Three Drunk Monkeys’ intriguing new definition of truth in advertising
Several months after denying to Mumbrella that it was changing the agency name from Three Drunk Monkeys to The Monkeys, several weeks after issuing the same denial to AdNews and several days after telling the same story to the Sydney Morning Herald, the agency has issued the following release:
“What began as a fledgling three-man dream to create a unique creative business model – founders Justin Drape, Mark Green and Scott Nowell called their agency Three Drunk Monkeys. Fast forward five years – ranked Australia’s No.1 agency for 2010 by Adnews, winner of B&T Agency of the Year and Australian Creative Hotshop of the Year – and the agency has swelled to over 70 full time staff. In recognition of this collective achievement, the agency will now be known simply as The Monkeys.
“Over the past several years The Monkeys have grown exponentially, both in staff size and project capability. Whilst working consistently with some of Australia and the world’s biggest brands, they have created and produced major award-winning advertising, TV shows, short films, books, webisodes, music arrangements, music videos and even a sound to remind people to wear sun protection. Remaining true to their core values, it is the addition of many talented staff that have enabled the business to execute such varied multi-channel campaigns. Changing the name to The Monkeys also acknowledges the fact that Executive Planning Director Fabio Buresti and Creative Director Noah Regan have recently been made partners.
“Co-founder and Executive Creative Director Justin Drape is pragmatic about the change. ”After months of deliberation we agreed that it would be better for everybody if we had a shorter email address.”
“The Monkeys currently work with IKEA, Diageo, Telstra, Pacific Brands and Parmalat.”
The agency has denied that the name change was triggered at the insistence of client alcohol brand Diageo.
Dr Mumbo will leave it up to readers to decide how much weight to give to a denial from that agency in the future.
3 Dumb Monkeys… Client WIN!
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three drunks would have been better, more relevant to the industry and would’ve reasserted their independence from meddling clients
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responsible service of advertising.
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No monkeys here: http://www.yaffa.com.au/adnewsAOTY/thisyear.html
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Not really a big deal. Surely in the same basket as: “The chairman would like the fans to know the board has 100% confidence in the manager “
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Your friend the Cap’n hypothesises that Mickey Dolenz, Davey Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith will be joing as investor partners shortly – “unless they’re too busy singing, to put any money down”
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You can’t blame them for wanting to choose their own timing re announcing a new name but something like a ‘no comment’ probably would have been better than a denial.
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it was a good name for a boy band in the 60’s so why not… no comparison made?
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the poor media relations efforts continued with the torturous prose in the press release, it seems
sad to see such a strong brand binned for internal political reasons – would they have advised a client to do the same, i wonder?
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@adam sutherland – Nice observation. So they now have a theme song. Hey hey it’s the… The characters of that band were all a bit 2 dimensional… which leads me to the next point:
We note they (may have) previously considered 3D-monkeys but (perhaps) decided that 3D was just a fad that wouldn’t last.
But as my friend, Juliet, said:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.
And it has to be said, their work speaks volumes. They’ll survive a name change.
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the original three drunk monkeys were justin scott and tim bull. mark came after. great agency.
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as per Roger Ramjet, client WIN!, take the money over your integrity, why not who can blame you, ku-ching!
however for a creative agency?, that’s a pretty uncreative name, good job The Monkeys hahahaha
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How about the ‘3 Thieving Monkeys’?
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Or how about the ‘Copycat Monkeys’?
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Or the ‘Pinching Monkeys’? or maybe the ‘Borrowing Monkeys’? or the ‘Pirate Monkeys’?
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What happened to the good old days when people starting their own agencies just put their names above the door? Then when they got too big (or someone left) they just shortened the name to the initials:
Doyle Dane Bernbach
Wight Collins Rutherford Scott
Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Brown Melhuish Fishlock
Roux Seguela Caysac Gudard
Collett Dickensen Pearce
Boase Massimi Pollitt
to name but a few….
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