the runners-up

And here's a section:

And here's Danny, Shay and Karrelle - just three of the many, many people involved in its creation.

We're shooting some new work for Lurpak at the moment.

Dick Powell of Seymourpowell Design visited the agency yesterday evening to give us a fascinating and inspiring talk about design and innovation.

Great to hear from someone who really knows about what they're doing in this sector (everything from cordless kettles to spaceships) from a creative and business perspective.

A couple of interesting things:

- seymourpowell's creative process (they call it a 'crucible process') is based on visual concepting - you have to actually draw the product idea to show how it works, the written word being too open to varying interpretations.
- they believe that much of the skill of the product designer is in 'plate-spinning' - balancing all the considerations of how people use things, how they're made, how much things cost, what the client's business needs, etc.

- innovation isn't usually about looking for the 'big idea'; it's about bringing together a series of small ideas in a new, surprising and relevant way.

A final thought from Dick, via Shaw, paraphrased by me:

You see things and you ask 'why?' But creative people dream things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'

Here is Interactive Producer Ryan with London's poshest creative, Freddie Powell, indulging in a spot of fishing in the depths of Thamesmeade

Karla Stewart - the epitome of 'working remotely'

Giles our UK client lending Freddie a helping hand after a long day on set

The TV idents, as well as the Mobile App and Widget break on 12th November.

The team at Platform, Wieden + Kennedy London's new exerimental creative school / business have been working away on various projects. They also found time to create their own 'top trump' business cards. Here they are.

This win is the latest in a pretty good run of pitching success this year:

- Nestea global (pitched and won).

- Visit Wales (retained after repitching in statutory review).

- Arla International (pitched and lost to BBDO. Grrr.)

- Arla Lactofree (pitched and won).

- Fairtrade Foundation (pitched and won).

- Selfridges 100th anniversary window installation (pitched and won against a bunch of designers and artists).

- Onedotzero brand identity design (awarded without a pitch).

Six out of seven pitches successfully converted is a pretty good run.

Planner extraordinaire Lisa Prince is on maternity leave but she popped in today to catch up on a new project she's developing for us.

We had a surprise celebration in the agency this evening for ancient and venerable Exec Creative Director Kim Papworth, who just turned fifty. We gave him a lovely chair that is as old as him. Because he likes chairs.

Kim's partner Tony paid tribute to 'the nicest man you'll ever meet in advertising' and we had a 'NICE' birthday cake. (Insert obligatory joke about huge number of candles constituting fire risk here.)

Kim attempts to blow out raging inferno.

Thinks: ""if only I hadn't teamed up with bloody Davidson all those years ago, just think what I could have achieved".

Does this milestone mean we can now officially stop being thought of as a trendy 'yoof' agency?

Attended the 'Big Awards' at the Grosvenor House last night, at kind invitation of Campaign, the organisers of the event. Inevitably, any criticism of the winning work will be seen as carping, as W+K didn't win much, but I felt that there wasn't very much there in the way of genuinely fresh and exciting stuff. There were a few exceptions, like Fiat eco:Drive and the Queensland Tourism 'best job in the world' campaign, but some of the big winners, like The Natural Confectionery Company 'bring on the trumpets' and the Harvey Nichols Wallace and Gromit ads, while very nice, just seem a bit, well, small. 'Bring on the Trumpets' picked up a gold for 'innovative or ground-breaking thinking in commercial communication'. They're funny ads, but to my mind they're hardly ground-breaking. Feels like we should all be aiming a bit higher, especially in these tough times.

Gold for integrated campaign went to the Stella 'nouvelle smooth' campaign. Surprising choice. For me Compare the Market / Meerkat - which did win gold for TV and digital - was the obvious winner in this category. I'm not a fan of the Stella work and the campaign doesn't even seem particularly well 'integrated'. Aleksandr the meerkat was the only thing we saw last night that is mad enough and engaging enough to have really entered the culture in a truly 'Big' and popular way. But I guess Aleksandr will have his night of glory at the effectiveness awards.

W+K's Darren and Ben, last night, with an award. (For Nike in press.)

In other news, our former Planning Director Stuart Smith, now at Google Lab New York, also had a daughter this weekend, named Rosalie Dorothy and another bouncing baby at 8lb 3 oz. We breed them big here.

* I didn't make up this phrase, Stuart did for Andrew's first child. No plagiarism here. No sirree.

Neil C back from sabbatical in the wilderness - Bhutan, Nepal, Ladakh (me with mountains - above). It's good to be home. I was welcomed with a spiritually reawakened workstation environment:

Thanks to Emma and Graeme for looking after the blog in my absence. Here's an example of great outdoor advertising from my travels:

The Bandipur COI open defecation account is locally renowned for ground-breaking work.

The aim of W+K Exp is to make art accessible to everyone, whether a veteran collector looking for an original, or someone who is simply looking for a print for a wall at home.  Their endeavour is to create an experience that's shaped by a belief that art should be stripped of jargon and overloaded price tags, to be enjoyed on visitors' own terms.

Bharat Sikka's fashion photographs have been published in magazines all over the world - he is a frequent editorial contributor to Vogue India. His style is both humorous and dramatic, often using unconventional locations and unexpected points of view.  

The exhibition will run 'til 28th November - if you're in Delhi next month make sure you pop in!

B-10 Triveni Complex, Sheikh Srai Phase 1, New Delhi

Following this summer's collaborative window project with the University of Arts, This Is Why We Meet moved to central London for Phase 2.  Wieden + Kennedy, with Pat and Trevor, have curated a show of new work from the This Is Why We Meet teams. Since the success of our window installations, we have decided to take the teams and ideas and unleash them on a new exciting space.  A disused shop in the heart of Covent Garden is our venue.  There are rumours that the space was at one time, Paul Smith's former HQ, battling counter-rumours that it used to be an S&M hairdressers.

Either way, we have secured the space for the next two weeks where we will be presenting artists from across the University of the Arts London once again.  Ideas have been taken, warped and furthered from the previous shows, making for a slightly less manic yet equally as inspired den of creativity.  The show includes kaleidoscopes, talking limbs, business plans, a greasy gym and a VERY dark and confusing room.

We held a private view on Monday 19th October which saw the space packed out with London's arteratti.  

See the show for yourself between 11am and 7pm everyday until 30th October at 37 Endell Street, London, WC2.

In this morning's paper, Grant Parker, Head of Art at DDB London, chose the Nike Livestrong Chalkbot campaign developed by W+K Portland - previously blogged about here: http://wklondon.typepad.com/welcome_to_optimism/2009/09/nike-chalkbot.html

We'll hopefully be seeing more of the Chalkbot next year.

A select few had the chance to see (from the confines of a deck chair, which were surprisingly comfortable!) some of the best content from this year's festival.

 
The evening kick-started with an introduction from Tony D and Shane Walter - their friendship led to our creating the onedotzero's festival identity this year.  

'Craftwork' was really interesting, showcasing a revival in a handcrafted approach to motion arts and film.  And then there was H5's award-winning short film LOGORAMA.  Utterly amazing, an animated short film made entirely from hundreds of brand logos.  Its no surprise that the film picked up an award at Cannes this year.

There was a lot of 'that's the best thing I've seen since....' and 'i need to get my hands on a copy...' going on.  We also showcased our interactive installation so guests could see their own personal messages formed by live online conversation - naturally it didn't take Ben Walker long to use the 'c' word....

The night ended on a good note when Karsten Schmidt (the genius behind our application) announced that the identity software is 'open source' and has now been officially released to the digital community.  There'll be more about this later.

onedotzero_adventures in motion 2009/10 is now on tour around the world, and the interesting thing is that our identity continues to live and breathe.  Nice.

Colonization, civil war, natural disaster and economic instability have plagued Mozambique over the last 25 years, which has led to widespread uncertainty for tomorrow's youth.

'Imagining Mozambique', an idea of Interactive Producer Jamie Kim, is a collection of thought-provoking works of a group of internationally renowned artists - Parra, Superdeux, Florence Manlik, Happy Centro, Marcos Chin - to name a few. The paintings, inspired by the Mozambican children, bring attention to their day-to-day plight for survival and change.

Jamie says, "I had always been very interested in non-profit work. I found the right fit in 2004 when a group of like-minded people, who grew to know about ASEM, began ASEM Canada in Toronto as an official non-profit organization. Since relocating to Amsterdam two years ago, and still sitting on the Board of Directors, I had been working on an exhibition idea that would raise awareness in the local community. The idea was to create a bespoke event that would be fun, relevant and meaningful to the people of Amsterdam and in return, the local community would give to the children who need is so very badly in Mozambique. I began to put pen to paper in December 2008 and quickly realized Imagining Mozambique,. I had nothing to lose by contacting artists around the world and the worst that could happen was getting 'no' as a response. Luckily for me, those who said yes, outnumbered the rest.

I'm very excited to have had so many great people around me including Rae Anne Fera at 'Boards and the guys over at Mass Market who quickly tapped into their extensive NYC network to support the project. Rae Ann put me in contact with MassMarket who were immediately taken by the idea and donated their gallery space on Rivington Street. My many colleagues at W+K NYC have also been tremendously generous in lending me their time and expertise to make this happen and I am confident that the energy to keep this a travelling exhibit will continue into 2010."

Any money raised through sale of the artwork goes directly to ASEM-ASsociation en faveur de l'Enfance Mozambiquaine. Over the past 17 years, ASEM has offered Mozambican children an alternative to living life in the streets, abandonment and rejection from society. The ASEM charity has established various centers to provide shelter, education, and food to thousands of children. Cultural and sports activities are organized and play an important role in the psychological, emotional and physical rehabilitation of the children.

After the tenure at the MassMarket Gallery, the show will move to the Wieden+Kennedy Portland offices for an exhibition in January 2010.  If you're in NYC between 26th October and 1st November do go and have a look....
 

Back in February I mentioned that I'd had dinner at TED in Palm Springs with the lovely Morgan Spurlock - he of 'Supersize Me' fame.

Good bloke.  We had a steak, talked about burgers, and it emerged that he was, amazingly, a Stoke City fan.  Just like me. (Turned out that be became one by virtue of an appearance on Soccer AM to promote 'Supersize Me').

We agreed over dinner to swap shirts so I sent him a 2009/10 season Stoke City shirt to wear proudly all around NYC.  He's a massive Pittsburgh Steelers fan and promised to send one back.

This week, true to his word, a lovely, brand new, spanking 2009/10 Steelers shirt arrived in the post (modelled below) with the note:

'Your very own Superbowl Champions Pittsburgh Steelers jersey.  Now you too can see how clueless fans of American football are in ol' blighty.  Can't be any worse than the 'what's Stoke City?' questions i get.  Morgan'

Big thanks Mr Spurlock.  His new film of Freakonomics comes out later in the year.  I'm going to look out for him wearing his Stoke City shirt in the promos...

Enjoying a big cup of tea are Fairtrade team Katherine, Alice (only her second day at W+K, would you believe), Lou and Ray.

'I have aligned my chakras and cleansed my aura.  When I get back its all reiki and chanting, all day for everyone.

Go in peace.'

'Sabbatical great.  I'm sitting in a filthy shed in Ladakh trying not to catch cholera.  I've had blazing heat, torrential monsoon, and now frigging cold!  But I'm on a journey....'

It isn't often you read blog post about how great a meeting has been.

But, last Friday, Ken Banks, who started the incredible NGO FrontlineSMS \o/ met with some of the Platformers to discuss a potential project.

Keep up to date with Platform's progress here.

Last night, a bunch of us planners went down to mingle with the great and good of our discipline to watch the results of the 2009 APG Creative Strategy Awards ('The Oscars of the planning world' - Neil C) in which we had two papers - Nike 5 and Nokia Supernova - shortlisted.

Exceeding our own modest expectations, we were chuffed to receive a silver for each, with Nokia also bagging a special award in the 'best international campaign' category. Hurrah!

We celebrated our win by drinking sensibly, respectfully clapping BBH (who won planning agency of the year), and misplacing all three gongs (although I'm sure they'll turn up).

So - big congrats to everyone at the agency who worked on the campaigns. Also, props to McCann Erickson who won the Grand Prix for their excellent Halo 3 campaign.

Should you wish, you can read the submission papers here (Nike) and here (Nokia).

Today The Sun ran an article featuring a series of natural objects that look like breasts. A year after they ran a similar article about my book 'one-trackmind' - a fun xmas stocking filler, with profits going to breast cancer.  Coincidentally today is ' Pink Friday' in the office.  Holly asked everyone to wear pink (well remembered Danny Wallace) and contribute a pound towards breast cancer research. So get your spare change out now, fill Holly's pot and buy my book you tight lot!

Alex writes:

Like this one......

 
Kerry Williams, Team GB's Hockey hopeful for 2012, talked openly about what sport means to her and shared her ambitions for the Olympics with the girls.

Going forward, the successful girls will formally be invited to join the Nike Girls Team, the online research community where over the course of a year they will be invited to share opinions on product and views on ads. More coverage as it happens.