Shahir Zag, Chief Creative Officer Y&R MENA, judged this week’s Best Ads on TV.

www.bestadsontv.com

 

What’s your name?
Daymonde Marks.

You mean Raymond?
Yeah, just say that with a D in front and a silent E at the end.

Where are you from?
Marlow Bottom. That’s south of London. Which would explain the Bottom bit.

How long have you been in the business?
Fourteen years in advertising.

No, we mean as a Player?
Ah, that’s easy. Since Grade Five.

Does your wife know?
Ahem, only if you put this on the internet. (You won’t, will you?)

How long have you been at Y&R Dubai?
Ten brilliant months.

What do you do here?
I’m Group Account Director and Chancellor of Fun.

Do you like it here in the agency?
Just look at the picture, man, just look at the picture.

What’s the best part of your job?
Helping my clients achieve their marketing objectives, growing existing business, acquiring new business, motivating my team, y’know, the usual.

No, seriously.
Okay, okay. Organizing the office parties.

What do you hate most about your job?
Are you kidding? I love everything about it! (Just ask me this question after the recession.)

Do your clients know that you had a Mohican when you were younger?
I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

We’ll take that as a ‘no’. So, finally, what’s your philosophy?
The fun never sets.

It’s been a hectic but fantastic couple of weeks so far. After a four way creative pitch, where we went all out to steal the client’s “heart & mind”, we have been awarded the RANI business. The team has since been working tirelessly on the campaign that needs to break by the end of the month. They are finally off tomorrow for the four day shoot and we are hoping to receive daily posts of their progress. We wish them safe travels and sunny days.

This is Aldo the tortoise. He is the agency mascot and only pet. Aldo lives in a mansion (shoebox) in the creative department. He has his own gym, swimming pool and carefully manicured gardens. You can see him here jogging down his front yard to greet guests. (Or, a piece of lettuce.) Although he gets frisky once in a while, he mostly prefers to remain in a state of chillaxation. Aldo is endlessly entertaining and the cutest little creature on terra firma. We’re waiting for him to grow up a bit more before we break it to him that he’s a reptile.

What’s your name?
Joseph Francis Bihag.

So, Francis, where are you from originally?
The Planet Kamino, of course.

C’mon, really.
Cebu in the Philippines.

You do know that you look stupid with that thing on?
If by stupid, you mean awesome, then yeah!

How long have you been at Y&R Dubai?
Eleven years, ten months, three days, 22 hours, twelve minutes and five seconds. But who’s counting?

Is this the longest stint you’ve ever done?
No, I’ve been married for slightly longer.

What do you do here? Besides the helmet thing.
I’m Creative Director. I also head Design and the Integrated department.

Do you like it here in the agency?
Yeah, I just started getting used to it last week. But now I hear that we’re moving.

What’s the best part of your job?
The getting paid part.

What do you hate most about your job?
Eating at McDonald’s every day.

How do you please your boss?
I never go home.

How do you please your wife?
I’ve convinced her that my boss is a wanker.

What’s your philosophy?
There’s no extra charge for awesomeness.

Y&R's global creative board awards first place to Harvey Nichols "Cause & Effect" Spring Summer 09 print campaign. Kudos to the team.

This picture represents everything I love about advertising.

Although it’s definitely not the most ingenious piece of art on the planet. Well, it’s a picture of a boardroom. Seen it. It depicts a logo. Seen it. It employs light-painting technique. Yawn.

So what’s so bloody great about this photograph?

Well, it’s a picture of our boardroom. And I have never quite seen it this way. This makes it very interesting to me. The picture depicts our logo. This is the brandmark of the agency I work for. This makes it extremely personal. Lastly, it has light-painting. Light-painting, people! Isn’t that the coolest thing ever? No matter how many times I see it, for an instant I feel like I’m 12 years old. How do they do that?

But often, the most remarkable thing about a photograph is the story behind it. This one stands out for its lack of drama. We had to upload some agency pictures on Flickr and I wanted our album to have a nice cover picture. Daniel Botezatu had shot a cool picture with light-graffiti and I asked him if he could light-paint the Y&R logo in our boardroom. He said he didn’t know if it was possible but he would try. The next morning it was in my email inbox.

That’s why I love working in advertising. We experiment. We fool around. We believe. We create. We apply ourselves even to seemingly unimportant tasks. This picture doesn’t exist because it had to. It exists because an art director wanted it to.

By the way, he told me how it was done. With a flashlight, a mobile phone and a blinking keyring.

Blinking brilliant.