Boys and Girls, we are in the thick of Movember, quite literally! After last years huge success we were chomping at the bit to donate our top lips for a ridiculous look…all in the name of chari-dee! But what a worthwhile cause it is. Prostate Cancer affects thousands of men in the UK and the awareness generated by Movember is growing each year. You might have seen the likes of Gary Linekar and the MOTD boys sporting some rather dodgy facial hair but, rather than simply let our taches raise awareness, the boys at Dylan decided to go the extra yard and, through a partnership with the Wilkinson Sword Men UK facebook page, we decided to showcase characters inspired by said top lip ticklers. What you’re about to see is an homage to Pilots, Cowboys & Mexican wrestlers, amongst other creations. You can keep up to date on the Dylan Mo-Team’s progress on their Movember page and even make a donation to the team for this fan-tache-tic cause!

The Rugby World Cup has been and gone for English fans!! Yes, I was excited and, yes, I am gutted. As are thousands of people across the country who were waking up early on weekends (or staying up!) to tune into the games, filling in their wallcharts, meticulously choosing their fantasy teams and partaking in office sweepstakes for seven weeks of Rugby….I got Wales by the way, which as an Englishman leaves me feeling overwhelmingly confused given the weekend’s results.

I think it’s fair to say that Rugby will (sadly) forever be in the shadow of Football in this country in terms of popularity and as a result the amount of marketing & ad campaigns us consumers are exposed to when you compare the round ball to it’s egg shaped counterpart. So whilst it’s to a lesser extent, the fact a televised sporting event is taking place brands are either buying up ad space at a premium or filling the supermarket shelves with masses of creative retail activity. I’ve seen a few good examples of how brands are engaging with their market and some which have me flicking over quicker than the swipe of Jonny’s left boot. Sport and advertising is an evolving beast and I think the bar is constantly being raised, a worthy mention goes to Nike’s slick World Cup TV ad, “Write The Future” campaign last year, created by Wieden & Kennedy Amsterdam.

With nearly 5 million people tuning into England’s first game against Argentina you know agencies were brainstorming months in advance how to make full use of the inflated viewing public. My personal favourite so far has been O2′s enlisting of the England team in a TV ad created by VCCP, this also ties in with a loyalty campaign for O2 customers to receive a breakfast pie to ease into those early kick off’s. Here’s a little selection compiled by Brand Republic on what has and will be filling our screens over the coming days and weeks. http://dyln.it/l5s.

This is too long for a tweet, so this one’s for you bloggers #trynottosoundlikeaweddingdj

Thanks Suzanne!

“I will most certainly vote for you guys as the best recruitment agency in the world!…You guys do stand apart from the mass of recruitment bollocks out there! (excuse the French).”

Those with similar passionate thoughts about us I urge you to vote for Dylan at the upcoming MARA awards 2011. Go on it will only take a second! http://www.ukmara.co.uk/dylan

Thanks!

Bloomsbury Bowls was the venue and competition was definitely the name of the game. Despite my best efforts (god loves a trier right?) nothing went my way. Desperation tactics to distract my colleagues with booze even failed and I was left languishing at the gutter end of the points table.

I couldn't have asked for a better start, maybe it's because I didn't care or that I had an inkling at the misery that lay ahead but to my surprise the first bowl was a strike! I won't bore you with the rest of my attempts (largely because they were rubbish) but needless to say my downward spiral was a stark contrast to everyone else who seemed to get better and better. Someone won, I forget who, and we all left with varying degrees of dis/satisfaction with our attempts. Honourable mentions go to Sophie "bowls like a dude" Jammes, Seb "showboat" Haire & Lucie "bouncing bomb" Emma.

It was great to get the troops out of the office, the standard has been set and we're all eagerly awaiting details of our next day out, which will be when the Social Sec has found a medium he can excel……pub?

We're big fans of networking events that put on a good spread. Come on, we all love a good canape don’t we? Of course it’s not the only reason we go, it’s the icing on the cake, a cake that should give us the opportunity to chat to like minded, interesting people, learn something new, make us think, and hopefully make us better at what we do.

Recently, a bunch of us attended the Digital Shoreditch event, celebrating premier digital production and boasting a world class creative community of designers, developers and all round digital enthusiasts. A digital SXSW in a way.

We also featured our first Talented @ Talent event, a thought leadership forum hosted by us, catering to the HR movers and shakers at our partner agencies and providing an environment for learning. The topic of discussion, business and personal assessment (PPA testing) was co-hosted by industry leaders, Thomas International, and provided fascinating insight in to the opportunities afforded by personality testing, in both the recruitment and retention strategy of businesses.

Attended by an audience of 35, the event was held at the Soho Hotel and was followed by drinks and nibbles. Honestly, I think we could have done a better job on the canapes, but other that that, a cracking start to what we hope will be real added value thought leadership on a quarterly basis.

The event gave us the opportunity to showcase our plans for the Dylan Graduate Programme, set to roll out in time for next years graduates. More to follow. In a similar vein, I wanted to mention this brilliant group…

The Young Creative Council (YCC for short) are a crack commando unit who were sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit….kidding. The YCC are actually a collective of young advertising creative renegades whose mission is to inspire creative thinking and ideas generation across all disciplines. How? By sharing. The YCC share what they think you want to know, they put on events which they hope young creatives want to be at. Set in the tunnels of Cargo, Shoreditch, the YCC hosted Unite which is a portfolio event and informal gathering geared towards uniting that bond between Student/Grads & Juniors with the tip-top industry folk. I met a couple of the people who attended and as a result they came away with offers of internships with some of the best marcomms agencies in London. I'm looking forward to hearing details about the next event and seeing how Dylan can hopefully get involved…