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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.

Monday 17 November 2014

Creativity Works: making magic on TV

Last week the airwaves, cyberspace and print media exploded with debate about is it or isn't it disrespectful for Sainsbury's to use their telling of the story of the 1914 Christmas Truce for something as grubby and commercial as selling more groceries.

Just before that furore broke Patrick and I attended an event organised by Thinkbox which brought together the great and the good to share and debate some of the very best (the most creative and effective) of our UK Tv ads - how 'Creativity Works - making magic on TV'. Clips included John Lewis' #MontythePenguin and JS' #ChristmasTruce as well as other gems from Three, Thomson holidays and Marmite amongst others.


It was a great event, really worth of our blog name - "Things that inspire."

We learned how great campaigns need brave clients - ready to embrace new and exciting ideas and fight for their survival against often sceptical exec teams. And that emotional advertising delivers a greater ROI than a rational campaign.

We learned how great campaigns need single-minded directors with a clear vision of what they're trying to achieve.

And we learned that one of the most important ingredients is trust.  The more clients trust their agencies to deliver, then the harder the agencies and their film-makers will work to deliver the very, very best work to them - and the opposite is true too.

We learned that even in this age of media fragmentation TV is still the best way to build awareness - with a typical TV campaign generating a staggering 234 million views.

We saw great work, showcased as it's meant to be on the big, big screen with pumping digital sound - ads which, irrespective of your view of the rights and wrongs of the JS campaign, make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end and which make you proud to work in such a great, creative industry.

If you missed it, then take yourself off to a darkened room for four hours, pump up the sound and enjoy. 

http://www.thinkbox.tv/events-and-training/creativity-works-making-magic-on-tv/