Author: Tony Wright

Fertile Baguette quarter four pitches.

At 11pm on Saturday night in the bushes of Soho Square, freelance journalist Gordon Edwards searched for his family’s missing guinea pig. Whilst he didn’t return Lineker to his wife’s and children’s suburban detached home in Hadley, he did arrive with a muddy iPad that on powering up, appeared to be from Electronic Life Aids (EMA) magazine’s Top 100 listed agency Fertile Baguette.

What follows are extracts from the social media plans for their client base. Gordon Edwards, having amassed a portfolio of this one investigation, intends to return to his life long occupation as officer to the 1st Boys Brigade company of Hadley. He has only visited Soho once. Lineker was found dead in a crisp packet inside his briefcase.

British Pumps
Proposition: A Facebook application where users collect points by digging up virtual squares of Africa’s coast line. Reach: It will gain virality through letting players invite friends to catch oily zebras before CNN journalists arrive to expose the drilling. Projections: Higher engagement in oil wells with unemployed males, 18-24. Uplift in perceived entertainment within the sector.

Magical Meats
Purpose: To propel sales of the processed meat manufacturer’s new Glam product; tinned slices of luncheon meat cut into the shapes of ear rings, diamonds and pearl necklaces. Demographic: middle aged housewives and the children there of. Method: A campaign micro-site showcases a prominent gallery of photographs that a TV advert campaign from 3.30-4pm encourages people to submit photos of meat being magical to. Outcomes: Individuals in the photos become brand advocates, Glam is seen as an innovative and modern consumer choice. Magical Meats’ identity pillars gain sustainability. Contingency: A physical album of submitted photos is published with a forward by David Blaine about the power and mystery of meat. Photo subjects will crave ownership of their moments of fame, as will their friends and family, creating a new revenue stream altogether.

Going Faces
Objective: Re-launch the traditional travel agency as the one stop shop for tourists struggling in the current economic climate. Campaign elements: Paid for banners on Twitter superimpose profile pictures onto backdrops of sun and sand. On clicking, a micro-site launches allowing visitors to choose a destination, upload their photo and be e-mailed a zip folder of staged holiday snaps. Revenue stream: Visitors can purchase bolt on extras to their snaps such as incremental Photoshop tanning through photo collections. Customers can purchase iron on immigration and customs stamps to place on their passports.

Editor’s notes: When Gordon Edwards stumbled upon these findings, he printed off a hard copy. Whilst popping out for a stroll in Hadley Woods before we arrived to meet him, he dropped and lost much of the printed pitches and the iPad. He would welcome you continuing his investigation and hunting for the remaining papers. His accident occurred within the large bush 20 meters left of the oak tree. He also lost a sock. His wife doesn’t want him going for long walks anymore.

Sketches: Equality & Diversity Training

A man opens a door at the front of a meeting room, where sit fourteen employees looking up at a white projector blind. A stern lady sits at the front of the room behind a laptop which is broadcasting a cartoon onto the wall.

On one side of the screen, crowd together a family of otters. The other side sits a big, hairy seal. One by one, the otters run at the seal, trying to steal his colourful inflatable ball. The otters finally capture the ball and the seal sits, crying out loudly.

One of the otters takes pity and tells his crowd that they should return back the ball. The two sides gravitate towards each other with caution and the pitying otter passes the ball over. The seal is delighted and claps whilst keeping the ball afloat on his nose. The otters all dance around.

Will Smith’s ‘Just The Two Of Us’ begins to fade in as the otters and seal continue playing. The song fades out after three minutes at which point the otters and seal look head on at the audience.

The man looks back on the people in the room.

One lady looks towards the open door, taking a handkerchief to her watery eyes. An anxious man bites his nails, erratically tapping his foot.

The otters and seal sing the line ‘We can make it if we try’, taking each other’s hands as the screen fades to black.

The patient man looks to the laptop operator. Everyone waits to see what he wants.

‘Tallulah is running late. She rang and asked me to let you know.’

The man leaves the room and closes the door behind him whilst a new video begins playing. The weeping lady and fidgeting man sigh, looking back at the screen.

One black and one white gentleman stand at the door of a bus. They both gesture for the other to step onto the bus first. Neither move and the bus drives away. They hold hands and walk off into the sunset.

Sketches: Feedback

‘There you go.’ said Jane, placing her creation on the creative director’s desk.

‘Ah, right, thanks Jane.’ he replied, looking down from his computer screen at what she’d just handed in.

‘You’ve done well there. The shading looks good. It’s really well contained.’ he reviewed on.

‘Thanks. I wanted to avoid too much spillage so kept it a little short from full.’ explained Jane.

‘Great. One thing for next time. Can you add a little sugar?’

Wyclef Jean’s Musical Manifesto

When he’s not making genuine and humble bids to become President of Haiti, however laughable that sounds if you’re not familiar with his work there, Wyclef Jean’s busy living out of a guitar case making music that varies from record breaking singles to mix tape obscurities.

Having cemented his name in the history books as the figurehead of the world’s biggest hip-hop group of all time, The Fugees, Jean has gone on to release almost as many solo and collaborative projects as his ex partners in hits making Lauryn Hill and Pras have recorded non Fugees songs.

It would be a lie to paint Jean as a faultless artist. His discography is littered by collaborations with wrestling stars and members of 1990s British boy bands. There are tracks that murder, if not shamelessly mimic, the classics of legends, as well as  over-kill songs of screeching indulgence. For those, the mainstream has turned its back, uninterested in the artist unless his group’s early tracks are remixed into a club’s set. Critics barely bother paying any attention at all.

But whilst commercial success and intrigue has stalled as dramatically as Lauryn Hill’s state of mind, Jean has quietly released regular albums showing much growth in his skills as a musician and producer and approach as a lyricist. Gone are the days of the man clearly feeling the expectation to continually elevate from one gimmicky big hit to another (think It Doesn’t Matter or Pussy Cat). Gone too are hints of confusion in the artist as to where he fits in, such as the trend jumping hijacking on Thug Angels or the pleas for credibility within the hip-hop community that made him such as on The PJs.

Jean has pretty much dropped rapping (in English, his second language), rarely puts out studio covers of rock gems anymore and instead has carved out a varied approach of storytelling, life celebrating, society documenting efforts delivered in a conversational, at peace with itself delivery that sits somewhere between lazy rapping and introverted singing. There are songs about child support, lack of community, road safety and place. Others launch an offensive to get listeners educated on genres outside of hip-hop and pop or simply to have listeners up on their feet having fun.

Hobbies of a has been.

When he’s not making a living on UK television chat shows, pretending to be a great by reeling off anecdotes about brushing shoulders with legends at Motown, Lionel Richie can usually be found releasing horrific contemporary dance versions of his old ‘classics’. Having perhaps finally found these routes to be dead ends, Richie’s new pastime is cashing in on crisp commercials, perhaps to woo Robbie Williams into a collaboration. After all, they’ve been ’playing around’ lots…

Hand shakes and hugs.

Hand shakes and hugs
open trap doors of banter,
the clink of a wine glass or
screech of a pizza slicing.
In jokes isolate a waiter
whilst piano keys bop.
Pepper rains silence on chat
until it sits before more jokes.
The how is she’s, what about’s
and when shall we meet again’s
zap together levels to the same.
A bill, bus and key jingles
wrap it all up until the next beer,
dance, date or breakdown call.

International Army of the Brain Dead Presenter

It’s a terrifying thought that every Britain’s Got Talent spin off around the world casts its own Ant & Dec clowns on the side of the stage making retarded facial expressions of ‘surprise’ and ‘amazement’. Not only does Simon Cowell rape the music industry’s dead corpse, he’s breading an international army of brain dead TV presenters. On the plus side, I appear to have mastered Hindi in 6 minutes and understood every Gujarat version of ‘I want this 110%’, ‘Dream come true’, ‘More than anything’ and ‘To get this far, it means the world’.

Airborne thoughts.

  • Establish elbow ownership of the arm rests before taking off. It’s near impossible to regain ground.
  • Don’t watch Chariots Of Fire on the in flight movie system. You’ll feel inspired to run and there’s nowhere to go.
  • The man with no shoes and socks who used a near flooded toilet before you was up to something. Tread carefully.
  • Whether you’re a Woody Allen fan or not, you’ll want to sleep. Just don’t expect to.
  • Closed eyes means ‘peanuts, please!’ to flight assistants. A blanket signifies a three course meal distributed more tiresomely than Matrix Reloaded and Revolution.
  • Post Orgasmic Chill by Skunk Anansie is superb. Where have all the bald women gone? Even Gail Porter’s back to fluff.
  • Try your best to ignore the family of holiday makers in front, counting down to returning home for a ‘real English curry’ having spent a fortnight beside a pool in Thailand.
  • No, you’ll probably never laugh so much at Friends again, until your next 15 hours overdose of recycled air.
  • When you see that same bare footed guy on your next trip to the toilet and the floor’s in a much worse state, tread even more carefully.
  • I know, just take a deep breath and let them do what they do. Hand luggage and ‘stay in your seat’ means different things to different people.

Three of my favourite gigs by one great man

A snippet of this review features on  the PaulMcCartney.com Up & Coming fan reviews section

The first time I experienced a Paul McCartney gig was at Camden’s Roundhouse as part of the Electric Proms. My good friend Mike came along and the unexplainable sense of excitement we shared over a beer beforehand converted into euphoria that took a sick day from work and a good week to calm down from. From the opening of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ from my favourite album to the violinists during Eleanor Rigby and crowd sing a long of Let It Be, the jigsaw pieces of recollection clouded in a memory simply of delight, sat easily atop my personal chart of greatest ever gigs attended and most enjoyable nights out had.

In the run up to Mike and I’s second outing to experience McCartney, the excitement was incredibly high again. The little concern we had that a venue of London O2’s stature might be too superficial for an artist of such greatness evaporated the moment we entered the arena – perhaps party thanks to the wonderfully quaint touches of incense perfuming the air and food outlets stocking Linda McCartney vegetable burgers. The man came on, the static grids of attendees rose and it happened all over. My voice grew hoarse through huge sing-a-long moments, my eyes watered during Here Today and my party sat glancing at each other in near disbelief and amazement throughout the crowd muting Blackbird. McCartney newcomers Mark and Wesley had one incredible introduction to rock royalty.

When I logged off my computer having secured tickets to my third McCartney outing, I felt a hint of Deja vu; reflecting on the privilege it was to witness such performances, hear utter classics and dance along in the presence of my favourite of all artists. The weeks preceding the day in Hyde Park followed the usual pattern; how little should I listen to my CD collection during the countdown? Could anything top the previous two ecstatic occasions?

Before any clenched fists were raised into the air for Jet, any doubt I had that listening to CDs throughout the few weeks prior would leave the set not feeling fresh or that turning up for my third gig wouldn’t live up to previous dates vanished like all the clouds had from the perfect blue sky of that evening in June. Joined this time by friends Marilu, Hannah and company, we swayed, sang and smiled for three solid hours of incredible moments.

Whilst it’d be silly placing the slices of magic in order of enjoyment, one of the first that comes to mind is that of Hey Jude. In one moment I was laughing to myself out of sheer unknowing of how else I could express satisfaction. In another I had been raised to the shoulders of Mike and Rodrigo, upon which the audience seemed to disappear and make way for a personal one on one moment with the man on stage and me.

The next morning I thought back to the big night and felt the same huge smile that spanned my face the first two mornings after appear again. Text messages and phone calls between the gang I’d attended with helped clear the mist of Macca Mania, empty the ‘best one ever’ envelope and seal a new case file in. Call it a day now and feel lucky for what I’ve seen? Maybe. Until I set my alarm early for the next morning of ticket sales madness. After all, I’ve yet to hear Maybe I’m Amazed live.