Office Fooz

The crew at Wunderman Sydney take their foosball seriously. Very seriously.

So when they could no longer perform even the most basic trick-shots on their table because it had become so dilapidated from overuse that it was being held together by sticky tape and string, frustrations with the shitty old table boiled over and the crew needed to settle the score.

We yelled for Cadel

Tour de France winner Cadel Evans flew into Melbourne for a mere 72 hours this week to celebrate his incredible win on his home turf.

Highlight of the visit was the closing of the city's busiest boulevard to allow Cadel to cycle to Federation Square where a massive crowd had gathered to celebrate his win with him.

Suffice to say a handful of Wunderkids sneaked away from their desks to join the throng!

Serious meeting

Ten people gathered attentively around the whiteboard for the most important meeting we've ever seen in Wunderman. Jeremy Wilson was taking the basketball team, the Wunderhoops, through some play tactics. Jeremy's a strategist, of course.

The Wunderhoops play against other corporate teams – bankers and such. No-one really knows actually. They just turn up, talk some smack, shoot some hoops, push each other around, get sweaty, and hopefully win.

Cheer 'em on.

Winter Wunderland

The Melbourne Wunderkids joined their colleagues from the Y&R Brands Group for the annual 162 Collins Mid-Year Party this week.

The theme was Snow and our creative department had everybody talking when they made their entrance in their superb snowman outfits.

As you can imagine a seriously fun time was had by all. Stay tuned as we may add more photos soon.

Recycled agency lunch

After a particularly hectic week in the Melbourne office many of the Wunderkids took time out for a very special agency lunch at Hare & Grace.

What made it so special? Well apart from seriously good wagyu burgers and fabulous Fat Yak on tap, the eatery was designed by Joost.


Never heard of Joost? Shame on you!

Joost Bakker is a true original in the world of design. He works in and with recycled and re-used materials. He's big on plants and greenery too. Click here to find out more.


Note the homemade tomato sauce. Yummo!

The Little Nation That Could?

The Direct Lions jury is completely gob-smacked at the small European nation of Liechtenstein. Not a single entry has been relegated to the ‘no’ pile.

Could they be the new Brazil or Belgium?

Only the second and third round of judging will tell.

Each year, the Cannes Lions reveals one or two nations that manage to out-stage all others with their creative genius. Is this Liechtenstein’s year?

This landlocked country in central Europe, bordered by Switzerland and Austria, has managed to prove to the Direct Lions jury that they can do no wrong. The jury members, representing these neighboring nations as well as USA, UK, Brazil, New Zealand, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Singapore, Israel, Germany, Canada, Argentina and South Africa are all entirely taken aback by the small European nation’s effort at the Cannes Lions.

It is not known which agencies within this country have unified to show the world stage their tenacity, creativity and originality, but the results shall prove very interesting and surprising indeed at the Direct Lions Award ceremony on Monday 20 June in Cannes.


Matt Batten
Creative Director, Wunderman
Direct Lions Jury

Happy Days

When Wunderman Sydney pitched for Coca-Cola earlier this year, the client provided all the pitch details on a funky little branded USB. One member of the Wunderman team was so enraptured with it, he contemplated pinching it after the pitch was over. But no need, the pitch was won and a bunch of USBs have just been provided to the agency. Awesome.


This is a great example of a client spending a little extra to make their premiums truly premium. When it comes to good branding, you simply can't skimp.

Too cute!

Always ready to lend a hand whenever people are in need, Melbourne producer Lisa O'Brien was at the front of the queue for the animal charity fundraiser Bark in The Park this weekend. Too cute!

A Warm Reception

Our Sydney office has finally completed the reception area fit-out following the move to new premises earlier in the year. A swanky custom-built reception desk has been installed, complete with logo cut-out illuminated from inside in brand purple (that apparently changes to red for Christmas and green for St Patrick's day). All our national clients have been neatly displayed in purple frames in a French hang, and the big W proudly welcomes all visitors. Sweet.

For Crying Out Loud

Wunderman is a longtime supporter of the industry as a whole. In Sydney, we've just launched a campaign for Creative School and Suit School, run by the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) under the combined banner of Agency School.

Sydney creative duo Amanda Glover and Ben Peppernell used the simple insight that without the course, the people that run ad agencies find it tough to discover and hire fresh, new talent. The campaign uses some of the top figures running ad agencies in Australia as you've never seen them before.

The team pulled in award-winning photographer Steve Greenaway from Pomegranate to shoot the campaign, and he enlisted the help of Limehouse for post-production work to take the images to the next level.

The campaign kicked off with a launch exhibition to finally reveal the closely-guarded images to the industry and get adlanders excited and engaged. The exhibition included an experiential element with a live photo-shoot so attendees could get their own crying image. These images were emailed straight to them so they could update their profile pics across social media platforms to help spread the buzz.

For some added fun, a Crying Hotline has been set up on 02 9766 1799 for callers to send messages of support or unleash their own wailing pleas.

The campaign will roll out over the next few weeks with flyers and posters distributed to universities, and eDMs sent to uni students and lecturers (courtesy of the kind support from our friends at Student Marketing Australia).

The campaign includes (clockwise from top left) our Sydney Creative Director, Matt Batten; Dave Whittle, Managing Director of M&C Saatchi and CEO of Mark; Liz Fulcher, Managing Director of Clemenger Proximity; and Simon Bloomfield and Brenton Bleechmore, Creatives at Ogilvy.

Also featured in the campaign were Rob Morrison, Dylan Taylor, Paul Clarke, Neil Harris, Josh Grace, and Julie Dormand.

You can see all their shots (and enrol for Creative School or Suit School) at www.agencyschool.adma.com.au

This year, Wunderman will also offer a paid internship to one graduate of Creative School and one graduate of Suit School.

A huge morning tea

Our Melbourne office took part in Australia's Biggest Morning Tea this morning. This fantastic charitable event raises much needed funds to help people with cancer.

What made this morning's tea so special was that many of the Wundercrew baked up a storm the night before to provide us with lots of yummy treats. And we do mean lots.

Just seconds after the photo was taken a large plate of bacon sandwiches and a tray of bruschetta arrived. Best of all the little teapot was chock full of cash that we raised for the Cancer Council.

Big shoes filled

We recently had a young fella do work experience in our Melbourne office. Matt Devine is his name and he made such an impression on us we've asked him to join our team.

At the moment we're trying to dream up a nickname for him, because he is seriously tall. So tall in fact he has to duck his head whenever he goes into the kitchen!

With all that height comes a problem we never dreamt of - buying shoes. In fact, as the article above shows, Matt has had so much trouble finding footwear Adidas had to step in and help him.

Click the pic to enlarge, then read full story.

Shanghai Surprise

One of our favourite Wunderkids left us on Friday. Well kinda. Jon Paul has taken up the opportunity to be Digital Creative Director for the Asia Pacific Ford business, based at Wunderman in Shanghai.

JPJ as he is fondly known started his Wunderman career at our office in Sydney, and eventually ended up several years later in our Melbourne office.

Seen here modelling the seriously snazzy manbag we got him as part of his going away present, JP will be much missed. Although we'll obviously be chatting to him about Ford work on a very regular basis.

Are you sure it's a car?

Our sister company Burrows in the UK does some incredible 3D work. In fact many of the cars you see in ads and on websites are not cars at all - they're 3D models and animations created by Burrows. They've done some great work, particularly for our client Ford, as this video shows.

Next generation thinking

Stan and Stoddy attended the AG-Ideas Business breakfast yesterday. It's the centrepiece of a week long celebration of design and creativity.

One of the highlights, according to our boys, was a display of ideas created during a workshop session with school kids. These were on display in the auditorium for every one to see and luckily for us Stan snapped a few to share on the blog.


How many of these children go onto a career in creativity remains to be seen, but when looking at these photos try and keep this quote from U. LeGuin in mind:

"The creative adult is the child who survived."

A wunderful wedding

Although we have no less than four people called Matt working at Wundermelbs we don't have anyone called William or Kate. Which makes you wonder why the Melbourne office spent Friday afternoon celebrating the wedding of Wills & Kate.


As you can see the wedding celebrations pulled quite a crowd. who wined and dined on a yummy range of Royal Wedding themed treats and snacks.

Leading the celebrations were fresh of the boat Matt Morgan and motherland born and bred Lisa O'Brien, who somehow managed to drag Vegemite lover and staunch republican Jules into their commemorative photo.

Wigs of Wunder

The 162 Collins St building was rocking to the sounds of Poison this morning as the kids from creative rocked the eighties to the max. New copywriter Tash and her deskmate Evan got into the groove as of course did Stoddy and Dan.


Not to be outdone by the enthusiasm of the kids, Jon Paul and Stan also took a moment to revisit their youth.

Day On The Green

April Fools day today but there was no joking when it came to Wunderman Melbourne's Day On The Green.


After a very busy week at work the Wundercrew hopped onto the number 96 tram and headed to the idyllic Middle Park Bowls Club for some serious fun in the late afternoon sun.


Stoddy took his bowls very seriously as did the members of his rather weirdly named team The Shuttlecocks.


A great time was had by all as you can probably imagine. Special thanks to all those involved in organising the event and feeding the hungry bowlers with tasty BBQ treats.

Celebrations Galore

Wunderman Sydney celebrated several birthdays (MD Jo Lloyd, Heidi Robinson and Bec Williams) with scrumptious cupcakes.

And Wunderman Australia celebrated a big pitch win with the two offices joining forces in a truly national team. The client can only be called 'they that cannot be named', but they're damn cooler than Voldemort. And a lot more fun. Well done all.

Wunderman ♥ Christchurch

Our Kiwi art director Matt Stoddart made a pilgrimage to Christchurch a week or so before the calamitous earthquake that totally decimated his home town.

So as you can imagine the Wunderkids were keen to pitch in a few dollars to help the people of Christchurch. Luckily Matt knew of a fantastic charitable cause - NZ♡CHCH.

Seen here modeling their new NZ♡CHCH t-shirts are Mario, Matt and Evan. Quite fetching dont't you think? The shirts that is, not the boys!

Locust alert

Nothing like a locust on the windowsill to get the whole office talking!

St Patricks Day

It's St Patrick's Day and of course the Wunderkids joined in all the Emerald Isle fun. Seen here are Vic, Lisa and Libby with a tray of freshly created and fabulously wobbly Irish jellies.


What better way to follow up a delicious jelly than with a pint of Ireland's greatest gift to the world - Guinness.


Our favourite intern JoJo had never had Guinness before, but that didn't seem to stop her from downing a glass or two. Cheers everyone!

Anyone seen Nicole?

Our Melbourne Operations Manager Nicole headed off to the slopes of Europe a few weeks ago. She's been keeping us up to date with her adventures via her Aussie Skier blog.

This particular video she posted is our favourite - all that powder, all that space. In fact it makes skiing at Mt Buller look just a little sad. Don't you think?

New Wunderbub

Wunderman Sydney welcomes a new addition to the extended family. Brent Clarke, Head of Digital, and his wife Vitalba, gave birth to daughter Ilaria at 5:50pm on Saturday 12 March. A surprise to both mum and dad, 2.69kg Ilaria was busting to get into the wide world three weeks earlier than expected.


Mother and baby are the picture of health. As expected, Brent is wandering around the office in a daze.

Congratulations to the Clarke family from everyone at Wunderman.

Country in the city

The City Square is just around the corner from our Melbourne office. It pretty much consists of a few square metres of grass and a hell of a lot of dull beige gravel. At least it normally does.

This week as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival the square has been transformed into a central city fruit and vegie patch. If only it could be this lovely all the time.

Bike-Cam

A little bit of fun in the country on a postie bike fitted with the Bike-Cam Xtreme 2000 Plus (a mini video camera on a stick) using MaxiPro Ultra C'nect (gaffer tape).

Farewell Rabbit

After about 6 years, James Britt aka Rabbit is leaving Wunderman Sydney. He's decided to take his digital developing skills into the big bad world of freelance to become a self-made man. We wish Rabbit well and know we'll see him again in the future.

Rabbit-cam:

Commute sur mer

Paolo Meucci, Senior Art Director of the Sydney office, lives on Scotland Island. Yes, he lives on a freaking island. It's situated in the idyllic waterways North of Sydney at Pittwater, NSW. Surrounded by national park and native Australian bushland, Scotland Island is a small, self-contained community of only 640 residents. There are no bridges out to the island, no shops or cafés, and only a handful of cars.

This means, every morning after getting his kids out of bed and helping his wife begin the chore of feeding them, Paolo walks down to the jetty, hops in his dinghy and motors across the water to the mainland where his scooter waits to make the 36km ride into the city.

Here's how Paolo's morning begins:


Not a lot happens in the video, but it's nice and has inspired us to start video-documenting lots of different aspects of our Wunderpeeps.

David Blaine's record for holding his breath

This is an interesting talk David Blaine gave at TedMed (a subsidiary of the world famous Ted talks). For those living under a rock, David Blaine is the magician who also performs feats of endurance such as freezing himself in a block of ice for 2 days and living in a glass box suspended under London's Tower Bridge without food for 44 days. While many are detractors or disbelievers in Blaine's feats of endurance (probably due to the association with his title of 'magician'), in this talk given to a room full of people from the medical profession, Blaine explains the process of how he actually achieves these feats.

It's 20mins, but worth the watch. While he doesn't start out as the best speaker you're likely to hear, he certainly builds up into a rousing seminar on dedication, perseverance and public relations.

99%

Wunderman Australia was so close to being crowned the Direct Agency of the Year 2010 at last night's AdNews Awards. Unfortunately, the trophy went to Clemenger Melbourne.

It was such a hotly contested category that the judges deemed it necessary to award Wunderman a rare 'Highly Commended'. Which means we're 99% of the way toward being the best Direct Agency in the country.

We congratulate Clems on pipping us at the post. We'll take the crown for 2011.

Surfin' Frenchie

Augustin Neuve-Eglise, one of our resident Frenchman and Account Directors, obviously didn't come to Australia for the work. He's one of those Europeans who take a trip to our sunburnt country, take up surfing, get sunburnt, and decide to live here as soon as they see their first kangaroo.

He uses a nifty little video camera to capture his exploits. Here's one such vid he's made:


Easter Surf with GoPro from aneuve on Vimeo.

Love is in the air

Valentine's Day at Wunderman Melbourne was kick started by a very clever QR Code campaign by resident coding whizz Brett. These curious codes were located throughout the building, giving clues to the location of a tasty bowl of chocky treats.

There was plenty of love in the air throughout the day, with most of the Wunderkids managing to sneek little gifts of love onto the desks of their colleagues.

Out of Africa

Wunderman Sydney has received a postcard from Natalie Millhouse (nee Enright), our former copywriter extraordinaire. She's fresh back from her extended African honeymoon and settling into married life in Newie (Newcastle).


She writes:
"Dear Matt and the Whole Creative Team,
Fresh off the plane from our honeymoon and suitably loved-up, we'd finally like to formally thank you all for the awesome gift. Hopefully in our future together we'll have plenty of reasons and opportunities to have a bottle of bubbly chilling in it. So, with all the appreciation we can muster – THANK YOU!!
Love, Natalie & Michael Millhouse
xx

P.S. The honeymoon was spectacular. We trekked with gorillas, rafter the Nile, snorkelled off Zanzibar, walked with lions, swam in the Devil's Pool and so much more. Brilliant!!"

The postcard is on the fridge.

The Amazing Race

It began with a harmless enough conversation in the office of Wunderman Sydney. New Copywriter Ben Peppernell jogs to the new offices from Balmain. Thomas Tearle, Digital Strategist and New Business Lead, cycles the same route. Claims were made about how long it takes each man to commute that distance by human-power. Ben could run it in 32 minutes. Tom could pedal it in 22.

The challenge was set. The runner, with a 10 minute head start, against the cyclist.

For the more astute observers, it was a race of ginger proportions. Bets were placed and everyone had their theories on the outcome.

Ben hit the pavement at 6pm with a cheering crowd to send him off. After a quick mechanical check and tyre pump due to attempted sabotage, Tom pedaled off just 10 minutes later, raced across busy William Street and through a major intersection (possibly against the red light, but who could tell against such a speeding blur).

This morning we have the result.

At about 6:25, Tom pedaled his ass up the final hill on Victoria Road, Balmain, and from the top could see Ben ahead at the bottom, pounding the pavement with long strides, headed for the finish line. Tom's legs pumped like never before and he powered down the hill, chasing down Ben. The runner crossed the line and threw his fists in the air like Rocky Balboa, then turned just in time to see the cyclist only 5 metres behind careening down on him. Too late.

Ben was victorious. Man against machine and man prevailed.

Our resident blogger

Our Melbourne creative director Stanley Johnson is something of an expert on blogs and blogging. He writes a regular column about the blogosphere for Marketing magazine, and his popular BrandDNA blog is always a source of news and opinion on the industry.

What we didn't realise is just high highly regarded Stan's BrandDNA blog is.

You see we just found out it was included in a list of the Top 50 Marketing Blogs for 2011, compiled by noted entrepreneur and writer Evan Carmicheal. The list includes the likes of Seth Godin, David Meerman Scott and Hugh Macleod.

Stan was a bit embarrassed when we spoke to him about the accolade. Although he still managed to somehow let slip that this was in fact the third year in a row that his blog had made the list!

To visit BrandDNA click here. To see the Top 50 click here.

Keep the noise down!

The Melbourne creative crew are down in beachside Beaumaris today, shooting a short film for a client website.

The location is perfect, as is the weather. The talent are looking good too.

But why oh why didn't anyone tell us that the next door neighbor would be having concrete poured for a swimming pool while we were filming?

And, action!

It's very quite in the Melbourne creative department today, with Matt and Mel offsite shooting.

Just to clarify, because we have three Matts in our Melbourne office, that's Matt Stoddart the art director.

Who is seen here doing whatever it is art directors do when they bend over and peer through a camera viewfinder.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet

The simple raindrop has caused one of the largest natural disasters in Australia's 200-year history. Deadly and destructive flooding has swept through the state of Queensland, northern NSW, and now also Victoria.

The damage bill will be in the billions.

Wunderman Sydney has launched an appeal on behalf of the worldwide Wunderman network, asking for all international advertising agency networks, especially those with an office in Australia, to donate to the official government flood relief fund. For decades, the international advertising industry has benefited from Australia and the global community has been inspired by Australian creativity. Now it's time to give back.



Wunderman worldwide will match all Wunderman employee contributions dollar-for-dollar made at www.qld.gov.au/floods until 31 January 2011.

What's your network doing?

Pass on our challenge and appeal to other advertising agencies with the link http://wndr.mn/help

UPDATE
20 Jan: Ian Haworth, Global Chief Creative Officer of RAPP, has stepped up to accept the challenge and put his network behind the cause. "You can count RAPP in," said Ian.

Campaign Asia has helped spread the word throughout the region and received positive feedback.

Patrick Collister, international DM guru and Editor of Directory magazine, has offered to put this appeal as the leader in the next Directory newsletter. "My sister lives in Queensland," he said, so it's a story close to home for Patrick.

Tyron Giuliani, advertising recruitment specialist in APAC, has featured this appeal on his blog, MediaAPAC.

MediaCafé have promoted this appeal.

21 Jan: Campaign Brief has featured this appeal.

New Digs

Goodbye Clarence, hello William. Streets, that is.

Wunderman Sydney has moved out of the Y&R Brands building into newly furbished offices at 150 William Street. On the top floor with a balcony on three sides, it's the perfect vantage point of Sydney city, the Harbour, the bridge, and the sails of the Opera House all on one side and the famous Coke sign and Kings Cross on the other.

There'll be parties aplenty, we're sure, especially for the fireworks extravaganzas Sydney Harbour is known for.


While we're still surrounded by boxes, boxes everywhere, Wunderman Sydney is up and running and we'll be having our official cocktail soiree in early Feb when the last little bits of fitout are complete.

Mario's Melbourne

Towards the end of last year mighty Mario made a few appearances on the Wunderings blog. So it's only right that he repay the favour and help us kick start 2011.

Mario worked long and hard on this outstanding drawing of the Melbourne Wundercrew. The likenesses of every person in the agency are uncanny.

Our personal favourite though is Mario himself, pictured down the front snacking on a Nandos' drumstick. Nice one Mario!