Today at The Minimart, as we approach Remembrance weekend, Laura, our producer in the office has got the paint pots out to fashion everyone with an intricately designed poppy on each person’s nail for a donation of £1 per nail.

I love people giving me cocktails.
I love Sunbathing in 32-degree heat beside a pool.
I love meeting fun, genuine, beautiful, creative people.
So, when the founding partners of The Minimart interviewed me and my copywriter (Baz) for a job and then asked us if they could fly us to Marrakech for a weekend to do all those things… all I could think of was:
“I. Can. Not. Update my Facebook status quick enough!!!”
Three days later Baz and I were sitting at a champagne and oyster bar in Gatwick (now they’re just showing off) and meeting our 15 new work mates. We hear a lot of names, shake a lot of hands and walk towards the plane struggling to remember a single one of them.
Luckily Tim and Ed (the Founding Partners I mentioned earlier) had put everyone in 4 smaller, easier to remember groups for some challenges for the weekend. The first of which, started on the plane. What happened to the cocktails by the pool?
The teams had three and a bit hours to think of a film and reduce it down to a tiny two minutes – which would then be acted out to the rest of the teams back at our phat villa. And boy, was it a phat villa! 10 colourful bedrooms, a cook, waiters, a private driver, two swimming pools – they’d forgotten to fill one – but that’s not the point, it had two swimming pools!
After a lovely banquet, our teams took to the makeshift stage. ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway’ eat your heart out. I was really impressed at just how good they all were for such a short amount of rehearsing and it was such a great way to get to know everyone.
My memory of the next few hours does get a little hazy for some reason. But my hangover the next day reminds me exactly why… Ahhh the cocktail making challenge…. so that’s why I feel like I’ve got a coconut in my head!!! Never mind, a quick dip in the pool and a spot of breakfast gets us all ready to kick back for some presentations.
Kicking off by announcing promotions, new board appointments and three new starters – including myself, Baz and Nikki a lovely design intern they’ve recently snapped up – set the tone nicely. We then brainstormed around some really cool ideas for the future of the agency before settling down to lunch.
The next challenge was for the teams to fill out a briefing form for a made up product. A nice way to demonstrate we understand what a good brief is. I’ve got to admit, having the Founding Partners and the Head of Planning on my team was a slight advantage. But never the less, our hard work and tenacity paid off as the rest of the agency voted our product and brief to be the best of the best!!!
A dip, a quick sunbathe, and a power half-hour snooze set me up for the next challenge. Our teams had 500 Dirhams (that’s around £40) and half an hour to run the gauntlet of the Marrakech market and get suitably dressed up for dinner at a rather nice restaurant. Gok Wan? Gok Who! My team came up trumps again, well joint winners with Baz’s team anyway.

So a succulent shoulder of lamb, Mojitos, belly dancing, a crazy lady dancing with a tray of fire on her head, good chat and good times was the perfect way to finish the final night.

The mandatory breakfast, dip in the pool and lounging in the sun was the perfect start to our last day. And, as the flight back home got nearer and nearer I couldn’t help but feel a little sad. But, having said that, I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to a Monday morning at work before either!

Of course, they couldn’t let us leave without one last game: The Headless photo. Pictures will do this infinitely more justice than my words ever can, so please have a gander and no doubt a good laugh at them on The Minimart Facebook page. Oh and whilst you’re there take a look at the overall winner of all the challenges – drum roll please…. it was ‘Nikki the New Girl’ who took Alex’s crown for 2011. But I fully expect to see my name engraved on the trophy in 2012!
MY FIRST DAY AT THE MINIMART (by Baz)

I agree with everything Daz said. Except it’ll be my name on the trophy in 2012.

Wieden and Kennedy’s loss is our gain here at the Minimart. We’re pleased that Natasha Markley with her great award winning brand experience has joined our team and look forward to utilising her experience in 360 advertising integration. We’re mildly concerned about her musical taste but we’ll be happy to share those wild strawberry mojitos with her.

The World Food Awards 2011 (WFA) is an annual event that  celebrates the best in the world food sector across the UK and marks the significant contribution of this rapidly growing sector. We entered our Rubicon’s ‘Summer of Cricket ‘(a brilliant submission from Debbie Spence our Head of Strategy) for the Jaguar Marketing Campaign of the year. The awards ceremony was hosted by Lenny Henry and supported by a host of celebrities at The Grosvenor House Hotel and against some really stiff competition we won. Hoorah. Ben Anderson from Rubicon and Ed Chilcott picked up the award from Jaguar Cars, and Nitin Ganatra (Masood from Eastenders ). It was obviously a popular choice and actually brought the house down. The event was filmed by Star TV and is being aired in a couple of weeks.

Our Head of Studio, Marc meeting Joan Collins pictured in OK! Magazine

Because we work with certain clients we reckon we know a lot about targeting women here at The Minimart. Our Coty team went into enthusiasm overdrive when they found out that Marc had recently chinked a champagne glass with that poster girl for women over 50 (ahem 60), Joan Collins. She was just voted CEW (Cosmetic Executive Women) Lifetime achiever and we’re looking forward to going to that awards ceremony.

So, let’s cut to the chase; how much of what we see of Joan in the press has been enhanced by the hand of a Photoshop wizard? Could it be our own design talents we’re celebrating when we see her gracing the covers of OK! and Hello magazine? Simple truth is, close up, according to Marc, she looked fabulous. A testament to the lifestyle and regime she writes and talks about. Anything else? Yep she’s also a bit abrupt as one would expect and in this case of course forgive. Then again there’s got to be a least something that connects her with those old ladies who walk in front of your car with complete conviction that you will stop for them and expect nothing in the way of gratitude for not running them over.

The Minimart has won the digital task of providing the British Red Cross with a dynamic creative campaign designed to encourage people to learn first aid online.

Read more…

The Minimart team has just been out to Lake Tahoe in sunny California for a week long shoot for Merrell’s Spring/Summer 2012 collection. The shoot was our most energetic to date (and by no means short of action) as we captured shots for our new global campaign due to launch next year. The locations were incredible with breath-taking vistas, waterfalls and lakes - we were spoilt for choice. Here are a couple of sneak peeks from behind the scenes until the campaign launches.

One of adland’s most high-profile creatives, Steve Henry, kindly joined us for our agency knowledge sharing session – ‘Binge Thinking’.  True to form, the session was disruptive; what was billed as a session on blogging became a discussion around values and principles across adland at large.

As ever, Steve championed the disruption model, which is arguably even more pertinent today than when it was first conceived.  He argued that advertising in its current form persists because we’re obsessed with the concept of a captive audience of people “passively waiting to see our ads.” But these audiences are disappearing in this new age of social media and self-curation of content.

Steve argued that it is only the brave work that matters, the rest is overlooked in a sea of sameness.  For most brand managers however, challenging sector convention is scary territory and requires risk-taking, not very appealing at a time when budgets are under intense scrutiny.

We discussed our responsibility as an agency to help clients understand the “stepping stones” that lead to brave work.

This is something that we’ve tried to implement in our ‘Open Days’ where we discuss the brand ambition and look at the norms and conventions of the sector.  Encouraging openness and exploration in an open forum where we can set the agenda for the rules we’d like to break is a ‘stepping stone’ to creating brave work.

Being disruptive for the sake of it isn’t what we’re about however.  The Holy Grail for us is to create work that is brave and cuts through the noise but that also sparks a genuine emotional dialogue with people on a human level.  Disruption without engagement is superficial, what we need to do is nurture honest and genuine long term relationships.

The session with Steve was an inspiring reminder of our role in challenging the status quo.  It was a pleasure to meet him and reminded us all how much we enjoy being part of this “pure space where commerce and creativity converge”.

Take a look below at our motivating new ads for Maxitone! Inspired by women, the two creative ideas focus on how you can achieve the body you desire. One shows how Maxitone can help you kick those tea time treats to slim down for summer, the other shows how to ditch your ‘nip tuck’ knickers in favour of something smaller and slinkier for a slimmer you.

To celebrate the launch of Lovestruck, the new fragrance by Vera Wang, we have developed a banner campaign and facebook app. Using the bold and eye catching brand colours and focusing on the fragrance idol Leighton Meester, we have developed 5 social enabling banners. The banners which contain a ‘Lovestruck Calculator’ deliver compatibility results with your loved one (or not!). These results can then be shared amongst friends via facebook and generate a customized share image reporting your score and publicising your ‘love’ to friends and family all over facebook! The banners direct to the facebook application where you can play to (hopefully) your hearts content…

Click below to test your Lovestruck Compatibility

http://on.fb.me/pJL3Th