We had a very pleasant cup of tea and a chat with Iain from Poke this morning.  He’s up in Manchester doing some research groups so it was very nice of him to interrupt his schedule and pop in.  Apart from being a thoroughly interesting chap and one of the driving forces behind one of the most acclaimed digital marketing agencies, we also admired his honesty and humility especially when it came to a discussion about measuring and demonstrating the effectiveness of digital campaigns.Now that digital is fully integrated at LOVE, we dream of having just a fraction of the success that Poke have enjoyed.  What a top fella and a top agency.  If you absolutely insist on going with a London digital shop they might be worth a call….

Alex fulfilled one of his lifelong dreams recently when he finally got to meet Alistair Sim from LOVE. Alex was heard to gush “Alistair, I’ve always admired your ability to organise an unruly bunch of talented but over-paid premadonnas into a vaguely coherent team.” Alistair politely asked Alex to remove his hand from the backside of his female colleague.

We all spend thousands of hours in our respective offices, but do we really know every little nook and cranny of them? As part of Wednesday’s jolly japes, Wez has (tee-hee)hidden Frank’s Ripple - with photo clue - somewhere in LOVE and though we all kind of recognise where the location might be, we can’t for the lives of us find it or pinpoint where it is.

Try a similar hilarious wheeze in your office and see if you really know every bit of the place you spend most of your week.  Hours of fun guaranteed.

Clearly the talent recruitment drive starts early at TBWA/Manchester. Those nice Didsbury chaps sent a TBWA branded romper suit for Martha May Rigby, (the 3 week old daughter of Jonathan) in a thinly veiled attempt to lure her to the dark side at a tender age.

Thank you so much for the gift and here’s the deal. When she is a little bit bigger, we’ll let her try on the TBWA strip and the beloved LOVE strip and let her decide for herself.  That’s how confident we are….x

Danni & Helen the collation machines have just boxed all 200 of the Dr Marten goodies to be sent out this week. We can’t show you just yet, but they should be online soon.  

(Unless you’re working with photographer Jane Stockdale)

Last week we were on location with Silver Cross at Temple Newsam Home Farm in Leeds. There are plenty of recipes for disaster, but our list of ingredients included:

10x children under the age of three
10x parents
3x grandparents
1x photographer
1x photographer’s assistant
1x art director
1x client
9x pushchairs
lots of sheep
lots of chickens
lots of goats
lots of ducks
lots of pigs
a few piglets
a couple of dogs
some rabbits and cats
1x copywriter (now that’s just plain stupid)

Amazingly, thanks to the patience and eagle eye of Jane and possibly the most beautiful November day we’ve had since all this climate change lark arrived, it was a huge success.

So thanks to everyone involved for all their efforts, especially the lovely families who gave up their time to help us out: Dan, Kat & Vincent, Katie & Theo, Charlene & Finley, Sarah & Annie, Claire & Euan, Jo & Matilda, Tony & Anne, Dan, Jo & Alex, Andy, Matthew & Lucy, Ishbel & Madalief, and Rachael & Xanthe.

Thanks to all the staff at Temple Newsam too, including the kind lady in the canteen who made us endless cups of tea and coffee all day (and had to put up with screaming kids everywhere.)

(Images seen here are my own, not the ones Jane took. Jane’s are much better, but we just can’t show them yet. Sorry.)

That’s what they said to Mrs Rigby, when they handed her a baby boy some thirty five-ish years ago. “We’ll call him Jonathan,” she said.

But on Tuesday Jonathan himself was handed a baby. “It’s a girl!” they said. And indeed they were right. “We’ll call her Martha May Rigby” Jonathan said. “She’s 6lb 8oz,” they said.

Congratulations to all involved (we’re guessing mainly Jonathan and Claire) from everyone here at LOVE. Happy sleepless nights.

LOVE would like to welcome Conrad, Brian, wee Tommy, Neville, Janice and BigDave into our rapidly expanding digital operation.

Do you have what it takes to join them?
All digital specialisms are still required.
Just make sure you’re as shit hot as this crew.
Uniform included.

Contact Jono

Jono and his baby. Separated at birth. Or rather his wife and the baby were separated at birth, but Jono was clearly closely connected - though not physically with the birth - definitely with what led to the birth. You get the gist….

Last week, we asked 15 year old work placement Andrew Maxwell to design us a T Shirt. We’ve now stuck it on Teetonic for you to vote for. If he gets enough votes then his T-shirt will be available for purchase.

Make his dreams come true!
Vote for his shirt