Hasta La Creative!

Little lads obsessed with berries and cream. Macho moms who love Combos. Skittles leaks. Gerry Graf can dish out the funny. But can he take it? Sometimes not, judging by reports from the executive creative director’s going-away party from TBWA\Chiat\Day last week. At the event, held at Le Colonial on East 57th Street, TBWA worldwide CEO Tom Carroll presented Graf, who’s heading to Saatchi & Saatchi, with a giant check for a “gazillion” dollars, mock “signed” by Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts. On the memo line were the words, “For your soul.” Graf’s reaction? “He wasn’t all that happy,” says a source. Though it was meant as a goof, Graf evidently took it as kind of a cheap shot. Leaving aside the question of whether it’s even possible to impugn the integrity of someone who works in advertising, we’ll assume Graf simply wanted to feel the lovemarks at his send-off, rather than suffer jokes at his expense. Whatever the case, for his new employer’s sake, hopefully he hasn’t lost his sense of humor permanently.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

LONDON – Design company Research Studios is opening a fifth international office in Barcelona to add to its branches in London, Paris, Berlin and New York.

Which celebrity has the ideal personality to be a call-center representative? Proving that consumer research can never be too odd, a Maritz Poll put that question to customers of banks and credit-card brands, in the interest of helping companies learn what sort of people they should hire to staff their call centers. Choosing from the poll’s list of celebs, just 1 percent of respondents said they’d want to hear Britney Spears, Whitney Houston or Rosie O’Donnell on the other end of the phone in such a role. Ten percent picked Bill Clinton, who ran slightly ahead of Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Gates (9 percent apiece). Far ahead of the pack were Oprah Winfrey (23 percent) and Kelly Ripa (19 percent). Must be nice for Winfrey and Ripa to know a second career has promise for them if the TV thing doesn’t pan out.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

LONDON – Hurrell and Dawson is sticking to a ‘name-over-the-door’ moniker, with news that it’s to rebrand as Hurrell Moseley Dawson and Grimmer.

Psyop directors Marie Hyon and Marco Spier share the dirt on their recent work for TBWA China’s Adidas Olympic 2008 spots “Zheng Zhi” and “Together”.

What was the creative brief from the client/agency?
The brief from the agency was to create a poetic, sophisticated, and awe inspiring Olympics campaign that embraces the idea of, “impossible is nothing” for the people of china. With the agency, we created four spots in total. The first spot was an anthem called “Together”. For this spot, we created a landscape of the nation supporting their athletes. It was important for us to create the intimacy between the supporters and the athletes. We wanted to make sure the fans were not seen just as the masses but to feel their emotion of being part of something big.

The other three spots were athlete specific spots that told their personal stories of their Olympic journey. With these spots, we were able to explore the world of imagery that is very dream like, allegorical, and surreal. Along with the agency and their Asian sensibility in storytelling, we were able to imagine three very unique looking spots with the type of stories we haven’t really encountered in the western market.

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Why do flies stick to your windshield like that? Hmmm? Duval Guillaume offer their explanation inside.

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LONDON – Marks & Spencer has sent out 800,000 discount vouchers for current and former staff to distribute to family and friends as its financial year end approaches.

LONDON – Visa Europe has agreed a deal with AEG Europe to become the official payment partner of The O2.

Total Beverage is a super-huge, enourmous, gigantic, really really big liquor store in Westminister Colorado. Denver based Sukle Advertising & Design has created a fresh new identity for Total Beverage that is the total opposite of cluttered booze-shops. Inspired by the simplicity of European road signs and informational graphics Sukle brought simplicity to a store large enough to contain all sorts of chaos. (Did I mention that the store is, like, big?)

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