The Feudal Cystern

his master's office

Garp enjoys a little downtime while Alistair works.

Steri Stumpie wins Bronze at the Bookmark Awards

Congrats to RSVP (Alex van Tonder, Ryan McArthur, Mark Stead), Atmosphere (Dan Pinch, Tessa Kidd, Jenn Rawlins), Mnemonic (Bruce Wright, Annemarie Blaensdorf) as well as Laurel Mader and Carey Taylor aka the  Steri Stumpie team for picking up a Bronze at the digital Bookmark Awards in the Social Media category in Joburg last night. Click here to see all the finalists.

gone, but not forgotten

We bade farewell to 2 very long-standing members of the KJ crew last weekend. The first was copywriter Jabu Sigege, the man notorious for inspiring the phrase 'to get Jabued' (which means to get drunk enough to call your boss a racist homosexual). The second was to Anthony Buckland, super Mnemonic-coder, who has been known to give Jabu a run for his money in the getting jabued department. Incidentally this was Anthony's second farewell, and he gave a very strange speech about proper nouns pertaining to The Client... it was all a bit confusing. We're sad to see both go, and hope they go onto great things, and that Jabu's new boss doesn't mind being called a racist homosexual.

 
Al presents Jabu with his farewell gift: a family feast (Jabu likes the chicken).

Anthony giving his strange speech. With a strange bat above his head.

Scared of raising the bar?

No need. Atmosphere hosted a Halloween party at the bar last Friday, and boy, didn't they take it to a new level. A live band - Captain Stew and the Pirates of the Caribbean (starring Ryan from RSVP) - provided the dulcet tones to sooth those client blues away. And friends and family came dressed up to make sure they stayed there. 

they grow up so fast

A few snaps of Garp Dog, who now comes to just under Alistair's nipples at full height. Garp can be found wandering around the agency with a selection of semi-chewed objects he's picked up from rubbish bins, presumably keeping them in his jowls as snacks for later.

'The Collector'

Ad guy by day, collector by night, Alistair's just been featured in the new issue of Words etc. magazine. The article is all about his passion for hunting down rare books and sought after first editions, or even just some favourite sentimental ones.

Check out the scanned in article below.

Nice one, Al. 

 
 
  

Next phase of Steri activations: Steri-inspired Levi's Tee competition

In addition to our Steri Social Media ongoing fun, we've now launched the new phase of our Steri activation, namely the What's Your Flavourite competition, which gives you the chance to win a Limited Edition Steri-inspired Levi's T-shirt. Cherryflava covered our launch 'event', which was really a treasure hunt up and down Kloof Street (and was good fun despite their 'oomph' comment :). Look out for the special Steri competition packs to find out how you can get your hands on one of the awesome T-shirts.

Allan Gray team scoops Ad of the Month

 
Much congrats to Paige and Karin for getting 1st place for Creative Circle's Ad of the Month campaign for their Allan Gray Kids (Soccer/Seamonkeys/Karate) campaign.

They also came 2nd in the outdoor category for their Allan Gray outdoor campaign. Which depicts kids starting to master skills early, in the hopes that it will pay off later. Such winners!

Click on the PDFs to download the hi res versions of the print ads and i'll upload the outdoor campaign tomorrow:

Download 16004_Karate_276x210

Download 16005_seamonkey 275x210

Download 16734_Soccer_276x210
 

 

Allan Gray makes YOU magazine

What a compliment! We don't think we've ever had an ad covered by YOU before. It is wonderful to see so many appreciating the Allan Gray James Dean commercial. We thank all of you for your support and the attention. Click on the links below to download the PDFs of the articles.

Download 2210YU022

Download 2210YU023

Loerie Awards 2009

King James walked away with 5 awards this past Loeries, which we're most proud of. Click here to see a list of what we won for. We also managed to have a lot of fun this year, which is really the most important part of the Loeries after all.

Barry Ronge calls new Allan Gray ad "perfect"

Barry Ronge likes Legend :) Presenting an excerpt from this article in the guardian:

Film critic Barry Ronge described the minute-long film as "the perfect blend of simple storytelling, superlative camera effects and the smartest use of a celebrity we have seen in a decade".

Allan Gray "Legend": some good feedback

Thanks to Seth for this. We're seeing some really good feedback on our latest TVC for Allan Gray - Legend - on this post about it at Jezzebel, who say that it's been called an "instant classic". Some of the comments even suggest follow-up ads featuring JFK and Buddy Holly. Congrats Paige, Karin, Al, Keith & everyone else who was involved in the making of Legend. We're glad you guys like our ad. Don't forget to check out our behind-the-scenes, in case you haven't already.

On Agency Business Models

Read this interesting article on MarkLives about how agencies have neglected to change or adapt their business models to meet today's needs. Alistair even offers his opinion about what the future of advertising may hold.

New Allan Gray TVC

From concept to completion the new Allan Gray commercial was just over fourteen months in the making. A massive feat that took a combined team of well over a hundred and sixty people, not including extras.

The commercial, ‘Legend’, asks us to consider the possibilities of a legend like James Dean had he been given more time. What would he have achieved? How might he have benefited society?

The ad illustrates the importance of time in allowing potential to unfold. Both in life and in investing.  Like its predecessor ‘Beautiful’, it demonstrates the theme of long-term investing, but this time focuses on the investor as an integral part of investing success. Using the tragedy of Dean’s early demise as an analogy, the ad suggests that not giving an investment time to mature is equally tragic.

“Time is an essential ingredient in creating wealth,” says Allan Gray’s marketing manager Tracy Hirst. “We can do a lot for investors, but only if they partner us by giving us their time and staying invested for the long term. In the absence of time, value is destroyed.”

King James teamed up with Director Keith Rose, from Velocity, to bring the board to life.

“In all my years of advertising, I have never seen a treatment that was so detailed, so carefully thought through, and so deeply researched, than the treatment Keith gave us when pitching to handle this commercial. From beginning to end, his commitment to the job bordered on obsession.” says Alistair King, Executive Creative Director at King James.

“This was an incredibly challenging board,” says Rose. “You just take it for granted that James Dean is so iconic, so to go and mess with him and replan his life, if stuff like that doesn’t work it’s like you’re desecrating his memory. We really needed to deal with it with sensitivity.”

According to Karin Barry-McCormack and Paige Nick, the creative team from King James; “For both of us, this was without a doubt the most exciting, challenging and intricate television project we have ever worked on. And it was amazing to work so closely with such a passionate team and such a collaborative client.”

And there you have it. What do you think of the ad? Leave us a comment, we'd love to hear your opinion.

Behind the scenes.

We thought you might like a behind the scenes look at the new Allan Gray TV commercial, 'Legend'.

We teamed up with Director Keith Rose, from Velocity, who shot 'Beautiful', the last Allan Gray commercial.

We used a whole whack of different techniques to recreate the legend, ranging from prosthetics to look-alikes, body suits and body doubles. And made use of an armory of post production techniques like CG enhancements and face replacements.

The prosthetics were created by Ashleigh Powell and Rob Carlyle from CFX, the same team that created Morgan Freeman’s face as Madiba in ‘The Human Factor’.

 

 

The shoot took place over a month, in dozens of different locations.

 

 

 

 

Alix-Rose and Ashleigh on set. After 10pm and 12 hours of shooting, things tend to go a little wonky.

 

 

Karin with awesome agency TV Producer, Caz Friedman, at one of a dozen wardrobe calls.

 

 

Annelize Fourie from Allan Gray and Head of Art, Karin Barry-McCormack frame up for Keith.

 

For you metal heads out there, the cars we used on the racing track were a P4 Ferrari and a 917 Porsche. Worth about 30 million dollars in the real world.

 

 

Annelize, Karin and Laurel Mader make nice nice with the owners of the $30 000 000 cars. Clever girls.

 

 

Alistair King and JD discuss the merits of water vs scotch. Scotch wins.

 

 

 

Spot the photo op.

 

 

 

Copywriter, Paige Nick.

 

 

Account Exec, Bobbi Van Stittert.

 

 

And you remember Annelize.

 

 

 

 

There were only two replica 550 RSK Porsche Spiders available to us for use in the accident scene. The one we ended up using was a right hand drive, which we recreated as a left hand drive by flipping the entire shot, which meant all the decals and number plates had to be put on backwards.

 

 

There were only 28 or 30 of this car ever made. We had to take it for a spin.

 

 

Post production took almost three months by the team at Black Ginger, none of whom saw the light of day or their families for the duration of the project.

 

Marco Raposo de Barbosa headed up the team at Black Ginger. When asked which were the most challenging shots in the commercial from a post production perspective, Marco said; “Shots one through forty three.”

 

 

 

Marco is the one in the brown t-shirt.

 

(From left to right: Tristan, Assistant AD and 'Master of the Boards'; Grant Davies, Velocity Producer and Magician; Karin and Marco 'the Genius from Black Ginger'.)

 

 

Even more credits:

Allan Gray:

Tracy Hirst – Marketing Manager

Henk Pieterse – Head of Marketing

Annelize Fourie – Marketing Support

Rob Dower– Chief Operating Officer

Johan de Lange – Director Investor Services

 

King James:

Executive Creative Director – Alistair King

Head of Art – Karin Barry-McCormack

Copywriter – Paige Nick

Agency TV Producer – Caz Friedman

Managing Director – James Barty

Client Service – Laurel Mader, Bobbi van Sittert

 

Velocity:

Keith Rose - Director

Grant Davies – Producer Velocity

Tristan von Berg – Creative Assistant/head of research

Kerry Rose – production manager

Annelise Bosch – First AD

 

Ricky Boyd – Editor Deliverance

Barry Donnelly Waterfront Post – Audio and Mix

Stefan Nilsson/Theo Crous (Bellville Studios) - Music

 

Black Ginger:

Marco Raposo de Barbosa – Comp Supervisor

Eddie Addinall – Flame artist

Tracy –Lee Portnoi – head of production

Ashleigh Ryan – Nuke Compositor

Rob Muir – Matte Painter/Compositor

Angelo Collinicos - Compositor

Sean Monovic – 3D tracker

Marc Bloch – Executive Producer