Images of Wundermas

The Melbourne Wunderkids had a big day out for this year's Christmas Party. After a fabulous breakfast smorgasboard organised by Lisa O'Brien and her little helpers the kids boarded the bus for a day at the Mornington Races.

Obviously a fun time was had by all, but our favourite pic of the day was this one of Carly and her crew trackside.


Many of the Wunderkids also attended the Ford Blue Team Chrissie Party at the Little Creatures brewhouse. Our fave pic from this fun night was the coming together of Creative and Data over a sugary donut ball.


With the Collins St office now open plan, it was hard to find somewere to put the Christmas tree. So instead we'll share with you this great pic Stan took of the tree across the street in the City Square. Merry Christmas everyone!

Aussie Christmas

The Melbourne Wunderkids had Kris Kringle last Friday. As you can imagine, a few drinks were consumed. So much so that the already quite funny gifts seemed even funnier. None more so that the instant Aussie kit that Mario received from Santa.

Nice one Matt!

Every year many Melbourne art directors turn off their Mac for a weekend or two and pick up a paint brush and palette for charity.

Sales from Home is where the art is go to the Lighthouse Foundation to help homeless young people. Given the astonishing amount of heavy rain that's hit Melbourne this year, this has never been more important.

Our favourite art director Matt Stoddart contributed this very cute painting called Buzzy Bee to the auction.


Matt wasn't confident that anyone would actually hand over hard cash for his painting, so he was blown away when spirited bidding saw his Buzzy Bee sell for a handsome $400. Nice one Matt!

ADMA Awards 2010

The Wunderkids gathered at the ADMA Awards 2010 in Melbourne last night. Six hundred of the industry attended the event at the Recital Centre, emceed by Julian Morrow and Chris Taylor of The Chaser.

Wunderman collected three bronze trophies – all effectiveness awards in the Technology category for Microsoft.


The Windows 7 Share House integrated campaign which achieved a massive 10.4 million brand impressions, Throw This Away flat mail piece which saw an uplift of over 700%, and Internet Explorer 8's internationally successful Spoilt Milk digital campaign all received bronze ADMA Awards.

Congratulations to all the Wunderkids.

It's a Kind of Magic

Given the volume of work moving through Wunderman Sydney lately, Art Director Paolo Meucci has found a unique way for Creative Director Matt Batten to be in two places at once.

Super Mario

A massive amount of work has made its way through our Melbourne creative department over the last few months. And tucked away in the corner, toiling away behind the biggest computer screen in the agency, is Mario. He's only been with Wunderman for a few months, but in that time he's taken everything we have thrown at him and hit it for six.

This Friday a rare sighting of sunshine in Melbourne also saw a rare sighting of Mario from out behind his desk. He's denying rumours that the barman asked him for ID before serving him that beer, but there's no denying we're proud to have him on our team. Onya Mario!

It's a threepeat!

After a year of hard slog, new biz wins and several new faces, the Wunderteam were very proud to see their efforts recognised with a finalist nomination at the B&T Agency of The Year Awards.

Wunderman Australia is a finalist in the National DM Agency category. This follows our Melbourne office achieving a State Agency of The Year finalist last year and the year before.Making it a finalist threepeat!

Winners announced on 3rd December. Be sure and keep your fingers crossed for us.

An inspirational excursion

Our Melbourne creative director Stanley is continually reminding us that inspiration can be found anywhere, as long as you look hard enough.

Today he set out to inspire the whole agency with a secret visit to the Lyon Housemuseum. It may not look that exciting from the street, but you can't imagine what lies behind that facade.


The Lyon family are serious art collectors and architects. They designed the house to accommodate them and their amazing art collection.


Quite how Stanley managed to get us inside the walls we'll never know. But everyone who came along for the visit walked out feeling inspired like never before.


The house even has a music room for chamber music performances. And a pipe organ that has to be heard to be believed.


Last but not least was the Black Cube. This housed video installations and was also wired up for some serious Playstation action!

If you'd like to be as inspired as the Melbourne Wunderkids click here to find out more about this secret that surely can't remain a secret for too much longer.

The Mrs Schwartz Rule of Service

Lester Wunderman, founder of Wunderman, gives a personal insight into understanding customers, relationship marketing and the imperative of needs. He calls it the 'Mrs Schwartz Rule of Service'. It involves chickens.

Prizes and Farewells

It's been a big week in the Sydney office with a sad double departure and a glorious honour.

We bid farewell to Kate Nicoli who moves on to what amounts to a promotion but it cannot possibly be in an agency as good as the one she's leaving. Never before have we seen such an ecstatic and overwhelmingly childlike reaction to a farewell gift as we witnessed today. It was truly one of those moments when you wish you'd had a video camera to record the giddy squealing.


And Cory Spence, a freelance digital producer, who's short time here made a large impact with his diligence, expertise and outstanding wit. We shall miss his email humour immensely.

On a hugely positive note, Nicole Green, digital producer on Nokia has received a global accolade.


Ever the quiet achiever, often working late with conference calls to regional production hubs and offices around the world, and never the cavil uttered, Nicole has been awarded the Global Producers' Award. Of over 400 people working in 108 markets from 53 offices around the world, Nicole has been chosen as the one producer who stood out among the rest for communication, project management, precision and personality.

Well done Nic. High honour indeed, and deservedly so.

Gruen Transfer – The Pitch

Wunderman Sydney was invited to participate in The Pitch segment of ABC's hit TV show The Gruen Transfer. Our brief was to convince the Australian public to allow refugees arriving by boat into the country. Following a Federal election in which both major parties promised to 'stop the boats', Gruen host Wil Anderson chose this topic for episode 11 which aired on ABC1 on Wednesday 22 September.



While both parties talked about stopping the boats, neither gave a single reason as to why they should be stopped. The reason Australians give for not letting 'boat people' in are usually along the lines of 'job stealing', 'terrorism', and the more general 'not welcome'. It's a politically-charged issue that hides fear and racism behind a distorted version of national patriotism.

Here's some facts about refugees who arrive in Australia by boat:
• Only 2,000 asylum seekers arrive in Australia by boat in 2009, compared to the 50,000 people who illegally over-stay their visas each year.
• 95% of asylum seekers arrive in Australia by plane.
• 42 million people worldwide were displaced in 2008.
• 839,000 people applied for asylum somewhere around the world in 2008. Only 0.57% of these were in Australia.
• In a list of 71 countries that accept refugees, Australia is 32nd. Behind Kazakhstan and Djibouti.

Special thanks to those who donated their time and skills to make this happen

Credits:
Creative Director: Matt Batten
Copywriter: Theodora Gerakiteys
Art Director: Paolo Meucci
Producer: Paul Hayes
Director: Phil Rich, 2feet Films
Director of Photography: Anna Howard
Camera Assistant: Jordon Maddocks
Post Production: Paul McDonald, Fanatic Films
Casting: Peta Einberg, Peta Einberg Casting
Location Scout: Michelle Williams
Location: Earlwood Public School, NSW

Run Baby, Run

Team Wunderman participated in the Sydney Running Festival on Saturday 16 October. The team included Hakan, Nicole, Brent, Sophie and Emily. They chose Cancer Council NSW (one of Wunderman Sydney's newest clients) as their charity, raising money from their efforts.

Brent Clarke, Head of Digital, is a former personal trainer, so he's not only up with all the latest gadgets but also a run-junky. He tracked his pedometric activities with RunKeeper: http://runkeeper.com/user/BrentClarke/activity/16709834

Unfortunately, there are no photos. While the team may be fit, they aren't sound of mind.

Do the Rabbit

Some more funky dance stylings from the Sydney creative department.

http://www.image-n.com.au/wunderDance/

Ooh yeah.

Don't even ask

It's not safe in the Wunderman Sydney Creative Department. Make one little movement and someone just might have a video camera, a music track, and access to the internet.

This is Paolo Meucci, Art Director and Premier Danseur.

She's gone kids!

Friday 27th was a day of celebration at our 162 Collins St office, as we bid farewell to marvelous Mishy.

Scroll back through the posts on this blogs and you're sure to come across many Mishy moments. She was the self appointed Mum of our agency and we will miss her dearly.

We kicked off the day with a huge brekky smorgasbord, ventured out to Trunk for a cocktail enhanced lunch, before gathering around the Wunder-couches for final farewells.

Now all that remains of her is an empty chair and a whole lotta memories.

Why Is Australia Always Winning?

The Wunderman Creative Director's Conference 2010 was held on the rooftop of the Palais Royale in Cannes during the International Advertising Festival, aka the Cannes Lions.

Matt Batten, Creative Director of Wunderman Sydney, was invited to attend and give a presentation on the topic of "Why Is Australia Always Winning?" to 35 of his Creative Director colleagues from around the world.

This video is a 4-minute cut down of the original hour-long presentation, using the same visuals and an abridged story.

RANSOM!

The evil gnomenappers have made contact. They have made Wundernome create a Facebook page, clearly under duress for his name is mispelled and they have mistakenly claimed he likes a TV show about a man who drinks his own urine instead of water carried by the cameramen.


Even worse, they have placed Wundernome up for bid on eBay.

Clearly this is they way they intend to extract money from us for his safe return. But I ask you, would you trust someone who steals purple gnomes to actually deliver the goods after receiving payment? No, I think they'd just take the negative comment to their seller's name. After all, they are evil.


But they have already made a grave error. They have set the starting bid at $20. Wundernome only cost $15 at Bunnings. And we really haven't gotten to know him that well for his value to have increased by 33%.

Curious? Try one.

A healthy diet of redskins, may be taking the 'healthy' a little bit too far. But at least they are on Wunderman brand.

Cosmopolitan.

Emotive.

Connecting.

Eclectic.

Curious? Try one.

Farewell Big John

Today, John Campbell-Bruce leaves us. Despite his pretentious double-barrel surname, he's been a valuable asset to Wunderman Sydney on the Nokia account. The big man has brought his own flavour of culture to the office and been a pleasure to work with.

We have called his future employer and given him a terrible reference, so there is hope yet that things will not work out well for him outside of Wunderman.

Here, he gives an in-depth handover to Sophie who will take up the reins on Nokia (or as Sophie put it, an in-depth 'hangover').

MISSING

Wundernome has been gnomenapped.

He went missing on the morning of Monday 2nd August 2010 and was last seen in the vicinity of Basement Level 4 at 35 Clarence Street, Sydney.

Today, this photo arrived in the mail:


What evil person has perpetrated this vile act? Wundernome never hurt anybody.

We are offering a reward for information leading to the apprehension of the perpetrator/s and the safe return of Wundernome. Please send information to emily.murison@wunderman.com

You may remain anonymous if desired.

For more photos of innocent little Wundernome's life, visit www.flickr.com/photos/wundernome/

Belated Birthday Boy

The last few weeks have been totally crazy at 162 Collins. Late nights, weekends, pitch wins, sick staff, car launches. Madness I tell ya!

All of which meant we had a lot of trouble getting our MD Chris Jeffares to stand still long enough to blow out the candles on his birthday cake.

Today we decided enough was enough and hijacked him from a client meeting for a quick burst of Happy Birthday and some gorgeous mini cupcakes.

Given the importance of his meeting Chris then disappeared even quicker than the cupcakes did.

New brand experience training

WunderNic is in NZ at the moment on what she has termed 'brand experience training'. We just call it having a well-deserved holiday. Enjoy and Happy Birthday!

PS - try and avoid another avalanche please.

Wunderman Supermodel Rumours

Wunderman Supermodel 'CA' who can be seen below in her latest high-profile advertising campaign for Ford, has just jetted off for a week in Vegas ... with her lovely long-term boyfriend.

Rumours are swirling about their international jestset lifestyle and this flying visit, with comparisons to fellow Australian Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom.

Enough said for now. Stay tuned ...

Paulie Picks

Wunderman joined the World Cup frenzy over the last month with late nights, tipping comps, foosball chamiponships and a lovely little 'experiential' site from These Days - Paulie Predicts at www.pauliepredicts.com

Vuvuzela

Wunderman Sydney's social committee hosted another games night on Thursday, this time with an in-house Foosball comp in honour of the World Cup Fever that has gripped the agency recently. While vuvuzelas were banned from the event, the Wunderkids came for the early start (which means an early knock-off from work), the drinks, the cheese plate and pizza. And the game, of course.

Eight teams picked a country to represent, and after the bookie's favourite, Spain (Paolo and Will), was knocked out of the comp in the first round, the spectators were hoping for a trans-Tasman clash between Australia (Rabbit and Nat E) and New Zealand (Amanda and Paul). But Australia fell to England (Soph and James) leading to a best-of-three grand final battle between the old empire and the young colony – England vs. New Zealand. In just two rounds the kiwis scored 10-8 and 10-9, besting the lions and claiming the trophy.

(There is a video of the night, but this freakin' blog won't upload it).

Ten Grand Wins APMA Grand Prix

Last night Wunderman Sydney’s TenGrandisBuriedHere campaign for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 took out Gold for Best use of Social Media Within a Promotional Campaign and the GRAND PRIX at the Australian Promotional Marketing Association Awards.

The agency almost missed out collecting the Grand Prix trophy as our two agency representatives at the Awards, Nicola Long and Paul Hayes, chuffed at having picked up Gold, were about to sneak out and go home early, but lingered long enough to get a very pleasant surprise when the Grand Prix was announced. In her subsequent excitement, Nicola managed to drop both trophies, which Paul is repairing with superglue as I write.

These wins add to Ten Grand’s previous haul of metal at both Caples and ADMA.

Au revoir Cannes. Bonjour Paris.

My time in Cannes came to an end. The four days were hectic, enjoyable, inspirational and career-defining in more ways than one.

Brian Langerfield, CD of Wunderman Toronto, happened to also be travelling to Paris for the weekend, so we decided to travel together.

And then we couldn't get out.

We heard that there may be issues with the trains due to a strike. After hauling our luggage to the SNCF train station we discovered the rumour was true. All trains had been cancelled until Tuesday, so we returned to the Hotel Gray d'Albion.

We jumped online to buy EasyJet tickets from Nice to Paris. The site appeared to be inundated with activity and was chugging, so I called my wife in Australia and had her purchase our tickets online and email me the confirmation. Done.

Since our flight was scheduled to depart in 8 hours, we took in some of Cannes' sights. After some final beers on the beach, we collected our bags from the hotel and took a cab to Nice airport.

Then all hell broke loose.

While we had been relaxing on the beach, the air traffic controllers also decided to go on strike. All flights had been cancelled until Tuesday. Hundreds of travellers were stranded and screaming for a refund. Then they realised the bigger issue. With all the inbound flights bringing travellers into Nice and Cannes earlier in the day, hotels were at capacity and many people would be without a place to sleep for four days.

While Brian waited in the queue of hundreds to find out how we claim our refund, I raced down to the arrivals terminal to book a hire car. Avis and Europcar were both closed having booked out all their vehicles already. I joined the queue for Hertz just before the masses arrived to do the same thing.

In the queue, I overheard the gentleman in front of me on his mobile phone saying he had to get back to London and the only way was to take the Chunnel train, but first he had to get to Paris. I offered he hitch with us to share the hire cost and the driving. This was a very lucky thing because it turned out Brian couldn't drive a manual, so I would have had to drive the entire trip myself if not for our new British travelling companion, Richard.

We got one of the very last cars from Hertz and hit the road at 8.30pm.

After ten-and-a-half-hours, a questionable meal at a truck stop, and a one hour nap on the side of the A8, we finally pulled into Paris at sunrise. I took the lion's share of the driving, with Richard's 3-hour stint at the wheel hauling us over the line.

Bedraggled, bewildered and bedevilled, we returned our rent-a-car, and said farewell to Richard who headed for his London-bound train. Then Brian and I parted ways to find our respective hotels and sleep off the dusk-til-dawn drive.

In Paris,
Matt Batten
Creative Director
Wunderman, Sydney

Day 4

Another grueling day of non-stop lectures and seminars from some of the intellectual and creative elite. Today, Gayle Troberman, CCO of Microsoft, gave an interesting look at some of the cool brand work being done for the world’s largest software company.

Anthony Di Biase, ECD of Wunderman Irvine, provided insights on pitch success with several case studies. And Lee Feldman, CEO of Blast Radius, totally inspired yours truly with some of the remarkable work they’ve created using data. I know that might sound boring – truth be told, I was skeptical going in – but I’ve been shown the light and now believe data could be the foundation for creative ideas instead of a brief.

After pumping our brains with information, we have a brief reprieve to don our Sunday best and attend the Cannes Lions ceremony for Media, Outdoor, and Radio.

In the former, Australia has picked up the Grand Prix again, this time for MEC Sydney/Leo Burnett’s Photochains campaign for Canon. Carat/GPYR Melbourne also collected a gold Lion for Its No Picnic, and Starcom/Colenso BBDO Auckland a gold for Yellow Pages’ Yellow Chocolate.

Two silvers were awarded to Starcom Melbourne, and bronzes to JWT NZ, Starcom/Colenso BBDO Auckland.

In the Outdoor category, the USA took a whopping three Grand Prix trophies, while JWT NZ took a silver, Colenso BBDO Auckland took a silver and a bronze, GPYR Melbourne took three bronze Lions for Defence Force Recruiting, and TBWA/Tequila Auckland collected a bronze.

Of the fifteen gold Lions in the Radio category, one went to DDB NZ for Sky TV. DDB NZ received four silvers, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne three, Meerkats Perth garnered three, and Leo Burnett Sydney one. DDB Sydney collected three bronze, with US Sydney and Leo Burnett Sydney each taking home one.

Later at the official Cannes Lions Festival’s Carlton Beach party, I ran into the crew from Leo Burnett Sydney on a complete high from their worthy medal haul. ECD Andy DiLallo was joined by former joint-ECD and creative partner Jay Benjamin who flew in from New York to see his old colleagues celebrate in style. Some of the work that earned trophies was created while Jay Benjamin was still with the Sydney office.

The beach soiree is easily the largest party I’ve ever attended, extending out onto a pier and in both directions along the beach from the front of the majestic Carlton Hotel. Unsure of exact numbers, I’d have to guess there were several thousand people at the “black tie (optional)” event, most dressing in the black tie, some choosing the “optional”.

Of course, as soon as Cannes security closed down the party at 2am, presumably for noise and safety reasons, over a thousand people continued the party only 100m along La Croisette at the infamous Gutter Bar. The noise and safety remained the same, but you can’t argue with the logic of an armed Frenchman with a very large muzzled dog.

I awoke surprisingly well after only three-and-a-half hours sleep, ready to tackle another day of seminars, the least of which was my very own to the Wunderman Creative Directors’ Summit. My colleagues have been eagerly anticipating my lecture on the topic of “Why Does Australia Always Win?” especially after the Aus/NZ medal haul on day one of the festival. Having taken out eight of the total 19 gold Lions awarded and the prized Grand Prix, they were all hoping I would have the magical answers to help them improve the standards of their own countries.

I’m pleased to say the presentation went extremely well, and I’ve even been invited to deliver it to Wunderman London while there next week.

For now, the 57th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival closer to its finale, with the Press, Design and Cyber Lions categories being awarded tonight.

in Cannes,
Matt Batten
Creative Director
Wunderman, Sydney

Day 3

Forget the blue skies and the azure sea. There’s gold in Cannes. And Aussies and Kiwis are taking a lot of it home so far.

Last night saw the 57th Cannes International Advertising Festival ceremony award the PR, Direct, and Promo & Activation categories in the Palais de Festival. A capacity audience watched as the Lions were handed out, and it certainly felt like Australia and New Zealand took a lot of stage time.

Our region usually does well in the Direct category, but last night the Grand Prix, 8 gold, 5 silver and 3 bronze Lions were awarded to us by the biggest jury ever to preside over the direct category. Of the 19 gold Lions awarded in total, Australia/NZ have taken a staggering 42% of them.

The coveted Grand Prix went to Special Group NZ for their brilliant Orcon + Iggy Pop campaign for Orcon Broadband. The campaign also collected gold. Pablo Alzugaray, CEO of Shackleton and president of the Direct jury, recognised the campaign as a winner as soon as he saw it.

“The idea of having Iggy Pop re-record The Passenger in real time, using a band in New Zealand chosen via online auditions with Iggy Pop in Miami, was one of the very best uses of celebrity I have ever seen,” said Pablo. “It’s intelligent, experiential and response-driven.”

Three of the gold Lions went to Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney’s Nothing Soft Gets In for Toyota, spearheaded by ECD Steve Back and then-CD Dave Bowman with creative heavyweights Steve Jackson and Vince Lagana.

DDB NZ’s Live Rescue for Coastguard NZ collected one gold and one silver. Leo Burnett Sydney received a gold, a silver and a bronze for Canon’s Photochains, and a bronze for Canon’s Photo5. Droga5 Australia picked up a gold and a silver with their 4320 LA/SYD Twitter-based campaign for V Australia, while a gold Lion went to Clemenger BBDO for Support Scent for Guide Dogs Australia.

A silver each went to GPYR Melbourne for It’s No Picnic, and 3 Drunk Monkeys for Sunsound, with a bronze each for BMF’s 6 Beers of Separation, DDB Sydney’s AWARD Call-for-entries, and AIM Proximity NZ’s Missing Pictures.

For Promo & Activation, Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney took two more golds for Toyota, Clemenger BBDO collected a silver and a bronze, Leo Burnett another silver, with Special Group NZ and BMF taking a bronze each.

In the PR category, 3 Drunk Monkeys and Leo Burnett were each awarded a silver Lion.

In today’s issue of Lions 2010 Daily News, the finalist list has been announced for the Design and Cyber Lions that hope to be awarded tonight.

For Australia, GPYR Brisbane and Landor Sydney each have a Design nomination, with Droga 5, Visual Jazz and Longtail Perth each earning a nomination for the Cyber category.

New Zealand’s Colenso BBDO and Alt Group are nominated for Design, and Tribal DDB, Colenso BBDO and TBWA/Tequila are the kiwi hopefuls for Cyber.

Congratulations to all, and good luck for the coming ceremonies.

And on a final note, today (June 22) is the birthday of Lester Wunderman, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Wunderman, father of Direct Marketing, and advertising legend. From everyone at the Wunderman Creative Directors’ Summit in Cannes, happy birthday Lester.

in Cannes,
Matt Batten
Creative Director
Wunderman, Sydney

Day 2

On day two, the clouds have passed and Cannes has unveiled a beautiful blue sky. As some of my colleagues know, I am immune to jetlag. Unfortunately, I have discovered I am not immune to the infamous Gutter Bar. The festival hadn’t technically started, but the advertising crowd was out in force last night.

Most interesting is the Gutter Bar (its real name Croisette 72) has been ad-bombed. Global brand Yahoo! has recognised this establishment as the central hub for our industry and bought out the entire front façade in an obvious attempt to rebrand the place as the Yahoo! bar.

I don’t think the name will take.

Today, the long-awaited shortlist of Cannes Lions finalists has been published.

Our plot of land has once again competed well, and possibly dominated, along with our friends across the ditch, New Zealand. In fact, if I was to take the viewpoint the Sydney Morning Herald took recently in their front page report of the Kiwis in their first World Cup match, I would simply say Australiasia scored 106.

At my count, Australia has racked up 69 finalists and New Zealand 37 – very impressive effort.

In Oz, the standout agencies at this point appear to be Leo Burnett Sydney (10), Clemenger Melbourne (9), GPYR Melbourne (7), Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney (7), DDB Sydney (5), and BMF (5). Leo Burnett’s finalists are for their work on Canon’s Photo5, PhotoChain, Earth Hour, and Bundaberg Rum. Chum and Guide Dogs account for most of Clemenger’s finalists. GPYR have earned their spot for their work on the Australian Navy and their renowned It’s No Picnic campaign, while Saatchi & Saatchi have scored the highest finalist haul for a single campaign with Toyota’s Nothing Soft Gets In being given 5 finalists across the categories.

For the Kiwis, Colenso BBDO has listed 12 with the rest shared across a swag of agencies.

With luck, many of these will be converted to metal tonight, and many more the following night at the awards ceremonies in the Palais de Festival.

Featured on the cover of today’s Lions 2010 Daily News is Wunderman London’s Executive Creative Director, David Harris, whose lecture today to a packed auditorium was on the source of inspiration. He said, “ideas are neither common nor sensible”. Does that mean today’s list shows Australia and New Zealand have no common sense? Apparently that’s a good thing for generating inspirational ideas, and we’ve certainly shown that to the world thus far.

Given that I’ve been invited to give a presentation to my international colleagues on Wednesday at the Wunderman Creative Directors’ Summit on the topic of “Why Do Aussies Always Win?” I’m hoping to make some quick adjustments to my talk to include some stellar 2010 Cannes Lions results for Australia and New Zealand.

Good luck everyone.

Live in Cannes,
Matt Batten
Creative Director
Wunderman, Sydney

Cannes. Day 1. Base Camp.

Matt Batten, Creative Director of Wunderman Sydney, reports from Cannes.


Bienvenue á Cannes magnifique.

It is my pleasure to attend two great events: the 57th Cannes International Advertising Festival, and the annual Wunderman Creative Directors’ Summit held in an exclusive marquis on the rooftop of the Palais de Festival.

For the first, approximately 12,000 people from every advertising nook and cranny will attend to hear internationally renowned speakers and find out who has earned the coveted Lions trophies. For the second, 35 Creative Directors from 27 Wunderman offices in 18 countries have been gathered to share their experience, knowledge and ideas to keep the network strong and innovative.

Those attending the Cannes Lions have come to hear from such luminaries as Patrick Collister, Editor of Directory magazine, Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group (UK), Bob Jeffrey, Worldwide Chairman and CEO of JWT, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, and Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Worldwide (and my ultimate boss).

Having touched down in Nice aboard a plane-load of accents from around the world, it hasn’t been hard to spot some of the adlanders in their designer jeans, branded T-shirts and black dinner jackets. We all make the pilgrimage to Cannes and I’ve already bumped into some fellow Aussies, including Eardrum’s Ralph Van Dyke (to whom I already owe 25 Euro), DDB’s Adam Rose, and BMF’s Jeremy Nicholas.

My primary goal today was to slowly advance in the long queue of delegates to obtain my festival pass, then locate my hotel to wash off the 28-hour journey.

As angry French clouds roll in from the North, thundering over the distant hilltops, I prepare to attend Wunderman’s Opening Cocktail party and meet my internatinal colleagues, then hopefully find that infamous Aussie haunt – the ‘Gutter Bar’ – despite the threatening rain.

Room For Improvement

Last night, the interior decoration gnomes worked their pointed hats off preparing a surprise for all the Sydney Wunderkids.


This morning, when the troops stepped out of the lifts on level 11, they thought they were on the wrong floor. When they had left the Wunderman office the nght before, it was the same old place it has been for years. Upon arrival this morning, they stepped into a brand new reception area decked out like an eccentric bourgeois parlour - in Wunderman purple.

A high-back purple Victorian sofa with tailored Wunderman cushions rests beneath the purple deer heads mounted on the walls in ornate frames. On a locked bank safe (its contents a complete mystery), a purple television set bears a Wunderman logo amid a sea of static fuzz. Past the freshly-branded glass door is a library of books and curious purple objects. Whose squash racquet is that? Why is the happy cat waving at me? Who spilled the purple paint tin frozen in time?


Atop the bookshelves stands a small army of purple gnomes, each bearing a placard with our clients' logos. A rustic French reception desk is adorned with a vase of purple flowers, a purple laptop and a customer service bell. Beyond, an inviting window seat with purple drapes framing the magnificent city view.

More changes are yet to unfold in Wunderman Sydney's rejuvenation. Come in, sit. Stay a while.

Sydney Goes Looney

On Friday 28 May, Wunderman Sydney’s monthly all-staff meeting went looney. Or Luna rather.

Having won the Lester Wunderman Social Marketing Award for WWF’s Earth in Your Hands, the Sydney office decided to share the prize money amongst the entire agency, treating everyone to the afternoon at Sydney’s Luna Park.


The theme park’s conference room hosted our meeting with drinks and Following the regular monthly wrap-up on the agency’s recent creative work, successes, news, birthdays, and so on, everyone was champing at the bit to get onto the rides.

The agency divided randomly into four teams, each charged with a treasure hunt list to complete, featuring questions, challenges, and photos to collect. But for most, this team-building exercise lasted only 15 minutes. The Rotor, Mousetrap, Coney Island, and dodgems were just begging for thirty crazed adults to regress to their childhood after getting hopped up at the bar on ‘mummy’s red cordial.’ Which is a far better team-building experience anyway, as you can see in the photos.




A couple of true personalities came to the fore throughout the day. Some of the big men of the agency being reduced to whimpering babies – “I have to give this one a miss. I don’t think my stomach can take it” – and a couple of the more reserved Wunderkids exposing their inner adrenalin-junkie, bolting from one ride to the next while jabbering incoherently about how “THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!”

Clearly, it was a well-deserved reward for a hard working team.

Gingerbread Men

Every once in a while our data man Dan Wilson brings in a sweet treat lovingly prepared by his wife Cass. Last time round it was a superb carrot cake.

Yesterday he brought in something just as good but a lot more fun - gingerbread men. The stash pictured went pretty quickly, unlike Stan's tales of his Dad making gingerbread men, which seemed to go on forever.

Big thinking/Made small

This little bloke may look small but he has a big job at Wunderman. He takes those long unwieldy website urls that always seem to play up in emails and turns them into short, sweet, well behaved urls. Best of all he was designed and built at Wunderman Melbourne.
Click here to put his url shrinking skills to test.

Back to the future II

Local girl done good Mel Elliot is back from the region for a few days. Took her no time whatsoever to slip back into the Melbourne groove along with fellow returning exile Slim Sheedy.

Curious ...

Well we have curiosity as part of the Wunderman DNA, but this could be taking it too far. Lunch in Chinatown, Melbourne. All we can say is 'hot & chewy'.

School Excursion

Today, the creative department of Wunderman Sydney took a short excursion across town to see the talented Stephen Wiltshire. The famous UK artist is here to promote Autism Spectrum Australia. Renowned as an autistic savant, Stephen is able to hand draw perfectly accurate architectural pictures and entire city skylines in detail from his memory.



Yesterday, Stephen went to the top of Centrepoint Tower (yes, it will always be known as Centrepoint Tower regardless of whatever naming rights are purchased on the landmark by major corporations) and took in the Sydney view. Back in Customs House at Circular Quay, he began work on his laborious sketch from his mind's eye of what he saw.

The Sydney team saw him in action and he is a talented man with an ability that beggars belief. The true art he performs lies in the photographic memorisation of architectural landscapes to such a degree that the reproduction is accurate down to the correct number of windows in a building such as Sydney Summit at Australia Square.

Autism Spectrum Australia has a live webcam of Stephen's progress on his art at http://www.viostream.com/autismspectrum/

Below is a short video of his work that we captured in case this link closes.

New Gogebagogakaganakan

Wunderman Sydney welcomes a new Wunderbub to the family.

Hakan Gogebakan, Nokia Account Manager, and his wife have had their first child, Daylan. The baby Turk came into the world a little early but mum and the little man are both doing fine. When we say "little man", we mean both baby and father.



Says Hakan, "We are totally blessed to have Dalyan in our lives – words can’t explain the feeling. Time for me to spend some quality time bonding with my lil’ superman.

"Will share some more photo’s in the coming weeks."

Congrats Haks.

Micro Ultra Sonic Alarm

Agency Excursion

The Melbourne Wunderkids took a train trip the other day for a well earned lunch at Colonel Tan's. As you can see from the pics a fun time was had by all.

Nice capsule

The renovations at Collins St are still ongoing. At the moment the builders are installing cupboards which bear an uncanny resemblance to a Japanese capsule hotel. Tired after a hard day at the Mac, Toni decided to put our new capsules come cupboards to the test.

Knock Knock...

Word of warning to the Wunderkids of Melbourne - if you don't bring your swipe card you ain't getting through the back door.

Radelaide

Matt Batten, Creative Director of Wunderman Sydney, travelled sou'west to judge the AADC Awards in sunny Radelaide – yes, they still think the word 'rad' is rad in Adelaide.

Unable to divulge the results upon pain of death from Jay Wheeler of the AADC Committee, he reports that the quality of work was outstanding and hopes to show some of it to the agency as soon as possible. There were certainly some world-class pieces and a few destined for Cannes Gold among the mix.

While there, he caught up with ex-colleague Dale McGuiness (now with KWP!), who showed him around the town from which he once escaped – yes, Matt is a former crow-eater – as seen above in the mini montage.

Wunderfoos

The Sydney Wunderkids held their second dodecannual (that is, twelve times a year, also known as 'monthly') Wundergames evening. There was talk of Twister en masse, but instead the crew put together a mini foosball comp of eight teams. Hard fought to the bitter end, bets were placed on the three-match shoot out for the final. Paul Hayes, Producer, and Chris Jerochim, Senior Devigner, proved victorious.

What games will be in store for next month?

A game changer

Our Melbourne creative crew pitched a terrific iPad based idea to a client this week. As you can imagine, we've all got our fingers crossed that it gets a green light. Much like the amazing Microsoft Surface, the touchscreen of the iPad offers some very exciting opportunities for interactivity as this demo of a motion magazine for Viv Mag shows.

Balloons!

Last week, Wunderman Sydney celebrated the birthday of Jo Lloyd, Managing Director. She tried to keep it quiet, but the team surprised her by covering her office with balloons and banners.

You can't keep anything secret.

Look who's back

Yes folks, those rumours are true. It's the real Slim Sheedy and he's back at Wunderman.

Poker player, football pundit and sometime DJ, Slim Sheedy has returned to the fold to help us keep the Wheels of Wunderman turning during what can only be described as a period of business hyperactivity.

He says he'll only be with us for a month. Guess we'll have to wait and see on that one.

Welcome Wunderkids

We're busy, busy, busy at Wunderman these days, with several new faces joining the Melbourne team.

Pictured clockwise from top left are Digital Designer - Silvia Susen, Account Exec - Julia Sheehan, Account Manager - Victoria King, Producer - Nicole Ross and new boy in Creative - Karl Blankley.

With no shortage of work to be done at 162 Collins these new Wunderkids have all hit the ground running. And with some big news on the new business front about to break, there may well be even more new faces joining the team shortly.