Front Page News

There's a familiar image on the front page of this week's Campaign magazine... Why, it's from Liz's National Trust spot! Catch the cover star here:

Answers on a postcard as to what time in the spot the still comes from. 

Liz Murphy's brilliant Grief Encounter spot has been gathering further acclaim, this time from Campaign magazine's Private View feature. 

After being made Ad of the Day on the magazine's website, two industry figures were invited to pass comment on Liz's charity film in a round-up of the week's best work across all advertising mediums, with both columnists heaping praise on the emotionally-charged film.

Gemma Butler, creative director at MRY, remarked on how successfully the film connects with its audience on an emotional level, with Indy Saha, director of strategy at Google Creative Lab, calling the spot "an awesome ad".

Read more about what they had to say about Liz's fine film here.

Waitrose Christmas: Plus Points

This week's Campaign magazine takes a look how well retail brands performed over Christmas after the now annual festive advertising blitz.

 "Christmas 2013 was the first time that UK advertising got the Super Bowl treatment" said the magazine in its overview, with Stuart's work for Waitrose's campaign featuring prominently. 

Note the boy in the hat from "Community Matters" and the 3.1% increase in sales from 2012, driven by their festive marketing and three Stuart-helmed spots. Catch them below and get back in that rosy-cheeked Christmas sentimentality.

Some of our recent Christmas work went down exceedingly well with the magazine and its online readers in a poll to find the most-loved Christmas campaigns of the year.

Nice Shirt were the only production company to have two spots in the top ten, with Stuart the only director to have helmed two spots this year's top picks.

Waitrose "The Story of Giving Back" made the Top Ten, despite being not the main focus of Waitrose's Christmas campaign this year (for that, you can see Heston weave his magic here). 

It polled 0.97% of all votes - a relatively small number one might think, but when I tell you that Hungary's rate of inflation remained at a 40-year low of 0.9 percent for the second month running in December, I think we all know the significance of the number. 

Debenhams "Wishes Made Fabulous" came in at a very respectable number three. 

Not quite Christmas Number One on Top of The Pops, but when you're up against the behemoths of Sainsbury's and John Lewis (Westlife and Bob The Builder to continue the Xmas POTP connection), third sounds pretty good to us. 

Marie Curie in Campaign

Directed by Jon Hollis, Marie Curie's first TV outing is featured in todays campaign...