Monday 16 November 2015

No agency will own up to Workie

You must have seen Workie, the three-metre furry beastie who bestrode the prime-time ITV (among other) screens. You probably know that he cost £8.54m at a time when DWP had frozen benefits and proposed to cut tax credits (which proposal the House of Lords fortunately blocked). It has been difficult to find out much more, beyond the fact that Baroness Altmann was happy to take credit for helping to design the creature.

I have this theory that the Conservative party pays off advertising agencies who have aided successful election campaigns with big government campaigns. Usually agencies are not shy about their multi-million contracts (remember Saatchi in the 1980s?) - denying of course that these are hand-outs. However, I have spent a good hour or more searching the Web for the identity of the agency responsible for Workie, or even who built him. Quite a few marketing consultants are ready to criticise the construct, but of the progenitors, there is no sign.



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