Yesterday we went to the Fairtrade Foundation commercial conference. It was a top level affair, a mixture of their licensees, MPs (well, one) and associated organisations talking about the impact Fairtrade has had on their business and consumers' appetite for ethically sourced products, "Value for values" as Joanne Denny Finch put it.

In the middle of this was our Dan Norris sharing a stage with Cheryl Sloan, Marketing Director of Fairtrade. They were talking about our new approach and why we're doing what we're doing – in a nutshell, make Fairtrade more accessible to the mainstream by making it warm, human and easy to understand. As he sat on a table with the MD of Starbucks and the CEO of Cadburys Dan realised this was a pretty high powered audience.

But with customary charm he presented our work to 250 people in "the biggest scariest creative review" he had ever been in. Nice.

After five years at W+K London we are each entitled to a
four week ‘sabbatical’, even the Managing Director. So, this is Neil Christie
hanging up his blogging boots for the next month and leaving W2O in the care of
Graeme Douglas, Emma Marsland and anyone else at W+K London who feels moved to
post something on here. I’m going to be mostly out of contact from September 26^th
to October 26^th.

I’ll be travelling in the Himalayas – Nepal, Bhutan and
Ladakh. I hear they have excellent casinos, fine dining and the world’s best
pole-dancing clubs, which is just what I need to recharge my batteries and come
back eager to get stuck into the next five years.

In my absence – good luck, work hard and please keep
yourself nice.