Pen for hire

I am hardly ever at a loss for words. Usually only when a teenager cleans up without being asked. It happens. Rarely, but it does.

Most of the time, I am quite erudite. However, now that I must resort to shameless self-promotion, I find it a little challenging.

I’ve sold all sorts of things for other people, but (like following good advice) it’s easy to do it for others and hard to do for yourself. Perhaps I should hire another writer to do it for me? The thought has crossed my mind, but needs must and all that good stiff upper lip stuff.

Basically, I’m in the market for a writing job – permanent, freelance you name it. (I draw the line at wedding invites. Thanks to the pangolin-eating moron that started this pandemic I find myself armed with a pencil without a word to write.

If you feel like feeding the hungry mouth of a copywriter, please feel free to drop me a line. This fish is hungry and will bite (as long as the lure isn’t a Brussels Sprout).

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A slice of Sunshine

At the end of every year, Sunshinegun tries to do something really special for our clients and friends. Something that brings light for the soul, eye or in this case, mouth.

In 2018, we gave everyone a beautiful little box. A box that’s also a baking tray, a baking tray filled with the precise ingredients and recipe for a delicious Sunshine cake.

And yes, Sunshine cake is a real thing, we discovered it in an old recipe book. To make the cake perfect we asked Ottolenghi trained chef, Danielle Postma, to help us. Her touch ensured that, if you followed the recipe, you’d end up with an absolutely perfectly baked, delicious cake.

But, perfection takes more than just precise measurements. That’s where the bake box comes in.

It turns out an incorrect size (volume) baking tray is the prime culprit in many cake-baking catastrophes. So, we sourced Trayforma®; an innovative eco-friendly paperboard. It features an advanced three-layer fibre construction with CTMP in the middle layer, making it lightweight but sti. It has a trick up its sleeve… it can really take the heat. That’s because the white PET coating on the outside makes it oven proof.

You bake the cake right in the box; the box is the perfect sized baking tray. Voila!
Delish!

So good, it won a Bronze Loerie Award!

Ads24

After 3 years of working with the Ads24 team, I am astounded at how much we achieved together and how much extraordinary fun we had along the way.

This is just a taste of what we did.

Ads24 Food for Thought

Ads24 Sundae Sundays 2018

Wat Meme Jy? 2018

Diski 2018

Food for Thought 2018

Food for Thought 2019

The Pandemic and the Pangolin

“Mummy, how did the world end?”

“Well darling. Some idiot ate a pangolin.”

Why on God’s green earth would you want to eat an animal as inedible looking as a pangolin? Is there even meat on a pangolin? Enough for a meal?

In short, some covidiot went to lunch and set off a pandemic that has wrecked the world. Well, that’s what they say. When the conspiracy theories sound far more credible than the actual story I’m tempted to go with the official story. Who on earth would make up a tale so bizarre?

What it has brought into stark reality for me (like the world in the morning when I put on glasses and see my sleep-mussed face in the mirror – horrifying clarity) – is just how little actual life skills I possess. Basically, I’m a bit of a dud in a global crisis. I’m not even a good gardener. I suppose I could write the spin? Not very helpful.

Now that my job has been torpedoed by a single-celled organism, I find myself having to look at my old world with new eyes. It’s at turns exhilarating and abjectly terrifying. I’m still in the free fall hoping to land on a bed of feathers but concerned that it may actually be very sharp rocks.

I can’t really tell because I’m too scared to put on my glasses and a blurry world seems less intimidating than the cold hard truth.

If only I knew who that pangolin-eating mofo was, I’d steal the TARDIS, go back a few months and sic a Dalek on him. (That’s a Doctor Who reference. My daughter kindly suggested that I add this note for those who don’t know the Doctor. So sad.)

It befuddles my brain that the world (and my world) has been brought to its knees by a takeaway lunch.

Ads24 Food for Thought

In 2017, Ads24 wanted to give media industry professionals a bespoke opportunity to interact with (not just listen to) top South African academic and technological futurists.

We wanted to provoke thought, feed curiosity and create an immersive experience leaving the audience with a sense of togetherness in unpacking and exploring the unknown.

From the invitation to the venue, from the event to the experience, each step was curated to create a futuristic environment for discussion.

Ads24 Food for Thought won Best Trade Marketing Campaign at the AMASA awards and the ‘Best in Africa’ Award at the INMA Global Media Awards

Amasa (the Advertising and Media Association of South Africa) hosts its annual awards to celebrate high quality “all-rounder’ media campaigns that are based on sound insights underpinned by great ideas that are carried through with a perfectly executed strategy to achieve measurable results. The awards have become the benchmark in celebrating media excellence and innovation across 22 categories.

#PoemOfTheDay Death by PowerPoint

50 Shades of Advertising – II

OMG Did I Just Say That?

Sometimes words pop out my mouth and bypass any filtration system entirely.

Then they hang there in the air like a physical thing while their full meaning sinks in.

And there is nothing you or I can do to unsay them.

What I meant to say was, “You’re walking very upright like you have a ruler down your back.”

Not what I said at all.

So, I had to go into the ladies, close the door and muffle my laughter.

You should have seen the look on his face.

Priceless.

Be nice to suits

I Dub this Be Nice to a Creative Day

People seem to think creative people are flaky.

That we’re left of center.

That we’re fragile.

That we’re divas in dire need of a strait jacket.

That we’re children with felt tip pens and craft paper.

It’s not true.

Except for the crazy part. They’ve proved that. Who they are I don’t really know, but apparently creative people are more likely to need a check up from the neck up.

Creative people are some of the hardest workers I know.

Not only do we work our hearts out, we put everything we are into every piece of work no matter how small or how trivial.

We have skins like rhinos, but every now again a bullet tears right through us.

We’ll work through the night.

We’ll work over the weekend, Christmas our birthdays.

We’re not automatons that can survive on no sleep.

We have families, friends, lives and dreams.

We’re not invisible.

We don’t like being sworn at.

We don’t like been insulted in language too offensive to repeat.

We’ll laugh it off, because we know what side our bread buttered.

But that’s okay, as long someone notices what we do, the hours we put in, the ideas we turn out over and over.

Not all the time.

Just sometimes.

It’s nice if someone says, “Thank you”.

Or makes us a cup of coffee.

It costs nothing.

It means everything.

If you work with a creative today, please just get up and offer them a coffee.

They’ll appreciate it.