welcome to optimism

get your christmas on

Another ad from our Christmas campaign for Tesco.

Meanwhile, Tesco stores are getting it on for Christmas:

our wonderful new W+Kers

It's been a busy few months here at W+K London and we've realised there are quite a few new members to the Wieden + Kennedy family that we haven't introduced to you yet. So, please give a warm welcome to:

Charlotte Evans

Charlotte joins us as an AD straight from DDB where she worked amongst other things on Harvey Nichols 'Walk of Shame' and Flora.

Katja Dienel

Katja joins us as an AD straight from WK Amsterdam where she worked on LOTS of things during her time there.

Luisa Bundy

Luisa joins us as an Account Exec from Grey London. She ran an incredibly successful toy company in her teens and whilst a student used to run the reception at a 'top' gentlemen's club.

Ang Thomas

Ang joins us as an Account Manager from DDB (so should be able to provide background information on all of her fellow WK/DDB-ers) on Flora, Marmite and VW.

Maya Roberts

Maya joins us as Head of Studio and Design. Maya has spent the last eight years at our Portland office, latterly as senior studio manager. Her background is in design and it’s good to know she also has a qualification in glassblowing.

She’s moved her family and her life to London to be with us and we are very pleased indeed that she’s finally here.

Rhys Chapman

Rhys joins Creative Services as a Project Manager. He was previously running creative services at Ogilvy Action and before that started his advertising career at Grey.

Avril Furness + Miles Carter

Avril and Milo join us from Fallon London where they worked on Orange - including a lot of the recent  Gold Spots - Cadbury and Skoda for the last two years.

And last but by no means least, please welcome:

Caroline Riis

Caroline has been here for the last six months, first as a Placement and then as a Freelancer Copywriter. We are really pleased to announce that after much hard graft, she has joined the Creative team full time. Her commitment and talent have shone through during this period.  Gratulerer!!

Getting ready for Christmas...

Santa hat. Misbehaving staff. We are well and truly into the festive season here at W+K. 

tesco and foodbank this weekend

Jon Matthews writes:

There's a thing on the wall in the basement we all walk past most days and don't even notice.

Every now and again, I point people at it as an example not just of brilliant writing – I wish I'd written it – but of what we and our clients are capable of doing.

It's called Little, Medium, Big and it's worth another read.

Here are two of the lines:

Little can make big things happen

Big can change the world

I got reminded of it again today when I began to realise what will be happening this weekend in Tesco.

We got briefed a few weeks ago on some instore stuff they had in the works. They'd planned to do a collection for Foodbanks, the organisation that hands out food for people who are in real need.

All we really had to do was make their leaflets look a bit better and do an instore poster and a bib for the collectors. And a print ad.

Which is fine, but we thought it might be good to do a little film they could stick on Facebook, so long as it didn't cost much.

But they quite liked what we did and asked us to turn it into a tv spot. Which we did, but we still made sure it didn't cost much.

The stuff's running for the next couple of days. Here's the tv spot:



But that's not the point of this email, really, because they're just ads.

What matters is that in hundreds and hundreds of stores up and down the country this weekend, hundreds of thousands of people will be buying a can or a box or a packet and donating it to people who might otherwise be going hungry. Not because of our ads but because Tesco are making it happen.

It's just a little thing, but because they're so big, it will make a massive difference to lots of people.

(If you want to get an idea of the scale of this beast, see some of the local press coverage here. 

If you're in Tesco this weekend and they're doing a collection, please stick a tin in the bin.

Jon

our Finest press ads

Some ads for Tesco Finest food and drink from our Christmas campaign.

Christie-mas pressies

Tony & Kim presented Neil with his early Xmas present at last nights Management team X-mas meal.

His very own deep fat fryer. with a Mars Bar to fry in it too.

His cup runneth over

when things come together

Oh hi, Hello Neighbour here. You may have seen we’re back again. Yet another pop-up. With another visual treat in our Hanbury Street window.

This time we’ve partnered with local design studio Inventory to celebrate the variety of typography under our neighbourhood noses. The installation showcases, through balance and design, how great it is WHEN THINGS COME TOGETHER.

Spelling out this phrase, Inventory sought out twenty-two letter forms – all visible within a one mile radius of Wieden + Kennedy. They feature on local shop facades, building fronts, pubs and street signs. Some are hand-painted, others made in plastic or carved in stone. In our mobile sculpture, they are beautifully re-crafted and cleverly displayed. Just like our neighbourhood, the installation is eclectic, balanced and ever-changing. The only drawback is how difficult it is to photograph. Here's our latest attempt:

But we didn’t think that was enough. We wanted to do more. So we decided to make something that will live longer than our pop-up initiative will allow. A sort of local, typographical legacy. So Inventory created a bespoke font based on the lettering on the Truman Brewery’s 19th century chimney.

We’ve cut the typeface, Truman Brick Face, now available to all of you, free of charge. You can download it here: www.trumanbrickface.com.

The window is still live and, if you do download the font, why don’t you send us some examples of how you’ve used it. You never know, we may even post one or two on this very blog.

In addition to our Hello Neighbour agency team (KJ, Sophie, Laura, Alex and Brodie), a very special thank you goes out to Inventory Studio for their marvellous brains and beautiful handicraft and to the Truman Brewery for their wonderful letterforms.

tony and kim are keeping their brains warm

NSFWK - Welcome to the Internet - 29/11

Click here to grab it in all its hyperlinked glory

This week the Internet has seen its usual mix of reality-television driven conversation, dead celebrity searching and inevitable Gangnam Style parodies. However, there has been one thing in particular that has caught my attention and, judging by the amount of press that it’s garnered, a few others’ as well.

We had planking. Then we had owling. Then we had batmanning. Now ladies and gentlemen, we have milking.

This frankly bizarre (and wasteful if I’m going to get all Alan Partridge on this) activity was devised by a group of students at Newcastle University. The man behind the video had this to say, “We were just in our kitchen talking about doing it outside Starbucks in Jesmond and thought it would be really funny. We did that, uploaded the video to Facebook and got a load of likes. So then we thought ‘why not just make a video’?” Besides the badly thought out quote, I think that these student pranksters were fairly savy as to how successful their video would be.

However, the most interesting point for me is how quickly the tabloids grabbed onto this. The original video was posted on November 21^st and by November 25^th the Daily Mail had already written an article claiming that milking was an ‘Internet craze’. Now, I’ve done a bit of digging around and I’ve found a few copycat videos however the large majority of these date after when the press got hold of it. Which begs the question: when it is right to class something as a ‘trend’ or ‘craze’? And also: did the press make this a ‘craze’?

The constant yearn to find the next big thing is indicative of Internet behaviour and it seems that the press are now spending more time on the web, on sites associated with Internet culture, in able to fuel their agenda. I can only see this continuing, which raises the importance and prominence of sites such as Reddit, 4chan and 9gag.

The tabloids lurking on Reddit. Now there’s a scary though…

 

sharing is caring

We have good friends at Arena Media.

They asked us to talk to some of their up and coming talent.
Mostly about what we think makes great planning.
Specifically within a creative agency.

So they stepped inside Wieden + Kennedy's Hanbury Street HQ.
And heard some words of wisdom from Mr Paul Colman.

There were lots of revelations in the session.
The biggest is evident in the photo below: namely the extent of hair thinning for both Paul (left) and Martin (right).

Come back soon, Arena.
Our door is always open.