The Truman Brewery on Brick Lane.

Draymen at the Brewery.

Wieden + Kennedy's London offices are partly located on the site of the Truman Brewery on Brick lane in London's east end. Founded in 1666, the brewery was once the world’s largest in the world.

Truman’s was synonymous with East London. For hundreds of years it was famed for its good beer and many pubs in the area are still branded with the name. But in 1989, Truman's was shut down, the breweries and the pubs sold off.

The cooperage yard, seen from the top of the chimney.

Our local The Golden Heart, back in the day – a Truman's pub, like many round the east end.

The Golden Heart now.

News reached us (belatedly) that the Truman has risen to brew again! Yay! Not a global brewing empire, but a local brand, with a beautiful identity! The people behind this say:

Beer needs a brewery, which is not something we have (yet).  So, we went to see our friends at Nethergate Brewery, who are very good brewers. Together, we created Truman’s Runner – our first new beer for 21 years.

Aside from beer, you need basic principles. Truman’s once lost sight of these and paid a high price. We went back the Metropolitan archives to find the principles that once made Truman’s great – they will be centre stage once more.

They are to be professional, to be innovative, to work with our local community and to make the best beer possible. They might not be revolutionary, but they are important.

We’re up and running now and we’ll keep on going until we build Truman’s a new brewery in its real home – East London.

We might never be the largest again, but then biggest has never been best.

Wise words.

The new Truman's brand is based on the black eagle motif that can still be seen on many buildings in the neighbourhood. (Including the side of W+K Towers.)

For more info on Truman's beer, see their website here.

You can buy Truman's beer at a number of local pubs, including the Ten Bells in Commercial Street, just round the corner from W+K's palatial offices on the edge of the brewery. The Ten Bells – seen in the top right of this busy photograph (above) of Commercial St in 1905 – is almost as old as Nicholas Hawksmoor’s neighbouring Christ Church, Spitalfields. Once the church was completed in 1729, funds were raised for the installation of a standard peal of eight bells, and in 1755, The Eight Bells Alehouse was recorded in Red Lion St, the thoroughfare that became Commercial St in the nineteenth century. And The Eight Bells was renamed The Ten Bells in 1788, when a new set of ten chimes was installed in the belfry at Christ Church. Info and pic above from the excellent Spitalfields Life. Much more here.

The Ten Bells is infamous for being (allegedly) a drinking haunt of one or more of the victims of Jack the Ripper.

 
NB – our admiration for the work of Truman's in no way diminishes our esteem for valued W+K client Heineken. New global campaign from W+K Amsterdam rolling out now.

The new Honda Jazz launches across Europe from 1st February 2011. To support this Wieden + Kennedy has created a pan-European campaign that also launches on 1st February in the UK and will then roll out across 29 markets in total throughout the month.

The new Honda Jazz launches across Europe from 1^st February 2011. To support this we have created a pan-European campaign that also launches on 1^st February in the UK and will then roll out across 29 markets in total throughout the month.

As is often the case with our Honda work, the spark for the idea came from something that was said by one of the people behind the vehicle.

Those words inspired this positioning thought:

Which in turn led us to the creation of the 60” animated TV spot that supports the Jazz launch. ‘This Unpredictable Life’ glorifies the epic challenge of trying to engineer a car that predicts everything life will throw at you. It’s a reflection of the wonderful and unpredictable journey of life’s twists, turns, ups and downs – as we follow a character floating through life in an animated world.  We see his journey from birth through to growing up and starting a family of his own, collecting experiences and possessions along the way: demonstrating the Jazz’s ability to handle all that life has to throw at the modern family.

The spot was directed by Smith and Foulkes at Nexus, the same team with whom we worked on the Honda Grrr commercial that was named 'best commercial of the decade' by Adweek. They say:

‘The team at Wieden + Kennedy asked us to visually interpret their beautifully poetic script, a fantastic opportunity of endless possibilities that doesn’t come along very often.  How can you encapsulate the unpredictable randomness of growing up, falling in love and starting a family in 60 seconds?  Our simple plan centred the story on a hero who would encounter all manner of epic silliness as he navigates his way through the different stages of his life.’ 

The film is supported by a print campaign:

We have also created, in conjunction with Gravity Mobile, a ground-breaking digital app that introduces the ability to ‘play’ with a television commercial using a mobile phone.The app is available to download free from the iTunes store now.

The app allows viewers of the film to ‘catch’ the  animated characters as the commercial appears on screen. It's the first time this sound-synching technology has ever been used in a commercial.  Here's a wee film showing how the app works: