Wilderness Company Update #5

After one of the strangest years I can remember things are starting to feel a bit more hopeful. We’ve already started to be able to see more people and the weather is starting to get its act together. The last month at Wilderness - like all the other months in the last year - has been absolutely full on and I am constantly amazed at the way the team here and all of our clients are still able to maintain a positive outlook. Here are 7 reasons that I’m cheerful this month.

PLANNING FOR LARGER GATHERINGS

While we’re not yet at a full return to the way things were, we're taking stock of the challenges and the positives from the last year and assessing the very best version of ‘normal’ that we’ll be going back to. We’ll be back in the office all together again from June 21st (hopefully) but maintaining two days a week where everyone works from home. It’s our hope that we can avoid the strain that commuting every day can have on our mental health while still getting to spend time working together in the same place. We had a socially distanced meet up in the park recently (and got thoroughly soaked) which made me feel really excited about being back together as a team. It has been quite a while since I last had a conversation with everyone that was not about work - when everyone’s time is so precious and if we can gift people a few more minutes OFF a video call we’re all better for it. I can’t wait to get back into the office and have those meaningless conversations that glue us all together. I'm even excited about all the awkward kitchen chats we'll all be having waiting for the kettle to boil.

THE REOPENING OF THE ARTS

As someone who - by rights - should have seen Fast & Furious 9* one whole year ago I am very excited about cinemas reopening. The delay that the global pandemic has put on so many aspects of our lives and culture has been extremely hard to bear. That’s why we’re so excited to be back to work with the cinema distributors Piece of Magic (POM) on the global release of TINA - the incredible new documentary about the life and career of rock icon Tina Turner. We worked with POM previously on the event cinema release of David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet and we love the way that they create spectacle and excitement around being together in the cinema.

*What can I say - I’ve got a thing for gravel-voiced bald men saying ‘family’ a bunch.

GETTING SOME SELF CARE

Something else that we’re keen to bring forward from the last year is the way in which people have felt able to open up about their struggles with their mental health and how important conversations about self care have become. We’ve just completed a campaign with BBC Lifestyle in South Africa that aimed to offer a lifeline to their viewers on linear and their followers on social. We’ve worked with the channel over the last few months to transform the type of content they post in the region and have been reaching millions of people in order to grow and engage an audience that is hyper-relevant for the brand. With this latest campaign we’ve created social content and run highly successful ads to promote blocks of programming dedicated to feeling great and taking care of yourself. 

MAINTAINING CREATIVITY

Even throughout lockdown we’ve continued to develop incredible creative campaigns and maintained a near-constant flow of shoots and large-scale productions. Adapting to travel restrictions and safety measures while delivering for our clients has been a high priority and we’ve been delivering some fantastic food photography and dynamic sports films in recent weeks. One of the biggest wins for us has been bringing a lot of this work in-house (where before we had a network of freelancers on shoots) and building an ever-growing group of ambitious creative minds.

LEARNING NEW SKILLS

A big focus for us this year has been critical thinking, training and upskilling so it’s rewarding to work with a company like the THNK School of Creative Leadership to help them promote the incredible courses they have on offer. We’ve just wrapped a project on their THRIVE course and the results have been amazing. We’re now teeing up our next project with the team while at the same time developing our own. Our new offering - The Fast Track Way - is part of the government kickstart programme aimed at getting young people who are currently on universal credit into roles in paid media. We’ve found that recruiting junior talent with core paid media planning & buying skills has been an ongoing challenge for our agency so this 6-month scheme will start to build the next generation of talent with the skills needed for a career in paid media planning and/or buying.

EXPANDING OUR BUBBLE

The last month has been a great one for meeting new people - in particular new clients, agency partners and new starters in the team. We’ve won work with Stakhanov studios - the podcast network who are the UK’s No. 1 curator of entertaining, informative and impeccably produced podcasts; Southern Comfort - for a campaign that celebrates the return of socialising and bringing the fun; and Nurishh - a vegan cheese from the makers of BabyBel. We've been partnering with the incredible teams at The Academy and This Way Up on some of these opportunities and as we grow those relationships we're hoping to continue to produce brilliant work together. We’ve also added three amazing talents to the team. Akira joins us as a Senior Social Media Manager and Katie is our new Paid Media Manager in our London Office and Hannah is making a huge impact in the Amsterdam team as a Creative Producer. We’ve got a range of new roles open in both London and Amsterdam right now so if you’re looking for your next challenge please get in touch.

CELEBRATING OUR WINS

We are all absolutely thrilled to be recognised by the BAME Apprenticeship Awards this year in two amazing categories. We’re nominated for Employer of the Year and our incredible Ayesha has been tipped for Apprentice of the Year. We’ve spoken a lot in recent months about the importance of representation and how as an agency our mission is to do better so these nominations really mean a lot. Fingers crossed!!!!