Bear-faced cheek – On the Podium, 16/10

It’s time for everyone’s favourite part of the week, when we reveal who and what has earned one of the three highly-coveted spots On the Podium.

Our panel of experts rigorously scour the week’s news for the biggest and brightest stories, or the coolest things that our clients have done.

Or, if all else fails, we just chat about stuff that made us laugh.

With no further ado, On the Podium this week are:

Third place: Toyota and Back to the Future

Over the past few years, there has been a spate of phoney Back to the Future memes, claiming that such-and-such a date was the day Marty McFly travelled forward to, in Back to the Future Part II.

Ignore them all, they were wrong. Just blame attention-seeking morons on social media.

However, the real date – 21st October 2015 – is almost upon us, and to mark the occasion, Toyota has created a fantastic advert featuring the film series’ two stars, Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox, discussing which of the film’s predictions came true.

It’s fantastic, and you can watch the full teaser clip here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVebChGtLlY

Second place: Station Garage, East Boldon

One of our Account Director’s Graeme Miller left his car at Station Garage, East Boldon this week, in order to have the brakes checked, and a headlight bulb changed. (I know, I know – he claims it was ‘unexpectedly complicated’).

The bulb was changed, the brakes were checked, and they repaired a slight leak on his battery, too. How much did this cost? A fiver.

What’s more, they didn’t take the opportunity to replace brakes that were clearly still functioning correctly.

Total bargain, and worthy of a place On the Podium.

First place: Pick A Pup

A Podium client, Pick A Pup is an ethically-led website that brings responsibly-bred pedigree dogs together with loving owners.

The social media content is, as you can imagine, utterly adorable, and goes down especially well on Facebook. However, one post in particular this week achieved some huge numbers, reaching over 50,000 people.

Check out – and Like – the Pick a Pup Facebook page here.

Off the Podium.

At Podium, we are incredibly sensitive and sympathetic to the plight of refugees across Europe and Western Asia. It’s a truly horrendous situation and we hope those looking for safety and security for their families are able to find it.

However, the plight did throw up an amazing story this week, when three refugees in Calais, seeking to smuggle themselves across the channel in the back of a lorry, broke in to a vehicle carrying a live, adult polar bear, bound for Doncaster zoo.

One of them ran; the other two, bravely, stayed with the caged bear and were later arrested.

There’s probably a clever remark to be made at this point about polar bears and refugees both being long-term victims of aggressive globalism, but it’s Friday and that’s a bit heavy.

Have a good weekend!