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The Leith Agency's weblog.

It warms the so-called cockles of my heart that IRN-BRU is such a charmingly fundamental part of Christmas up here. In the twixt Christmas lull, I was idling over twitter commentary on BRU yesterday and there’s an astonishing amount. Fuelled by the current Carnival in Glasgow.

And today I was happy to find a reverential post from this incredibly cool looking family. Read and marvel at the tiny part we / they play in making Christmas a tiny bit more Christmassy (maybe).

Our lovely Lorna receiving a gift in recognition of her 25 years service - she was there on the very first day The Leith Agency open the doors for business! She’s a legend.

There’s a great article on brand republic today introducing an amazing new Michelle Mone created bra which apparently fastens in “limitless” ways. An infinitely useful invention, no doubt.

However, I draw your attention to this partly because I blogged about M&S reducing their bra costs last year and lovely Martin at AG Barr said he’d been particularly entertained by this post. So it made me think that bra posts must be the way forward. Secondarily, because it’s a fine example of haphazard and sloppy writing. I quote:

Unfortunately a large proportion of these purchases will find their way back to the stores, or languish forgotten in draws due to the fact they are the wrong size, or simply disgusting.

Spot the typo. But I most like the blunt unapologetic reference to the panic-buy dubious taste of womankind.

I discovered with great excitement a couple of months ago that Starbucks were about to launch a promotion with (RED). I always feel vaguely bad buying posh coffee from Starbucks but I have x2 particular favourites which can only be purchased (to my proper satisfaction) from this establishment. So it’s an uneasy marriage of convenience.

The barrista in a Glasgow store convinced me that a forthcoming Starbucks RED card would contribute £5 to the RED fund for every coffee purchased via one of these limited edition RED cards. £5. Hah - I thought. The might of Starbucks is actually going to do some good. I vowed to look out for it.

On Saturday, I spied The Card for the first time in a branch at Haymarket. I snatched it up and brandished it at the barrista. It was the last one in the box. I felt I’d snatched worthy charitable activity from the jaws of almost disappointment. So laboriously we credited my card with some money and I bought my coffees. Only to discover that it was not £5 that went to the RED fund per coffee but 5 pence. Not exactly similar. The blow is softened by the discovery that I now get certain free syrups when I buy coffees - assuming I use this vaguely charitable card.

Send all your Christmas cards courtesy of IRN-BRU here. Lovely stuff.

Nice piece from Dave Trott on the brand republic blog in response to an accusation that the buzz generated by ‘controversial’ creative work did nothing to generate sales.

Ha ha, he replies, actually in this, this and this case, it did everything to generate sales. Well riposted, sir.

Hot off the streets of Sydney comes this art / architectural project. Australia seems to be where it’s at the moment. Lovely account handling Gail set sail for their shores eight months ago and is now doing time at a very cool agency called Host. Jo P has just headed there for a bumper holiday. And a handful more of our lot are headed out there for new year. The place to be, clearly. (Easy for me to say, complacent in leading the way with my two months ago trip.)

Anyway, seems the above is adoring billboards on the way into Sydney from the airport just now. Instigator of the project Stephen Collier explains it thus:

The position of the two billboards with respect to the each other, allowed us to play upon the way they are seen separately and sometimes in alignment. Extending this idea of the connected and disconnected nexus between garden and city. From certain vantage points the two boards are seen together. These change & shift as you arrive at the crossroad from different vantage points. The corners that make up the intersection await further architectural and urban definition. What should they be? Could the design of this corner intensify the experience of the city (in either urban or landscape terms)? This is the question that we are interested in asking. What would happen if we filled the park with more trees? Introduced more public buildings. What would it be like if the urban area was reconfigured to make it more public at its centre? If we introduced pockets of green into it, and inserted a public building into the park, a building that would sit unbounded by fences and divisions and connect to the landscape on all sides.

For those less interested in the wider philosophical significance, I think it’s quite a cool little visual trick.

Marmite have a pop-up shop on Regent Street. What a lovely idea.