SPINNING AROUND: SEVENTY SEVEN THINKING OUT LOUD

THE UK'S TOP MARKETING WEBLOGS

First up ... a small plea. AdAge, in their infinite wisdom, have made it a bloody sight harder to create these tables - you now can't pull off the whole table in one go and now have to do things page-by-page.

SO, while we're really happy that people seem to be interested in this table, can I just ask that people don't copy and paste it wholesale into their own blogs, please? Okay, it may not be terribly social network-ey, but credit where it's due (and, in this case, a couple of hours credit are due), please link back to this page? Thanking you kindly in advance ...

On with the chart ...

1  (+1)	39  (+8)	russell davies
2  (+2)	44  (+6)	NevilleHobson.com
3  (-)	50  (-2)	David Airey
4  (+1)	51  (+1)	Blogstorm
5  (+1)	75  (+2)	adliterate
6  (+1)	99  (+7)	Crackunit
7  (+2)	100  (+24)	PR Blogger
8  (+2)	113  (+14)	Only Dead Fish
9  (+2)	129  (+5)	Welcome to Optimism
10  (+3)	146  (+30)	A PR Guy's Musings
11  (-10)	153  (-117)	Chris Garrett on New Media
12  (+2)	159  (+18)	The Engaging Brand
13  (+3)	183  (+13)	Spinning Around
14  (+4)	185  (+18)	Modern Marketing
15  (+11)	191  (+58)	HERD
16  (+1)	203  (-5)	Make Marketing History
17  (+3)	205  (+15)	Life Moves Pretty Fast
18  (+4)	207  (+28)	Nick Burcher
19  (+8)	209  (+42)	Wadds' tech pr blog
20  (+3)	218  (+19)	Faster Future
21  (+3)	219  (+19)	Collective Conversation
22  (+6)	224  (+38)	Blog Till You Drop
23  (+15)	245  (+72)	Brand Strategy Magazine Blog
24  (+12)	246  (+55)	Crenk
25  (+5)	258  (+19)	Fraser's Affiliate Marketing Blog
26  (+7)	261  (+22)	PPC Blog
27  (+15)	272  (+74)	The Way of the Web
28  (+9)	273  (+32)	Drew B's take on tech PR
29  (+16)	279  (+74)	greenormal
30  (+18)	287  (+93)	This Is HERD
31  (+8)	292  (42)	Interactive Marketing Trends
32  (-)	302  (-22)	Simonsays
33  (+14)	310  (59)	50-Plus Marketing
34  (+6)	314  (27)	livingbrands
35  (-6)	341  (-76)	That Canadian Girl
36  (+14)	348  (50)	Beyond PR
37  (NEW)	350  (NEW)	UK Affiliate Marketing Blog
38  (+18)	363  (88)	Living in a digital world
39  (-24)	367  (-185)	General Marketing Blog
40  (+4)	381  (-29)	The Ad Pit
41  (+5)	394  (-26)	Rubbishcorp
42  (+7)	399  (-5)	PR Media Blog
43  (-9)	419  (-133)	Hobo SEO UK
44  (+11)	422  (24)	Blendingthemix
45  (-24)	423  (-191)	Social Media Trader
46  (-5)	424  (-81)	Technobabble 2.0
47  (-35)	435  (-261)	E-consultancy's Internet Marketing Blog
48  (+17)	449  (86)	mediations
49  (-14)	451  (-155)	London Calling
50  (-31)	459  (-244)	SEOCO Blog
51  (+15)	464  (+78)	Simon Wakeman
52  (+11)	477  (+37)	The Rosemont Loving
53  (+4)	480  (-20)	From PR to Eternity
54  (-3)	481  (-48)	Pudding Relations
55  (-2)	486  (-47)	renaissance chambara
56  (-25)	492  (-213)	Brendan Cooper
57  (+1)	498  (-9)	Real Fresh TV
58  (-6)	507  (-72)	Event Manager Blog
59  (+13)	519  (+68)	(Almost) Always Thinking
60  (+4)	523  (+8)	Apple Pie & Custard
61  (-1)	531  (-32)	Andrew R H Girdwood
62  (+6)	533  (+24)	Confessions of a Wannabe Ad Man
63  (+6)	541  (+24)	The Renegade Agency Confessional
64  (+9)	547  (+43)	PR Voice
65  (-40)	554  (-313)	SEOptimise
66  (-5)	561  (-59)	Liberate Media blog
67  (+4)	563  (+19)	Raw Stylus
68  (-9)	567  (-74)	middledigit
69  (-26)	592  (-242)	FreshNetworks Blog
70  (-8)	594  (-87)	FeverBee
71  (-4)	599  (-47)	Nicola Davies
72  (+2)	603  (-2)	Measurement Matters
73  (+7)	608  (+64)	Indolent.com
74  (+2)	617  (+12)	Sturgeon's Law
75  (-5)	639  (-58)	Shiny Red
76  (+2)	643  (+8)	10 Yetis PR Blog
77  (+4)	645  (+35)	Norton's Notes
78  (+4)	647  (+34)	One Size Fits One
79  (+4)	660  (+36)	All Things PR
80  (+10)	665  (+93)	CarbonGraffiti
81  (+3)	684  (+34)	Buzz Attitude
82  (+6)	687  (+61)	The New Marketing
83  (-8)	691  (-79)	never get out of the boat
84  (+1)	704  (+26)	Digital Examples
85  (-6)	705  (-42)	Ginger and Proud
86  (+1)	721  (+23)	[Bluurb] stuff and things
87  (-10)	736  (-101)	Vincent Thome's Blog
88  (-2)	738  (-2)	Nitmesh
89  (+3)	773  (+16)	PRwordSmith
90  (-36)	775  (-334)	Organic Frog
91  (+2)	783  (+9)	Brandgym Blog
92  (+2)	785  (+9)	A Mountain Dweller in the Thames Valley
93  (+3)	807  (+2)	Yet Another Planning Blog
94  (+3)	813  (-)	Creative in London
95  (+7)	814  (+23)	In the Cowshed
96  (+2)	820  (-)	Offer and Acceptance
97  (+2)	825  (-)	Unleashed on Marketing
98  (-3)	830  (-27)	Digital Marketing Viewpoint from Cheeze
99  (-10)	840  (-88)	The Red Rocket
100  (-9)	844  (-62)	The Web Pitch.com
101  (+3)	845  (29)	Mediameme
102  (-2)	848  (-18)	25 letters in the alphabet
103  (-2)	853  (-19)	Freshen me up
104  (-1)	868  (-9)	Punch Blog
105  (-)	884  (+8)	Engage: the Carve Consulting blog
106  (+1)	891  (+8)	noticing
107  (-1)	893  (+5)	From the Cowshed

For those who may be interested, this chart is based on the AdAge Power 150, the top UK bloggers on all things advertising and marketing on 1 August 2008. If you feel that you should be included, you can get in touch with AdAge here, who will sort you out. As soon as you're in, I'll pick you up in this filleting of the AA chart.

MORPH FOLLOWS IN GROMIT'S FOOTSTEPS ...

Bloody marvellous ... Morph has followed Wallace & Gromit into fashion photography ... He appears in the latest edition of Esquire magazine.

A bit of a coup for both brands and they're cleaning up, media-wise. The BBC, Telegraph and a host of regionals have all scribbled up the story. Congrats to both Morph (he's thirty it transpires) and to Esquire editor Jeremy Langmead for pulling off a blinding publicity coup for his charge.

And what a fitting tribute to Tony Hart that Aardman Animations created this shoot in the month that Morph's creator passed on to the great studio in the sky.

Piccies follow ...

STOP STRESSING STRATEGY ... CHAMPION IDEAS

Right ... this is a bit of a rant. But it's been bothering me for a while ...

I've found myself (as PR's resident plannerly type it would appear) asked about my view of PR as a strategic discipline.

People keep telling me how great it is that PR is now considered a key strategic element and that - to an ever-increasing degree - it has boardroom presence. These people then go on to say that PRs should take an even more strategic approach to guarantee this position.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think that it's great that my clients have board level positions. And that they are consulted on some very important business issues. It's all good.

Now ... back to PR and an obsession with strategy ...

Of course a lot of agencies love this. We see "strategy" as high-margin stuff. Our senior consultants can charge top dollar for doing a lot of thinking. And - once again - so that I am not misunderstood, some of that thinking is really good stuff.

But this whole approach has started to piss me off. For two reasons ...

First of all, I've always thought that one of PR's real strengths over marketing disciplines is its speed. Go on, ask an ad man how long the average campaign takes from idea to execution ... months. And the same for our friends in media, in DM even in digital.

In PR, I can have an idea in the morning that is coverage across the nationals the following day. Done and dusted.

I think that is an incredibly powerful thing to our clients. We don't sell it hard enough. Really. Being fast these days is important to clients. We're fast. Why don't we get off our "slow strategy" high horses and spend some time selling what makes us different to other disciplines, rather than what we do that is the same.

Second of all, however, we've spent years jumping up and down and parading our strategic thinking. But I think that what we've lost while our focus was "over there" selling strategy was a campaign to put a better value (by which I mean a higher value, naturally) on our ideas and our creative product.

Now, it feels to me, creativity is too often considered cheap. Great ideas from PRs are considered low-cost. And those ideas are - in some cases - capable of having a profound impact on a business: bringing greater brand attention, affection, footfall, traffic ... ultimately, sales.

Reckon that you can buy a year's worth of brilliant ideas from an ad agency for £60,000? Or for £100,000? You can in PR, though. And that is not because you have to buy strategy and planning from the ad agency. That's because we sell our ideas for less money than sometimes they are worth.

So my challenge (and please bear in mind that I am to some degree at least a planner in a PR agency by trade), is for PR agencies to stop campaigning for places on boardroom tables and instead to start campaigning for better payment for the ideas that we come up with for our clients.

Understand that I am not saying that we should stop being strategic and understanding the commercial and communication requirements of our clients. Otherwise the ideas that we came up with would be pointless.

Apologies if I am asking for "cake and eat it," but what I am saying is that we need to value ideas better and start asking for clients to pay a bit more for creative excellence.

Thanks for reading this. Please let me know what you reckon.

Rant over ...

RUSSELL BRAND ON TWITTER

As reported on the excellence ewarwoowar ...

Russell Brand has been introduced to Twitter by Jonathan "Wossy" Ross, who was introduced to it (apparently) by Stephen Fry.

In a similar chain ... much to the delight of lovers of the broomcupboard of yesteryear, Phillip Schofield has introduced Andi Peters to the service.

Aw ... Lovely. Perhaps Gordon the Gopher will make an appearance.

BTW, favourite out of context Russell Brand reply (because I have no idea what he was responding to and no inclination to find out) so far is ...

"balderdash. if i sense an onus anywhere near me i shall seduce it and render it loquacious."

Barking.

CADBURY'S EYEBROW DANCING AD GOES LIVE ...

The new Cadburys spot is out. Makes you happy to work in the world of marketing again, frankly. We're never going to save the world. But we do sometimes manage to make it a brighter place ...

HATS OFF TO THE PR ... BARBIE AT FIFTY

Spotted this one over Christmas and am now just coming back to it ahead of February when we'll find out if it actually worked ...

Barbara Millicent Roberts (born March 9, 1959) hits fifty this year. Most of us know the lady in question as simply "Barbie", the Mattel-owned global superbrand.

Now she has long had an association with fashion - as designers including those from Benetton and Burberry to Versace and Vera Wang along with Giorgio Armani, Christian Lacroix and Monique Lhuillier have designed for her,

To celebrate her half century, however, the IHT reports that her maker is really pushing the boat out with a Barbie themed show at New York Fashion Week.

Names including Christian Louboutin and Vera Wang have been confirmed as involved with the event at which fifty top designers will send Barbie-inspired designs down the runway. That alone is going to get the world's fashion media agog and engage a new generation of yummy mummies through the fashion pages of the world's glossy media. Genius.

But the fun doesn't stop there ... the brand has also signed Bloomingdales, which will feature the diminutive clothes horse across its Fashion Week windows, which will no doubt score yet more coverage for both brands.

And, in the spirit of putting something back, Mattel is offering bursaries and scholarships to a new generation of designers in a partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America, ensuring that the association with fashion continues into the next generation.

Genius, if you ask me.

Now predicting that something will be a media hit on the basis of rumours of a creative is always dangerous ... but my bet would be that this one is going to be internationally huge and that we will all be seeing a lot more of Barbie thanks to some canny partnerships ... This is one fifty year old who will be looking fabulous in the world's media this spring ...

DUREX'S ANIMALS MAKE SEXY LOVE

This is rather lovely ... it's really terribly clever ... and SWEEEET ... In an odd sort of sexually promiscuous sort of way. More lovely Durex work ... Lovely work as a bunch of Durex balloon animals make sexy love with each other. Grubby little buggers.

FANTASTIC PLASTIC ... THE BEST ALBUM COVERS OF '08

Art Vinyl - which basically sells frames for albums so that you can adorn your walls with musically literate artworks - has selected its top 12" of 2008, These are some of our favouites from their picks ...

1. Coldplay's Viva La Vida

2. Foals' Antidotes

3. Liquid Liquid's Slip in & Out of the Phenomenon

4. The Last Shadow Puppets' The Age of The Understatement

5. Stereolab's Chemical Chords

via the CRBlog

NO AD VIRGINS THESE BOYS AND GIRLS

Can't really decide what I think about the 25th anniversary TV ad that has been created for Virgin Atlantic.

It's fun. But it's a bit self congratulatory. It's got the nostalgia thing that reminds you when - and why -you fell in love with the brand. But that was then and this is now.  It has all the production values you would hope for. But it perhaps doesn't have pioneering spirit anymore. It's got some attitude. But lacks sizzle and sex.

So I really am in two minds. It seems to have picked up a lot of buzz and generally positive responses, but for me the sizzle went out of the brand when they lost the thing that made Virgin great - a really big ugly monster to go up against - BA, Coke(!?), high street banking ... Without that they look like ... well ... any other premium longhaul airline, really.

Hmmm ... shame.

TEXT FOR FUN ... AND BRANDED UTILITY

This service got me to thinking ...

For those who couldn't be arsed to click, it's a service from Zoomdogggle that enables you to text a shortcode, at which point the service will text you a fun thing to do in 140 characters. They are aiming for a database of 10,000 fun things (from a starting point of around 200-odd now). i spotted it on the excellent Josh Spear, BTW.

Given the sheer range of technologies and the low cost of media, there are some really interesting services that brands could be delivering.

So a brand that wants to reach kids and parents (anyone from MotherCare to Persil to Fairy to ... you get the picture) could do a similar service with fun things to do for kids. Or a music and clubbing brand (think O2, Levis, Budweiser ...) could do something - perhaps geolocated - that delivers great places to drink, eat, dance.

But then you could do really interesting things ... streaming music that plays that is relevant to specific places - Waterloo Sunset played as you cross the Bridge of the same name, for example, all brought to you by ... well, someone who wants association with music.

The potential of mobile (particularly) and the low cost of media (more generally) will mean that smart brands stop simply slapping their names across other people's properties and start to think about how they can create utilities - genuinely interesting or useful applications - that carry their brands, build association and create new modes of engagement.

One to ponder further on ... Interesting times, interesting times ...

BIG IN 2009

At least the Economist had the decency to apologise for its 2008 predictions as it got its correspondents to pen their predictions for the year. Daniel Franklin, editor of the magazine's The World in 2009 special had to write a piece saying sorry for just how much they got wrong last time around ...

So it got me to thinking about what the various pundits are tipping around the world for domination in 2009. Thought that it would be useful to round them up (and we can always laugh at them at the end of the year ...).

In the Sunday Times, Ruby Warrington makes a bunch of predictions about what we'll be buying, watching, where we'll be visiting and all such other things in 2009.

Rather more seriously, the BBC's Stephen Sackur, Justin Webb, Lyse Doucet, Paul Mason and James Robbins have all put their predictions about the world in general in the coming year.

Wired collects a bunch of predictions from some of the web's biggest pundits - thereby neatly avoiding having to make their own. Over at the BBC, Maggie Shiels puts down her tech predictions from the Valley. And the Daily Telegraph adds to the speculation on what might happen in the tech sphere. And over at The Guardian, Charles Arthur sticks an oar into the debate with the best list that I've seen ...

Meantime, lost in music, HMV released their list of the top pop acts likely to break through in 2009 - scoring a lovely piece in The Guardian in the process. On a related note, Hype Machine looked back (tho you can sort of forecast forward) at the most-mentioned bands of 2008 in their zeitgeist list.

In looking at what might be on our tables (or at least on American's tables), Epicurious.com has published their top 10 trends for the year - I rather liked "value is the new sustainable".

Daniel Franklin of the Economist also stops by AdAge to share the magazine's media predictions for 2009 in a handy three minute video-ette. Which is nice. Not that you would want to believe any of them if you read the first piece in this post, of course ...

So there you have it, the shape of 2009 so far. There are a bunch of people yet to pen their predictions, so we will add to this over the course of the next week or so. But we thought that it would be a handy guide.

What are your predictions for the year ahead?

MY MEERKAT'S BIGGER THAN YOUR MEERKAT

Isn't this lovely?

At last, a TV advert that will actually get people to talk about a price comparison website and (comparethemarket.com) to remember the name. Marvellous.

Oh, and the microsite, where you really can "compare the meerkat" (rather than "compare the market, geddit?!) is worth a look too.

THE UK'S TOP MARKETING WEBLOGS

UPDATE: Just took a look and it turns out that the AdAge chart was throwing a bit of a wobbler yesterday. It was more than likely something to do with Technorati. Probably. Anyhow, re-ran the chart today and all looks more or less back to normal. Apologies for any confusion all.

First up ... a small plea. AdAge, in their infinite wisdom, have made it a bloody sight harder to create these tables - you now can't pull off the whole table in one go and now have to do things page-by-page.

SO, while we're really happy that people seem to be interested in this table, can I just ask that people don't copy and paste it wholesale into their own blogs, please? Okay, it may not be terribly social network-ey, but credit where it's due (and, in this case, a couple of hours credit are due), please link back to this page? Thanking you kindly in advance ...

On with the chart ...

1 (-)	36 (-2)	Chris Garrett on New Media
2 (-)	47 (-9)	russell davies
3 (-)	48 (-6)	David Airey
4 (-)	50 (-5)	NevilleHobson.com
5 (-)	52 (-6)	Blogstorm
6 (-)	77 (-11)	adliterate
7 (-)	106 (+6)	Crackunit
8 (+7)	120 (+70)	Behind the Buzz
9 (+1)	124 (+48)	PR Blogger
10 (+6)	127 (+64)	Only Dead Fish
11 (-3)	134 (-14)	Welcome to Optimism
12 (+34)	174 (+225)	E-consultancy's Internet Marketing Blog
13 (+1)	176 (+7)	A PR Guy's Musings
14 (+6)	177 (+55)	The Engaging Brand
15 (15)	182 (+99)	General Marketing Blog
16 (-7)	196 (-30)	Spinning Around
17 (-)	198 (-3)	Make Marketing History
18 (-7)	203 (-26)	Modern Marketing
19 (-6)	215 (-33)	SEOCO Blog
20 (+1)	220 (+13)	Life Moves Pretty Fast
21 (-3)	232 (-27)	Social Media Trader
22 (+7)	235 (+39)	Nick Burcher
23 (+1)	237 (+1)	Faster Future
24 (-5)	238 (-26)	Collective Conversation
25 (+7)	241 (+58)	SEOptimise
26 (-4)	249 (-15)	HERD
27 (-4)	251 (-14)	Wadds' tech pr blog
28 (-3)	262 (-6)	Blog Till You Drop
29 (-17)	265 (-86)	That Canadian Girl
30 (-3)	277 (-5)	Fraser's Affiliate Marketing Blog
31 (+26)	279 (+177)	Brendan Cooper
32 (+2)	280 (+33)	Simonsays
33 (-)	283 (+17)	PPC Blog
34 (-8)	286 (-21)	Hobo SEO UK
35 (-4)	296 (-14)	London Calling
36 (+3)	301 (+41)	Crenk
37 (+13)	305 (+120)	Drew B's take on tech PR
38 (-1)	317 (+11)	Brand Strategy Magazine Blog
39 (-3)	334 (-11)	Interactive Marketing Trends
40 (+1)	341 (+24)	livingbrands
41 (-13)	343 (-70)	Technobabble 2.0
42 (+2)	346 (+40)	The Way of the Web
43 (-1)	350 (+20)	FreshNetworks Blog
44 (-4)	352 (+1)	The Ad Pit
45 (-10)	353 (-37)	greenormal
46 (-3)	368 (+10)	Rubbishcorp
47 (-9)	369 (-30)	50-Plus Marketing
48 (-1)	380 (+28)	This Is HERD
49 (+4)	394 (+48)	PR Media Blog
50 (-1)	398 (+24)	Beyond PR
51 (+4)	433 (+18)	Pudding Relations
52 (+4)	435 (+17)	Event Manager Blog
53 (-2)	439 (-1)	renaissance chambara
54 (-2)	441 (-2)	Organic Frog
55 (-7)	446 (-26)	Blendingthemix
56 (-11)	451 (-57)	Living in a digital world
57 (+4)	460 (+34)	From PR to Eternity
58 (+1)	489 (-4)	Real Fresh TV
59 (+1)	493 (-4)	middledigit
60 (+12)	499 (+56)	Andrew R H Girdwood
61 (+1)	502 (-1)	Liberate Media blog
62 (+12)	507 (+62)	FeverBee
63 (-9)	514 (-65)	The Rosemont Loving
64 (+4)	531 (+17)	Apple Pie & Custard
65 (-)	535 (-24)	mediations
66 (-2)	542 (-39)	Simon Wakeman
67 (+2)	552 (-2)	Nicola Davies
68 (-2)	557 (-39)	Confessions of a Wannabe Ad Man
69 (+4)	565 (+2)	The Renegade Agency Confessional
70 (-3)	581 (-44)	Shiny Red
71 (-8)	582 (-80)	Raw Stylus
72 (+4)	587 (+9)	(Almost) Always Thinking
73 (+2)	590 (-17)	PR Voice
74 (-3)	601 (-47)	Measurement Matters
75 (+11)	612 (+91)	never get out of the boat
76 (+4)	629 (+3)	Sturgeon's Law
77 (+10)	635 (+75)	Vincent Thome's Blog
78 (-1)	651 (-43)	10 Yetis PR Blog
79 (+5)	663 (+19)	Ginger and Proud
80 (-1)	672 (-47)	Indolent.com
81 (-)	680 (-46)	Norton's Notes
82 (+1)	681 (-9)	One Size Fits One
83 (-13)	696 (-144)	All Things PR
84 (-2)	718 (-48)	Buzz Attitude
85 (+6)	730 (+17)	Digital Examples
86 (+3)	736 (-22)	Nitmesh
87 (-2)	744 (-47)	[Bluurb] stuff and things
88 (-10)	748 (-137)	The New Marketing
89 (+9)	752 (+46)	The Red Rocket
90 (+2)	758 (-9)	CarbonGraffiti
91 (+2)	782 (-32)	The Web Pitch.com
92 (+2)	789 (-32)	PRwordSmith
93 (+4)	792 (+3)	Brandgym Blog
94 (+1)	794 (-22)	A Mountain Dweller in the Thames Valley
95 (+4)	803 (+4)	Digital Marketing Viewpoint from Cheeze
96 (+5)	809 (+7)	Yet Another Planning Blog
97 (+5)	813 (+7)	Creative in London
98 (-2)	820 (-45)	Offer and Acceptance
99 (-11)	825 (-112)	Unleashed on Marketing
100 (-10)	830 (-100)	25 letters in the alphabet
101 (-1)	834 (-20)	Freshen me up
102 (+1)	837 (-16)	In the Cowshed
103 (+3)	859 (-4)	Punch Blog
104 (+1)	874 (-25)	Mediameme
105 (-1)	892 (-58)	Engage: the Carve Consulting blog
106 (+2)	898 (+9)	From the Cowshed
107 (-)	899 (-12)	noticing

For those who may be interested, this chart is based on the AdAge Power 150, the top UK bloggers on all things advertising and marketing on 1 August 2008. If you feel that you should be included, you can get in touch with AdAge here, who will sort you out. As soon as you're in, I'll pick you up in this filleting of the AA chart.

BIG THANKS AND BEST WISHES

It's been a dog's age since I wrote a brief missive to those lovely people who have seen fit to link to the domain that is Spinning Around - either because there was something lurking in its depths that interested them or simply out of the goodness of their hearts.

Now that I am sitting in Starbucks labouring under the influence of sinusitis (a disease that I am uncertain how to spell - it may be the blocked up brain, but that doesn't look right), it seemed a good time to right a wrong that has persisted for far too long.

So, in no particular order, big thanks and best wishes for 2009 go to ...

FreshNetworks, Scamp (who reckons Spinning Around sits at number five in his latest list of top UK ad blogs), Bunnehmunches (who liked the AMV Museum of Childhood ads as much as I did), Ged (again), Pure Artifice (take a look at the PR agency hall of shame top right of her blog, always good for a giggle), Digitology (who spotted the Guitar Hero piece that I wrote), Herd, the lovely (and well-named) HurtyBrain, Whirledigital (who was nice about StratStock), The Web Pitch (which appears on the AdAge list of top bloggers) ...

Felt the need for a paragraph break. And blow of the nose.

Then there are Blood and Treasure, Neville, Wadds and Hard News (who all just linked to us because they are nice, I guess) ... and Andrew Grill and Mastercom for various chart-related bits and bobs. Others include Up Your Ego (on Radio 2's makeover), Jai & Wal (who also went along to the IPA's Publivores event), Real Fresh TV, Design Hoover (well-worth a read), Amelia (on StratStock), The Seldom Seen Kid, Innocent Bystander and ... that's it. Told you it had been a while ...

You're all lovely people. And I thank you most kindly. Happy 2009, all ...

WHILE WE WERE SLEEPING ... DRENCH

Another Xmas break number. And with hat-tip to Rob for bringing it to our attention, a cut-down re-working of the Brains spot. Cute, I thought. Delivers a shortened version of the ad (in these credit crunchy times, a good thing altogether), but delivers a twist that means that it doesn't feel like a shortened version of the classic.

WHILE WE WERE SLEEPING ... WISPA

Post-Xmas break, there were a couple of things that needed catching-up on and commenting upon.

The first of which is Fallon's recent campaign for Wispa ... "For the Love of Wispa", as it would appear to be titled.

Having had a read, Scamp makes some interesting points about the whole shebang ... and particularly the trend in which the story behind the ad is more interesting than the ad itself. It's well-worth a read.

The ad is thus ...

And for the backstory, you might consult the 212,000-members-strong Facebook Group or take a look at the Flickr pool featuring shots by the lovely Ed Miller who did the stills and portraiture at the shoot.

But I was kind of interested in applying David Bain's formula to the work. By my reckoning (and if people really did give their time for free), FTLOW works at every level.

It delivers decent enough reach - not least through the numbers of people who have blogged about it, but also thanks to the WOM generated by the several hundred participants telling friends and family and social circles.

The impact works. And the message carries: you cannot talk about the ad without mentioning that the idea behind it is that the people wanted Wispa back and that the people gave of their time to make an ad celebrating its return. Job done.

And the cost (if the stories are to be believed and most of the folks that took part in the ad gave their time for free) was pretty low - relatively speaking.

So do I love For the Love of Wispa? Yes. In a word.

Oh, the other interesting thing that occurred to me is that this is an example of a brand using its money to tap into a bunch of people's vested self-interest (performers wanting to showcase their skills across national TV and the interweb) to create something interesting in the way of content.

Something that I think we will see more of in the coming year. Or hope that we will, anyway.