Pretty in Pink for Red (in the face) Party

Harriet Harman’s attempt to lure more female voters was criticised by the media last week and caused a storm across social media, with people taking offence over the use of pink.

They cited her campaign tactic of touring the UK in a pink van as 'sexist' and 'patronising', whilst pointing out that it didn’t even have eyelashes on the front - an oversight surely?!

 

 

Do they have a point with their colour criticism? Is pink a condescending stereotypical colour for marketing purposes?

 

According to Karen Haller Colour and Design Consultancy brands use pink to show that they are sweet or sexy, depending on the pink.

Pink stands for femininity, as well as love, nurturing and caring. A lighter pink is sweet, usually marketed to girls, whereas a brighter pink holds sex appeal.

Many trusted brands use pink in their marketing - and are not deemed sexist, condescending or patronising as a result. But they are more likely to be marketing fashion, cosmetics, cars and charities ….…not campaigning for political parties?

Not only was offence caused by the Pink Barbie battle bus, news broke yesterday claiming the van is in fact registered as a white vehicle with the DVLA. Reports claim that a change in the colour of a vehicle should be registered with the DVLA and failure to do so is a serious offence. 

'Any failure to inform the DVLA about changing the colour of the vehicle can be punishable with a £1,000 fine,' confirms a DVLA spokesman.

Looks like this gimmick recruitment tactic may have ‘backfired’ for the Red (in the face) party.

#PurePoint

And the winner is....

The 'big one' in American TV events took place at the beginning of February, with SuperBowl TV advertising costs reaching an astounding level, but last night another TV ad-spend bonanza took place, as the 87th edition of the Oscars was held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

As time shift viewing continues to nibble away at the live TV market and reduce audience sizes, these huge live events (and the social media response they create) are becoming more and more significant for major brands in America such as AT&T, Samsung and JC Penney; but then, so are the accompanying pricetags. 

30"ads during the Oscars in 2014 sold at circa $1.8 million each, whereas this year they were pitched at a cool $2 million (11.11% increase YoY).

To contextualise this - a spot in the final of the X-Factor last year (one of the most expensive ad breaks on UK television) was valued at somewhere between £150,000 and £200,000, which would only be enough to get you 4-5 seconds of an Academy Awards ad.

The sheer audience sizes are a major reason for this; the Oscars offers a global audience of about 47 million and the SuperBowl 114 million, whereas the X-Factor...well, at c. 8 million it's not on the same stage. 

As we've recently pointed out, there is a massive shift towards digital spend in the UK, whereas this has yet to be entirely replicated in the US; only 28% of spend is on digital, compared to over 50% in the UK. Moreover, advertisers still pay premium dollars for the few spots remaining they are sure will draw big 'live' audiences, and major sporting and film events are top of the list for US advertisers.

These huge sums bought the advertisers an audience of about 47 million on Sunday evening, with a considerably higher proportion of females in comparison to the 114.4 million people who watched the SB. 

The balanced audience leads to the Oscar ad breaks traditionally having a more heart-warming feel rather than the stereotypical aggressive humour of the SuperBowl ads. 

The collection of celebrities at the Oscars also offers opportunities above and beyond spot-and-space, which Samsung famously took advantage of last year through product placement of Ellen DeGeneres' selfie, which has now been re-tweeted nearly 33 million times!

#PurePoint

The Year of Digital...?

The common assumption is that things happen first in America and then make the cross-Atlantic trek to Europe and then to the rest of the wider world. 

Jeans, fast food, music, melting pots....with their entrepreneurial history and subsequent corporate might - embodied by behemoths such as Apple, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon - we are constantly being told through all sorts of media how advanced and 'ahead' the US is. 

It would surely follow that they are at the forefront of the digital revolution that has been consuming marketing for decades, but seemingly this is not the case; Europe - and especially the UK - has been edging further and further in front... 

Well, with the news yesterday showing that in 2015 the UK will be the first major advertising market where digital will account for more than half of all spend, the argument seems to have been settled. 

Western Europe spend on digital accounts for approx 33% while US ad spend is weighted towards TV, with digital only representing slightly more than a quarter of the total.

Although the infamous "Year of Mobile", which has been coming since the late '90s/ early 00's, is yet to fully arrive, what seems certain is that this is the Year of Digital in the UK....

When you consider that these figures don't take into account things such as digital outdoor, digital TV, etc, there are clearly more of them to come!

# PurePoint

Pantastic Day

So, on possibly the tastiest of all days, some brands look to interact with all the tossers out there through the medium of pancakes and perhaps more significantly, the vast array of toppings.

The sad passing of Michele Ferrero (founder of Ferrero Rocher and inventor of Nutella) over the weekend may see the spread of nostalgic nutty pancakes as a favoured topping selection, but somewhat surprisingly it's plain old sugar and lemon that has grabbed our attention.

All-in-all, things have been a little quiet on the pun-cake front, though there has been one noteworthy campaign which has caused some heated debate.

Cars and pancakes are not traditional bedfellows, but Dacia has tried to cook up something a bit different by taking either full page or page-dominant spaces in the front half of the quality, mid-market and free commuter press titles this morning.

There have been differing reactions at Pure Towers as to the way they've thrown themselves into the mix. As with our respective choices of pancake toppings there is a mix of taste - some think they've subtly battered the competition, whereas others think it's more like they've fallen a bit flat and ended up with egg on their face.

Firstly, the nay-sayers: For a car that "starts at £5,995" selecting the higher-end titles seems slightly incongruous with the price-point. Given that Dacia are presumably aiming for those looking at a second or third car, perhaps an image of the mystery car(s) to entice a buyer in would be a good idea rather than relying solely on the numbers.

Pancakes are undoubtedly powerful influencers, but we're not sure that they can ensure a relatively unrecognised brand sell lots of cars. Even with maths in their corner (NB: a pancake shouldn't really have corners), a couple of the PM crew feel there is a real disconnect here.

On the 'flip' side, there are others who believe the ads are highly impactful - both in the understated creative and the dominant page positions. The simplicity of the messaging reflects the simplicity of the offer (and presumably the car).

The fact that they have used Pancake Day as a creative medium is smart, catchy and offers an effective alternative to the standard formula that seems to pervade our print media (inspirational/ quirky car image + price/ special offer + terms and conditions = car ad).

We'll let you make up your own minds, but as a final aside this is amazing

Enjoy!

Happy Valentines Day ....

...... from everyone at Pure Media :)

#LoveMedia

"Pensions and Investmen"....?!

With our broad range of clients, that vary delightfully in size, shape and speciality, we at Pure Towers subscribe to some weird and wonderful titles, ranging from the likes of "Hairdressers' Journal" to "The British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular Disease" and from "Bloomberg Markets" to "Money Management".

With our geeky passion for media in all its forms, we love seeing the variety of ways that the print market tries to innovate through format changes, interesting creative and supplementary material including inserts and onserts.

As the global economy wends its way along the rocky road of recovery (with some definite stumbles from time to time), there have been undoubted impacts upon the world of print media, such as reduced circulations and paginations.

One thing we were not expecting, however, was the blows of austerity to have hit a title as prestigious as "Pensions & Investments" quite as hard as they have... Evidently they've had to shave off a little bit of the magazine. Almost two inches in fact!

Our copy arrived this morning nicely presented in its poly-bag as per usual, but once we'd eagerly torn off the wrapping, we found that we were being put on a bit of an information 'diet', with the outside edge having been decimated.

Wonder if this is just a one-off, or whether it's been an issue to affect the wider audience who pay $50 a copy for their industry news and opinion...

Brick Thinking

Away from the big-spending brand advertisers that we looked at and judged in our varied, whistle-stop tour of the SuperBowl media melee, there has been a really neat tactical piece of content launched.

Latching on to the post-SuperBowl buzz and excitement, a British animation studio has combined the best Super Bowl ads in a stop motion video made entirely of Lego bricks. 

We love this piece of (and very quick turn-around) tactical promotion, using an apposite piece of popular culture combined with a creative concept that has worked so well for the Lego brand in the past. 

The best example of this is the full ad break that ran, where they recreated existing TV ads using Lego. 

Innovation at its finest! 

Who won the #SuperBowl?

So – we’ve established that brands spent an almost unfathomable amount of money on a one-day event (in excess of $300,000,000 on TV ads alone), so now seems a good time to try and assess who made some headway in the marketing race and who was left floundering.

Oreo led the charge when it comes to doing something differently, purchasing the first ever Super Bowl ads with programmatic technology, although they were only shown regionally. Cited as being back to their old savvy marketing self and leading innovators adopting this game changing automated ad buying technology. Something to add to their impressive SuperBowl marketing history.

Moving on, here is a snapshot of some of our winners and losers .....

WINNERS

Missy Elliott 
The big winner of the half-time show was not, as might be expected, Katy Perry, but rather Missy Elliott, whose Spotify streams (already substantial) increased by 676%...OVERNIGHT. Her track, “Lose Control,” which she performed solo while KP had a quick change, achieved the largest jump, with a pretty out-of-control 1,396% hike. Indeed, the three tracks she unleashed (the other two being fellow 00’s classics “Get Ur Freak On” and “Work It”) ended up in the iTunes top 10 singles. Now that’s a result!

Newcastle Brown Ale: 
Played the digital game brilliantly – especially through use of their social media channels. An ingenious satire of the media frenzy was delectably pre-promoted and then superbly executed as a great piece of ambush marketing. They couldn't afford the $4.5m for a 30 second ad and Anheuser-Busch (i.e. Bud Light and Budweiser) had airtime locked up, so they ‘crowdsourced’ a TV spot with 37 other companies and aired on NBC affiliate channels in their #BandOfBrands campaign. The spot - which you can watch here - was fun, catchy and used digital media in a lateral and hugely effective way.

Twitter 
Still the undisputed hub for real-time marketing. Despite attempts by its key competitors (see ‘Losers’ below) Twitter maintained its grip on the title. With over 28 million tweets referencing “#SuperBowl” or “#SB49” (let alone all the brands, people, teams, etc. attached to the event), it was certainly the crux of the frenzy.

Always 

The rehashed ‘Like a girl’ campaign stole the ad show. Although the Liam Neeson ‘Revenge’ ad for Clash of Clans was a Pure Media favourite and comedy highlight, the P&G brand has successfully highlighted the clear idiocy of “like a girl” as being associated with weakness and inferiority. It was a categorical insult which has rightfully been ‘called out’. As of Tuesday, the hashtag #likeagirl had in excess of 270,000 mentions and more than 340,000 tweets.

LOSERS:

Nationwide: 
The backlash against Nationwide’s spot (which focussed on children’s death by preventable accidents) was swift, prolonged and crushing. The callousness and lack of ‘fit’ for the occasion is pretty obvious, though the insurance company released a statement claiming that it was intending to start a debate rather than sell policies...either way, the internet is now awash with disparaging comment and parodies.

McDonald’s: 
The Golden Arches tried to schmooze pretty much every person and every brand on Twitter in some kind of love-in/ giveaway. Piggybacking on the respective spots, the fast food retailer didn't really earn themselves any positive vibes – it was a neat piece of real-time marketing, but didn't have the cut through of other campaigns…or the genuine feel.

YouTube and Facebook: 
YouTube boldly tried to divert its mainly millennial fanbase’s attentions and make their second screen into their primary one, by staging a competing half time show. However, this was – frankly – unsuccessful. Likewise, Facebook (despite claiming it’s “biggest ever SuperBowl”) ended up streets behind the powerhouse that is Twitter when it comes to real-time marketing.

The SuperBowl is a massive event in the calendar and as with every big game, there are winners and losers. There were brands (and individuals) that successfully navigated the melee to stand out and get their money's worth. 

On the flipside, there were those who blew their budgets - or hard-earned brand image and trust - without a lot to show for it. #PurePoint

Super Budgets, SuperBowl

Despite being what is (obviously) predominantly an American sport, the SuperBowl XLIX's global impact and reach was in evidence again over the weekend.

An estimated 115 million viewers tuned in last night to watch the New England Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks in Arizona, contributing to what is routinely the biggest televised event in American programming.

Social media and word-of-mouth conversations typically revolve around the event for days on end, turning the event into something more spectacle than sports; the half-time performers, generally huge names like Bruno Mars and this year’s Katy Perry, even perform free due to the returns they can expect a boost album sales which, according to Forbes, can be an increase as high as 92%

With that many bums parked firmly on seats in front of television sets – not to mention 2nd, 3rd and 4th screens such as computers, mobiles and tablets – the Super Bowl has serious attraction for advertisers.

This year’s broadcasters, NBC, were surely counting on that fact when they set the rates for advertising during the event. With a 12.5% increase on 2014’s pricing, a 30 second spot setting advertisers back a cool $4,500,000 for the media alone. The total event is reputed to have pulled in around $360m just in advertising revenue.

However, despite the staggering entry prices for advertising, having a spot at the Super Bowl can pay big dividends for advertisers. With millions of fans glued to screens around the world, Super Bowl commercials are generally the tour de force of each participating advertiser’s year, and the agencies involved generally try to come up with something pretty good for their spots.

So how did they go?

Other than the Patriots, one of the biggest winners this year was mobile game Clash of Clans, which had an entertaining spot featuring Liam Neeson in full Taken-esque personality: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuFebXDkI3k

As always, the airwaves were thick with a bevy of other celebrities, with big names including Kim Kardashian (T-Mobile), Kate Upton (Game of War), Bryan Cranston (aka Walter White) and Lindsay Lohan (both for Esurance),

Animals also featured strongly, with Dorito’s flying pigs and Budweiser’s horse-and-dog friendship providing both amusement and emotion to the masses.

The unanimous vote for this year’s worst commercial seems to go to Nationwide, who used the concept of a dead child to shock the audiences out of their sports-day festivity; whilst it was certainly effective in that context, the insurance company went a little too far in bringing the atmosphere down: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKUy-tfrIHY

Which do you think deserves the crown this year, and which the wooden spoon? Check out the full list of adverts here and let us know.

#PurePoint

In your face..!

After a fairly tumultuous 2014 for cabbies with the now ubiquitous Uber coming to town and shaking up a hornet’s nest of competition, they could be forgiven for quietly hoping that 2015 might offer a bit of a new start and perhaps a return to ‘normalcy’.

Far from this being the case, Goldline Cars, title sponsor and official partner of Leyton Orient FC (of course) is running a fairly punchy and combative advertising campaign – which might not be seen as ‘fair play’.

The self-proclaimed ‘premier Private Hire service in London’ has shoved some bus mega-rears in the faces of the black cab drivers, cleverly using the public transport vehicles to advertise their private transport business where their competitors – and their competitors’ passengers – are very much aware of it..!

Big, Bold Search Tactics

A couple of Summers ago, we posted a blog piece based around a huge, blue, phallic object that was flying around London on the side of buses. We saw it emerging from clusters of trees, hurtling round corners and generally tainting innocent streets with its long, un-ignorable and somewhat intimidating presence:

Call it Déjà vu, but a similar creative tactic has been used by Ch4 this month with a large format outdoor campaign to promote its set of three new series running across their portfolio of channels, that launched last night:

But wait…there’s more:

There appears to be no pre-requisite for knowledge or understanding of these ads – they are purposefully sensational, high impact, phallic food objects promoting the latest C4 programmes.

We believe there is a smart and clear approach here is to drive interest, frequency of messaging and – ultimately – engagement through Search activity. They have done this by only giving a minimal amount of information.

There are TV and press ads running as well, which help identify these as two interlinked, cross-channel series (Banana and Cucumber) that focus on LGBT characters, alongside the 4oD offering of Tofu, an online documentary which looks at modern sex in all its forms.

Not suggesting that the proposed search activity would have determined the names of the respective series, but by restricting the likely (and indeed possible) search terms, Channel 4 would be able to run an extremely focused – and most likely cost-effective – set of keywords.

This is an excellent example of how the medium of outdoor - used to help create a broad reach campaign - can use a lack of information to effectively drive a digital response.

Whatever you think, it’s certainly been eye-catching!

#PurePoint.

Calvin Klein’s UnBeliebable Ad Campaign

International pop star and supreme narcissist, Justin Bieber, was recently announced as the new face of Calvin Klein, with the release of their latest advertising campaign which co-stars Dutch supermodel Lara Stone (otherwise known as Mrs David Walliams).

Bieber had previously uploaded a picture of himself to Instagram wearing a pair of #mycalvins, with the huge response to the Canadian star’s selfie being enough to convince Calvin Klein of the merits to put him front and centre of their latest campaign.

Within a week of Bieber tweeting a picture from the new campaign, there were already 97,000,000 search results for "Justin Bieber Calvin Klein" on Google, as Beliebers rapidly shared images and video (LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0t-aBAYym8) across the social space.

Of course, with Bieber – and his proclivity for controversy – as the focal point, a twist in proceedings was nigh on inevitable. Soon enough, apparently 'untouched' images appeared, claiming Calvin Klein had enhanced Justin’s body parts to create a more – ahem – a more appealing package.

The supposed 'untouched' images were uploaded by BreatheHeavy, who accused the singer (and CK) of faking it with heavily Photoshop’ed images. Team Bieber promptly responded with a cease and desist letter to the website. Breathe Heavy withdrew the image and wrote an apology (in the 3rd person) to the Eenie Meenie singer.

Gareth Williams, a professional retoucher demonstrates how the fake ‘untouched’ image of Bieber was produced. Although he doesn’t deny that the real image was enhanced… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgP-A7CqdkQ

Melisa Goldie, the chief marketing officer of Calvin Klein states the brand is “incredibly proud of the final images and how they portray Justin and Lara”.

The images that were considered to join the legendary archives of Calvin Klein history, reminiscing the iconic campaigns starring Freddie Ljungberg and the 1992 images of 'Marky Mark' Wahlberg and Kate Moss, will certainly not be forgotten.

 

Whether or not Calvin Klein had intended such controversial coverage, it certainly got a few knickers in a twist, causing an abundance of earned media to bulge across the internet. 

The Mirror for example, posted an article claiming the photos 'WERE retouched tomake his penis look bigger’, yet the day after they posted another article saying the photos ‘WEREN’T retouched to make his penis look bigger’. 

This just goes to show the incomprehensible power of social media in accelerating small acorns to Amazonian forests. The brand ambassador’s gigantic fan base (reaching a total of 77,361,789 on Facebook and a mere 59.4 million followers on Twitter) have no doubt enhanced this snow'ball' effect of media.

…and to think this all started with a #hashtag... good job Calvin Klein is due to release its latest fragrance, ‘Reveal Men’, with the hashtag #revealmore 

*face palm* 

2014 might have been the year of the selfie, let’s hope 2015 isn’t the year of the crown jewels.

#PurePoint

New Year, New Partnership

We are well and truly back in the swing of things here at Pure Towers, Christmas jumpers packed away for another year, talk of ‘gym more and drinking less’ already a distant memory, basically it’s just like we never had a glorious almost two weeks off…oh hang on…that said on closer inspection it appears we may have expanded over the Christmas Break... 

We now have a few more fine sporty looking friendly type people in our office – which can only mean - that the Teamspirit Partnership team have come to join us!

  

Teamspirit Partnerships primarily works with brands to develop affinity and sponsorship strategy and activation, as well as advising on rights management and supporting integration into broader brand communications plans.

Maximising media value and understanding how sponsorship activities and activations can work to best effect is where Pure and Partnerships can offer a point of difference and tangible added value. 

Whether in the sporting arena or indeed the cultural sphere, there is always a perfect partnership potential in the pipeline!  A few success stories from 2014 were the Tennis Sponsorship with Aegon, The Yorkshire Building Society TDF Grand Depart activation or indeed the Friends Life Tour of Britain.  

And we are jolly pleased to welcome them to the third floor. This year, as with every year, offers plenty of exciting opportunities on and off the sporting field for brands to work with and we look forward to collaborating on a few exciting projects in 2015.

Welcome TS Partnerships, now first things first, may we point you in the direction of the kettle.

#PureBlog

Favourite Festive Tunes and 2014 in a Nutshell - Happy Christmas From Pure

At Pure HQ we’ve been having that classic agency conversation; pulling together a list of the ultimate top-5 Christmas songs among our reflections of a rollercoaster 2014. The song list is still work-in-progress and is somewhat debateable, but the rollercoaster was awesome - fact! One of those built for speed where your face keeps whacking against the sides of those safety bar things, but at the same time you’ve got a massive smile on your face and really dry teeth…

Anyway, our mash-up of favourite festive tunes and reflection of a fantastic year transcribes to something like this:

5 – East 17 – Stay Another Day. Those jackets, legendary!

The rebrand; our old logo wasn’t to stay in 2014. Don’t know if you had noticed but we kicked the “safe grey” and co-boring-balt blue and decided to funk things up:

Old Pure Logo                                                                     New Pure Logo

Much better.

The rebrand went beyond just logo colours, though. A full-rebranding-shebanging (new website coming soon). Business cards, presentation deck templates – you name it!

Because we love media, and we want you all to know that.

                4 – Mariah Carey – All I want for Christmas. Don’t know how this made it into the top 5? Suppose you have to keep some people in the office happy.

Pure has expanded (again) in 2014. Both in size and stature and as a result so has the workforce. More desks, more bodies, more brains, the family grows. So, welcome aboard to our new recruits! 

And they all fit in so well.

Apart from Brett. Genuinely, none of us can work him out.

…and Johnny. Why is he always smiling? Weird…

 And then there’s Paul. Well, “you know”.

3 – Slade – It’s Christmas. That famous note makes it…IT’S CHRIIIIISTMAAAASS!

This reflection is a weird one. A look back followed by a projection. One that makes your eyes narrow with thought and then widen with excitement.

The key principals of planning and buying media remain the same. Always have done, always will do. But we’re caught up in this huge tipping point of programmatic and digital and algorithms and optimisation which makes everything freaking exciting. Programmatic digital spend went from 25% to 56% within a few months. How can we look back at the year without thinking forward?

There are massive industry changes afoot, and we love being a part of that, and the concept of getting truly stuck in going forward. Watch this space, because it’s watching you (in a dynamic, behavioural and contextual sense).

2 – Wizzard – I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday. Beards in the snow, the perfect combo.

Teamspirit (our sister agency) and Pure constructed and introduced core business values this year. They go like this:

Social / Curious / Open / Responsible / Expert / Entrepreneurial

They completely sum us lot up. To have them all written down in mantra format has given us all a fantastically unified identity to be proud of. Plus, really cool posters.

1 – The Pogues – Fairytale of New York. Everybody’s favourite.

Exciting new clients on the roster; client retention along with new businesses, you could say, the *snowball effect?

Anyway, new clients means new audiences means new media techniques. No two media schedules are the same. Like…*snowflakes? This excites us and this year we’ve had the chance to work with some absolute multi-media, multi-dimensional and even thermochromic (?) clangers.

 As we continue to proudly achieve fantastic results across the board, Pure along with our happy-smiley-clienty faces can’t wait to see what 2015 brings. Especially in such a dynamic and ever-changing industry.

*never apologise for a Christmas pun.

-

There you have it guys! The rollercoaster in a nutshell.

Here’s to a bright 2015 for all and no doubt we’ll catch up in the new year.

Lots of love.

Pure Media.

P.S.

 Always here and never forgotten. To Uncle Luc!

Christmas is here again

After surviving both Black Friday and the office party with most of our limbs and some of our reputations intact, we at Pure Towers feel that Christmas has officially arrived.

We always hear how "Christmas is getting earlier every year", but does it just feel that way, or is it actually true?

If we initially ignore Selfridges' shamelessly opening their Christmas store 142 days in advance of the big day in August and instead use the barrage of TV Ads as the key indicator, Christmas in 2014 started on about the 6^th November.

In previous years and using the John Lewis ad as the selected example, we find that 2013 offering ‘The Bear and the Hare’ was released on the 7^th November, while in 2012 ‘Snowman’ was first aired on the 8^th November, as was 2011’s ‘The Long Wait’.

So it would appear that advertisers have traditionally decreed a week into November as the day we should have a collective turn to the mistletoe (and madness).

Thankfully for us, we’ve found a bright, young spark at the Royal Statistical Society who has done a bit of analysis on Google, examining the volume of Christmas-related searches over recent years to give an indication of when the ‘real’ people (‘consumers’ they’re called) outside of Ad Land think that Christmas starts...

...with some SHOCKING results.

In 2007, this was on 11^th November, so pretty much in line with the ads.

Over the years, this has altered dramatically:
2008: 12^th October
2010: 3^rd October
2011: 11^th September
2013 19^th August
2014 25^th August…!

Who would have thought Selfridges were right all along!? You could argue that the event drove the search activity and thus it’s somewhat of a false positive but either way, it's clear there's a market in Summer for some Christmas advertising..!

In the meantime, we’re working on a range of Christmas Jumpers that can be worn in 28 degrees.

#PurePoint

Conversation Starter

Tinder has been a "dating" revelation with staggering growth and popularity.

In February, Tinder were recording 750 million swipes per day (which was a 15,000% increase on December 2013!) and now they are seeing more than a billion swipes - resulting in approximately 12 million 'matches' - every single day.

With owner IAC taking a seemingly natural next step and deciding to monetise the app, a whole new channel for advertisers has been opened up.

Probably the most poignant campaign we've seen is from the Immigration Council of Ireland. They have engaged Dublin-based ad agency Eighty Twenty to create a truly hard-hitting set of ads aimed at reaching the youthful male population in Ireland.

The user will see an image of an attractive young woman. As they then swipe,a series of shocking images follow, which demonstrate the kind of physical abuse trafficking victims are often on the receiving end of. The hope is that reaching this demographic will help crack down on the illegal industry.

This is definitely an important message delivered in an innovative way on a carefully selected medium.

Definitely a #PureAdOfTheWeek

Just the ticket!

The Manchester Derby took place yesterday. This is one of the major showdowns in the Premier League calendar.

Fans from near (and more often than not, far) were glued to screens all over the world to see a tightly fought match which was ultimately decided by a single goal.

The major flashpoint of the game was the first half dismissal of United's Chris Smalling for two bookable offences. His departure, followed by an injury to Marcos Rojo, led to a highly inexperienced back four being breached.

As you would imagine, Smalling has taken a LOT of stick for this, with his own manager calling him stupid. The football community has taken to Twitter to offer their thoughts, with Virgin Trains providing one of the sharpest zingers.

We love not only the messaging, but the sweet tactical timing....

Well played Virgin, well played..!

#PurePoint