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Following hot on the heels of Skype’s first ever TV ad,  we’ve now worked with Skype to develop a series of idents that will top and tail Sky’s Traffic updates. The idents show the different things that can happen while you’re driving, and how rewarding it is to share these emotional moments on Skype. From taking your driving test

to getting a pregnant wife to the hospital,

it’s amazing what Skype users get up to in their cars.

Aimee and Liz wrote the idents, Petrina produced them, Betsan Morris Evans directed them through Bare Films. Check them out and tell us which is your favourite.

The art walk returned after a long hiatus, with a 3-in-1 itinerary. Mike R found genuine need for the art walk walking stick having sprained his ankle playing Albion football the day before.

First stop was a new venue for the art walk: Ferreira Projects on Charlotte Street. Resident artist James R Ford presented a show titled “Only boring people get bored”. The pieces ranged from one color jigsaw puzzles to videos of guitar hero being played. In the back room was an installation “33 things to do before you are 10″. Albion left the exhibit far from bored, but the show lacked the polish of something very special and felt more like an aspiring artist’s exhibit.

Next we headed to an art walk staple; White Cube in Hoxton Square, for a show by Marcus Harvey. Harvey is best known for his portrait of portrait of Myra Hindley. His new work Maggie seeks to be no less controversial. A 3D relief of Thatcher made from 25% painted dildos, 10% painted cauliflours and 65% other painted stuff. Both simultaneously stunning and predictable. Rachel Kneebone had a piece upstairs called The Descent that nearly upstaged the main show. A circular, white porcelain form of human creation, excess, gluttony, eroticism, birth and demise.

The third leg of the art walk was going to be Andres Serrano at Yvon Lambert. Unfortunately Nick screwed up as the show had already packed up. So the art walk triumverate turned into a… thing with only two parts… bi…. dual…. Let’s call it an anticlimax.

After an excellent kick off meeting with STA Travel, the team grabbed a late lunch at Pret A Manger in Kensington tube station. It turns out that Sam, one of our planners, used to work at Pret “when he was 18 or 19″. He said it was an excellent place to work until he got fired. Apparently whilst preparing sandwiches in a hungover state, Sam would kip in a quiet corner instead. Nice work if you can get it. Sadly, Sam couldn’t, and was given his P45 to take out. He wasn’t even offered a napkin to go with it.

Our conversation then turned to why Pret gets you in the door even when right next to an (arguably better) EAT. We decided that Prets are much nicer places now the acres of stainless steel are gone, and that you just can’t out Pret, Pret. The stories are deeper, better communicated and more believable. Whereas unlike Leon, EAT is just another sandwich chain, neither the underdog or more natural. But maybe it’s just Pret’s secret ingredient: sandwich chef’s sleep dribble.

The list of celebrities we work with at Albion is endless. What? You want to know their names? Oh, there is just too many to remember. Sooooo many. OK, there was Tilda Swinton (BlackBerry), Danny Baker (Betfair), Les Dennis (UKTV), Colin & Justin (UKTV) and although we didn’t know it at the time, the about-to-be-husband of Rachel Stephens. Yeah that bloke. You know his name. Huge star.

On this occasion all the chaps were very excited to be meeting Tommy Walsh, Mike Brewer and Matt Hayes for the launch of Discovery Shed. Shed is the new channel for blokes who like to get their hands dirty doing practical stuff.

We had one day to shoot and record all three in different parts of outer London. All three were endearingly down-to-earth, patient and 100% passionate about their respective vocations. Tommy gave our producer Sarah the inside track on building regulations. And Mike told us about his car wax franchise in Dubai – always the wheeler dealer.

The work is appearing now in male print titles including Short List and also on radio. From early viewing figures so far, the launch has been hugely successful.

After 3 months’ hard work, we’ve just put the finishing touches to the Skype’s first ever TV Ad. Hurrah!

Skype’s an amazing business that’s built a massive community of over 400 million users worldwide, with just a tiny amount of paid for media. So this is a bold new step in their marketing; most of us have heard of Skype but there are still one or two of us who need Skype to talk to us directly to give us one last nudge to sign up and join in – that’s what the TV’s designed to do. And it’s part of a bigger, fully integrated drive to open the brand up to a truly mainstream audience – it includes a major PR campaign, activity with Oprah Winfrey and heavyweight online support.

We wanted to create an ad that demystifies the technology behind the brand by showing the simplicity and fun of free video calling, as a young couple show off their newborn baby to its proud grandparents. We know that the arrival of a new baby is one of the key events in life that starts people thinking about how much they’d like to be able to videocall. We hope the story of new baby Laura captures the power of Skype to bring together family and friends to share the best moments in life wherever they are in the world.

Our creative team Aimee and Liz and our producer Petrina worked with Psyop and Stink to make it and we love it!