The verdict is in and it turns out adland could well double as Cupid’s playground. Yes, there may be some allegedly dubious agency party encounters, but when push comes to shove the IPA’s Valentine’s Competition proves that as an industry we adlanders really do know how to impress our loved ones.
09/02/2012
Competition judges Moray MacLennan, Worldwide CEO, M&C Saatchi and Zoe Osmond, CEO, NABS have trawled through your love story submissions (with buckets at the ready) to pick their top two romantic tales, and the winners are:
o “My favourite song ever is Robin S’s Show Me Love. My boyfriend is well aware of this fact and being the cute romantic that he is recorded his own version of the song for me. On our anniversary he took me out for dinner and organised with the restaurant for the song to be playing in the background. He knew that as soon as I heard it I would get all excited and when he broke it to me that it was him singing I nearly cried!”
o “It was me and my boyfriend’s two-year anniversary. Needless to say I was not impressed that he hadn’t got me a card, nor that when I gave him mine he just put it to one side. But just as I was about to launch into a diatribe about how selfish he was he said that although he hadn’t got me a card he had instead got me a small present - a leather photo album. The album contained an array of colourful Polaroid pictures and story board featuring the two toy hippos we’d given each other when we were first dating; they were re-enacting our favourite dates–picnics in the park, dining in our favourite restaurant, enjoying the view from Tower Bridge... Totally enthralled with the hippo’s tales I turned to the last photo to see one of the hippos proposing to the other, and as I looked up to say thank you for such a thoughtful present, I suddenly realised that my boyfriend was on bended knee with a socking great diamond in his hand. We got married last year!”
Our love-struck authors have chosen for their names to remain anonymous but will each receive a bottle of champagne.
Says Moray MacLennan: “Judging this competition was tough; I felt as though I was rejecting the actual acts of romance. I was tempted by tales of picnics in Paris and finding one’s soul mate over a cheap bottle of wine, but love can be cruel and so they were all turned down in favour of the hippo album - schmaltzy, original and weird, right up my street!”
Says Zoe Osmond: “Overall my top story has to be that of the boyfriend recording his own rendition of Robin S’s Show Me Love, his girlfriend’s favourite song. Clichéd as it may be (but then romance often is!), this has an element of effort and creativity attached to it that avoids it being too sickly. The other stories are sweet and overall, it’s great to see that romance is still very much alive in adland!"
With Valentines Day just around the corner maybe you could pick up some pointers to impress your other half from the winners? Or from the other entries that made the shortlist, including:
o “I had been dating my girlfriend for three years and I knew she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. She was on holiday with her sister in Athens and I was due to meet her out there for the weekend. I took this as the perfect opportunity to plan a surprise proposal. So, not only did I fly out to Athens that weekend but I booked flights for the rest of her immediate family and for my immediate family also. I spent the day with my girlfriend and as the sun was setting took her for a walk around the Acropolis where I bent down on one knee and proposed. Luckily she said yes because I then took her to a restaurant where both our families were waiting so we could all celebrate together. I’ll never forget the shocked look on her face when she saw everyone.”
o “On my first official date with the boyfriend, we decided alcoholic drinks were too expensive at The Comedy Store, ran for five-minutes to Sainsbury's in the break, and downed a £4.50 bottle of wine in the queue. This was probably the moment when I realised we were made for each other!”
o “Last year I moved to Paris for work for six months. While there I got extremely drunk one night and randomly snogged a cute French guy. He insisted on taking me on a date and after a bit of persuasion I agreed to meet him. I met him at the park by the Eiffel Tower and there I was faced with a beautifully laid out picnic with champagne and delicious food. It was a lovely summer’s night and we spent the evening drinking wine and talking under a clear sky. It was the most perfect first date I have ever been on and our relationship has blossomed from there, so much so that he’s moving over to London for me at the end of the year!”
o “My boyfriend and I had been dating for three weeks. He was moving into a new flat which had been left in a terrible state by the previous tenants, there was food left rotting in the kitchen, rubbish on the floors, mould in the bathroom. He was also going away with work the weekend that he was moving in to the property and I knew he was dreading coming back to the state which the house was in. I was keen to make a good impression so I decided to surprise him and clean the place so that he had a nice home to come back to. It took a good six hours of cleaning and I also unpacked some of his stuff, made his bed and left him some chocolates. He returned to find a spotless house. Luckily for me he was pleased and I also scored brownie points with his friends and family.”
o “My fiancé (boyfriend at the time) had always been useless with the romantic side of our relationship. However, when he proposed he went all out. Walking along Bond Street one Saturday he suggested we pop into Tiffany’s to have a look around. I started to be suspicious of his intentions... I arrived at the counter only to see the message ‘Will you marry me’ written out with heart confetti, with a beautiful engagement ring sat next to the message. I turned to him and found him on one knee by my side. Needless to say I said yes!”
o “I had been dating a girl at work for a while and she told me that she’d never been sent flowers or had anything romantic done for her. So last Valentine’s Day I organised for a huge bunch of roses to be delivered to her desk at work, together with a bottle of pink champagne and two tickets to the Lion King musical (which she really wanted to see). I also organised for a group of singers to come to our office and serenade her while she worked. She was thoroughly embarrassed but loved it – don’t think I did too badly even if I say so myself.”
o “I was on holiday in Goa for two weeks of pure chillout, a few days into the holiday I started to fall for the hotel barman, a tall stunning Goan with piercing blue eyes. After two weeks of frivolous flirting my holiday had come to an end and I was gutted to be leaving him behind. I left the hotel in a taxi at 4am in a tropical storm to head to the airport, I then realised that a moped had been on our tail for the entire journey and to my amazement it was him. An hour later we arrived at the airport he jumped off his moped pulled me out of the taxi and we parted with our first and last ever kiss.”
o “It was mine and my boyfriend’s anniversary and I wanted to get him a lovely but fun gift. I ended up buying him a beautiful leather wallet which I filled with hand-made fake credit cards. Each card was a token representing something I would do for him, for example give him a massage, cook him dinner, run him a bath. Each had its own value and expiration date and I had to do whatever the card said at any time he handed me one.”