W+K London

December 19, 2012

Honda ‘Cog’ voted greatest car ad of all time by Auto Express readers

Clients

Auto Express today announced the winner of their ‘Best Car TV Ad Ever’ poll – Honda’s Cog ad by Wieden + Kennedy won with 31% of the votes! Many thanks to the readers of Auto Express for their votes.

The production for this ad was notoriously complex, requiring 606 takes to get the sequence right.

In an article written at the time of the campaign's launch, the Daily Telegraph wrote:

Cog looks certain to become an advertising legend and part of its allure
is the seemingly effortless way the relay of parts slide and touch and
roll with such apparent ease. The reality of the film's production was
slightly different. It was, by most measures of human patience, a
nightmare.

Here's a video we put together about how the ad was made, showing that it was all done for real. (Tony Davidson hasn't aged a day since this was filmed!)

Most ads run and are quickly forgotten. For Cog still to be topping polls ten years after it ran, suggests that it was worth going through the nightmare to create something that has lasting appeal.

December 19, 2012

wieden + kennedy is ADWEEK’s global agency of the year 2012

News

Yes, OK, we have gone on about this before, but now here's a scan of the actual article from ADWEEK detailing Wieden + Kennedy being named their agency of the year 2012.

Here's what they said:

(The) work on Wieden’s global reel this year represents advertising
at its best—words and images that spark emotions and transcend
categories.

Even for a premiere creative agency like Wieden—Adweek’s Global
Agency of the Year for 2012—this was an exceptional year. The most
memorable Super Bowl ad. The Emmy (its fourth straight). The biggest
campaign ever for Heineken, celebrating the brand’s global sponsorship
of the James Bond flick Skyfall. A whopping 45 Lions
at Cannes (including 29 out of its Portland, Ore., headquarters, making
it Agency of the Year). Banner wins like Tesco, Sony, Facebook and
American Express Open. New business and organic growth from existing
accounts fueled a swift rebound from the loss of Nokia and Target, in
2011 and early ’12, respectively. The agency ends this year with global
revenue growth of 5 percent to an estimated $294 million.

Among its peers, independent agency Wieden, now in its 30th year,
inspires both pride and envy. After all, in the past four years, Wieden
has won an average of 29 Lions a year. Agency co-founder and global
president Dan Wieden attributes that creative consistency to building a
culture that’s “just more fun than you can believe and harder than hell.
That generates ideas, great enthusiasm and new ways of looking at old
issues.”

Tesco’s Matt Atkinson likes what he sees thus far in Wieden’s
London office, which, led by managing director Neil Christie, beat TBWA,
VCCP and JWT in July to claim one of the most coveted accounts in the
U.K. The retailer, which each year produces more than 1,000 ads and
spends about $175 million in media, last month broke a campaign that
centers around a familiar object in England this time of year: the
holiday hat.

Wieden brings “an ability to help you express yourself in the new
world,” says Atkinson, Tesco’s group marketing and chief digital
officer. “That was what we were looking for.”

Read the full article on Adweek.com