By now you’ll all be aware of the pop-culture phenomenon
that is My Little Pony’s 2010 reboot ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’.
It’s massively successful; fans are already racing to conventions and there’s a
dedicated community building up steam online.

Did we mention that a good chunk of the fanbase is made up 18-25 year old guys? That's right. Young heterosexual men watch this program in droves. They have a catchphrase: "I'm Going to Love
and Tolerate the Crap Out of You!" and they call themselves ‘bronies’.I kid you not. 

What’s going on here? Perhaps it’s something simple. After careful research, we can report
that the episodes are deftly written, even a bit funny, with fresh art and
snappy music. It's message is heartwarming and simple (be friendly and helpful). That’s right – the program is quite good. 

There is probably a lot of cultury-wultury things occuring too – the rise in a desire for authenticity, the gradual acceptance/development of more complicated and nuanced ways of being men, the habit of online fan communities to bind tightly together in the face of perceived ridicule.

Could My Little Pony herald the death of cynicism? Can colourful horse-lets win the war against irony? Maybe not. But it's a nice (optimistic) thought.

—–

(Thoughts courtesy of Planning Placement newbie James.)

Someone asked about where the title for this blog originated. It came from an idea in the Honda pitch that ended up in the first Honda Book of Dreams. (You can see the entire book and the thinking behind it here.)

The idea was about a town called Optimism. And the sign by the highway as you drove into town was the 'Welcome to Optimism' sign that now hangs in our big meeting room. I can't remember anything else about the campaign idea now. Other than this phrase:

Is your petrol tank half full or half
empty?
Being optimistic is a wonderful thing.

We liked the thought and the sign, so when Honda didn't use it, we appropriated it and put it on the wall and on a T-shirt.

There's a coincidental connection to our Creative Directors Tony and Kim's dislike of problem / solution advertising, where you pull back to reveal the brand at the end and the world becomes a better place. Kim always used to say, Why can't we start with the positive and build from there?

And it seemed like a better title for this blog than just calling it Wieden + Kennedy London Blog.

That's the story.