Most ‘Pop’ Irritating Web ‘Pop’ Banner EVER!

Don’t you ‘pop’ hate it when ‘pop’ you’re trying ‘pop’ to view a video on ‘pop’ YouTube or chat ‘pop’ to a friend on FaceBook ‘pop’ and your conversation ‘pop’ is interrupted by the most ‘pop’ annoying sound ever ‘pop’.

It’s annoying enough having to look at these crap banners on every page we visit, do we have to listen to them too!

Portfolio Night

Yesterday, the first ihaveanidea Portfolio Night was held at the Ritz Carlton in Dubai. I was pleasantly surprised to see some very talented young students from around the region. Some of us were even fighting to get the details of an awesome Designer from Iran that would have put even the most senior Designers to shame.

ihaveanidea’s Portfolio Night is the largest simultaneous advertising portfolio review ever held in the world, featuring a uniquely designed portfolio review process in a “speed-dating” setting. The event helps students and aspiring young creatives around the world break into the ad industry by involving the top Creative Directors in each participating city.

For more info go to www.portfolionight.com

The Vendor Client relationship with a twist!

We came across this video doing the rounds online. It's pretty sad how accurate it is. "We're not the Taco stand" seems to be a good response.

Tonic Branding

Finally we can announce the launch of Tonic Branding. Although they’ve already been open for a few months, we just wanted to see if they could make some real money before saying anything :) Only joking. Seriously though, Stuart Harris and Scott Clephane have already managed to steal substantial business away from the big boys. Not only are these guys wizards at what they do, but they’ve added a new and exciting component to the Tonic Brand. If you really want your brand to stand out and you’re tired of the cookie cutter solutions offered by other agencies, then give Stuart or Scott a call.

Wyeth Shoot Cape Town

We recently went to Cape Town to shoot our latest spot for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Between having my credit card details stolen, having our Camps Bay villa broken into and being robbed by the security guards hired to watch us, you would think we were shooting an ad for Vaseline. I know, I know, why go all the way to the tip of Africa to shoot an ad. Well, I think the pics speak for themselves. Thomas vowed that he would get a shot of Lawrence “the plumber” Jacomelli’s ummm assets, but he failed dismally. Maybe it’s a good thing.

A big Thank You must go out to Rudi and the guys and gals at Stillking Films for making this a very memorable production and delivering a well-produced spot.

Tonic Rocks

Rock Me Leonardo Guitar Hero design competition.

Although we didn’t quite win (hats off to the Brand Union guys) I have to hand it to Rollan and his team on an awesome effort. The judges said that the Brownmonkeys/Tonic guitar was by far the most colourful and energetic of all the entries! The controller has been hand-painted back and front with this lively and humour-filled design based around a rocking devil. Damn cool if you ask me.

A Moment

We were up till the early hours of the morning shooting some print ads for Burger King when we came across this sight on our way home. We took this photo from within The Lakes area with the moon setting over the Marina. We all lead pretty fast-paced lives here in Dubai and sometimes it's nice just to stop and enjoy little moments like these.

Eco-Status

Around the world, being eco-conscious has become a status symbol for consumers, partly replacing traditional status symbols that are now associated with pollution, waste and excess. Two ECO-STATUS developments to watch: ECO-ICONIC (create an eye-catching green brand/product, advertise the hell out of it and make it very recognizable to the masses, which in turn makes it easy for buyers to get respect from strangers) and ECO-STATUS-STORIES (which involves providing buyers of little known/niche eco-brands with conversation starters and story details to make sure they’ll get a status fix from their peers).

www.trendwatching.com

Square Root Day

Once a month, or pretty much, we get subjected to topical ads. You know mother’s day, pre-summer check-ups, back to school promos... I can’t stand them. I always thought they were a lame excuse for a brand who has nothing to say to its consumers but tries anyway. Now of course it can be done properly. I can't help thinking about how Coke took over Christmas or Hallmark invented Valentine’s Day.

Today however I heard on the radio something that topped ‘em all. Square Root day... Think... yes we are 3/3/09. Which means, as it occurs nine times per century we should all celebrate the fact that the day x the month = the year! Bath in the glory of Square root day and thank God it will not happen again until 4/4/16! Don’t forget your root beer for appropriate celebrations!

Burger King Open Late, Beware!

Our latest offering to Burger King, comes in the form of these press and outdoor ads. We were asked to communicate that Burger King stays open until the wee hours of the morning. Thomas and Kris came up with the following campaign showing the villains of the night that we know all to well, enjoying their favourite meal after a umm night out. The ads were shot in South Africa and Dubai by French photographer Ben Dauchez and retouched by Thomas himself. A job well done! The series comprises of four ads which will run in press and outdoor.

Creative Director: Vincent Raffray
Art Director: Thomas Derouault
Copywriter: Kris Richardson
Photographer: Ben Dauchez

Nando’s Bus-ted by CID

In the early hours of yesterday morning the police mistakenly confused the Nando’s Staff bus for an Israeli tank and promptly impounded it. It’s the military style design that seems to have upset them even though we received full RTA permission for the design to be used on the bus. Unfortunately the Nando’s staff, aka the Nando’s Commandos, will have to find their way to work using ordinary civilian vehicles.

Kill The Red With Croma Eye Drops

Our latest campaign comes in the form of these three lovely little print ads (if I don’t say so myself :) for Croma Eye Drops. Communication for pharmaceutical products has never been easy due to the fact that there are so many restrictions attached and so many levels of approval to get through. It doesn’t mean that the work has to be boring.

Client: Croma Eye Drops
Creative Director: Vincent Raffray
Art Directors: Valerio Battagli And Thomas Derouault
Copywriter: Dario De Albuquerque
Photographer: Tejal Patni
Illustrator: Amin Faramarzian

Tonic Cairo - An Office With A View

This could soon be the view from our new office in Cairo. OK, I admit it's been through a few Photoshop filters to remove the smog, but you know... Let's hope the Nile brings us the same creative energy we've had here in Dubai over the years. If you're keen to come up with award winning ideas while staring out the window at this view, then call Khaled now and all of this could be yours :)

Burger King Ambient Stamp

Burger King wanted to communicate that they are open until 4am. We wanted to target those that were up that late – the partygoers. To do this, we simply modified the entrance stamps that partygoers usually get when entering a club. This was our attempt to jog the inebriated memories of those looking for a late night snack. Not only did we suggest Burger King as a possible destination, since they are open until 4am, but we also gave partygoers simple directions to follow (or to mumble/show to a taxi driver)

Dubai’s main traffic artery is Sheikh Zayed Road. Six lanes in both directions (with the Sea on one side and a desert on the other) that are broken down into 7 major intersections (Int 1, Int 2, etc). When you give directions in Dubai, you must give the closest intersection to exit or you will be unable to find your way. On our stamp, we’ve given the locations of the Burger King Restaurants located directly off of the individual intersections that were closest in proximity to the bar selected.

Good Stuff For Your Ears

We’ve always been great admires of the guys at BKP and we use them regularly for the production of our radio ads. We were recently ask to come up with some ads for them and in true Tonic style, we created the following campaign. Art Directed by Thomas Derouault and photographed by Thomas Derouault and French photographer Ben Dauchez this campaign simply cannot be ignored.

Instead of using models, we used BKP's target audience - normal agency folk like you and I, not that there's anything normal about these people :) The following three ads are running in print and the last three will be used as posters.

Happy ummm Valentines Day

Our anti-Valentine cherub is at it again (guess who didn’t get any roses this year :) If you remember we shared some of her Valentine cards on this blog last year. This year Renata sent the agency this image – her latest creation against the conformists.

Burger King Mural

This is the new "Have It Your Way" Burger King digital mural. It's a towering 2.7m height x 8.4m length installed in the food area at the biggest mall in the world, Dubai Mall. It's a massive print sandwiched in acrylic panels.

We pushed the idea of pop art into functional visual communication, attracting new set of customers, fun and outgoing, preaching the "have it your way message." Lines like I cannot imagine myself without onions, I'm an extra cheese kind of guy.

The mural was designed by our resident Brownmonkey, Rollen AKA Dogboy

The Italian Stallion strikes again

Some compromising photos of our resident Italian Stallion – Valerio have surfaced. It seems like Valerio was having a great time at last years Campaign party. Now we know who was responsible for opening all those poofs.

Panty Fetish

There’s a rumor that one of our Art Directors who we cannot name… ah what the hell, it’s Valerio :) has been spotted around town collecting women’s underwear. We usually turn a blind eye to our employees strange little fetishes, but when he started bringing his umm habit to work, we had to say something. It turns out, that Valerio was actually working on a secret project that will be unveiled in all it’s glory in the days to come… so he says…

Spot the difference

The Tribe (next door to us) recently came up with a really nice ad for themselves. The ad implies that because we're right next door to them, we steal their ideas. Please, we use the old award annuals for that :)

Anyway, this was our response a day later. See if you can spot the difference.

Gulf Finance Win

Starting the year with a new piece of business is always a good thing especially if that year happens to be 2009. The pitch was for Gulf Finance and after sprinkling a little Tonic magic, we were appointed to manage their strategic corporate communication, all re-branding aspects and corporate PR.

New Campaigns

While some companies have been moping around because of the financial crisis, we’ve been pretty busy in the past few weeks. Yes we’ve seen some budget cuts and have had some clients “disappear” over night, but that hasn’t stopped us coming up with ideas that were pretty inexpensive to produce thanks to the skills of our Designers and Art Directors. The first set of ads is for the Kids Park Zoo in Abu Dhabi created by the Rio Brothers Valerio and Dario. These simple executions show us that you can keep costs down and still create a memorable campaign that kids will love and remember.

We’ve used illustrations in the past for Burger King with our BK Joe campaign and it worked wonders. There’s a lot of freedom with illustrations that you don’t necessarily have with traditional photography and here is another example. These illustrations were beautifully created by Renata Giovannoni and the stories written by Kris Richardson. Full of fun, full of drama and perfect for the product on offer – the deliciously indulgent Burger King Chocolate Soufflé.

The new face of Tonic

While everyone is retrenching staff left right and centre, we decided to do the same so that we could afford to hire this guy – Thomas Derouault. He has the style and grace of a giraffe and the personality of a rock star and he’s French (we can’t all be perfect) and last but not least, he’s a brilliant Art Director who has already worked his magic amongst our ranks. Thomas joins our Obama lookalike Copywriter Kris Richardson.

Gone, but not forgotten

First of all, apologies for the state of our blog. A few weeks ago every image that was posted mysteriously vanished into thin air and it’s taken weeks to find most of them. We’re still missing quite a few and I fear to say that we may never get them back. But that’s ok, there’s no use dwelling in the past because it’s today and tomorrow the future that is important. Here’s to the new posts that will grace these electronic pages and may the fleas of a thousand camels infect the crotch of the person responsible for taking away our precious memories :)

Little Teo

A few days ago, Arnaud managed to clone himself and this was the result, a healthy bundle of joy :) Little Teo was born just two days ago and we'd like to wish Arnaud and Lavinia all the best with their second child.

Apocalypse Now

My Troops make me proud! Tonic completely annihilated the competition tonight at the AdNation Paintball Tournament :)

Thanks to "Fast" Dennis, "You-Won’t-Have-Time-To-Say" Arno, "Rabid" DogBoy, "Precision" Makram, "I’ll-Make-It-Personal" Andre, "Wondering" Kris, "Late" Haytham, umm Iya's husband and Iya as official cheerleader and professional photo-reporter... we won both legs of the elimination round. We are therefore in the 1/4 finals and more if we continue kicking ass the way we did with the Active’s and UM7’s.

You see, we're not just an award-winning, super-creative, ridiculously good looking agency!

For more info visit adnationme.com/adnation-paintball-tournament.html

It's Good to be Evil

This week, Rollan aka Dogboy of the Brown Monkeys, launched Evil Wear. This is what he had to say:

“With the rising concern of too much commercialism and profiteering, we have to rethink and go back to the basics. Evil is not only a shirt or a tag. It's a concept. The Evil Symbol is a combination of two fun characters: Mickey Mouse (USA) and Modhesh (UAE). Highly regarded for their entertaining attributes but a great vehicle of commercialism. Probably that's what’s happening now in UAE. Too much has been publicized about everything, but in the end, its not too pretty at all. Everyone's complaining. Too much of everything is Evil.

I hope by wearing a shirt, I can share the propaganda. I call the owners of the shirt an "Evil Doer." Every owner will email me back a picture of them wearing the shirt holding a knife. I will blog this daily and post it on our website, creating a small "EVIL community". In the future, Limited edition will be printed, customized by designers and artists. As a result, we create a mini hysteria.”

So grab a T-shirt for only 90 bucks and say no to ummm profiteering :)

http://brownmonkeys.multiply.com/

All hail the King

It’s not every day you get to spend an afternoon with royalty. That’s exactly how some lucky shoppers spend their afternoon at the opening of the newest Burger King restaurant in Dubai Mall. After walking about 5km around the mall you tend to work up an appetite and what better way to calm that hunger than with a triple Whopper served by his royal highness. Long live the King!

Tonic sees RED

As far as I know, and I know, we are the first agency to shoot a TV commercial on the new RED Digital Cinema camera in the Gulf. Undoubtedly, this is the best camera we’ve ever used. As far as resolution, functionality and design go, this camera takes it to the next level. I really feel that using this camera has simplified the process, especially when it comes to off-line. Amongst some of the advantages, is that you can grade and edit on site and the resolution is so good, you can rack into a shot 5 times more than you could of on any other camera. These are just some of the advantages of using this amazing new camera.

As Scott Billups said on their site, "It's not that the RED is really that far ahead of the technological curve, it's just that everything else is so far behind."

We used the RED to shoot four new spots for Burger King with Zoe in Beirut. Currently the spots are in post-production, but they’ll soon be on our site and the blog once they’re done, so watch this space.

Tonic gets a taste of Riyadh

It took about six trips to the Saudi consulate and a lot of umm paperwork, but they eventually decided to give me a visa. It's not on the top of my list of must see cities, but our trip to Riyadh to see our Burger King clients was a fruitful and an educational experience. Apart from visiting the first Burger King ever in the Middle East, we had the opportunity to see the sights and sounds of a city that many people misunderstand. BTW, if you're going to drive, get life insurance :)

Diwali

I cannot believe it’s already been a year since we last lit up the office in colourful fairy lights and candles. This year we only had candles because he who shall not be named, tripped over them and broke them. Everyone, give a round of applause to Valerio.

Tonic Wins Global Sama Account

It has been one of the biggest pitches we have ever had, beating more than 60 agencies (five of which were networks) over a period of almost a year. This win adds a lot of credibility for us as an agency because it shows that we don’t just do work on international brands, but that we can work on a global brand that has international reach.

So how did we do it? The planners sent the creative’s a video of dolphins blowing air bubble rings. It was the perfect representation of the core idea for Sama: Given the ideal environment, you will flourish. Dolphins left alone to express themselves are a million times more creative than when asked to perform tricks devised by humans.

We are all pretty excited to dig our teeth into this one.

Culture Pub

Sacre bleu! One of France’s top online advertising communities Culturepub.fr is showcasing our old Nando’s Ramadan spot. After two years, it’s still as popular as ever with more than a million views online!

BK Joe

For those of you who actually read our blog and don't just look at the pretty pictures, you'll know that we recently won the Burger King Account. A lot of people have been wondering what we'll be doing for them - wonder no more. Here are some of the first bits of creative done on this really great account with a lot of awesome work to follow.

These will roll out in Print, as Posters and Tray Liners.

Creative Director - Vincent Raffray
Art Director - Diya Ajit
Copywriter - Kris Richardson

Mural Drawing Fools

Our senior designer Rollan (aka Dogboy of The Brown Monkeys) and Art Director Diya (aka VJ *Chroma*) have teamed up with urban underground maestro Ubik (of Cliché magazine) to form the city's newest art collective : M.D.F (**Mural Drawing Fools**)- collaboratively conceiving and executing original contemporary wall art.

M.D.F has started getting commissions from the likes of The Jam Jar and Dubizzle.com and is currently producing 10 hip-hop inspired murals for local hip hop act Diligent Thought's latest music video- to be aired on MTV by the end of the year. As part of The Apartment Lounge & Club's new venture "Just Kidding"- a platform for art, music and fashion hosted at the club every Saturday, M.D.F did a live mural performance on a 2 metre x 1.2 metre sheet of reject construction material.

M.D.F is available for commissions and events. Email diajitt@gmail.com

Creatives at work

For the Rio Brothers and Andre, it was their first time in deep dark Africa. OK, it was South Africa and it wasn’t that deep or dark, but it was a great experience and enjoyed by all. The project - a new spot for Samsung Mobile. The location – Johannesburg. I guess their prayers were answered...

Although it was a tight shoot (in more ways than one), the boys did enjoy some downtime at a nearby reserve.

The "No Fun" Diet

The after lunch “purge” wasn’t working very well, so a few creative’s have taken it upon themselves to get into shape using the Tonic “No Fun” Diet. I doubt any of them will manage to stay on it very long because they’re all sitting next to Dogboy and he loves food about as much as he loves design. Anything edible seems to vanish in the vicinity of his desk.

Maybe they just want to be healthy or maybe they’re anticipating all the work we’ll be doing on Burger King, whatever it is, as a supportive agency we’ll be sure to keep them as far away from anything that tastes good for at least a day, after that, they're on their own. Wish them luck.

What happens in Cannes…

This year we managed to rub shoulders with the best in the industry and get some serious “networking” done… ok, ok, we partied till the sun came up and went down again. We drank rosé like it was water and did a lot of things that I can’t really mention on this blog. But for those of you that made it a week to remember (you know who you are), thanks for the laughs, the fun and the memories and please allow us to reciprocate next time you’re in Dubai :)
The UAE and the region is just getting better and better, with a number of agencies shortlisted and a few winning Gold and Silver. The Film Gold and Titanium still eludes us though, but there’s always next year. 2009, here we come (Burp)...

Have a Tonic with your Burger

After many weeks of pitching, a shit load of Whoppers and a couple of trips to the States, we can finally announce the news that Burger King Middle East has appointed us as their creative agency… who's your daddy :)

This is probably the first time in the region that a global blue-chip brand has moved it’s entire creative account to an independent agency and hopefully it won’t be the last. We won against four other network agencies after a pretty intense pitch that included two rounds of reviews from BK regional head office and key franchises, as well as a final validation from BK’s US brand agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

The decision by BK to give their account to us as an independent agency is a sure sign that the region is evolving. Regional marketers are beginning to realize the advantages of dealing with creative agencies that are producing daring and effective communication that finds its way into popular culture.

So soon, we’ll be entertaining you guys with some fresh, appetizing work made to order, the way only Tonic can deliver. Ok, too many puns, my bad.

Robotonic

Rob Gibbs, one of our Designers, recently designed the first designer toy in the Middle East. Only 800 pieces of this Limited Edition toy will be produced. The robot will come in various colours - pink, blue, black, cream and orange. A collaboration version will also be made with Dubai’s Design Collective, The Brownmonkeys. This unique toy will be available online at Kidrobot and various other designer toy retailers.

To commemorate the Middle East's first designer toy, the plan is to send out 100 blank robots to local and international artists, designers, typographers and agencies who will customize their robot and send it back where they will be exhibited and auction off for charity. For more info contact robot@tonicdubai.com

Designed by Robotandspark, sculpted by Tweekhed in the UK.

Samsung Vivace

For those of you that have worked with Korean clients before, you’ll know how difficult they can be sometimes. Our first job for Samsung was no exception. We were briefed to develop a campaign for their Vivace Air-conditioners. One of the key benefits of the AC Unit is that it can monitor your body temp while you sleep and adjust the temperature accordingly.

This spot is a step in the right direction and hopefully we can do better work for them in the future. The commercial was Directed by Alain Lambert and Produced by Zoe in Beirut.

A view from the top

This amazing shot has been doing the rounds and it gives you a pretty good idea how high the Burj Dubai really is. It's currently the tallest man-made structure in the world and it's due for completion in September 2009 (so they say).

Ummm

OK, ok after 4 Gold’s and a Bronze last year we were expected to do a lot better this year. I keep telling everyone that we were pitching hard to win new business, but know one seems to believe me, they just think we’ve run out of ideas. Watch this space and you’ll see what I mean.

At least we won something and our Clients Bafco and Bic should be proud of their Silver and Bronze Awards. All in all we had a great evening and this time next year, Tonic will be back on top - oh yes we will prevail… Congrats to JWT and FP7 for a job well done!

How we recruit Account Directors

It’s not easy finding great Account Directors in these parts, so in preparation for the Dubai Lynx Awards, we made some fake Tonic business cards. In place of the name, it read ‘your name here’ and Account Director underneath. We handed these out to all the good looking people during the festival, but during the actual awards evening, as JWT was announced Agency of the year, we ambushed their celebrations by throwing some of our fake business cards their way.

The response surprised even us :)

Talking the talk

This year Arnaud and I were invited by The Network One to speak at the Dubai Lynx Awards about all the fun we have being an Independent agency in The Middle East. In true Tonic style, Arnaud and I arrived a little unrehearsed to say the least, but we got our message across and judging by the laughter and the applause, our speech was well received. We hope our talk was a little inspiring if not entertaining. A big thanks to Julian Boulding from The Network One and everyone who attended the seminar.

Tonic Mascot

Wikipedia describes the term Mascot as any person, animal or object thought to bring luck. And after the month we’ve just had, we have to thank Lucy (the unofficial Tonic Mascot) for sharing some good luck and good old fashion Labrador love around the agency. Lucy has been at the office for more than a week now and we are seriously considering making her an official employee. The other day she even growled at a client when he asked us to make his logo bigger.

Radio for Art Directors

Recently, Tony Hertz was in the UAE doing his Radio for Art Directors workshop and if there's any place in the world that needs more help in producing better radio, it's Dubai. The workshop helps advertising agencies and clients alike find better ways of approaching radio advertising. I couldn't help feel though, that Tony was preaching to the converted. I wish there were more clients and stations in attendance. Never the less, it was an inspiring day and everyone left the workshop ready to produce the next award winning spot. I pulled the following ad off Tony's website. Enjoy.

For more info visit www.hertzradio.com

Do we have the hottest chicks in town or what?

Not only are our designers pretty hot, they can also do some amazing things with a piece of string, some tennis balls and a litre of petrol. They've taken their act from Diera, to Jebel Ali and for a small fee, they'll even do some private shows. For bookings, please contact the office.

For a good cause

We take a lot of things for granted especially our sense of sight. For those people that are visually impaired, there are some wonderful organisations like the Al Noor Association for the Blind that are willing to lend a hand.

Our goal was to raise as much awareness as possible for the Al Noor Association for the Blind. Sleeping masks with a message that said, “What if you could never take these off” were placed in Business Class sections of selected airlines. Sleeping masks, which are handed out during most flights, represent a perfect opportunity to communicate with an affluent target audience. When these masks are placed over the eyes, you can just imagine what life must be like for a visually impaired person. A simple idea with a very powerful message.

Many thanks to everyone involved in making this campaign a reality.

Please show your support by visiting www.alnoor4blind.org.om

Bic Campaign

In true Tonic style and simplicity, we bring you our latest campaign – Bic. What a great brand and what a great client for allowing us to do work like this. If you say Bic to someone, immediately you think pens. After this campaign, people will know that Bic are more than just stationery. Carefully illustrated by Satwik Saraswati and Art Directed by Diya Ajit and Peter Walker, these ads give new meaning to simplicity. Visit www.bicworld.com for more details on Bic and their amazing range of products.

Animal rights and wrong

Not only are we lucky enough to live in a place where the sun shines almost every day, but we also get the opportunity to brainstorm on the beach and that’s exactly where we were when we came across this cheetah. Yes a cheetah on the beach, in the water, on a lead – only in Dubai. My dog was crapping itself. She belongs to one of the Sheiks that live nearby and her handler was taking her for a walk. The locals often keep wild animals and as an animal loving, vegetable eating (well almost) South African, I had a few words to say to the handler. A beautiful animal like this deserves to be running free in the bush chasing gazelles and climbing trees. It shouldn’t be someone’s play toy attracting attention on a public beach.

Fresh Stock

Finally a Middle East stock library that we can all use without having to stick needles in our eyes. A lot of thought has gone into the production of these images and for this region, it’s a breath of fresh air.

DarylStock is an image library focusing solely on the needs of the region and was passionately created by Dubai based photographer Daryl Patni. Over the years of shooting, Daryl noticed that local image libraries were basically crap and he
wanted to change all that by offering quality images. We think he’s made a good start.

Visit darylstock.com and check out the site.

What if... Instead of pitching for clients we asked them to pitch for us?

What would we ask? Is it really too arrogant? After all they do it all the time...even the most pathetic excuse for a client will dare ask 15 agencies to compete??? sometimes I wonder.

It’s not a joke, we are actually seriously considering asking clients to pitch for Tonic. Especially property clients who out number agencies 4 to 1 in this town. It could go like this:

• Send us the CV of the people who will judge and approve our work? We want a full organisation chart. Referrals would be much appreciated.
• What is your agency background? List the last three agencies you have worked with and the reasons the relationship ended?
• Why do you contact us and the other agencies on your short (hopefully)-list?
• What is the favourite campaign you have seen from us? The one you hate the most? Why? Please no less than 150 words per campaign, and no less than 3 per category.
• Do you think you can buy the work we will send your way?
• If you could work with any agency around the world, who would it be? Why do you think they would work with you?
• How much do you think you will have to throw at us to make us swallow our creative integrity?
• How much do you intend to spend in media, production, agency fees? What research model do you use to justify the breakdown?
• What are the criteria you will use to judge / evaluate / consider / dismiss our work?
• What remuneration principle do you recommend?

You might be laughing but wait until we start implementing this. In a town where every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he can call an agency and have it begging to entertain him, it’s not so far-fetched a possibility.

Maybe it is time, we either introduce a pitch fee, like in any other developed market... or we introduce a client pitch concept.

What do you think?

A good dose of inspiration from Crispin Porter and Bogusky

There’s nothing like starting the new year with a little inspiration. And for me at least there’s no better inspiration than visiting what I think is the best agency on the planet: Crispin Porter + Bogusky. If you don’t know them, they are the guys who reinvented Burger King, launched the Mini and VA in the US, made millions stop smoking with the Truth and all this out of Miami.

So while I was on holidays in El Salvador, I decided to hop onto a plane and accept Chuck Porter’s invitation to drop by. I first circled around their office feeling the vibe. The kitsch pink flamingo fountain on one end and the giraffe trying to French kiss a horse on the other where good signs. Yet they did not prepare me for the gentle and humble attitude I found in CP+B. I guess these guys are so good they just don’t care about false airs of grandeur anymore, they are just chilled, polite and fun to be with. Mr. Porter was a pleasure to talk to and I almost wet myself when he said he liked our work. I only spent 90 minutes with him but this is going to stay with me until I am 90. Although he kept saying that they were only a small agency, I could not help thinking that I was in one of the biggest creative centres of the world. If they call themselves small...who the hell are we...

A few lessons for all of you aspiring to greatness out there: when you get there, don’t forget where you came from. This way I guess you can continue growing with the things that got you there in the first place.

Enjoy the pics from a humbled planner.

Posted by Arnaud Verchere

New Bafco Campaign for 2008

Finally a new campaign for 2008 worth posting. We've been so busy working on property clients that we're going a little crazy (ok, maybe alot crazy). Anyway, Bafco have always given us creative leeway and this year was no exception. This was a campaign that we wrote and rewrote because we never knew where to draw the line. Here are the first three ads, there might be more depending on how well they are received. All pics were shot by Peter Walker and the styling, props and locations were provided by Nadia Marto from Production Planning Solutions in Dubai.

This is Elliot. He still lives with his mother. This is his car. This is his best friend. His idea of fun. How he spends most of his evenings. And this is his job. The only thing that stops Elliot from putting a bullet through his middle-aged balding head is coming to work everyday where he can be more productive in his ergonomically designed office chair and feel like a real player.

Copywriters Wanted

Tonic's first ad of 2008 is a follow up to our much-loved or much-hated but much-responded "Apple core logo Art Director Wanted” ad. This time we’re looking for copywriters. Borrowed from a clever wordplay, we thought this simple sign would make a great recruitment ad for writers.

If you’re scratching your head thinking WTF, read each word carefully :) If you got the ad immediately, send us your book.

The UAE is one of the most awarded countries in the world

I just arrived back to work fresher than ever, thanks to a solid holiday and after opening up all the mail stacked on my desk and taking care of all those unanswered e-mails I took a brake to read the 2007 Gunn Report.

Although we narrowly missed being listed as one of the top 45 advertising agencies worldwide for our wins on Nando’s, Sony and Wonderbra, I did notice that the UAE made its début in the top 20 award winning countries – Only three below South Africa. Who would have thought.

The Gunn Report is the only independent report on creativity for the advertising world. It is based on a very simple idea. It combines the winners' lists from all of the major advertising award contests in the world - national, regional and global.

For more info, visit gunnreport.com

Clouds in Dubai

Some people say we have our heads in the clouds, and at the moment, nothing could be further from the truth. All over the world, others take these fluffy white objects for granted, not us. Here in Dubai, a cloudy sky is rare indeed and when days like this arrive, all we feel like doing is lying on the beach and watching the clouds drift by.

Practicing what we preach

We at Tonic believe that ethics is the best way to succeed in our advertising world and we serve our clients with a lot of passion because we love what we do.

A leading shipment company , one of our biggest clients, or should I rather say x-clients, is no longer with us because we had an incident that involved ethical behavior. We just stopped working with them. The client was basically rude and abusive with one of our colleagues. We therefore decided to stop all the plans that were approved for 2008.

We care and respect each other at Tonic and don’t tolerate any behavior that mess with our dignities as human beings.

Trends

We’re often asked to do barter deals with some of our suppliers. Obviously budgets are small, but sometimes you can do some cool work. This spot for Trends Magazine had to be dead simple – some people have said too simple, but I think it works well and it will get noticed.

The print ad was shot by Tommy Morris and the TV spot was digitally done by Modelcraft.

Excuse the low res quality

Magic Energy

These are two spots from a campaign of ads we recently shot for Magic Energy Drink.

The spots were produced by Commercials in Istanbul, Directed by Olaf van Gerwen and Art Directed by Diya Ajit. The titles were done by Greg Meeks from Flic, South Africa and the music and sound design were done by MassiveMusic, Amsterdam.

I think they turned out really nicely and they’ll do the job. Shooting in Istanbul was a great experience. The crew and production were good, but they fell a little short in their post. Maybe our miniscule budget had something to do with it.

Dogboy for Tonic

Our latest addition to Tonic, Rollan Rodriguez aka Dogboy is known for the prolificness of his work. Abstract expressionist, pop-artist, sometimes musician and sometimes a film maker. His influences are deeply rooted from early childhood daily cartoon characters to the great visual artists. His work is described as ubiquitous as it is, in your face. Found objects, demented photos, carton boxes, felt-tip pen, packing tape and paint are the weapon of choice. Though he is a slave worker at design studios and advertising agencies, his romance with his art and self-expression are still at large. He believes that he was a war robot of the 1920's at his early life.


He is a co-founder of the Brownmonkeys, a design collective based in Dubai. They consist of graphic designers, illustrators, painters, musicians, photographers and videographers. Brownmonkeys believe in the idea "creativity without borders". On a lighter side, they believe Astroboy can save the world; they believe in the power of monsters, robots and Apple computers.

Respect

Check out their work at www.brownmonkeys.com

Jam Jar

Diya, Fionn, Pete and Renata decided to venture off to The Jam Jar to do a
little creative expression OUTSIDE of the agency.The Jam Jar is a painting
studio where you are provided with a choice of various sized canvases, an
easel, paint, brushes and even a little music to help get the creative
juices flowing.

Diya had a vision of exactly what she was going to paint. "A mish-mash of
swirling grey forms"

Pete painted about 5 versions on top of eachother but eventually settled on
this master'peace' He describes it as "Depressing but hopeful" Blue skies up
ahead if you will...

Fionn did what he describes as "The Bumble-Bee Vagina" err...it was meant to
be a shell but it's new evolution was way more entertaining.

Renata painted some sort of emotional explosion of heartache and sorrow.
Painting titled "Everyday I Get Better"
hehe...some serious issues underlying there somewhere...;)

All in all it was a fabulous bonding session for the creative minds at
Tonic.

Designers and Art Directors Wanted

It's not often that we get to do ads for ourselves and when we do, it's often done in a rush. Here was our attempt to get Designers and Art Directors to send in their portfolios. The ad was put up on adsoftheworld.com last week and since then we have had about 300 respondents.

If any client's are reading this, notice how big we've done our logo ;)

In the spirit of Ramadan

Music has the power to connect people, inspire, motivate, uplift and empower. At a recent visit to Sparrow Rainbow village, music began to fill a once empty room and the smiling faces of children, some as young as five began jiving to the beat of local South African hip hop and house music shadowing the reason which brought them all together to start off with, HIV/AIDS.

On a recent Velocity shoot for Sony with director Jeana Theron, Sony donated the incredible sound system used in the shoot and Velocity chose the Sparrow Rainbow Village as its beneficiary.

Sparrow rainbow village is the only HIV/AIDS dedicated hospice care-facility on the West rand of Johannesburg (South Africa). Through housing, education, training and counseling the Village cares for over 350 men, women and children who have been diagnosed with or directly affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The construction of a hall to be used for music, song and dance initiatives has recently been completed. The hall boasts drum kits, a full compliment of instruments for a marimba band, and guitars. The Villages’ motto is “Get up and live” and this is exactly what happened as the Sony Hi-Fi was plugged in and turned up to full blast.

Dawn Bell, Head of Fundraising and PR at Sparrow Rainbow Ministries was overjoyed and said, “the Sony Hi-Fi could not have come at a better time. It would be used in the official opening of the Music hall and later used for teaching dance and used in various Sparrow rainbow village initiatives.” The Hi-Fi apart from being a gift would go a long way to bringing joy into the lives of the adults and children at Sparrow Rainbow Village and was the perfect way to help inspire and uplift the children who face a difficult life each and every day.”

Thanks to Client: Sony Gulf FZE, Agency: Tonic communications, Dubai and Production Company Velocity Films, South Africa for an amazing end to a great shoot.

For further information or much needed aid:
Sparrow Village
Tel (011) 472-6628
Fax (011) 672-1000
E-mail : shospice@metroweb.co.za
Website : http://www.sparrowvillage.co.za/
004-335 NPO

AWOL

It’s not often that we go on holiday (because we love our jobs so much), but recently quite a few of us went on leave. Tonicians were spread on nearly every continent on earth and some weren’t even on this planet ;)

I love you not

We’re months away from Valentines Day, but there’s always some relationship drama in the agency. I thought these unique cards conceived and designed by Renata, our new creative soul, are brilliant. She wrote all the lines herself and hand painted each card in watercolours (I’d love to know where she got her inspiration from). I’m sure you’ll find them stocked at Magrudy’s pretty soon.

Fresh Meat

We’re always happy to see new faces at Tonic. This month three new recruits join our creative, media and client servicing departments. At least two of them are pretty good looking (a prerequisite to working at Tonic) no guesses as to which two I’m talking about :)

Anyway, Renata is a real Italian South African girl who I can only describe as a walking soap opera judging by some of the experiences she’s had in the past few weeks. She also has a fondness for chicken skin, killing bunnies and bleaching various body parts. With 9 years experience, her design skills will help take our creative department to the next level, unless FP7 poaches her that is.

Haytham joins the media department. He’s often seen walking around the office looking for a stiffy drive (don’t ask me what he’s doing with stiffy disks in 2007) otherwise he’s doing media stuff like cutting stuff out of magazines, playing solitaire and listening to George Michael.

Anu Parekh is an aspiring planner who joins us as a Business Exec. She’s so new in Tonic, that we haven’t even bought her a lap top yet (we’re waiting for Gitex). In the meanwhile, she’s doing quite nicely with the chalkboard she got in her Tonic welcome pack. Her hero or should I say heroine, is ice skating legend Tonya Harding :)

Tonic Brings in the Bronze, and Switches to Kellogg's for Breakfast

Tonic recently won the Bronze for the Nando's Ramadan Kareem ad at the South African Loerie awards, and we couldn't be prouder. With a total of seventeen winners in the TV & Cinema commercial category, Tonic represents one of the two agencies in Dubai to win at the 29-year-old award ceremony.

We'd like to think we're the best at what we do because we love what we do - and winning awards goes a long way in the job satisfaction arena! But we're not one to rest on our laurels.

Looking forward, we've recently won the Kellogg's PR account, and our PR girls have been munching on creative strategies for the brand. Our sampling partner for three years, we won the account in a competitive pitch (just the way we like it) because of our ideas and creativity. Tonic PR is about to take Kellogg's to another level, and we can't wait to start.

Posted by Tonic PR

Let the battle begin

It's that time again when we have those extra long lunch breaks or try and leave work a little earlier to catch our favourite teams doing battle at the Rugby World Cup. As a multi-national agency, this will get pretty exciting and pretty expensive for some :)

Does anyone know where we can get some real biltong around here?

Tonic/Wyeth Golf Day

Some people think it’s crazy chasing after a little white ball in temperatures of 40+, but when your client challenges you to a game of golf, you just don’t say no, even though there are only two people in the entire agency that actually own clubs yet alone know how to use them. I happen to be one of them, Fionn the other and both of us haven’t hit a ball in years. As Obi One would say, entertaining very it will be.

We arrive at The Montgomery and after sneaking a few practice shots at the driving range, we jumped into our air-conditioned, GPS enabled, cooler box carrying golf cart and nervously headed for the first tee. After a shaky start, we weren’t playing too badly until Fionn noticed he was a few clubs short. Other players behind kept on driving up to us to return the clubs and by the end of the day, I think Fionn owed the entire club a round of drinks.

The day was truly entertaining and educational, as you’ll see in the attached video. Paul and Trevor from the Wyeth team had a lot of good tips on how to improve our swing, how to drink a beer and drive a golf cart at the same time and how administer first aid on bleeding blisters. One little known technique they showed us, was how to “prune the hedges”, a swing you would normally use if you happen to find yourself in a bougainvillea or grassy shrub. Thankfully we never had to use it, although a swimming costume and a mask would’ve come in handy for both Fionn and I.

Once the scores were totaled, Wyeth took a narrow victory, a well deserved win, considering they were the client and all ;). Anyway, we’ll take them when we go bowling next week. Stay tuned.

Newbies

Everyday there seems to be a new face at Tonic, even trying to remember their names is becoming a problem and some people don’t take kindly to being called ‘hey you’. This month we have a newbie in almost every department, obviously a little more in creative.

Diya Ajit joins Fionn Geaney to form the agency’s newest creative team. They’ve only been together for a few days and already they’re inseparable. She’s the only Art Director I know that can’t use a mouse, but now that we’ve finally bought her a Wacom, I can see the great ideas flowing from her Mac.

Another new recruit for the creative department is Dennis Andrews de Paul and apart from remarkably having two first names in his surname and having an uncanny resemblance to Millhouse from the Simpsons, Dennis is a Mac wizard who makes sure every bit of creative that leaves the agency is 100% right. (I hope he’s reading this)

Komal Patwari joins Tonic PR and is the reason it took so long for me to post this bit of agency news. She’s a little camera shy and made us retouch the final image at least three times. And she says I’m vain…

If he’s not Art Directing his way through clients like Sony, Wyeth and Nakheel. David Tavakoli spends his days trying to invent the next best thing since, well, since Salik’s booth less, radar, infrared, wireless tollgate thingy.

A self-confessed pop-culture addict, Nadja Carr joins us as an Account Director. For her small size, she sure gets people to listen to her. Maybe it’s the well-placed profanities she strategically inserts into every sentence when communicating with the creative department, or maybe it’s the fact that she once ran with the Triads;)

Last but not least, our youngest recruit with the biggest personality and voted Face Book friend of the year, Lamis Harib. Not only does she allow us to fulfil our Emiratisation quota, but also she’s a damn good designer/writer/artist and well Facebooker.

Diesel Show: Underwater Magic

Diesel’s Spring/Summer 08 catwalk show, staged a few days ago at the Pitti Immagine Uomo fair in Florence, was nothing short of stunning. While regular human models paced up and down the runway, a host of polyp-like CGI characters appeared in mid-air to interact with them within an underwater landscape. And in a unique twist, these animated holograms were entirely viewable from both sides of the stage. But this was no Paul Daniels Magic Show trickery – more a perfect blend of cutting edge digital art and performance.

Diesel’s Creative Team (under the direction of Wilbert Das) based the show on an aquatic theme entitled “Liquid Space” and brought together Barcelona animation studio Dvein – who worked on the CGI visual effects and 3D animations – and Danish multi-media production agency, Vizoo, who provided the innovative technology for the show, which they had created themselves. Neither studio, say Diesel, had previously worked on anything like this before.



This is what one of the creators had to say; “The visuals are projected through a series of ‘foils’ into mid air, so you see the images in mid-air. The models can then interact with them and walk through them. We used plastic foils placed at 45 degree angles so that the projected light from the ceiling goes onto a foil, is reflected on to another and then into the air.

We worked it so it had a real catwalk feel and so that you could view it from both sides: you can see the models, the holograms and the public from both sides. It’s never been used this way before as the technology has just been used in the corporate world before, for sales presentations, and the visuals have always just been viewed from one side. So we set up two rigs instead.

The animations were done with standard CGI animation software but were made for a 15m by 2.5m screen. It’s all rendered in HD, too, so was quite demanding as it’s 30 frames per second. We worked on the whole thing, from storyboard through to the final render in just two and a half months. Bringing together Dvein and Vizoo gave us this unique, truly holographic, 3D motion graphic experience.”

Now that’s magic, as the high-pitched Mr Daniels would say.

Floating on a sea of stills

We’ve just come back from a few weeks of shooting spots for DP World and Sony around Europe and South Africa. Our latest addition to the Tonic showreel comes in the form of still images, 50,000 of them to be precise. Ok, we only ended up using a fraction of that, but the results are pretty interesting. We treated the spot with a random blur that made the ships and containers look like little toys. All in all, it was an incredibly enjoyable trip and we’re all extremely happy with the results.

Shot on location in Dubai, Amsterdam and Antwerp, the spot was directed by Stillking’s Wolfberg and the post was done in Prague.

Map your site

This is how our blog looks like through the eyes of aharef.info.

Thanks to Stefanie and her great blog (http://absolutgoogle.blogspot.com/) I found this really cool application. It does not really do anything useful but is surprisingly addictive.

It graphically represents your site, its structure and its connections. Try out your site, at http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/.

What do the colours mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags


Have fun

A New Stag in Town

After much success in Europe and the US Jagermeister is finally here to rock Dubai!
Last weekend saw the start (of much more to come) as Jagermeister took over Barasti bar at Le Meridien Mina Seyahi. From ice shot machines to “Jagerettes” running around livening up the crowd.



Dubbed a cult drink for the younger generation in the US, Jagermeister is a strong herb-based alcohol from Germany (best enjoyed in cold shot glasses of course) that has a strong presence within the party scenes in Europe and the US. Basically it was about time it got introduced to the social scene of Dubai.



Make sure not to miss the Pots’n’Pans party this Friday May 25th at Ibo…We will be there along with the jagerettes!
If you’re interested in finding out more, do make sure to drop us a line.

Say it with a word

In our constant search for new and innovative ideas we came across one of Europe’s most successful multimedia marketing tools; Expericard.

Packaged in a cool and interesting way, the Expericard is a DVD or CD-rom disk that can be loaded with high res film, sound, texts and links to websites – all delivered in a sturdy postcard. Actually the disk can even be infused with a scent!

This patented postcard can be distributed in an almost unlimited number of ways, including mail and magazine insert using a lip for integration with advertising.

Our first client and the first client to ever use Expericard in the region is Park Hyatt Dubai. Known for their unique standards the hotel will use the postcard as part of their marketing activity surrounding the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai in May.

Tonic Communications is the sole representative for Expericard in the Middle East and North Africa.

Biannual Tonic Beach Party

Yes it’s that time of year again where Tonicians and friends get together to celebrate… well to celebrate the fact that we’re the coolest bestest agency in town. These beach parties seem to be happening more and more often. Unfortunately we’ll soon have to find a new beach on which to party. Our beloved stretch of coastline at Jebel Ali resembled more like the parking lot at Mall of the Emirates on Friday afternoon than a piece of paradise. Little children were getting lost and the water seemed a lot hotter (maybe that’s the summer) Anyways, fun was had by all. Thanks once again to Med for organizing this wicked get together. More pics available on Meds Facebook page.

TONIC welcomes...

Andre, Fionn and Harry!
Our three new Tonicians come from three different disciplines and parts of the world. Andre Troubetzkoi comes from the international advertising & production market for over 12 years, and brings to Tonic a network of business and production solutions that encompasses more than 20 countries. An international character from the start, he was born in France of Russian decent, raised in Canada. Most recently he started Hummingbird Europe, an independent sales/marketing consultancy to promote European and American production houses. Before that he worked at Stillking Films for over 4 years in their Prague headquarter where he marketed directors across Europe and the Middle East. And still before that, 2 years in London at Stink.

Harry Weber is our senior graphic designer and art director at Tonic. He brings to Tonic a vast and senior experience in projects both in the Middle East and abroad. Hailing from Austria, Harry has worked in the region for the last 3 years. Joining us from Wunderman Dubai Harry has been key to the success of our latest projects.

Fionn Geaney joins Tonic as a copywriter. This is all he would like to mention for now. We respect that. Cool.


We welcome them warmly to the Tonic family.

Peoples choice

Ad-Awards, an independent group who selects the best ads on a monthly basis just finished their best TV commercial list for 2006. We got a bronze with SONY kick it under the Public’s choice category. We thank the public for their choice.

TONIC apointed by DP World!

Dubai Ports World is today one of the biggest port operators in the world. When buying P&O last year , which was then the fourth largest ports operator in the world, for £3.9 billion, it created a global controversy with it's newly acquired US ports. George Bush went on national TV twice supporting this sale but later the The House of Representatives took a vote on March 16, 2006 on legislation that would have blocked the Dubai Ports World sale. The ports where later sold to AIG. Today DP World currently operates 19 major terminals around the world, with 5 major projects in development.

TONIC has recently been appointed to build the global image of this giant terminal operator.

Stay posted for more news.

Biticino onboard

This Italian sockets and wiring devices giant, present in more than 60 countries and market leader in most of them has just arrived in the UAE. Owned by the Legrand Group, Btcino is to launch together with TONIC their high-end range of wiring devices, Axolute, throughout the Middle East. This brand which is very lifestyle oriented has great potential for the new high-end construction projects being developed not only in Dubai but also throughout the whole region. Bticino was the first Italian manufacturer after the Second World War to tackle the problem of producing electrical components in light of modern design thinking.

TONIC starts working for World Compliance

World Compliance is a global client with the ambition to become the world leader in due diligence and helping financial institutions and governments doing business in an ethical manner. Their list range from politically exposed persons, their family members and close associates. Monitoring a variety of sanction lists from the European Union, United Nations, Bank of England to name a few. They compile extensive lists on arms dealing, people wanted by the Interpol, FBI, drug traffickers, money launderers, persons sentenced for financial fraud and individuals and companies that face criminal charges relating to money laundering, corruption and other allegations. They can investigate in such secretive countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg or other European countries.

It's a SONY!

We are just getting over the Dubai Lynx awards and the happy outcome and we kick it again.... SONY has appointed us their Handycam account. We have been appointed to take this video camera leader to new heights in Africa, Middle-East and Iran. Looking forward to post the work in the coming months.

And the ball keeps on rolling...

We managed to get a finalist with our Wonderbra “Censored” ad in the first Ever World Press Awards started by the legendary, Neil French. Ok, it’s not the coveted Gold, Silver or Bronze, but at least we’re in the book.

The unemployed ex-Creative Director rounded up some big names in the industry for the judging. Along with French himself the judges were Jim Aitchison, Mark Tutssel, Tham Khai Meng, Jeremy Craigen, Marcello Serpa and Graham Warsop.

















See the award winning work and judges comments at http://www.worldpressawards.com

Lynx night

So it was an interesting night with 1200 guys and girls. Windy and wet (beverage wise) everyone in the biz was there and it ended like this:

The Print category was the strongest with a total of 39 winners, followed by Direct with 22, 17 in Outdoor, 14 trophies were awarded in TV/Cinema, 12 in Interactive, there were 4 Radio winners and 3 in the Integrated category.
UAE won the most awards (88) followed by Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia each taking home 7 trophies and Bahrain won 2.

And we got:
1 TV/Cinema Gold for Sony Kick it
1 TV/Cinema Gold for Nando's Ramadan
1 Print Gold for Wonderbra Censored
1 Interactive Gold for Sony Microvault
1 Print Bronze for SONY VAULT

















Thanks everyone for the support we got. We did have our expectations higher than the outcome. In terms of numbers we did deliver. We have as many gold's as the agency of the year and based on our submission amount we scored more than half of them. No one else did. Until next time...someone once gave me a good reflection about award shows " It's a Marathon not one hundred meters flat".

-Huka Puka everyone..

88% SHORTLISTED!

With 14 of our 16 entries making it through the shortlist we are more than happy right now, so let's hope on tomorrow nights award ceremony will bring us some minutes on the podium. Comment. We really like most of the shortlisted work so good job on the first lynx judging, also good job to the other agencies out there. Tomorrow we party...

Blog of the month: WE!

Cultura Creativa. The main creative magazine of South America have chosen us as Blog of the month. We thank them for their recognition and hope to keep up the good work. Official magazine of FIAP- Ibero-American Advertising Festival it is the most important Spanish and Portuguese-speaking festival, with more than 8500 entries and over 2000 delegates from all around the world.
The Festival starts April 23rd in Buenos Aires.
We will drop a line or two in the future about the winners of FIAP as they usually also win in the other comming International Award shows.

Rock solid work

David Birkitt, director of UK agency Bill Charles passed by the office last Thursday. The work he had with him was just amazing.... rock solid stuff. Our predictions were right, 2007-2008 is going to be the year when the rest of the world is looking to have something to do with Dubai. For Dubai thou the old days of exporting all the good productions and head off to trendy New York to shoot for 2 weeks with the super budget and the mega productions are gone. Not being able to leave town sucks for the creatives thou...

Here are some great work from Nadav Kander, Julian Broad, Stephan Schacher and Tom Craig.

Looking forward David.

My daddy is in advertising

I was recently asked by one of the teachers at my son’s school to do a talk on advertising. It was my opportunity to enlighten young minds on how to do great advertising before their minds got completely corrupted by the next DAMAC or Du ads.

It started out nicely, 5 minutes later half the class was asleep. I had to use my secret weapon – I started showing them some of the ads we’d recently done. Sony’s “Kick” spot quickly woke them up and by the time they had seen our Nando’s ad, they were falling off their chairs.

It was amazing to see the level of intelligence these kids possessed when asked to come up with ideas on the spot. Then the questions started. How much money do you make? How many ads have you done? What’s the worst ad you’ve ever done? Do you dye your hair? I answered as many as I could and gave them some advice on their packaging design, a class project they were working on. I then said goodbye happy in the knowledge that maybe some of these bright young souls will have the sense not to get into advertising.

Effort for this week

Vincent is judging on bestadsontv.com this week and he is giving his opinion on Che Men's Magazine, Greenpeace, Truth.com and SMART car. An interesting website with lots of useful tools and news. Latest ads keeps you up to day with what's out there.

Nice. Bookmarked. Check it out.

Best killer pitch invite ever....

We have been invited to Pitches in many odd ways. Phone calls in the middle of the night, half-an-hour notice, one liner e-mails.... But this one really takes the prize. We can't disclose the client for now, but we surely think their idea was super cool & funky. Got this massive disco ball delivered today to the office together with other really cool stuff, ( Can't say more than that for now). Well the guys got all excited and started disco dancing this morning. They just forgot to nail it really well to the roof. The TONIC colleague on this picture will most probably survive and is being treated for minor injuries at a nearby hospital.

Great initiative. Great idea.

-Really looking forward to this pitch. Let's dance!

TRIP FROM HELL

Arnaud, our managing director, just flew over the weekend to Stockholm to pick up our two golds and bronze Epica's. Poor man, we almost lost him to the polar bears and the minus 20 degrees that swept in. According to him he checked every possible variation of Murphy's Law during the trip. Here is an example: It was supposed to be routine trip but it ended up with Arnaud having to re-route across Europe a couple of times and loosing his bags ( they are still not back...). Upon arriving super jetlagged and almost late to the Ceremonies , missing the dinner and having to fight for some drink coupons, we managed to collect our two new friends who now proud our collection at the meeting room.




P.S - Arnaud is flying back to Sweden next week, we are keepin our fingers crossed.

TONIC WORLD DOMINATION

The first post of the year is a little experiment that has been going on at the Agency for more than a week now. We asked everyone to put on a world map where they were born with a RED PIN. Later the same put a color pin where everyone had visited. And last we asked to mark where we have a TONIC friend (BLACK PIN) that we currently or previously have worked with. A week later the outcome was the following:

- Out of 21 red pins 12 are from different countries.
- TONIC has visited more than 120 countries!
- We have more than 30 TONIC friends around the world!

Cape town where the Southern most city visited. Greenland where the Northern most. Hawaii came as the Western most city and French Polynesia as the Eastern most place visited. So of the world's 202 sovereign states we have seen 60% of the world.

Please click on the world image to see in detail all the places TONIC has been visiting.

Scary Vegetables

I just got hold of some new printing pulls from the creatives. It's definitely a fresh take on the sleepy child nutrition category. We have been working with Wyeth for a while now and we have enjoyed a tremendous development from where we started. It's a great satisfaction for me to show work that just doesn't want to be mommy cute and baby pink but actually has an idea with a sense of humor. If you remember being a kid you can relate to this. Having kids myself I know that convincing them of that neon green Broccoli on that plate is a friendly and really delicious friend is not going to fly, unless I have some really polished convincement skills that day or a liter of Heinz ketchup around. It's a great insight and the team have done a great job with the art direction. We shot this with photographer Tommy Morris who has been a great supporter of TONIC and we hope to see more of his work together with ours.

EPICA WINNER! TONIC is the first agency from UAE awarded in the Epica since 20 years!

TONIC has just won 2 Gold EPICAS and one Bronze finalist. Our first gold was our highly debated TVC Nandos Ramadan ad. Our second gold was our print campaign for Wonderbra. And the Bronze finalist was for our TVC Sony Kick it. We are very happy not only for this achievement but also for being the first advertising agency in the Middle East to win an EPICA. And on top two!




20.000 webfilm-hits can't be wrong. The Nandos TVC has been embraced by everyone and sure raised some eyebrows. We have not only proven that solid creative work can come out of this region but also that you can reach out to the Muslim community through a humorous approach. After years of generic Ramadan ads we finally took away the excuse of only being allowed to do boring generic work.




Our Wonderbra ad also took a fresh and humorous look at censorship in this region. The fact that the censorship played an important role in highlighting the product benefits couldn't have been a better help. We hoped that touching on topics like this will start stirring things and awake a debate. Fact is that over the past few months graphical censorship has eased quite remarkably, and we would like to think that we contributed to this matter. Who knows.



Finally or SONY kick it TVC. We didn't win a gold, sure, but we would like to mention who we got beaten by. Fallon London's SONY paint campaign directed by Jonathan Glazer with a multi million dollar budget. Fact is they spent more money on the "making of" of the commercial than we did in our TVC. Anyways, we have proven that we can be in the same league as the big boys now and are looking forward to next years competition.

Annual TONIC Beach Party+FRIENDS!

We are keeping up with our old tradition (3rd year now) of our annual TONIC beach party. We stopped counting at around 67 people+2 dogs...

It was really a great afternoon. We all got to have some serious fun together with our families and friends (and pets). Jebel Ali beach still rocks and we had time to play, eat, talk and have some nice cool drinks by the beach. As always we stayed until sundown and late into the night. One big thanks to Medhat ( Media Director, the dude lying in the front with the blue basketball jersey) for organizing everything and standing firm as our official BBQ-Chef.

As traditional custom we had to pull out some 6 car out of the sand, but then again it's not a beach party unless someone gets stuck.

My other car is a CCX

The Swedish Koenigsegg CCX Supercar speeded into motor journalists hearts last week at Bab Al Shams as TONIC introduced this swedsih manmade 550,000 Euro hyperfast sport machine. The latest creation of Christian Von Koenigsegg, the Koenigsegg CCX, is a look-like-no-other car whose body and chassis are made of a lightweight carbon fibre composite reinforced with Kevlar, and whose all-aluminium engine is designed for high intensity pressure and heat. A perfect combination for this region!

Christian von Koenigsegg, who was in Dubai for the launch, talked about the manufacture of his cars with a clear vision: “In the production of each car, we devote all available time, emotions and resources – sparing nothing, venturing and sacrificing everything – in the name of beauty, perfection and speed.”







The CCX is the latest iteration of the Koenigsegg CC range, offering tighter lines and a more aggressive stance, but clearly following in the noble design and engineering tradition of its predecessor, the CCR, famous for holding the production car speed record of 388 km per hour.





Inside, leather contrasts with futuristic stainless steel controls and refined surfaces. The hardtop is stored under the front bonnet during roofless driving and crash tests have verified that at least in terms of safety, Koenigsegg is a truly Swedish car.





Andreas Petré, Manager - Koenigsegg Middle East, is looking forwar to introduce the CCX to car enthusiasts in the region “because of our shared passion for the most finely honed, beautiful and powerful vehicles on the street.”





Other distinctive elements include a large interior that makes it the most spacious supercar on the market; optional ceramic front disc brakes that give it a lower unsprung weight than any other supercar, and an engine that is engineered completely in house, unique among low-volume supercar manufacturers.

The world’s fastest, most powerful production cars will soon be gliding along the roads of the UAE and the rest of the Gulf.
Koenigsegg operates a regional marketing office in Jebel Ali, Dubai.






TONIC is the appointed head agency of Koenigsegg in the Middle East and Africa.





More KS info and stories is being developed and will be available in a near future through a special blog. We will keep you updated on the current developments of it. If you would like to know anything in particular about the CCX, please don't hesitate to contact us. -Keep the speed!

TONIC After Dark

STIRR™
TONIC Events have been changing the Dubai party scene this last two weeks.
We have been running from one event to the other which has left little time to update this blogg, but we promise to keep you updated more often now. We kicked it of at the Park Hyatt Dubai Terrace with our feature club STIRR™ just two weeks ago together with the Middle Eastern launch of Goldfish. David Poole and Dominic Peters are the Jazz musician-DJ-beat-freak-sonic surgeons behind Cape Towns Electro-Jazz sensation GOLDFISH. In two short years Goldfish have indelibly stamped their mark on electronic music and they have been hailed as the Re-invention of the DJ.




Both accomplished Multi-instrumentalists and Jazz musicians in their own right, Dave and Dom have taken their grounding in Jazz and broken boundaries on the dance floor combining Samplers, Saxophones, a Groove box, Keyboards, Vocoder, Electric Double Bass, Flute and effect units into a spur-of-the moment, cutting-edge live remix performance. When performing live, they are DJs so to speak, but with no predestined CD or Vinyl. Everything is created live, allowing a completely unique, spontaneous performance at every show. You can experience their music at http://www.goldfishlive.com/

GOLDFISH was a total success and more than 500 hundred music loving people enjoyed the show. STIRR™ is changing the music scene in Dubai and the Park Hyatt Terrace is starting to shape up as a vivid music and lounge scene. Your'e welcome to join us every Friday and Saturday from Sundown and on.

This is a series of events that we are currently doing for our client Diageo and African and Eastern. More will come and if you would like to know about them in the future drop us a mail and we will make sure you get invited. Cheers.




Casino Royale at the 400
Two nights ago the Dubai society saw a new club emerge. The hipper exclusive 400 at the Fairmont is surely going to raise some eyebrows on the club scene. We kickstarted their reputation with the premier party of the new 007 Casino Royale. EVERYONE was there and we gave them one night to remember. Smirnoff was hosting and everyone got a good taste of partying that night.




The TONIC event team worked for more than a month for this special night including dancers, models,magicians, luxury gifts, brand new Aston Martins displayed and some amazing vodka drinks that got everyone seeing double the fun.






Once again, if you fell missed out on our events and think your persona can give it an extra touch, please contact us and we will make sure your'e there the next time...

TONIC in D&AD Annual=Members only=Work in the book!

Arnaud just dropped the book this morning on our desks. We were wondering if we were really in it as the rumor in town was saying. Page 46, no mistake! Great work from the team, specially Peter. Skimming quickly through the print section we noticed how few print selections made it. Good to know that the 44 year old institution is keeping their standards high. Let's see if we get back there next year. Referring to the headline above is that The title 'Member' is still reserved for those creatives who are featured in the prestigious D&AD Annual and becoming a member is still the only way to get your hands on their famous D&AD Annual-The ultimate celebration of worldwide creative excellence.

TONIC Dubai is the first agency in the Middle East that has been featured in the D&AD Annual.

Enjoy the work...

Point the gun in the other direction!

By Arnaud Verchère and Vincent Raffray

At first we thought we’d ignore Communicate’s critique of Tonic’s latest Bafco office furniture print campaign, featuring suicidal furniture (see “Killing Joke,” September 2006). The campaign is doing very well for our client, so there was no reason for alarm.
But the more we thought about it, the more we wondered: What planet we are still living in? Is it possible that in 2006, a journalist who is supposed to be a communications professional is still telling us that creativity is only good for the agency’s sake?


At Tonic we believe that if it’s not creative, it’s not effective. Creativity sells. Full stop.
It is easy to hammer consumers with mind-numbing advertising. We could have just published a page from the product catalogue, as so many do. Instead, we decided to do our job professionally, making it worth the consumers’ time, making them laugh, cry, scream, think and ultimately talk about the ads. This is far more effective than tapping into the lowest common denominator and becoming invisible.
Creativity is not about conjuring up the craziest idea you can think of and putting it down on paper. It’s about connecting with your target audience strategically. Creativity and breakthrough advertising ideas are the reason brands like Nike, Virgin, Honda, The Economist or Apple are household names today.
Some people say that we’ve crossed the line. Some, like Communicate, will say that we created Bafco’s suicidal furniture campaign simply to win advertising awards.
We respond by asking them what they think of prospects calling Bafco and ordering 200 office chairs, saying their current furniture is looking very depressed. And what do they think of a campaign so exciting that an entire company is feeling a new sense of pride and energy?
If anybody in the marketing scene is stealing from their company and insulting their consumers, it is the agencies that are not being creative and the marketing managers who are still buying “safe” campaigns.
It is much easier, much faster and much safer to go with middle-of-the-road, wallpaper, safe, invisible and boring advertising. And who is the most offensive? We think it is the presumptuous marketer who believes consumers willingly interrupt their read or their show to look at advertising that insults their intelligence.
We prefer to make a mistake from time to time rather than play safe. At least we try to serve our clients while respecting the consumer. If we end up being recognized as a creative agency, that’s an added bonus.
Creativity is part of what and who we are, and it is the reason that our ideas will continue to grab attention, stir emotions, move consumers to action and deliver results. Combined with more hard-selling vehicles like PR and direct marketing, creative advertising plays an essential role in improving our client’s businesses.
It is high time that more clients do like the management at Bafco: Grow a backbone and start considering creativity as a necessary tool to ensure communication strategies are properly implemented.


– Arnaud Verchère and Vincent Raffray are partners in Tonic Communications,
an independent agency based in Dubai

The word is spreading....

Nice to come back to the office and already see the Nandos work spreading . It's going to be very interesting to see the reactions of this coming week, and the response we will get. Our media department just informed me we are airing it in KSA on Tuesday 17th @ 21:00 KSA Time during C.S.I. Miami on TV Land+ @ 23:00 KSA Time, same day, same program, and on Wednesday 18th October during the rerun of C.S.I Miami @ 14:00 KSA Time on TV Land.

..... "Alea jacta Est" -The dice have been thrown.

Ramadan Kareem from Nando's

Ramadan is less than two weeks from ending...
For those not familiar with this Islamic pillar It's a month of fasting practiced by all observant Muslims. Eating, drinking, smoking are not allowed between dawn (fajr), and sunset (maghrib). The creatives developed a nice campaign for Nando's, a South African company that serves fast-food chicken prepared the Portugeese way. A very popular brand in the ME and Africa it has a wide acceptance with both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities here in Dubai. As Ramadan is in everyone's minds it was a great move to develop this TVC idea. Most advertisers and media apply some form of Ramadan thematic, but it usually lacks any form of creativity or bigger thought. They all fall into some cliché or will just use the standard phrase of "Ramadan Kareem" over the same generic ad they use during the year.

Vincent wrote an interesting piece on this creatively lacking holy month in this coming Campaign issue.


" After reading your article last week, we too feel the frustration when seeing all the Ramadan ads in circulation at this time – the amount of media money that is spent on creative work that just becomes wallpaper is absurd especially when Ramadan can inspire so many fresh ideas. This stirred us to produce an ad in the spirit of Ramadan that would stand out amongst the clutter and an ad that would put a smile on peoples faces no matter where in the world they happen to be celebrating the holy month of Ramadan.

For once Ramadan advertising is entertaining. It’s a nice break from the clichéd formula of “crescent + stars + lantern equals a Ramadan ad”. It’s simple and will bring a smile on the face of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Not only that but it will trigger curiosity among non-Muslims who are living outside the Middle East, such as South Africa. They will start to wonder about the idea and start asking questions about the religious practices of Muslims.

This TV commercial with it’s smart simplicity will register in the minds of those who are fasting. It will jump into their heads everyday as they wait for the sun to set in order to break their fast.

The idea came about when we were on our balcony watching the sunset and just thinking about all the people in Dubai who were about to break their fast “Iftar”. It’s an ad that was well liked by everyone who has seen it and the ad was well received by Nando’s head office in South Africa. After getting permission from Muslim organizations in South Africa, they wanted to run the commercial regionally including places like Saudi and Lebanon. The commercial will also run in South Africa which for a Dubai based agency is fantastic news. It shows we are more than capable of producing creative International campaigns in a very short period of time. This is also thanks to the quick turn around time of Tim Smythe and his fantastic crew at Filmworks who have bent over backwards to make this film happen.

We hope that this level of creativity will inspire more agencies to produce better work the next time a Ramadan brief comes their way."





Client: Nando’s
Agency: Tonic Communications
Creative Director: Vincent Raffray and Khaled Gadallah
Art Director: Peter Walker
Copywriter: Vincent Raffray
Production Company: Filmworks
Executive Producer: Tim Smythe
Producer: Rob Neuhold
DOP: Anthony Smythe
Directors: Vincent Raffray and Peter Walker

Suicides on the rise

Suicides are increasing in Dubai according to Monday's Emirates Today. The main reason for suicide according to experts is severe depression and other psychological disorders. There are currently around 20 suicides reported every month. We developed an ad campaign a couple of month ago for one of our clients, BAFCO, portraying office furniture committing suicide. Our intention was never to ridicule the act of suicide which is a sad and disturbing act. What's interesting thou is touching the taboo topic in this region, that usually likes to stay away from this more touchy subjects. After the launch we got a lot of attention, both in media and by readers. Some criticized it, some some praised it. What's positive to know is that we never got a call from any censor organ or ministry to pull the ad of circulation. Which leads to two possible conclusions: 1.They were too busy trying to find naked women's pictures in other publications. 2. The censorship laws are slowly getting more tolerant and letting a more open opinion circulate. Who knows they might call tomorrow...

Relevant safety campaign for drivers in Dubai !

This morning I encountered an odd scenery when reaching the office entrance. Judge this picture and you can imagine what speed the driver was doing to end up like this. I would like to remind the viewer that our road is a smaller, single lane road in the Barsa industrial zone were speed limits are at 60 Km/h. A speed limit no one respects! To my mind came one of the Ads the creative have developed for Wyeth proclaiming better road safety. They couldn't be more right on this one...

TONIC Launches WEGA Television

SONY Kick it! Gets out there

I just got some good news today. Apparently the SONY Kick it TVC is getting some excellent reviews in the Media. Here are the latest comments from Boards magazine. I'm looking forward to get some reactions on the forthcoming two new TVC's that were shot in South Africa just two weeks ago.

Find here the Boards magazine review written by Piers Ford:

"You'd hardly think of Dubai as a hotbed of creativity, but Vincent Raffray and Arnaud Verchère, creative director and managing partner respectively of two-year-old agency Tonic, are working on changing the perception.

Since its inception, Tonic has already collected a One Show Gold for its print ad "Paper Clip" for Sony as well as a Cannes Gold Lion - the first to be won by a Middle Eastern agency. In 2006, Tonic repeated its success for Sony with showings at the One Show and D&AD for its Vault campaign.


Still, Raffray says getting good work done in the Middle East is hardly an easy victory. There isn't a well-established production infrastructure in Dubai, necessitating shooting abroad, and the youth market is a bit of a cultural desert with creative outlets like theatres being outnumbered by malls.

So why then would a South African and Frenchman set up shop in such an inhospitable environment? Opportunity. The larger agencies had bought a local presence without really trying to understand the market; Tonic could offer a more customized approach as a consultant rather than simply an agency, intending on doing so on a global rather than local level. And after four years in Dubai, the time seemed right.

The first year wasn't easy, though. "We worked hard to develop some proactive print campaigns and sell our way of thinking. Now we want to do the same for film," says Raffray, noting he's focused on becoming the first agency in the region to win a Cannes Lion for film.

"Kick", a South African-shot spot for Sony directed by Adrian De Sa Garces of Velocity for some African and Middle East regions, featuring a television subjected to some skilful drop-kicking, is a great start.

"We had a very small budget, but it is simple and clever," says Raffray, noting the agency has two more Sony spots in production. "It's helped to establish us as a creative brand with fresh ideas. We learn as much as we can about the client, and we buy into their thinking rather than try to sell them something they don't understand."

A client like Sony has also helped Tonic's founders find their place in "the wild west of advertising" and has had a hand in shaping their future. "I only came for a year; I thought I would commit creative suicide or go back with a good book," says Raffray. Somehow we think he's glad he stayed.


Tonic Magazine

New office, new view...And new clients!

As for yesterday (Tuesday the 26 of September 2006) we finally finished putting the last bits and pieces together of our TONIC office move.

We now have a full-size 400 m2 office for our five different departments with new designed creative spaces, a newborn media library and a little production room. We currently are twenty-four thinking souls from more than twelve different nationalities, all working together under one single roof.

The move was much anticipated as our old Karama 2 bedroom apartment was putting some serious strain to everyone. Finding a new office wasn't the easiest thing to achieve. (For those unfamiliar to Dubai, the current rent prices match any European capital city). So after almost ending up next to the DXB airport we finally found this new complex called the "Gold and Diamond Park" next to Sheik Sayed road which is located by the Mall of the Emirates over viewing the Burj Al Arab through our office windows. Nice.

With the move came some new clients as well. Actually they came before we moved... It's been great fun to welcome Smirnoff, Diageo, Magrudy's, and SONY to our most recently list of clients. It's been hectic and fun and we are looking forward to post here the future work that we are currently developing for them.

Now in retrospective it has been two amazing years since TONIC saw the first light and how we have been able to grow and have the chance to get where we are. This upcoming two years will be twice as interesting and we hope this blog will capture every new stage we reach.

-Enjoy !