An advertising award which shares its name with a style of an alcoholic drink! Sounds good to us. So when our brethren in Portland couldn't be there in person to collect their Shots prize, we saw it as our duty to step into the breech. W+K Portland were tucking into their Thanksgiving Turkeys when Karyn and Alex from the London office popped down to W1 to wave the W+K flag.

The accolade was given for Agency of the Year and PDX beat off stiff competition to win the gong. There was a shout out, too, for shortlisted W+K New York.

As the cherry on the cake, there was an additional award for Portland on the night. In recognition of the interactive excellence of the Old Spice Muscle Music game which launched in August. Congrats on your double whammy, PDX.

The evening of glory:

The morning after the night before – awards ready for transatlantic transit: 

In a bizarre bit of media placement, this rather odd advertisement appears in today's copy of advertising trade magazine Campaign. Why is this ad in that magazine? (Is there a high overlap between Campaign readership, travel to Istanbul and the propensity to take strong drink?)  Why did nobody bother to correct the grammatical errors? Am I the only one to feel queasy when reading of the 'wonderful smell' of this 'powerful spirit' that leaves an impression that will 'linger on in the mind…for years to come'? And can it really be true that raki is recognised as 'the ultimate symbol of sharing, connecting, love and friendship'? Perhaps I am missing something and this ad is specifically crafted for ad-literate  Campaign readers, and designed to operate at a meta-level of sub-rational marketing sophistication in which errors, overclaims and the evocation of emetic effects subtly convey Raki's authentic heritage and unique qualities.