The agency's strategic objective was to organize a holiday event that would encourage more activity from our current clients and attract new ones. In particular, we needed to solve the problem of a traditional slump in client activity in January and February.We are renowned for our original gifts. In 2005, we needed to come up with a gift that would not only be more inventive than all the ones that came before it, but would also allude to the coming year of the Dog, in light of the growing popularity of the Chinese calendar in Russia.

"Now I am adept in the arcane field of canine wisdom," said many of the 453 thank-you notes we received in response to sending out 882 books. The gift kept us in the thoughts of our clients over the long winter holidays, and the channels of communication were open when the new working year began. Not only did we beat the traditional post-holiday slump, we also managed to pay for six months of work in half the time. And thanks to the active responses of enthusiastic owners of the book, we already have enough material for a second edition.

The creative idea was to right a wrong. While thousands of books collect the thoughts of famous and almost-famous people, no dog had ever been given such an honor. We put an end to anti-canine discrimination with "Thoughts, Jokes and Aphorisms of History's Greatest Dogs," a unique gift book printed in a limited edition of 1,000 copies.23 copywriters spent one month compiling lists of famous dogs. The result immortalizes 1,719 sayings of 114 great dogs, from the heroic St. Bernard Barry to the fearsome Hound of the Baskervilles, from Paris Hilton's chihuahua to Sony's robotic Aibo.