Ain’t No Karaoke Like ‘Mcgarrybowenoke’

By Bob Marshall 

If your agency wins an account like Sears, United Continental, Burger King or Bud Light, it’s been a pretty great year. But, if your agency wins all four accounts and Adweek‘s U.S. Agency of the Year crown, it’s probably been the best year ever.

As Kiran suggests, the holidays should be a year of champagne and celebration at Mcgarrybowen’s offices in New York and Chicago. For those of us not invited to the agency holiday parties (which I doubt they’ll be live-tweeting), we’ll have to make due with the festive sounds of “Mcgarrybowenoke” to tide us over as we bemoan our now comparably small billings.

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Much like the magic of Jingle Cats before it, Mcgarrybowenoke employs a large library of individually recorded notes and tones to blend into a cohesive whole. In this case, the notes, supplemented by animated gifs of Mcgarrybowen’s employees, construct a holiday tune. Users can choose between such favorites as “Jingle Bells,” “Deck the Halls,” and, for the non-gentiles among us, “Dreidel Song.”

Now, as Adweek framed Mcgarrybowen’s creative in its Agency of the Year writeup, “It’s not exactly what Cannes gold Lions are made of,” but “Mcgarrybowenoke” certainly still gets the “Happy Holidays” message across, doesn’t it? For those among you looking to create “Cannes-worthy” holiday cards (LOL), continue looking to Saatchi and Saatchi LA’s “Nog Pong” stunt from last year. We’re still not ready to declare a 2011 holiday champion, so keep the submissions coming!

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