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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 15 July 2015

From Tunbridge Wells with love

What is that one phrase that makes you think? What is that one phrase that makes you smile? What is that one phrase that makes you stop what you are doing and focus on the person who said it?

I love you.

Think back to the first time you heard that said to you. 
Think about where it was. 
Think about how it made you feel. 
Think about how many times you’ve heard it since.

Thought about it? Good. 

Like how your attention has been nicely diverted whilst reading this blog post? Well the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has done the same with their road work’s messaging on the A21.

The message is “Someone loves you”.

Now this is supposed to make you drive carefully through the road works so you can return to your loved one/s. However, it completely distracts you from driving. It makes you think about something other than driving. It does the exact opposite of what it was meant to do.

The TWBC has clearly tried to use emotion to force safer driving. But if they had read a bit further into behavioural economics they would have seen that “emotions can act as triggers of other mental states (stored memories, new beliefs, new preferences, and the like)” (Cecchi, 2015). Stored memories is what I am really trying to drive home here (excuse the pun). If you are accessing stored memories you are not focusing on the job in hand. And that job is driving.

Happy to hear your thoughts on this too, so please leave a comment.