Your Zone Friday: Con-tro-vers-y
Things we’ve done and things we like this week
With all the Cocozza/Berlusconi/Terry/Cain/Murdoch et al headlines filling up every type of newspaper at the moment, YZF has decided to centre itself this week around column-inch-grabbing, libel-avoiding, jaw-dropping controversy. Bruno Brookes and Mike Tyson in the same newsletter? That’s how we roll…
Three things we've done
Christmas (pudding) comes early
This Sunday is ‘stir-up Sunday’, which is traditionally the day when one should make one’s Christmas pud to allow it some time to ‘mature’. You could easily make your own with 4Food’s “fool-proof” recipe, or check out the best from the shops in their Zone office-tested Christmas pudding taste test. Or, if you’re more of a chocolate fiend and hate Xmas pud (controversial?), check out their delectable chocolate Christmas cake recipe.
Team Relentless in more award glory
The Surf Super Series microsite that Zone whipped up for Relentless has helped the brand to win the Tiger 24 Commercial Brand category at the 2011 UK Pro Surf Awards this week. Check out photos and videos from the tour on the aforementioned site at the Super Series homepage.
Blind fighting
Our C4 Paralympics team are off to Crawley on Friday for a weekend of watching blind or visually impaired people go hand-to-hand in combat at the IBSA Judo European Championships. You can keep up with the live action right here.
Beardstrokable infogram
This week’s data makeover
We asked the Zone office a simple question this week, to which the response was mostly "What can I say that's publishable?" What's the most controversial thing you've ever done?
Zone hero of the week
Account director James Simpson is becoming a bit of a regular in this slot, but when he pulls faces like this in team photos at the BIMA Awards, how could we not include him? Honourable mention to fellow Powerade comrade Rob Hobson for what must surely be the quote of the week: “It’s an agency for crying out loud – what are we supposed to do, not swear all day?”
Tea or coffee? James: "Green tea with just a hint of jasmine." Rob: "I've gone home sick."
Movember moustaches
The real question on (or above) everyone’s lips at this point during Movember is: “How does it affect your chances with the ladies?” Tech Adonis Dom Da Costa’s virility has shot up: “I found out I was going to be a dad a few weeks ago,” he says. Huge congratulations to the Bronson-a-like!
Meanwhile Relentless editor Ben Gomori says the effect is “largely negative”. “I’ve been told it looks good ‘in a temporary way’, and that I look like I should be ‘on some kind of register’”. Ben lives in hope, for today is a special day for moustached men – as this amazing video highlights.
‘I made this’
Zone staff share their creative moments
This week: Tech genius Neil Cumpstey has quite literally burned a hole in his credit card. Why? To overcome the pesk problem of Barclaycard’s contactless enabled cards interfering with Oyster cards. YZF feel his pain.
“Barclaycard sent me a card with this bloody stupid contactless payment thing built in,” says Neil, “which interferes with Oyster and stops it from working. That is until I disabled it with the help of a hot nail and a torch. If anyone else is having similar trouble, I can show them how to do it.” Smart.
NEWSFLASH!
Another big congratulations to IT master Du Li. His first ever baby was born at 13:59 on 14 November, and we expect the young nipper to grow up with similarly immense tech prowess. With so much baby news here at Zone at the moment, it’s almost like they’re putting something in the water/cappuccino machine/fresh fruit/toast…
Three things we like
The bot
Type in your Twitter handle and this clever bot counts your swears from the last month and suggests a $1 charity donation for each one. Relentless editor Ben Gomori owes £23 for November already after 23 swears. That’s almost 2 per day. $$#£!%#!!!!!
The video
FunnyOrDie.com’s Herman Cain promo
Mike Tyson is put to good use to send up US Republican Party presidential candidate Herman Cain’s similarly alleged misdemeanours in this surreal video.
The campaign
Mercedes-Benz’s ‘Escape The Map’
OK, so it’s quite majorly ripping off both Blade Runner and Inception, but this campaign for Mercedes-Benz’s new motor is super-slick. We particularly love the reasonably sly data collection integration at the end. Because we just love data.
