welcome to optimism

asimo's impossible dream

Stories in The Guardian and The Times yesterday about Honda's Asimo robot debuting as a conductor. He led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a performance of 'The Impossible Dream'.

The Guardian said, 'Asimo wowed the audience and even impressed some of the musicians. "The movements are still a little stiff, but very humanlike, much more fluid than I thought," said bassist Larry Hutchinson.'

The Times reported: “It is absolutely thrilling to perform with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra,” said Asimo, when the performance was over. “This is a magnificent concert hall.”

The musicians themselves seemed to enjoy the experience. “The nice thing about this conductor is that it always does the same thing twice,” said one trumpeter.

Quite gratifying for us that Asimo chose to conduct The Impossible Dream, as it neatly brings together two strands of the work Wieden + Kennedy has developed for Honda UK.

nike live

Behind the scenes on set last night, prior to filming.

Last night saw the recording of Nike Live: The Cesc Fabregas Show in front of a live studio audience in Wembley. It's a one-off TV event celebrating the success of the young Arsenal star. Over 7 months in the making, it was a big number. One of the biggest projects that Nike UK has ever undertaken, while it was hard work - in true Nike style - it shows their determination to push for and develop truly creative, innovative work. The initial idea came from AKQA and has been developed in partnership between them, W+K London, Attention Seekers and, of course, Nike UK. The atmosphere last night was electric - with 600 hundred young arsenal fans hailing Fabregas and Arsene Wenger.

 

From a communications perspective, this is just the start. We have already created and seeded key pieces of content seeded to some of the most influential bloggers in football. See below for a couple of sample clips.

We'll release further pieces from last night's live show to drive traffic back to the main hub so as you can download / watch the show in chapters from the site, which is at http://www.skysports.com/nikelivefabregas/.

 

The full-length show featuring Cesc, Wenger, star guests and, er, Cesc's mum and dad, will be broadcast on Sky Sports from next week.

The audience waits for the show to start.

Interview with the man himself. Below: a couple of the viral / teaser pieces created by W+K:

cleaning up the streets

On the way back from an ordinary Guardian meeting on an ordinary Monday
morning, something weird happened. Karen, Emma and Beth stumbled across a
proper East End crime scene - graffiti besmirching the pristine facade of W+K's palatial offices. Thanks heavens for Ronny's handy miniature paint roller/tray combo: the status quo was quickly restored.

way of life!

When we first met Honda, we were worried about their global strapline, 'The Power of Dreams'. We thought about changing it. We wondered if we could make it really small and hide it. But we learned that it came directly from the philosophy of Soichiro Honda, the company's founder. We worked with it and used it as a way to explain Honda's point of view. In the end, 'the power of dreams' turned out to be a good thing for our work.

But I'm not so sure about the line I've noticed Suzuki has been using to sign off its UK campaign: 'Way of life!' Apparently this is intended to convey that they make "vehicles that are designed for life enthusiasts – those who choose to live life to the fullest and not simply watch it go by".

But I can't help being reminded of the strange and charming 'Japlish' sometime used in Japanese brand names and slogans - 'Pocari Sweat' drink and T shirts that say things like 'Active sports life I maintain'.

(Kind of the Asian equivalent of western people who have T -shirts or tattoos of 'cool' Japanese kanji characters but don't know what they actually mean.)

The exclamation mark on Way of Life! somehow enhances that perception. But, rather than acknowledging the Japlish vibe and exploiting it to acquire a bit of Japanese pop culture cool - like Uniqlo has been doing recently - the Suzuki UK campaign seems to be trying to ignore the whole 'Way of Life!' thing. Instead, it's borrowed Harp's old 'Time for a Sharp Exit' campaign and adapted it to 'Time for a Swift Exit.'

<a onclick="window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=230,height=320,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false" href="http://wklondon.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/