Category: Mortar’s Work
November 21st, 2006

New ER campaign earns honorable blogosphere mentions.

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Several blogs covered our new campaign for San Francisco’s St Mary’s Medical Center. Check them out:

St Mary’s Center Ad: A humorous approach to healthcare.
"…Of course, this ad campaign has humorously treated a very sensitive
aspect of human life and it could be dubbed as a path-breaking
advertisement in healthcare advertising.

MortarSF uses light hearted approach to healthcare advertising. Adland was the first to pick up the post. Their readers commented:

Come onnnnn. Not to be nasty, but the famous last words idea has been done a bazillion times. No, wait – quadrillion. – Plywood.

Well I like it. It feels fresh in this category and loads better than the last tagline I heard for an a & e clinic "Treat every illness like an emergency". I reckon consumers would appreciate this light-hearted approach. –  Genau

See also St. Mary’s Medical Center unveils "QuickCare ER",  Adhurl and MarketingBlurb picked up the release.

November 6th, 2006

Degrees for those who won’t be inheriting Daddy’s company.

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Audiences know San Franciso’s Golden Gate University (GGU) isn’t in the Ivy league.

But they know it certainly isn’t a diploma mill either (like some places we could mention).

In fact, ask their students and you’ll learn that the classroom experience at GGU is second to none.

So, you have a real school, with outstanding faculty and a long, long history, competing for attention with marketing organizations offering a degree-in-five-minutes.

How do you position a high quality organization like GGU for today’s undergraduate audience? By talking about a GGU education as something of lasting value – typically the kind of thing you’d have to be related to someone hoity-toity to have access to.

Gratuitous bashing of the hoity-toity follows. Click here to see more from the campaign. Click here to get your degree.

October 9th, 2006

Hugh’s wife gives surf report. In her sleep.

Fans of "Talking in Her Sleep" rejoice. Hugh has updated the site with more barely coherent ramblings from his somnambulistic spouse. Posted this week: accurate surf reports, cornmeal, the three stooges, and a large fish. Here.

October 4th, 2006

Lotus Child joins the Mortar.

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When Lotus Child was little, her family’s car rolled down a hill. Not in the “Wheeeee, this is fun!” way. Or even the “Oh-no-the-parking-brake-failed!” way.

No, this was more of a “Why-are-we-suddenly-upside-down?” situation. As the family came to rest at the bottom of the hill, everyone looked around, discovered they were unhurt, and stepped out of the car, cool as a family of cucumbers.

Probably to wild applause. We don’t know. We weren’t there.

What we do know is the girl was already training for a career at the Mortar.

Mortar is pleased to announce the addition of the fabulously talented Lotus Child as Associate Creative Director.

How talented? Don’t take it from us. Check out her portfolio.

You may now applaud wildly.

October 1st, 2006

Logan’s Run held over for another week.

Picture_26_2In the distant future, after a devastating war, people inhabit a domed
city where they each live for thirty years. When they reach thirty,
they are "renewed" on the Carousel, and anyone who tries to escape this
fate is hunted down by the Sandmen and "terminated". One Sandman, Logan
(Michael York), decides to try and make it to the world outside – whatever’s left of it.

Logan’s Run was adapted from William F.
Nolan’s novel by David Zelag Goodman. Very much of its time, it depicts
a far off world not unlike a seventies shopping mall, where Logan has
his consciousness raised by wide-eyed Jenny Agutter.  They both go on the run, pursued by Logan’s ex-best friend (Richard Jordan).

The civilians in this world dress in togas, presumably to evoke
parallels with the decadence of Ancient Rome. They all live for casual
sex, jacuzzis and plastic surgery, watched over by a sinister
supercomputer and executed for their own good in a particularly tacky
display which they attend as if it were an event at some future
Coliseum.

Naturally, this hedonistic world is no place for a sensitive person to
live. The film says that we should accept ageing instead of preventing
it, grow old gracefully like, er, Peter Ustinov
has. Be at peace with yourself, don’t be so shallow. Yes, it’s all that
1970’s self-improvement in action, and the story conveniently fades out
at the end before any of it is put into practice.

The film looks glossy but remains fairly unimpressive – just look at the killer robot (Roscoe Lee Browne)
for cheap hilarity. In the end, it’s comes across as being as
empty-headed as the cityfolk. The finale, where a computer malfunction
leads to mass destruction, seems like a slight overreaction, to say the
least.

But if it’s a slice of 1970’s cheese you’re looking for, look no
further than this more than faintly silly production. Music, a mixture
of electronic beeps and a sweeping orchestra, is by Jerry Goldsmith. A
point to ponder: are Michael and Jenny attempting to put on American
accents? They can’t seem to decide.

Logan’s Run is playing in the lobby at the Mortar through Friday. See the trailer.

Thanks to Graeme Clark at the Spinning Image for the review.