Almost as powerful and influential as News International, but not in an evil way: the Brand Republic Top 200 list of the best advertising, marketing, media, PR and digital blogs from around the world, ranked in terms of traffic and social influence. In with a bullet at number 32, as it happens, the King of Blogs, yes, pop-pickers, it's your very own Welcome to Optimism.

W+K's Iain Tait's blog Crack Unit is up there at number 23.

How could this useless repository for pictures of W+K people's fashion missteps and 'middle class raps' be so influential? According to Brandwatch, who helped compile the list:

"The 200 was a pre-selected list chosen by Brand Republic. In other words, the rankings do not mean the 200 blogs are necessarily the top 200 across the whole web. It’s a tough job to get a list like this together; Brand Republic used both desktop research and crowd-sourced recommendations from Twitter to compile this first version…

Once the list of 200 was complete, we ranked the sites.

As you may have seen from reading the host page of the BR200, our formula included metrics such as site traffic and MozRank and data from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

The algorithm we use for this is evolving and is relatively complex. Where it differs from other methods of blog-ranking is its encompassing of the social presence of those involved with the blog.

So, while metrics pertaining purely to the blog itself (such as site traffic, sites linking in etc) were taken into account, we also included analysis of the authors on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Taking into account the social element like this meant that scores were boosted the more linked up the blog was with the authors’ various social profiles."

In June, Honda (UK) launched the next phase of its new sponsorship platform for Channel 4 Documentaries with a series of mini documentaries, an online hub, sponsorship idents and a ‘take part’ competition for all Honda owners.  The winner of the competition, and their Honda product, will feature in the concluding part of the campaign.

The first phase of the mini-documentaries featured Philippa, an alpaca breeder in Oxfordshire, who tends to the animals on her farm using her trusty Honda ATV.   This month, the ‘Night Fishing’ films feature fishermen who take their boat out at night off the coast of Brixham to catch their fish in the dark, with luminous lures.  The boat is called ‘Goldfish’ – a Cheetah Marine 9.95m catamaran powered by twin Honda BF135 marine engines.

This latest round of short films, created by Hollie Newton, creative at Wieden + Kennedy London, breaks on 20th July during the documentary ’24 Hours In A&E’ on Channel 4.

Carrying on from last year’s sponsorship campaign – which told stories from within the company – the new brand-led films, which carry the strapline ‘Documentaries on 4, sponsored by Honda’, feature real-life customers who use their Honda products in interesting and unusual ways.  They each carry a unique URL relating to their story which leads viewers to an online hub www.honda.co.uk/stories, designed and created by Collective. People can view the documentaries in full on the site, as well as a range of films, articles, and other interesting stories featuring Honda owners and their vehicles.

The ‘Take Part’ competition has been devised to encourage Honda owners to upload stories and photographs about the surprising ways they use their Honda products.  The favourite, as chosen by Honda and Wieden + Kennedy, will then be turned into the final mini-documentary, featured on TV as idents, concluding the campaign.

Martin Moll, Head of Marketing at Honda (UK) said, ‘”I am very excited that our continued relationship sponsoring Channel 4 documentaries allows us to focus on our customers, highlighting their warm – sometimes quirky – personal experiences of Honda products either for fun or as a necessary part of their daily livelihood.  We hope that this campaign will unveil further examples from our customers, one of which will be nominated to be brought to life on TV for a final set of idents later on in the year”

Chris Groom and Sam Heath, Creative Directors, Wieden + Kennedy said, “We knew there were all sorts of people using all sorts of Honda products in extraordinary ways. A documentary format provided the perfect platform to celebrate them.”

The next wave of creative ‘Blood Bikes’ breaks in September.