Friday, March 19, 2010

A New Baby At Karma Towers



We are all VERY excited.
Today we had the grand unveiling and the first burn of our new BBQ.



This is big news over W14 way as we do like our Meat Friday BBQ.
Many of you who may have dropped by on the off chance of grabbing a quick bite in the past only to have to join an hour long queue can now take heart.
JUST LOOK AT THOSE BURNERS! LOOK AT THE STORAGE CAPACITY! FEEL THE HEAT!



Ladies, gents, friends and neighbours, Karmarama is now officially cooking with gas.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Is This The Nicest Man In the World?



Meet Jim, He's brilliant and nice.

Everyday without fail he'll be the first to ask if anyone wants a latte from Mirabelles around the corner, and then when we get to lunch time Jim will be the one that asks if anyone wants some grub form one of the neighbourhood's nice eateries.

Case in point, today is Best Mangal day and Jim has got his nicely printed menu doing the rounds for what is without any doubt London's best kebab.



Now it could be that Jim is a dirty workshy scrot, but I don't think so. The man has a heart of pure gold. Obviously gold that is rapidly furring up with manky cholesterol from fatty foods, but gold all the same

Meet Ben - He's The Future, Here Already Like Marty McFly



Ben Milligan has joined us by way of digital agency Holler and them groovy folk Naked where he worked for 8 years. He's our bright shiney new Planning Director and he's good looking and terribly bright. He's also got all that integrated thinking thing going on inside his brain which means he can sort of see the Matrix in everything.
We're delighted to have him here and young Ben represents the brave new face of your friendly neighbourhood KarmaTrama, so it's like glimpsing the future just for a moment and thinking 'ooh, that looks good'.
Ben is also a music lover and owns 47,000 vinyl albums and 4 CDs. He's currently dominating the airwaves here and Jo, who sits next to him, is getting a bit miffed with his constant electro-reggae. Ben also runs approximately 72.5 miles a day and has a quiff that defies gravity and fashion.
Which makes him look a lot like Robert Wagner, which is no bad thing.



We think he's great.

Woooo, Look At You Fancypants: A Top 30 Agency



Well well blooming well.
After 10 years of working hard, being nice to people and playing lots of ping pong, everyone's second favourite agency has now crashed into Campaign's top 30 league table.



Now whilst this doesn't really matter a jot and is not really something we could brag about to our Mums as they (like everyone's Mum) don't really understand this weird world of ours and unless you work for Maurice or Don they get a bit confused, it's a nice demonstration of how being genuinely decent types can pay off.
Now that we are 'proper' however, we'll be shipping out the ping pong tables, BBQs, cakes and nibbles on Barmarama, dodgey old all-agency music playlists and Kitchen-Kam to make way for big parking spaces, grey suits, rolled up twenties and sensible shoes.
Thanks to all that have helped us, clients, workers and the occasional decent journo. We love you all.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Bike Accident No.47



Yes, it's happened again, I've fallen off my bleedin' bike, slipped on some black ice, really hurt my arm, still managed to ride into work, had a Nintendo media meeting followed by a lastminute.com European meeting and presentation before finally going to A&E and getting a fractured arm diagnosis. That, my friends, is commitment. Now get back to work.

Karmarama 10 Year Anniversary: The History Chapter 3







In January there was a brief for an exciting new project for Selfridges. Yoinks!
The whole company went to Bombay to research Bollywood, and or three days they explored the delights of the thieves market, the Bollywood district, and Topaz the strange strip club. When they returned they were suitabley inspired and produced the Twenty Three and a half Days of Bollywood event.
Almost immediately IKEA briefed them to produce a new campaign and they created the NOSH and SCHLOMP work that led to them meeting a falsetto singer / heavy metal guitarist called Justin Hawkins who did the music and then used the golden coins he was paid to go off and become a famous musician. Other projects began coming through the door, they began working with UKTV and they realised that they would need more people.

Karmarama 10 Year Anniversary: The History Chapter 2



In the early part of 2001, Karmarama moved out of its tiny office in Spitalfields and decamped in a quaint studio in Chalk Farm.
Naresh, Dave, Dan and Jon were joined by a print producer called Anna and started working with a young ginger chap called Ben Bilboul who had set up his own company called Outfit and rented a desk at the other end of the studio. Together both companies began working on the IKEA business.
Then something very bad happened, thrice! Their small offices were burgled three times in a week, but the people of Karmarama are a resilient bunch and soon forgot about all that nasty stuff and marched onwards.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Uncle Paul's home


First a stuffed squirrel, now a bed side lamp, framed oil painting, bottle of Mateus, a crystal whisky decanter and three tumblers.

Karmarama 10 Year Anniversary: The History Chapter 1



Once upon a time two young men called Naresh and Dave decided to set up their own business doing adverts for people.
They didn’t have much money, but they saved up £8000 and bought some computers, and because they came from immigrant stock they saved on office rent by working out of Dave’s kitchen.
It all went swimmingly and soon the money started rolling in.
After a few months they had saved enough money to rent a small office in a swanky part of town, called Spitalfields and even had enough room to put up the table tennis table.
Everything was going well until one day Naresh banged his head playing football and couldn’t come in to work for several weeks.
Dave was sad.
Miraculously, when Naresh came back to work the building was still standing, none of the computers had been pawned and with their partnership re established the good times continued.
They did a project for Selfridges and the business began to grow. At the end of the year they met and hired two charming young men called Dan and Jon.