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

Tomorrow sees the launch of our first big interactive project for Tesco.

Using a clever bit of jiggery-pokery (technical term) with the Twitter API we're encouraging users of the platform to pull a cracker with each other, simply by @ing someone with the hashtag '#pullacracker'. Once two people have connected, Tesco provides a digital cracker for them both to pull, complete with a prize and a 'dad gag'. Because it's the little things that make Christmas.

My favourite cracker gag:

How did Good King Wenceslas like his pizza?

Deep pan, crisp and even.

More details here.

Coverage from Retail Week:

Tesco is giving Twitter users the chance to pull a virtual cracker from tomorrow to win prizes from chocolate bars to Kindles.

On Saturday December 15, 50,000 online crackers will be ready to pop. To be in with a chance of winning, players using the hashtag #pullacracker and their followers who reply also using the hashtag will be sent a unique automated link to an animation of their cracker being pulled. That will then reveal which player is the winner.

Someone will win in every game, and there will also be traditional cracker jokes.

The game, created by Wieden + Kennedy, will be promoted across Twitter and Tesco’s Facebook page.

Digital and social director Tom Daniell said: “We’re looking forward to lots of people joining in the festivities this weekend by pulling a virtual cracker. We know it’s the little things that make Christmas, like groaning over a cheesy cracker joke with friends or family. It’s great that social media means we can help people all over the country share more of those moments, and of course they’ll all be in with a chance of winning a treat.”