FIFA
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 1:54PM Before Christmas we were asked to help out our friends at AKQA and Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, who were pitching to retain the EA Sports business for the superb FIFA.
They already had some great work, including an amazing extension for the game itself and wanted to tinker with the strategy to ensure it really was grounded in fan culture. Projects don't come much better than this and we jumped at the chance. Working with the cross-agency team we helped ground the work around the highs and lows of a fan's season rather than the usual media plan that so often preoccupies everyone, representing as it does such an enormous amount of work. By focusing on a fan's season rather than the marketing window we were able to evolve the approach to deliver something really special.
To share this more cultural approach at the pitch, we created an interactive interface allowing the client team to explore all the activity in its broader fan context.
And the good news is we won.
Hope we'll be able to share some more soon.
West End Whingers
Friday, January 21, 2011 at 8:08AM 
The thing I love most about this job is the opportunity to spend hours dipping into someone else's passion. It always feels like the best kind of skiving. Except I'm not - so there.
Anyway this week's "diversion" happens to be in the theatre/comedy/entertainment direction. My pick of the bunch…i.e. where I ended up wasting most time was in the company of the West End Whingers.
It's basically a theatre review blog and, you might say, the world already has plenty of theatre reviewers. But they make the absolute most of their medium:
It's very personal - they have narrow tastes, and are quite prepared to get up and leave at half time.
They have a loyal and equally vociferous following leaving endless witty comments (often in strong disagreement)
They have a personalised rating which I'm sure operates as currency beyond their site - the wine ranking system (I thought it was funny).
Their fan photo library. Reminds of those old Piers Morgan Bizarre Photos.
Anyway, lots of fun - and I'm certain I'll return if only to reference anything I may be thinking of going to see.
s
Featured Blog: David Bordwell's Observations on Film Art
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 4:50PM 
Arguably on the academic side for some, certainly cerebral, David Bordwell's Observation on Film Art is a stand out blog for film. Written by the husband and wife team, Kristin Thompson and the eponymous David Bordwell, the blog offers insightful film commentary for even the best informed film buff. A recent gem was their commentary around Christopher Nolan's Inception. Check both the film and their commentary out if you haven't already.