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Your support makes all the difference.Guerrilla advertising, the industry's latest cult, suffered a setback this week. MTV Europe, publisher of the deeply sad new-style bible Blah, Blah, Blah, devised the wheeze of defacing poster sites with speech bubble-stickers saying "blah, blah, blah". The ads that they chose to spoil included one for Dorothy Perkins, in which supermodel Helena Christensen appeared to endorse the new mag. The owners of the poster sites, Mills and Allen, expressed outrage. Did this worry the tough new guerrilla MTV? Well, yes, actually. The publisher immediately sent a "grovelling apology", announced M&A's triumphant marketing director, David Pugh, "and we will send in a bill for the costs incurred."
Hot Covent Garden agency Mustoe Merriman Herring Levy was caught out this week by Lowe Howard-Spink, former home of founders Merriman and Herring. As everybody understands, new agencies have little choice but to show clients work by staff that dates back to their previous jobs - provided their old employer gets a credit. But MMHL has been around for a while now, so Lowe was horrified to discover that the agency's showreel featured Smirnoff work that Merriman and Herring created at Lowes in 1993 - without any credit to the old agency. Lowe has demanded that MMHL retrieve all showreels from clients and potential clients. "It was all an unfortunate error," says Nick Mustoe. "Reels now contain our new Bacardi Spice work". But why wasn't this on there already? Wasn't the Bacardi Spice ad good enough, perchance?
Hosting the Campaign Press Awards this week, Mark Lamarr, oh-so-cool former presenter of The Word, was visibly struck by the brash demeanour and bizarre apparel of Tiger Savage, one of the industry's leading female creatives. As Tiger rose again and again to collect awards for Bartle Bogle Hegarty (where she is art director), it all became too much for Lamarr. While photographers focused their cameras, the TV star stuck his tongue in her ear. "I've always wanted to meet someone called Tiger," he drooled. Poor Mark. If only he'd asked, we could have told him that this is not her real name. Industry sources suggest that her parents fixed her up as Tracy. She's not the only one who felt obliged to take such steps to get on: over at Euro RSCG, Kiki Kendrick is said to have ditched her first name at the first opportunity. In a previous life, Kendrick was known as plain Lynn.
Disgraceful behaviour from M&C Saatchi (No. 462). At the same award ceremony, representatives of the agency cruelly heckled their old colleagues at Saatchi and Saatchi. When the youthful Adam Crozier, chief executive at the old firm, stepped up to collect an award, the naughty defectors shouted: "In your dreams". Whatever did they mean?
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