Diary: On the QT ..

Campaign 25-Jan-08

Fallon's Laurence Green is in The Telegraph's black books this week after suggesting in an interview in The Times that he had "turned down" the newspaper's business, when, in fact, the agency had just decided not to pitch.

To add insult to injury, after listing the various clients the agency had shooed away, the article explained that this had been "for reasons that include time restraints and a 'lack of desire for creativity' at certain companies." Ouch ...

Arena BLM, just acquired by Havas, has spent a fortune doing up its new offices on Tottenham Court Road. But one thing is puzzling visitors to its swanky new reception: why is there a huge photograph of an elephant overlooking the area? The founder Steve Booth says he just liked the image and has yet to think of a way of explaining it in terms of relevance to the "performance agency" business. Maybe it's a reference to the size of the BLM founders' wallets now the £20 million Havas deal has been concluded ...

DDB recently treated lucky guests to an evening of cookery lessons, hosted by none other than the celebrity chef-turned-teacher Aldo Zilli. It seems the Bishops Bridge Road staffers need some more tutoring, however. So disgusting were their efforts, we're told, they refused to eat each others' culinary concoctions ...

Warning: shares in BlackBerry could be on the brink of collapse now that Neil Jones, the managing director of Carat, has exchanged his for an iPhone. Once an obsessive BlackBerry user, he is now gleefully showing off his new Apple product at any opportunity. The downside for contacts? It includes a slideshow of his holiday snaps ...

Some reporters at Campaign Towers couldn't help but notice the unfaltering commitment to advertising from the floundering Northern Rock bank. Despite its financial difficulties and doomed outlook, the company is still producing advertisements for its investment products.