seen. If any of you have any media contacts (or, indeed, ARE media contacts), let me know (bwmkay@gmail.com) and I’ll buy you whatever meal you like best in exchange for some TVRs. Likewise, if you know how to seed stuff online and would like a heartwarmingly public-spirited project to do a bit of free work on, do pop me an email. And if you have a blog or Facebook account, why not stick it up on there? It’ll make you feel all yummy inside.

Cheers.

And the rest of you: use the bloody tap.