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Job Description: Architect.

Features

5 Minutes with... Peter Riley - 20:20

Tell us what you do for a living and who you work for? I'm Chief Creative Officer of a digital advertising agency called 20:20. My job is to solve clients' business problems with creativity. Over the last year, for example, this has involved using...

Inspiration

CP Loves... "Fuzzy" Jacopo Rosati

by Jessica Hazel. Sometimes life in England can be a bit depressing - particularly in the winter when you have to try and remain cheerful despite the torrents of freezing rain, commuting in the dark on overcrowded, germ-ridden trains and screaming...

Features

Why did Murdoch's Daily iPad 'newspaper' fail?

by Magnus Shaw. Do you read The Daily? Unless you own an iPad style tablet you probably don't. Even if you do, you won't for very much longer. The Daily is a digital newspaper, published by Rupert Murdoch, available on tablets and closing any day...

Leaders

Publicis takes control of BBH

Publicis Groupe has taken over complete control of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), ten years after taking a 49% stake in BBH in 2002. This move by the French advertising group ends the independence of one of the most well-recognised agencies in...

Features

5 Minutes with... Marc Bessant, Real World Records

by John Fountain. Marc is the in-house designer and creative director at Real World Records, the label founded by WOMAD and Peter Gabriel. Over the past 12 years he has been responsible for over a hundred CDs, vinyl sleeves, T-shirts, flyers,...

Workshop

Is there a place for modern apprenticeships in the creative industry?

Ask an employer what he or she would prefer; a candidate with three years real experience, or a graduate straight out of university, and they are likely to say that they would like a degree educated candidate with three years experience. Push them a...

Workshop

Opinions - Must haves? Ten products they told us we needed (but we didn't). Part 2

by Magnus Shaw Creativepoolers, welcome back to our list of ten of products advertising told us we couldn't live without (when, in fact, we absolutely could). Please feel free to use the comment box to let us know if there's anything we've omitted....

Workshop

Opinions - Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery or is it?

by Jessica Hazel When I am not blogging for Creative Pool I am running my vintage clothing market at Brick Lane and Spitalfields. All of the traders there follow the trends and stock their stalls accordingly, working hard to hunt down vintage...

Workshop

Opinions - Who is the boss of you? The woes and pros of self-employment.

by Jessica Hazel I graduated from university five years ago and have spent two and a half of these being employed by others, and the last two and a half working for myself. Although I realise I am incredibly fortunate to have found a way to escape...

Workshop

Opinions - "Could you just ...?" What does a copywriter actually do these days?

by Mgnus Shaw My first gig as an advertising copywriter was in 1994, at an agency on Fleet Street. I was writing the radio scripts and the run-of-the-mill press ads nobody else really fancied.The range of clients was impressively wide - from Virgin...

Workshop

Opinions - Fun and games. The Korean flags and other Olympic PR disasters.

by Magnus Shaw Yesterday, all the blood, sweat and tears came to a shuddering climax. The London Olympic Games 2012 kicked off with a women's football match and a resounding blunder. Confusing one flag for another must be very easy to do. So many...

Workshop

Opinions - Sharpe practice. Can we be creatives without sounding like idiots?

by Magnus Shaw If you've been following the BBC's peerless Olympic comedy "2012" you'll be more than familiar with Siobhan Sharpe and her empty-headed, rapid-fire marketing eyewash, delivered to perfection by the superb Jessica Hynes. Anyone who...

Features

Emma Sexton - Director, SheSays UK

SheSays is an award-winning organisation running free mentorship and events to women in the creative and marketing businesses. Why? Because we want to see more women at the top. And since we are all about doing we also offer courses, career...

Workshop

Opinions - A losing battle. Where now for bank advertising?

by Magnus Shaw When a kitchen is infested with cockroaches, the little beasts do their unpalatable work quite happily while the room is dark.But turn on a light and they scatter chaotically in all directions, scared and confused. There are many...

Workshop

Opinions - Logo no go. What the Olympic brand police tell us about Britain.

by Magnus Shaw In Britain, we love sports. We also adore a bit of patriotic tub thumping. Combine the two and the excitement is almost unbearable. I'm talking about the Olympics, of course. Within a matter of weeks, billions of pounds worth of...

Workshop

Opinions - Skip this. Why online broadcast ads are a disaster.

by Magnus Shaw Hello. And welcome to the Creativep ... LOUD MUSIC, SHOUTING, SOUND EFFECTS ... ool blog. I thought it would be useful to dis ... POP SONG, KIDS GIGGLING, CORNY JINGLE ... cuss how advertisers are handling broadcast ads on the inter...

Workshop

Opinions - Mashed Swede. Has a Twitter PR campaign really backfired on a nation?

by Magnus Shaw So we're all agreed, social media is the brave new world of PR and advertising. A year ago there was some mileage in telling clients, and anyone else prepared to listen, the game was changing and it was time to get hip to the new...

Workshop

Opinions - What's your day rate?

by John Fountain Ever wondered if you're being paid the market rate for all the long hours you work? Well if you are working every hour God sends then maybe it's time you put your prices up. Today I'm going to have a look at typical day rates for...

Inspiration

CP Loves... Heads up. The best advertising headlines in the world?

by Magnus Shaw For a jet propulsion lab brochure: "What we do isn't rocket science. Oh, hang on ...". For Sainsbury's: "We say 'hello' to good buyers". A recruitment ad for security guards: "Who says you can't have a successful career after the...

Features

The Devil's deal. Are agencies really paying to pitch?

I once worked with an Art Director who had just arrived in the UK from a stint at Leo Burnett in Venezuela. As well as alarming tales of armed guards outside his office, he told me this: when pitching, it was usual practice for the agencies involved...

Inspiration

Facebook Vs. CVs - is it ok for employers to stalk applicants?

As Facebook timeline is being pushed upon us more and more forcefully from the powers that be, you might want to stop and ponder the implications of opting to have your entire Facebook past accessible to all. Click on 2008 and photos of a stag night...

Blow your house down is the new Guardian campaign as clever as it seems?

In comparison with the tabloids, The Guardian uses television advertising sparingly. This may be a cost consideration, but actually ensures a rather pleasing impact when a spot does appear. In the past, the paper's TV efforts have been intriguing,...

Features

Words that Sell. Discounted tickets for one day writing conference at Bournemouth.

Two bits of excellent news. First, there's a conference for copywriters and wordsmiths happening in Bournemouth on 18th May this year. And second, readers of the Creativepool blog can enjoy a special discount. The event has been pulled together by...

Features

Agency v freelance. Better pay, better work or better life?

Years back it was said that creative people that chose to go freelance were either too old to be considered for full-time employment or simply not good enough to cut it in a top agency. In those days, I’m going back to the 80’s here, the...

Meet Nick Asbury. Award winning copywriter.

Nick is a writer for branding and design. His work has won two Yellow Pencils in D&AD Writing for Design and appeared in the annual four more times. Personal projects include Corpoetics, a collection of poems made by rearranging corporate copy, and...

Inspiration

10 awesome stop motion videos

Stop-motion clips seem to popping up all over the place at the moment. With the popularity soaring for this fantastic technique, the bar has really been raised for the standard of clips. From individual projects to all the way to company adverts,...

Features

Hard pressed.

How much do you imagine a quarter page, black and white advertisement in the London edition of Metro (the free commuter newspaper) costs? A few hundred quid? A bit more? The answer is £6,636. Perhaps I'm terribly naive or getting a bit old, but...

Leaders

Postmodernism at the V&A

Hello dear blog readers. Apologies for posting this so late in the day but I have been out at the V&A Museum all afternoon trying to get my head around just what exactly Postmodernism is. Stupid though this may sound I managed to complete my art...

Leaders

Amy Winehouse launches a new collection for Fred Perry

Last week, the flagship Fred Perry store at Spitalfields had all of its windows blacked out. Inside, Amy Winehouse was putting on an exclusive gig for a lucky few to mark the launch of the new line she has designed for the British fashion institution...

Features

Meet James Watt

BrewDog, a brewery with a difference, is the brainchild of 25-year old James Watt and his business partner and best mate Martin Dickie. Today it is Scotland's largest independently owned brewery producing about 120,000 bottles per month. But that...

Features

What is the last taboo in advertising?

Pedro Simko, General Manager of Saatchi & Saatchi in Switzerland says: ‘I compare the advertising message to a conversation between friends. Everything that is said between friends can, in my opinion, be said in advertising.'

 It's a...

Features

Dr Who theme standing the test of time(lords)...

I can name three things which sent me running for cover behind the sofa when I was a child. The film Jaws especially with the entry of John Williams' iconic two-note blood-chilling theme; another Jaws, but this time from James Bond, bearing his...

Features

Remember the SodaStream? Get busy with the fizzy again!

Do you remember the SodaStream? If you were a child back in the '80s, you were either the envy of your friends if you had one or else you were looking longingly at it in your friend's house and pestering your parents for one. Well, it's back...

Features

F1: We Have A Winner

There are few sports as glitzy and glamorous as Formula 1. It's like rock'n'roll without the drugs but with everything else. A multi-billion dollar industry with fast cars (er, obviously), dashing men in shades, 'pit babes' (apologies to the...

Features

How to start your own fashion label: by the founder of Oops!

Over the coming weeks I am going to sniff out some exciting creative entrepreneurs who will hopefully give you a little hope and encouragement if you are in the process of setting up your own business. I used to go to University down in Brighton and...