Episode 73 - Nicola Wood

Behind The Billboard

Visuals: https://getbehindthebillboard.com/episode-73-nicola-wood

Podcast episode #73 features Nicola Wood, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy London, winner of many shiny prizes and someone with a liking for a farty Valentine’s Day card.

Strap in folks. This is an absolute belter of an episode.

The farty card was a good start. But the story behind the Relate campaign shot by Rankin is something we’d never heard before. And we’ve heard quite a bit in the past five years.

We don’t want to reveal too much but let’s just say Nicola’s Nan features quite prominently. And some of the conversations Nicola had to have to persuade Nan to appear naked on billboards up and down the country are quite something.

We also discussed the incredible craft that went into the British Airways ‘New York We’re back’ billboard which rightly won awards on both sides of the pond. Instead of choosing the easy AI / post production route to recreate workers sat on a girder atop a New York skyscraper, Nicola and long term partner Andy Forrest decided to do it for real. Or as ‘real’ as you can as the nation was emerging from Covid. Another brilliant story involving previous guest photographer Adam Hinton (episode #18) a real life girder and a lot of wardrobing.

We also found out how gardening and sex can help reduce STI’s in the over 65’s in another raunchy campaign for Relate ‘The Hornicultural Society’.

Cannes, flapjacks, you people voting, Maaate, Araldite Glue, Tony Cullingham, Nike … we packed a lot in.

Everything Nichola does seems to have a story, an edge, a relevance to popular culture. We may need a part two soon. Maybe with special guest Nan?!

Thank you again Nicola for coming on and lighting up the studio with your incredible stories.