The year so far.

This'll be a bit of a long one as I dig deep into the recess of my memory banks and pick out the highlights of 08/09.
The first trip of the year belonged to Level 1 - Glasgow. Good bonding exercise for our new crop of bright, young hopefuls.

Chloe Smith and Vish Kapoor worked with Yes on a new business pitch. Nice work and nice experience, but unfortunately pipped at the post.

New York just after Christmas. Teams made up from all 3 Levels tackled a brief for the New York Health Department set by Bandujo Advertising + Design. Great feedback and a great experience all round.





A number of live briefs later and ABM went down to London. For the first time, and marking a permanent change, all 3 Levels were invited. This gave Level 1s the opportunity to work on more live briefs with Levels 2 and 3. This is how Chloe Smith, Level 3, summarised the experience:

"ABM, ABM where’ve you been?

…down to London to see…VCCP, 3 fish in a tree, TBWA, Dave and Pentagram, of course!

As all Levels from One to Three gathered for the annual London Agency visit, it could be said spring was in the air. With TBWA on the agenda along with VCCP, Pentagram, BBH, Lean Mean Fighting Machine, Cartils Claessens, Dave and 3 Fish in a Tree, it promised to be 3 days of sights and insights!

Presentations by cross-level teams at TBWA and VCCP proved a re-sounding success; we met the Meer Kat, had a brief history of Pentagram, caught up with 3 fish and showed TBWA our planning skills, also dropping in on Lean Mean Fighting Machine. VCCP tested us with an intensive one day brief, using our own experiences and insight to come up with a campaign discouraging Binge Drinking amongst Students…of course we knew nothing about the topic and had to conduct some improvised research. Congratulations to Grace and Lauren as challenge winners for the day! Second and First Year respectively.

The TBWA teams were selected beforehand and also tackled a brief the agency had worked on previously, finding a new angle for the promotion of P&O Cruises. The teams presented their ideas behind how the Cruises could be shown in a different light in order to attract new business and at the same time avoid alienating existing customers.

Level Two also had the opportunity to visit Dave with the ‘A brand that bugs you’ brief. A great change to get their teeth into a brand that is in dire need of help and use a creative strategy to hypothetically turn it around. A brilliant portfolio piece and a valuable audience of experienced creative to pitch to, what more could you ask for!

A successful three days, and part of a much larger journey for us all, whether it is upwards to Level Two or Three, or out of the Dwight building nest with fully fledged ABM wings to fly solo, it was a much valued experience for all parties concerned. There were some fantastic results, ideas, portfolio pieces, precious advice and a peep into industry, plus of course some priceless photographs, courtesy of both the Johns sneaking around with cameras...

Photos are here
and here

Chloe Smith, Level 3, Advertising and Brand Management, April 2009"

The highlights were the one-day brief at VCCP, the planning brief at TBWA, the re-brand brief at Dave, and the portfolio crit at Lean Mean Fighting Machine. The other agency visits were great opportunities too. Pentagram are inspirational, 3 Fish in a Tree followed up by contacting some of the students who went there, BBH are also inspirational and were sowing the seeds for a long and healthy relationship with us (hopefully!).

Along the way we had Mark Smith from Level 2 receiving a commendation at the Roses Student Awards, and Abby Reynolds and Mona Rollenhagen receiving a commendation at the SkillSmart Retail Student Competition, entries to the EFCCE Student Competition and a website redesign brief from Yes (pitching in May).

Live briefs at Level 3 have led to a number of client companies implementing our Level 3 students' strategies and concepts .... so here's to a successful Degree Show and New Blood.

I'll be posting the Degree Show progress over the next few weeks so just to finish off, here's where last year's lot are at present:

Stacey Harris: MediaTherapy
David Mortimer: TBWA
Helen Sinclair: The One-Off
Ollie Moxham / Pip Martin: were at Naked and are now at ODD
Dayve Talbot: has done stints at TBWA and Wunderman
Christiaan Huynen: Claessens Cartils
Emma O'Brien: Pelican PR
Iain Harley: completing his post-grad at Watford
Si Wright: Bezier Retail Marketing

That's all from the last updates ... if owt's different, let me know, guys.