One such discovery, found as we’ve been packing up boxes today, presented itself in the form of a box of WCRS party photos dating back to the days when you had to pay a visit to Snappy Snaps and wait patiently before record of a night’s revelry could to be revealed (oh the anticipation…and high volume of blurry undecipherable images!).

We’re guessing that these classics are from circa 2002. There’s a 50:50 split between those suitable and those unsuitable for public consumption, so here’s just a small, tame, selection featuring some WCRS faces still around today – albeit nowadays (with the exception of eternally youthful Alex T and Sarah K) looking a little, how shall we put it?, different.

Facebook Adds ‘Reply’ Option to Comments

Whilst this feature has been being tested on selected pages for months now, Facebook announced this week that it will be rolling out the feature to all users.

Now, instead of having to leave a response to another user’s comment way after new ones have been added, you will be able to address each individual comment (pretty exciting stuff for Community Managers).

Facebook ‘Lookalike Audiences’

Facebook have also announced the global rollout of Lookalike Audiences, a targeting feature that helps advertisers reach new customers and grow their businesses.

Lookalike Audiences targets potential customers who share similar characteristics with their current ones.

Twitter turns 7

Last week Twitter turned 7 years old! To celebrate its progression towards becoming the social media giant it is today, boasting 200 million users, Twitter released a celebratory video.

If you haven’t seen it yet you can watch it HERE

BuzzFeed Launches in the UK

BuzzFeed, everyone’s favourite 10 minute work break, has now launched a UK website.

Articles include ‘45 Things Every Visitor To London Needs To Know’ 

Google+ Now Lets You Use GIFs as Profile Pics

Google+ announced on Monday that it is enabling users to use GIFs as their profile images. “Like newspapers in Harry Potter”.

This could be viewed as a sign of the platform’s resurgent popularity, as well as the ever-growing popularity of GIFs.

The announcement included a link to a Google search for “How to create a gif.

Random Blog of the Week

This week I’ll leave you with ‘A blog combining two of mankind’s greatest achievements: literature and googly eyes.’

http://googlyeyebooks.tumblr.com/

HAPPY EASTER!

Facebook’s new Newsfeed

As most of you by now will be aware. Facebook recently announced some pretty major changes to their newsfeed, that are set to roll out over the next few months. The new design is far more visual and users will have an increased ability to filter their newsfeeds by categories such as music and photos.There will also be a ‘Following’ feed, which is where all posts from brands will appear (don’t worry brand posts will still feature in other feeds).

Facebook’s new Hashtag?

In other Facebook news, rumours began to spread yesterday that Facebook is working on incorporating the hashtag into its platform. Hashtags, whilst being one of Twitter’s most iconic markers, are already heavily incorporated into Facebook-owned Instagram. Whilst it is unclear at present what the exact role of the Facebook hashtag will be, it seems an obvious addition to Facebook’s newly-released Graph Search. #wewillhavetowaitandsee.

Blogger Outreach just got a whole lot easier

Bloggabase is a new database of bloggers, who have opted in to hear from brands and marketers. Launched this week, it has already signed up over 2,500 blogs. Marketers who sign up to the service, can choose from a number of different options, from individual packages allowing internal messaging, to organisational access with the ability to export a database of email addresses.

Twitter offers more info on the impact of Promoted Tweets

This week Twitter announced some chances to its Ad Centre. The changes aim to give advertisers better campaign reporting, with more visibility into campaign performance, as well as analytics and spend. Twitter is focusing on the details and has also made it easier to manage campaigns in real time.

Speedo fun

I’ll leave you with this week’s 3^rd most viral video (1^st and 2^nd were Game of Thrones teasers). A man in Speedos having a great time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfQng2kjpxI&feature=youtu.be

It is without doubt the most exciting, confusing, character-building, horrifically hard and stressful time of your life. And despite the rate at which the world is changing (we now broadcast our Watford crit live on uStream and Liveshare), it’s not changed much. Let’s paint the picture a little for you from first hand experience. You finished work in a bar at 1.30am, you stayed up playing Grand Theft Auto Vice City till 2.30am. You get up at the crack of 10am, slog your way across town to meet your partner, try and get away with just buying a bottle of water in Starbucks and stay there all day working on a brief set by a creative director with a thing for terrorising students with an impossible task.

Later, at a self-proclaimed top advertising agency, you sit nervously awaiting the drubbing. The creative director enters. He’s had a bad day. The client didn’t buy the route he liked. They changed the edit. He’s got an itchy rash. His wife is livid he’s at the office late, again. Time to take it out on students who have the gall to walk in here with gusto and enthusiasm.

A team arrives less than one minute after he does. He boots them out. “Here’s your first lesson in advertising, ladies” he cries. In the 1990s it was de rigour for all creative directors to reference to male teams as female. Then, it’s demolition time. He tears through the work. Nothing meets his benchmark. None of it could run. None of it would pass muster. Having torn it all off the wall, he pulls out flip chart and draws a diagram (yes, a diagram) of how to come up with advertising ideas.

Cut to later (in the pub) and sixteen 20-somethings are crying into their Lowenbrau’s, metaphorically. In actual fact, we were all getting hammered and laughing a lot (laughter was and often still is the soundtrack to being an advertising creative). We laughed at the ludicrously aggressive but somehow strangely inspiring crit we’d just endured. Despite the antics, the arrogance, the mock-anger, it was a thrilling ride that I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. One thing I did change, however, was how we came to approach group crits ourselves. Opting for enthusiasm and energy over aggression and alpha-male posturing. If a student team have made it thus far, it’s unlikely their work is devoid of merit, and in my experience, everyone’s got a workable idea. Beating it out of them may work for some creative directors. But we prefer to tease it out.

Twitter Opens its Archives

Twitter has now partnered with Datasift to unlock an archive full of tweets. This means companies can now search through tweets dating back to January 2010, helping brands analyse changes in their public perception.

Facebook’s New Timeline Design

We’ve been hearing for a while about Facebook testing a new sleeker timeline design. The new timeline is currently live in New Zealand and sceenshots are now circulating online. Perhaps the most notable change is that when a user posts a link on Facebook, a prompt to Like the relevant company’s Facebook page is added automatically. You can have a sneak peak of the new design here.

Facebook Buys Atlas

Facebook has shown even more evidence of its ambition to expand its advertising business, by purchasing the advertising-measurement platform Atlas from Microsoft. Facebook will be able to efficiently track the ads seen by users and how they then link to purchases.

The Oscar Buzz

Unsuprisingly the 2013 Academy Awards were the most social TV show of the week. What is interesting however, is that the ceremony provoked 13 million comments on the day of the awards show alone, this represents a whopping 200% increase on social media from last year.

YouTube to introduce paid subscriptions

This week AdAge broke the story that YouTube is preparing to launch paid subscriptions on certain channels. It is rumoured that from as early as April 2013, users may have to pay to access their favourite YouTube channels and live events.

Best Bus Stop Ever

I’ll leave you with no 7 on this week’s viral video chart (because number 1 was more goats shrieking) CLICK HERE

Hollie Alexander is our most recent newbie. She’s an Account Director who jumped on the boat over from Canary Wharf and Ogilvy to join us.  She’s previously been busy working on Philips ‘lady’ products, Coke Zero, Mattel toys, Kraft and also led the PR team for Flora Pro Activ.

The lovely Fey Daly has joined us as Head of Project Management to step into PJ’s God-like shoes.  She has superb experience including having set up Project Management for Anomaly in the last two years and six years at Mother, so we’ve no doubt she’s going to do a fantastic job.

Then there’s Antonio Hidalgo who moved to London temporarily from Spain 18 months ago but liked Blighty so much he decided to stay. Antonio started working at WCRS as a freelance Web Developer last year and we’re pleased to have persuaded him to become part of the furniture.

Another Mediterranean  man we’ve persuaded to join us as a full time Web Developer is Giorgio Scarfi. Giorgio came to us from Italy and fell for London and especially its nightlife – although he has a habit of falling asleep on the bus home and missing his stop.

Digital Art Director Howard De Smet recently returned to us after a stint at HUGE working on Unilever, The landmark Group and Diageo. Howard is a master in website design and user experience and is a great addition to the design team.

Felipe Faundez joins us from BBDO Chile where he worked as a Digital Art Director. He’s worked on Pepsi, Sony, Mitsubishi, Gatorade to name a few. He has exhibited digital art work in several galleries in Chile, most notably in the IV Bienale in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Chile’s premier gallery).

Tomek Drozdowski joins us as a flash/ motion designer. He’s worked with many talented fashion designers, photographers and musicians in Poland, the UK and Spain. His past clients include ING Group Poland and Sony Music Poland.

And to finish with a really rather belated welcome to Richard Williams who joined us at the end of December from The Red Brick Road, where he got his paws dirty on Suzuki and Tesco.  He’s now getting to know bread and broadband very well, and has already written a piece for Campaign about his life here at WCRS!

Welcome one and all.

What on Earth is Febshoeary you ask?

For the entire month of February, I’ll give up all but one pair of my shoes – a pair of killer 4.5-inch heels. I’ll do every conceivable activity in them; my daily three hour commute, bike rides, Zumba classes, gym sessions, bowling, horse-riding, sledding… EVERYTHING.

But why?

It’s estimated that 300 million children worldwide don’t have a pair of adequate shoes. And 1.4 billion people worldwide suffer from diseases that could be prevented if they had suitable shoes. Yet in 2010, 790,000 tons of footwear and apparel ended up in landfill.

The ‘Febshoeary’ challenge has been launched in an effort to help tackle this problem. To raise money for Soles4Souls – a charity which has provided more than 19 million people with shoes.

How you can help…

My month-long journey will  be documented on a daily online diary at www.febshoeary.com, where observers will be encouraged to turn my shoe pain into tangible donations. You can help by spreading the word and, of course, by donating! Only £1 = 1 pair of shoes.

HUGE MASSIVE THANK YOUS TO:

Ross Neil, Matt Edwards, and Olenka Lawrenson

Photography: Shaun Dyos and Jerome Jacob (from PAA)

Designers: Charlotte Olley, Howard De Smet, and Dan Atkinson

Techy gurus: David Gordon, Lee Barrows, Phillip Wiltsher, Matt Ames, and Rich Hewitt

Our print, radio and online campaign focuses on the typical feelings that people experience after they have filled in their tax return, often described as having a ‘weight lifted from their shoulders’.

So, “Do it today, pay what you owe and take a load off your mind”.

Ommmmm.

Here’s a link to Enda’s speech at the opening of Sky’s new HQ in Dublin. At about 3:40 you will hear him end his speech by saying that Ireland are excited about the future and “Believe in Better”!

Obama Most Retweeted

That’s right, Obama is not JUST the winning presidential candidate. Oh no, he is so much more than that! He is also the proud owner of the most retweeted tweet of all time with ‘Four more years’ and a twitpic of him hugging Michelle. Awwww. With 620,000 RTs (and still rising) that’s no mean feat! In comparison the last holder, the almighty JB (aka Justin Bieber), only managed a mere 200,000. Pathetic.

Cutest Viral Letter EVER

Forget Sainsbury’s Tiger/Giraffe Bread, this is where it’s at. Sweet little Sophia wrote to the president about being bullied because of her two Dads. And the President wrote back. If you like get tear-eyed with warm fuzzy happy feelings, you’ll love this.*

*This might be something just I enjoy.

All Hail The Political Instagram

Instagram went mental for the elections – 151,000 images were uploaded with the #election2012. @BaddieBay joined (I guess @Beyonce was already taken…) with the image to the left (*to the left, the president she voted for in the box to the left* – apologies if you don’t get the song reference). LOADS of people also uploaded their completed ballot papers (which is apparently illegal in quite a lot of states). In short, Instagram was big.

Tech Companies For Voting

They wanted you (okay, the American public) to vote. They (Google, Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare) really, really did! Newsrooms, artists, live polls, polling maps…take a look for yourself.

NSFW (ish)

Samuel L. Jackson re-imagined his lovely reading of Adam Mansbach’s children’s book, ‘Go The F**k To Sleep’, with a new political video urging his nation to vote for Obama and ‘Wake The F**k Up’. It’s had over a million and a half views and well worth a watch as one of my favourite political virals of the campaign.

This Will Make You Feel Old

Simba would have been able to vote in this election. Disney’s The Lion King is 18-years-old. Urgh.