Speaking of political incorrectness and Ian Ross.

Did we happen to mention last Friday night’s AIMIA Awards?

Well…

While it was an enjoyable night, no advertising event would be complete without a little vice.

So after the show the clickDM team indulged in some hookahs.

In this case, exotic Turkish ones.

And while they had a strangely minty fragrance about them, they were needless to say smoking hot.

CLICK FOR EVIDENCE.

Lucky for us – especially Ian Ross – advertising has mostly avoided the scourge of political correctness.

Which is just as well because often the best advertising is about finding, then celebrating or confronting the truth in all its messy human inconsistency and frailty.

It ain’t always pretty.

Or PC.

Which is probably why Mad Men is so loved.

Not only because it celebrates the golden age of advertising. But because it captures an era when men were men and women were – how did they put it back then? – dolls.

Which makes it very fitting that Mattel has announced the addition of Mad Men characters to its equally un-PC Barbie range.

As the New York Times reports:

The pairing of Barbie and “Mad Men” is more interesting than the typical licensing agreement because of their shared history. Barbie was introduced in March 1959, and the first episode of “Mad Men” is set in March 1960.

“‘Mad Men’ represents so beautifully the universe that created Barbie,” said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, because the series is about the selling of the American consumer society.

To be included are Don Draper, wife Betty and colleague Roger Sterling. Oh yeah, and Joan Holloway, the agency’s office manager and Roger’s one-time mistress.

And who could blame him?

She really is a doll.

After seven years as Executive Manager, Strategy & Sales at HOSTPLUS, Umberto Mecchi is moving on to a new challenge.

To wish him all the best with his new venture, THE DM GROUP got together bright and early this morning for some breakfast, bubbly and okay maybe just a little blubbering.

It’s understandable because Umby used to work at trademarkDM before he became a valued client, so we go back a long way.

Good luck Umby.

We’ll miss you. 

The inaugural Andy Awards were an important part of our latest quarterly catch-up.

Conceived by and named after a very good-looking art director, only three coveted awards are up for grabs each quarter.

This time the honours went to:

• Emily Pockley for Brief of the Quarter
• David Buttigieg and Nina Ee for Creative of the Quarter
• Our in-house treehuggers for Initiative of the Quarter.

Congratulations to our winners.

But be warned, hanging on to your titles next quarter is not going to be easy. The rest of us ‘can come up with that stuff too’.

THE DM GROUP quarterly catch-up is a time for all of us to get together, talk about the work we’ve done and have more than a few drinks.

Now you’d assume a quarterly catch-up happens quarterly but it’s actually been 12 months since our previous catch-up.

That meant some of our more enthusiastic colleagues had 12 months of pent-up PowerPoint slides to get out of their system.

So to keep things moving, we had a strict five-minute time limit with the option to buy an extra minute with a shot.

While there are plenty in THE DM GROUP who love a chin wag, none more so than digital planning director, Craig Hockley.

Craig decided to buy two extra minutes before he even started speaking and ended up having to down a third shot by the end of his presentation.

See, we said he’d fit in.

Because if he doesn’t sing his ‘Got me stuff’ song before he leaves home, he inevitably ends up forgetting something important.

Like his glasses.

Which he found very inconvenient today as he went about his usual senior art director business.

That’s why our ever helpful, handyman/production manager David Findlay made him a new pair.

Isn’t it amazing what you can do with just some pipe cleaners and duct tape?

One thing’s for sure, Craig will be singing every morning from now on.

We met Wayne Sullivan in November last year when he came down from Queensland to join our valued client HOSTPLUS as national marketing programs manager.

We’re delighted to hear that Wayne has now been appointed executive manager, marketing.

Is it too soon to say ‘we knew him when…’?

Congratulations on your new role, Wayne. We’re looking forward to continuing to do great work with you.