So Ste went down to Wembley for the day to teach Alan how to act, iron, and chase cats.

The campaign consists of in-store POS:

And in-store video:

Thanks to Tom Cockram and the machine and Ben Rose for all their handy work. Also thanks to Puggs the cat for not pi**ing on the pitch.

The bottles feature prominently in Johnnie Walker House Shanghai, the world’s first whisky embassy. Johnnie Walker has a long and distinguished history in China, first reaching its ports in 1910, and we reckoned its tale needed telling. Fashioned in willow pattern porcelain, these re-imaginations of the iconic square bottle fuse Scottish and Chinese cultures and celebrate Johnnie Walker’s pioneering and epic voyage across oceans and continents.

Shout-outs go to design director Chris Myers, creative director Dave Palmer, illustrator extraordinaire Chris Martin, production manager Dani Hawley, suppliers Wade Ceramics, and the whole Johnnie Walker House team – including, of course, our friends at Diageo.

Finally, and related to yet more adventures in China, we’re recruiting senior creatives for our new Shanghai office. If you’re the sort of creative talent who’s passionate about brand storytelling and making award winning work for our clients, contact hello@lovecreative.com.

Rory and Ste model their mind-bogglingly similar efforts for designer dress code Tuesdays here at LOVE HQ.

Do you want to be the Willard Smith of the advertising and design world?

Are you a recent creative graduate? Do you want to use your creative skills to solve business problems for brands like Johnnie Walker, PlayStation and Nike? If I offered you a two month paid placement with us at our Manchester studio, how much of my hand would you bite off?

If your answer is beyond my elbow, please send the following to placement@lovecreative.com:

1. A short introduction explaining who you are, where you come from, what your favourite Willard Smith film is, and why.

2. A PDF portfolio that showcases big ideas, thoughtful strategy, craft skills, personal work, and evidence of a curious mind. (If it helps any, we’re not particularly interested in typefaces made out of twigs, letterhead and business card design, tea-making abilities, or flyers for your dad’s Depeche Mode tribute band.)

Unfortunately we won’t be able to reply to everyone. But if your work demonstrates that you’re the kind of creative that would flourish here – whether you’re a writer, designer, art director, developer, maker of things, competitive eating champion, or all of the above – we’ll be in touch.

We will be considering applications sent to us in the next 3 weeks (until the 16th of April).

Here at LOVE Labs we’ve been experimenting with bringing physical spaces to digital life.
We wanted to make installations that anyone with a smartphone can interact with over 3G or WiFi, without downloading an app. And we did it.

With the help of Socket.IO and node.js we wrote a server application (we like to call this “Mo”) that bridges the gap between smartphone web browsers and real-time, multi-user experiences.

Doodlr is our first idea built using Mo. It’s a collaborative drawing game that was projected onto a shop window*. Each image drawn was captured and posted to our Flickr Gallery.

There’s plenty Mo to come, so keep an eye out for other examples that are currently in development. But in the meantime, check out these happy (and slightly tipsy) Doodlrs making their mark in the heart of Manchester.

* Thanks to MadLab for the shop window!

Are you an Account Manager?

Do you have 4+ years experience in integrated agency environments?

Do you have a proven track record of account management greatness, which demonstrates your passion for ideas, attention to detail, and client relationship skills?

Do you want to work on huge projects for the world’s biggest brands, including convention-destroying experiential work like Johnnie Walker House?

Does it annoy you that the jpeg I used above is representative of “account managers” (according to Google Images)?

Do you agree with the hypothesis that peanut butter cups could – and maybe even should – be good, but also acknowledge the crushing reality of their vividly weird tastelessness, where you just internally scream “why would anyone ever think it’s a good idea mix poor quality milk chocolate with sub-standard smooth peanut butter? Why?“?

And do you have access to email with which you can send your CV to hello@lovecreative.com?

If so, you’re reading the right blog post: we need you, and you need we. I mean us. Us. You need us. Email us.

We wanted our idea to reflect the generous spirit of CALM. Something tranquil, something about strength in numbers, something about listening, and something definitively Manchester.

So from a Manchester creative agency, an iconic Manchester designer, a Manchester photographer and Manchester musicians: a peaceful scene of a place called home. 31 songbirds representing 31 contributing artists, at rest together on a telephone wire, at the dawn of a new day.

Support CALM by purchasing the album – which features exclusive tracks from Mr Scruff, Elbow and Noel Gallagher – at thirtyonesongs.com.

Photography by Tom Cockram.

Thanks to Esther, Dave, and everyone involved at The Factory Foundation and CALM.

Our new TV commercial showcasing Johnnie Walker Blue Label, True Rarity, breaks this month across Asia-Pacific.

Diageo asked us to come up with an idea that communicated Blue Label’s exquisite rarity: only 1 in 10,000 casks are hand-selected for its creation. We used a white tiger stalking the futuristic streets of Shanghai to represent the majesty, grace and rarity of the premium blended whisky.

The ad, shot on location in Shanghai and London, was directed by Zoe Cassavetes, who is well known for her work for fashion houses and luxury brands.

This campaign follows our work for Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve.

Of course it’s traditional for agencies to send their clients something a bit daft and disposable come Christmas.

But, never being ones to run with the rest of the reindeer, this year LOVE decided to buck the trend and send something timeless and meaningful instead…

So it gave us great pleasure to redesign and represent a limited LOVE edition of Frank Capra’s masterpiece – complete with an assembly of fascinating notes & queries and a highly collectible poster.

Photographed by Tom van Schelven.

Since Neo is the official ball of the FA Cup we wanted to allude to the variety of things that make the FA Cup so great, from giant killings to big upsets and bad word inducing half-clearances.

The Neo ball flies straight and true, as shown in this amazing product demo starring Martin Keown’s head:

We took inspiration from Nike’s new LunarGlide+3 range and the moon – which symbolises togetherness in Chinese culture – to create Lunar Run, an event that brought young people together through running, music, and staying up way past your bedtime.

John Lewis: Please Let Me Get What I Want – Adam & Eve “I do like the idea of a really good song by a really good band being played in Middle England’s living rooms,” – Morrissey

2012 Olympic Posters: Fiona Banner, Michael Craig-Martin, Martin Creed, Tracey Emin, Anthea Hamilton, Howard Hodgkin, Gary Hume, Sarah Morris, Chris Ofili, Bridget Riley, Bob and Roberta Smith, and Rachel Whiteread.

The Comedy Carpet: Gordon Young, Why Not Associates

The interactive Periodic Table of Swearing: Modern Toss

Wedding Plates: KK Outlet

The ‘Killing Jumpers’… and the TV series

Still not thought of that killer gift for that special gamer in your life? Why not have a spin on the PlayStation Unwrapped and see if your luck’s in. We helped PlayStation launch this festive gift giveaway at the start of December and there’s still loads of days and loads of gifts to be unwrapped. No spin, no win.

That cake is hella done:

Excellent point, Steve Hughes:

Great video by Carl Burgess for Ratatat:

This months award goes to our Ste who has managed to get to 1st in the world (out of  2,640,158 million people) in the fantasy football league!

POSSIBLE END LINES:
Well done Ste!
And yes before anyone asks Ste is single.
A full investigation into his time sheets is now under way.

Feel free to keep adding your own…