Hello

hello – come in and make yourself at home

The Woodies have a blog. It’s a kind of collective. Not sure we’re about to start a revolution baby, but we might kindle a small debate or two and perhaps raise a smile. Anyway, rather than just blogging corporate Woodreed by fielding our top Woodie (as so many other companies seem to do in a thinly veiled attempt at impressing with their profundity), we wanted all our individual voices to be heard. An agency’s most valuable assets are its people after all. Everyone’s got something to say here and with us everyone’s ideas and opinions matter.

Each week someone different will be blogging. It's mostly about stuff that rocks our world as well as the flipside – the things that just don't cut it with us. We'll blog about inside and outside – inside this glorious industry where we work and outside in the real world.
It's a bit of an experiment, so go with us on this one.

Hope you enjoy.

Wednesday 25 May 2011

The power of kinetic communication


So there I was, taking the road out of Crowborough towards Jarvis Brook, when on my right I saw a workman in a yellow helmet frantically flapping his arms, with what appeared to be two hand made signs.

I intuitively slowed down and upon closer scrutiny was amazed to discover the workman was in fact, a kinetic mannequin.

Making the incident even more thought provoking and surreal was that the two cards being waved communicated a very bizarre message: "If you let everyone walk over you......you become a carpet!".

Anyway, regardless of that, I continued my journey homeward and began to smile. I liked that workman for some reason, and the fact he was arresting enough for me to slow down made me realize just how powerful his image was.

Then I remembered a similar incident that occurred to me many years ago,.

There were 4 of us (2 male, 2 female) crossing France on holiday to get to Switzerland, and had decided to drive at night to cut down travel time. We were in the vicinity of Dijon and I was driving along a straight empty road, when in front of me I suddenly saw an illuminated handsome Christopher Reevesesq road-worker waving his arms, desperately trying to slow me down, beside him an accompanying road sign warning of road works up ahead.

I thought I was dreaming, and spontaneously woke every one screaming and pointing to this brave superman who been deployed to slow traffic down in the middle of the night. As we slowed down, we then realized that he was, just like his mate in Crowborough, a moving mannequin.

It was surreal to say the least, but I did slow down!

We carried on, and after about an hour later, his twin brother was alerting us to another set of roadworks. The event then took a rather bizarre slant when one on my female companions said that she actually fancied him! She then said that if there was another one along the way, that she wanted me to stop the car and she she wanted to touch him. And hey presto, it was in no time at all that were all out the car examining the other triplet in complete darkness..
Sadly, it was a huge disappointment to the girls because only the face and hands really resembled a human, the rest of him was made up of canvas and alloy. So their fantasies immediately evaporated. But interestingly, every time I saw these guys I automatically slowed down.

So I am really surprised that this form of road communication hasn't been deployed in this country. Either as road warnings or any other attention grabbing grabbing situation.

Back to my new best mate in Crowborough, I'm looking forward to seeing what other strange message he has on his cards for me next time!



Monday 23 May 2011

Calling all Apple Mac users.......




On my way to work this morning, I collected a copy of Metro which I enjoy reading first thing in the morning.


It would appear that Apple Macs may be at risk from viruses and malware....


I've put a copy of the article upstairs if anybody would like to have a read....

Friday 20 May 2011

Things go better with Coke


It seems that Coke marketers are concerned that mothers do not consider its products when planning family meals (Marketing 11May 2011).

McCann's have created a TV campaign showing a family eating at a table, and when glasses of Coke are poured, animated flowers, rabbits and grass appear.

Now I am a great fan of Coke. I love the brand, I love the bottle and I love the myths and legends. And yes, I CAN tell Coke from Pepsi and, yes please I would prefer to have my Coke from a proper bottle than a can or, God forbid, a dispenser dripping with the last customer's lemonade.
But I am truly horrified that the brand is embarking on a campaign to encourage meal time consumption.



I will fight against onerous legislative restraint on our industry but surely this is playing right into the hands of those who'd argue for tighter controls. Aren't there enough other opportunities for the nation to get its Coke fix?

No-one in their right minds can possibly think it is responsible to encourage consumption of this wonderful drink at mealtimes as a matter of course.

Shame on you McCanns and shame on you Coke.

Image courtesy of Adhistory

Theo Paphtis Next Big Thing

Has anyone seen this?

It's definitely a must, especially if you've had moments imagining yourself as a potential entrepreneur.

The programme offers insight into the buying and selling game. Budding inventors are desperately trying to get their products to market, and it's a bumpy ride. Frustrated with either lack of finance or the realisation that their branding is all wrong, you witness how difficult building a business is and the struggle the entrepreneur encounters when negotiating with suppliers and retailers.

Thursday 19 May 2011

When advertising goes so right


Spontaneous ad recall in print is hard. There must be just a handful of campaigns that stay in your mind.

I am a massive fan of print, good print that is. One of the reasons I like it is that, like radio, it’s hard to make truly memorable print, meaning the really good ones are borderline genius (see CDP’s 'Hamlet' radio campaign)

The brand that stands head and shoulders above the rest for me is the long running Economist magazine campaign. It ticks every box for how to get print advertising totally right.

1.It stems from one single minded proposition from which they never deviate –I reckon it would be something like “Economist readers just get it”.
2.It’s tone of voice is crystal clear and bang on every time
3.It knows it’s audience and doesn’t try to appeal to anyone else
4.It gets that fundamental rule of print – keep that copy light
5.The art direction is clean, striking and simple using the same colour palette and typeface

The result is advertising that is genuinely memorable, that doesn’t just ‘rent a space in your head’, (as Sir John Hegarty used to say about good advertising), but moves in, buys a cat and throws a housewarming party.

Any print campaigns stick in your mind?

Economist image: AMV BBDO

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Proper Photography


Sometimes the simplest shots end up being the most wondrous.
Everyone can be a photographer nowadays, and that's a great thing - every phone has a camera, retouching apps are free and its a great way to capture the moment.
But when you look at a nature photographer, where not only does the environment challenge to the extreme and there is no guarantee that the 'models in question' will show up on time, or at all - its hard to draw an equal (unless you want war photojournalism, but that's not for now)
Hats off to these guys (and the polar bear for looking so cool!)

Monday 16 May 2011

I do love a faux pas.....

I've come across a few rather amusing 'oops' of late in the media world and wanted to share a couple for mutual entertainment....

Andrew Marr may not be flavour of the month at the moment but this photo/headline combination from the Radio 4 website seems a little harsh....

The anti Obama Fox news also provided a rather ironic typo when reporting the recent death of Osama Bin Laden - oopsy daisy.


Tuesday 10 May 2011

BABY FACEBOOK

I know facebook is a topic that has been blogged and blogged about - however! Did you know that the first baby to be named Facebook has been born? I didn't until I came across an article today!


Supposidly little Facebook has been named in honour of the role the social network played in the revolution in Egypt. Her father wanted to express his gratitude about the victories achieved which led to the eventual departure of Mubarak. The social network played a crucial role in the Egyptian revolution, so much so that the uprising has widely been labeled 'The Facebook Revolution.' Egyptians used Facebook to organise protests, share information and connect with the outside world with 32,000 facebook groups and 14,000 pages being created in two weeks during January. And they say the power of social networking is growing - i'd agree by these stats!


I wonder if there is a baby called Twitter yet!?


Image source: Facebook home page http://www.facebook.com/

Monday 9 May 2011

A trip back in time.....



All my plans for my blog this week were scuppered as I was unable to write about an event I was going to attend yesterday but due to an injury my daughter sustained on Friday evening and she was unable to take part in the Annual Inter Counties Judo Competition yesterday.




As I logged on to the internet this morning ('Metro' hadn't inspired me on the way to work this morning and I was racking my brains for inspiration, which can be hard first thing on a Monday morning) and went to the "Google" home page a little smile appeared accross my face as today is Roger Hargreave' s 76th birthday and Goggle have decided to have several background images to celebrate his birthday.




I used to love the Mr Men books as a child as did my daughters. So much, that when I used to read the books to them before their bedtime, when they were little, they used to finish off the sentences for me. I didn't only just read the Mr Men and Little Miss series if you're thinking poor girls is that all that was read to them, I think I ended up knowing word for word certain 'Thomas the Tank Engine', 'Winnie the Pooh' and various Disney stories as well and I couldn't even skip a page or two to finish the story quickly as they knew that parts of the stories were missing and would tell me so!!!!




So if you fancy a trip down memory lane go to the 'Google' home page where you can see Little Miss Sunshine, Mr Messy, Mr Tickle, Mr Bump and other characters.........



Image source: Google Homepage












Tuesday 3 May 2011

Challenging Conventional Thinking

Sometimes it takes a flash of brilliance or perhaps madness, but thank goodness for that!
After watching a bouncing bomb documentary last night, it makes you wonder what would have happened if Barnes Wallis hadn't challenged popular belief, that the Ruhr Dam was indeed inpenetrable. He didn't so much think 'outside the box' but applied different thinking to the problem.
So often in business however, we find ourselves doing the same things yet expecting a different outcome to present itself.
Honda presented this theory as 'The Power of Dreams' while Saatchi's used to say 'nothing is impossible' and Jean Marie-Dru spoke about disruption theories.
Perhaps we all need a little more faith in trying things that we are not familiar with, and just see where they take us.

Monday 2 May 2011

Bloody marvellous Britain


Moments of patriotism in this cynical old land are rare there days, but I appear languishing rather pleasantly in the middle of one.

Big up GB, it’s a pretty good place to be.

Take the weather for a start. When the sun shines, there’s no better place than here and wow wee have we had a lot of it of late (Trying to ignore Jo’s slightly sinister theory that the good weather is actually due to the fact that the earth has been knocked off it’s axis by the Japan earthquake and we are perhaps hurtling towards the sun as I write...?).

The NHS. The smallest Dahl and I have both needed to visit A&E over the past couple of weeks and I marvelled at how brilliantly fair the whole idea of it is. Also how incredibly patient the staff are with the assortment of odd bods who seem to wander in with nothing much else to do. Big respect.

Next, the royal wedding, naturally. Splendid for opportunity to legitimately drink champagne at 11am on a Friday morning, loose yourself in a full on princess fantasy (I stopped short of watching with my own wedding dress on however), let your kids micro-scoot in the middle of a road for the afternoon of street party shenanigans a la 1970 and remind yourself that even with bags of cash at your disposal you can still turn up to a wedding looking like the pantomime entertainment (see Beatrice and Eugenie).

Finally (and what started me thinking about why I heart GB) how about Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner? It’s the condensed example of how free we are, how lucky we live in a land where we are largely uncensored, where free speech is the right of every person who is lucky enough to live here.