Advertising in Namibia for Puma Energy

We launched a campaign in Namibia today for Puma Energy. The advertising appeared in national Namibian newspapers to co-incide with the press launch held in the capital, Windhoek. Puma has taken over the marketing of Oil and Petrol in Namibia from BP.

Pure Genius

Lynx Excite Angel Ambush London Victoria

This is a fantastic example of extending a TVC and using
augmented reality and digital outdoor to bring a campaign
to life, creating impact, intrigue and interaction.

Activity ran on JCDecaux transvision @ Victoria Station
for 2 days earlier this month.

Click link to YouTube video

New Recruits

A very warm welcome to our 2 x new recruits .... Nicholas and Sherif, who joined the finance and media teams at Pure this month.

Click of a button or pen paper and post?

I can't imagine 26 million households will return their census forms - but I'm sure the threat of people knocking on doors post April 6th chasing completed forms and the added threat of a £1,000 fine will help.

What will be interesting to see is how many people use the good old fashioned postal method vs online data supply.

The post box at London City Airport (pictured) was starting to fill up with freepost Census envelopes at 7am this morning.

It's Census Day 2011

Today is the day of statisticians dreams - the day the population is counted.
March 27th 2011 - the date we create a ten year snap shot of society.
A message to everyone - act now - Help tomorrow take shape.

Olympics 2012 Media Bonanza

Pundits are calling the Olympics a media bonanza for outdoor owners.

On April 4th the start of an official bidding system will be launched for Olympic Outdoor sites.

The official auction of the outdoor sites alone is likely to raise in excess of £250m for the various outdoor owners with positions within the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games’ cordoned off marketing zone.

The seven official tier one sponsors - adidas, BMW, BP, British Airways, BT, EDF and Lloyds TSB – and 11 worldwide partners will have first option to bid on the outdoor inventory, with wider sponsors being offered anything that doesn’t sell, and any subsequent remaining sites being offered to general bidders.

Though premium Olympic sites, many with six and seven-figure reserve prices, will be sold to the highest bidder, Locog has set rules for the outdoor sale – 2010 prices plus 11% - for standard sites to protect brands from escalating prices.

Ahead of this auction will be the launch of the London's biggest outdoor screen. ‘The London Gateway’, located on Hogarth roundabout – on the central route from London to Heathrow and the M4 - is being offered for a 12-month period, which includes the time before, during and after the games, with a reserve price of £675,000.

Read full report Media Week 25/03/2011

Welcome to London!

We are supposed to be at the forefront of the cutting edge (digital) communications landscape, but you would be forgiven for thinking you had traveled in time when arriving @ (London) Heathrow and taking the Heathrow Express in to London itself.

Thousands of travellers stand on the platform for up to 15 minutes every day, and in between tip tapping away on blackberries and smart phones, catching up on the flurry of messages received post flight - they get to look at a curved grey concrete wall, sporadically illuminated to further highlight the dullness of the surroundings.

Airport advertising has long been renowned for premium sites and sizes. Many brands tailor the messaging specifically to suit the environment and the audience.

Wandering through the terminal to arrivals we are greeted by large landscape visuals of a cheeky chappie London cabbie and a happy looking Beefeater welcoming us to London with open arms.

So moments later as I leave the airport and wait for the train, I can't help but feel really let down, as I stand on the cold looking, grey platform and wonder what those around me must think of this dull and dreary place they have flown in to if they have just arrived in London for the first time.

Surely this is the perfect environment for Minority Report style 'Gladvertising' of the future. Hoards of travellers smart phones to the ready to receive tailored messaging.

Identity cards and Bio-metric passports to receive even more unique fully tailored messaging perhaps?

Or even just a great place to promote our glorious Capital with video projections of all the wonderful buildings and attractions to visit.

Tactical placement or flat plan faux pas?

I've started hearing various commercial references to the
'Wedding of the Year' and 'Alternative Weddings of the Year'
etc. in the run up to the Royal Wedding.

No doubt there will be a plethora of tactical ads created
around the big event....some good and some really bad.

So - was the Hair loss ad that ran below Kate and Wills
editorial last night in the Evening Standard (the paper
that broke the news of the Royal wedding), an attempt
at tactical placement in light of the folicly challenged
future King - or just a perfect example of a flatplan
oversight?

The jury's out on this one.

Ecclesiastical Amity Fund Campaign Launch

Today we launched the Ecclesiastical Amity Fund to UK IFAs.

Using a mixture of trade press and very targeted online media the campaign promotes the Ecclesiastical Global Equity Fund, managed by their star fund manager Robin Hepworth.

The campaign will be running over the next three months and we will be monitoring the online activity, providing incisive data into how the campaign is working.

Only in America

Ever wondered what good causes the church 'collection'
funds go on to support?

New roof, local community efforts, candles for the alter?

In Flordia they appear to have a bit more fun with their
funds, flying about spreading the word that 'Jesus Loves You'

Fantastic audio and visual impact and very appropriate in
terms of synergistic communication.

The whirr of the planes engine attracts your attention,
and lo and behold, the next thing, your'e looking up to the 'Heavens'
to see the evangelical messaging.

Clearly the Church have their own set of rules re. Carbon emissions though.

Pretty Impressive Pop up store for PP

Last week saw the launch of a Pretty Polly Pop Up shop in Knightsbridge, in conjunction with London Fashion Week, working with advertising agency BMB (Beattie McGuinness Bungay) and RPM’s Specialist retail division Hotel Retail.

The store was open for 8 days and judging by the video piece running on the website (link below) - aside from looking stunning, it was a great success.

They are currently running a 'Legs Eleven' campaign - looking for the next PP model -which was well integrated in to the Pop Up experience, and continues to run in social media.


View video clip
http://www.prettypolly.co.uk/

Pop Up Store article

Projected Success

London Fashion Week 2011 has taken the city by storm once
again with many fashion advertisers running tactical campaigns
to capitalise on the interest, audience and event.

French Connection have just run a timely projection campaign in
proximity to key retail spots Shepherd’s Bush Westfield,
High Street Kensington and Covent Garden.

Link below to see the campaign delivered by Projection Advertising

http://vimeo.com

Breakfast Radio

This gives a new meaning to BREAKFAST RADIO

Breville have developed a Radio Toaster, with FM/AM receiver and two wide toasting slots.

Countdown to Product Placement on British TV ...

It's been happening for years in the US, but as of Monday 28th Feb ..... various commercial TV programmes in the UK will include product placement.

The only programmes that can't have product placement are those aimed at children, religious programming and news.

Items such as junk food, alcohol, cigarettes, escort services and prescription drugs are also banned from being placed in a programme.


To read more from various articles, click on the links below ...


Guardian 20/12/10

Guardian 16/02/10

Campaign 24/02/11

The Magnificent Seven

Data has just been released reporting the UK's 100 Top Web sites (Jan 2011)

A study into how the profile of the web’s most-visited sites have changed in the UK since 2004 has been conducted .... and an interesting observation is that 7 brands have all retained their Top 10 status.

The seven brands are - MSN, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, BBC, eBay and Amazon - who have since been joined by social-media stars YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook.

Google only reached top spot for the first time in 2006, but has remained at the head of the table each year since, now attracting more than 35 million unique UK visitors every month.

Back in 2004, Microsoft’s MSN dominated the table, although it had less than half Google’s current number of monthly visitors (17 million). Today, a site with this level of users would barely make the Top 10, such has been the growth in online traffic.

Names such as Freeserve, Lycos, Demon and Kelkoo, which once appeared among the web’s elite, have now been replaced in the Top 50 by brands such as Facebook, Twitter, Sky and John Lewis.


click here for top 100 UK site info and further story

Creative use of Media

This is a great example of how creative and media teams can work together to ensure that the media channel and placment can be used to amplify the key creative messaging.

Not more to say really - the ad says it all.

Daily Telegraph - 07/02/11

Gorby Eighty

We launched a campaign yesterday, announcing the Gala Concert
celebrating Mickhail Gorbachev's 80th Birthday.

Running in quality newspapers, on ClassicFM and on poster sites
across the London Underground in Feb and early March.

The event will be held at the Royal Albert Hall on March 30th 2011
with a line up of stars performing including Bryan Ferry, Mel C,
The Scorpians and Katherine Jenkins, plus the London Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Valery Gergiev and lots more musicians and artists. Hosts
for the evening will be Sharon Stone and Kevin Spacey.

It is a charity event - with all proceeds from this and associated events
being shared between the Gorbachev Foundation (66%) and Macmillan Cancer
Support (33%) after the deduction of costs.

For more information go to:-

WWW.GORBY80.COM


OR

WWW.ROYALALBERTHALL.COM

Q4 RAJAR Results - 03/02/11

HEADLINES

talkSPORT increase reach to almost 3.1 million listeners

Magic number one in London again

The national digital station Planet Rock have taken their listening to over 800,000


LONDON'S MARKET SHARE

Magic 105.4 6.3%
Kiss 100 5%
Heart 106.2 4.6%
LBC 97.3 4.6%
95.8 Capital FM 4.5%


For more information and full details of all Q4 Results published
03/02/11 - visit - www.radioworks.co.uk

PURE PROMOTIONS

CONGRATULATIONS to Caroline Dowsett and Grace Butcher, who have been promoted from the roles of Media Managers to Account Directors at Pure.

This is in recognition of their ongoing commitment, hard work and progression over the past year and is reflective of the roles they have been conducting over the past months.

'APP'y New Year

Dominos UK iPhone pizza orders top £1 million in just three months

Demonstrating the power of smartphone apps and the ability to add an additional revenue stream to existing business, successful worldwide pizza delivery chain Dominos has announced that its iPhone application has helped process over £1 million of orders since its launch in September 2010.

Noting its progress in its fourth quarter trading update, Dominos displayed significant growth via e-commerce during the year, posting £128 million in sales, up £49.5 million (63%) from a year previous.

As a result sales made via it’s website or iPhone application now account for 35.8% of UK delivered sales, an increase from 27.8% in 2009. iPhone sales are small in comparison to its website but as the smartphone and tablet markets continue to grow, app use will increase as consumers become aware of its availability.

The pizza chain has an Android app in development, launching soon, which is only going to help drive sales for the company as consumers look to their mobiles to purchase their weekly shop, buy gifts or order a takeaway.

Source: http://thenextweb.com/uk/