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2009 words of the year: bosh, boom, tweet, donk, etc

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Everyone's doing end of year lists at the moment, so here's a W2O list of words that will very soon seem soooooooo 2009.

Bosh

Word used to express satisfaction in accomplishment of a task. "I've only gone and cracked the whole mobile computing campaign for the next three years. Bosh!"

Boom

Like bosh, only more so. "The client thought my powerpoint was totally awesome. Boom!"

Donk

Sub-genre of house music, also known as 'scouse house', named for distinctive beat sound. Also applied to advertising. "Is there any way to rescue this hopeless concept?" "Put a donk on it."

Swede

Reference to utilisation of Scandinavian interactive gurus. "What's our strategy for earned media?" "Put a Swede on it."

Tweet

Small cry of despair from place of work. "Are you tweeting from the meeting?"

Mobflashing (sic)

All-purpose word used to describe real-world behaviour stimulated by mobile content. "If we tweet this, can we get people mob-flashing?"

Meerkat

Simples!

Barley

Derived from the Nathan Barley TV series. Adjective used to describe anything embarrassingly pretentious and wanky in the Shoreditch/Spitalfields area. "Fixed wheel bikes are a bit Barley." "Nic, those trousers make you look totally Barley."

Recession

Actually, this one may carry on in use into 2010.

Any more suggestions for 2009 words of the year?

stuff of the year / decade

Campaign magazine today did their round-up of the best of 2009 and the best of the decade. Happy to say Wieden + Kennedy was mentioned a few times. So, let's run through those charts!

Campaign of the decade – Honda 

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"With a consistent combination of industry-defining, award-winning and brand-building ads, Wieden + Kennedy's work for Honda took the top spot."

Posters of the decade (no 5) – Nike 'Saint Wayne'

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"This poster can't be ignored. You can almost hear Wayne Rooney's roar emanating from it. Man or beast, in agony or ecstasy, rallying for football or war, it's hard to tell from this shocking vision, and the crusading Christian symbolism is layered on as thick as the bloody body paint."

Virals of the decade (no 3) – Honda Cog 

"Eighty-five car parts were filmed knocking into each other, domino-style to create an ingenious TV spot for Honda…The ad was not shown on TV in the US, the only way to view it was via an email."

TV ad of the decade (no 3) – Honda Cog 

"Not so very long ago, when you though about car advertising, you tended to think of the product cornering tightly on some switchback section of the Alpes Maritimes, captured lovingly in a swooping helicopter tracking shot. And then there was 'Cog'. In 2003, Honda stripped down the tin, took the engineering apart and reassembled it to produce the most elegantly intricate (and witty) chain reaction film – the world of Heath Robinson meets the art of the toppling domino chain. It heralded the beginning of a golden age of classy Honda advertising."

TV ad of the decade (no 8) – Honda Grrr


On the surface, selling the benefits of a diesel engine through a singalong world of animated fluffy creatures might seem a little hard to swallow, but this message of 'positive hate' was anything but. The campaign, prduced by Wieden + Kennedy, gave Honda one of its most successful sales years in the UK to date, shifting more than 90,000 vehicles and securing the agency the coveted Cannes Grand Prix.

2009

Press ads of the year (no 1) – Guardian classic comics

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"The Guardian's comics giveaway was the promotion of the year and these ads do it justice. The cut-outs of comic characters create great impact – especially the Dennis the Menace execution."

Digital campaign of the year (no 1) – Nike 5

 

"This viral recruiting players for a nationwide five-a-side football tournament could have fallen flat but thanks to (W+K's) clever execution that used covert films of Premier League players and the breadth of new media, the campaign scored on all fronts." Done in partnership with AKQA.

Posters of the year (no 7) – Honda Iron

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"Wonderfully executed poster campaign… the design is clean and the uplifting message is cleverly delivered". 

(And a nod to W+K Portland for no 9 viral of the year: Nike most valuable puppets.)

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