The PHA Group has been appointed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), to join the charity’s communications framework following a competitive pitch process. The first campaign that the agency will be supporting, following its appointment to the framework, will be the charity’s annual flagship fundraising campaign, Mayday. The annual Mayday campaign raises vital awareness and funds for the RNLI so that it can continue to save lives at sea in the UK and Ireland. Mayday 2021 will focus on fundraising ahead of the predicted busy summer period, as well as giving the RNLI an opportunity to raise awareness of its vital summer safety messages to ensure people that visit, or holiday at the UK and Irish coasts this year do so safely.
Valeo Food Group has appointed Bottle PR as its Digital PR retained agency to launch its new product: Rowse ChocoBee. The strategy is to introduce Rowse ChocoBee to millennial mindset families through PR, social media and influencer marketing, with the main aim to secure the jar as a staple food item on breakfast tables across the nation. Valeo have invested £1m into marketing the launch which will include PR, social media, influencer partnerships and integrated podcast advertising. Bottle PR have also made two other recent wins, providing digital services for CarFinance247, as well as music licence company PPL/PRS.
Studio BLUP made its NFT debut this week with the EVE OF THE HORSEMEN® #001 artwork, sold for £2675.37. The artwork, which was designed by Co-Founder and Creative Director DINES and BLUP’s creative team (Diditalridge), was listed, bid for and sold on Foundation.app. An NFT art collector known as ‘@3fmusic’, who has collected digital artwork from the likes of Grasseti, Pussyriot and Jen Stark, was the winning bidder. Studio BLUP is donating proceeds to charity Hope For Children.
Dreamtek and Liberty & Co. have joined forces in an exclusive partnership that will see Dreamtek evolve into a fully integrated, experiential creative agency. Combining their technological and production event expertise with Liberty & Co.’s deep strategy, creative, and event experience, as already demonstrated through their impressive collaborations for Google & YouTube — Dreamtek now has the added capabilities of managing bespoke, experiential events from conception and storytelling to the build, event marketing and delivery.
Dacia have devised an initiative that is truly out of this world, turning their skills to space travel with the Dacia Dustar car, which will launch into space via livestream at 09:00 am BST on April 1st. OK, it may only be a toy car, but the venture marks one giant leap into affordable space travel for Dacia, reflecting the brand’s smart sense-of-humour. Boldly going where no other car brand has gone before, Vivaldi UK has devised, created and executed the campaign on behalf of Dacia, which includes a week of social take-over during which they will tease their first-ever launch into space, complete with countdown video, which will play out across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The video concludes with the message: “No fooling. We can do a lot, with a little’ – and in reality we’ve sent a toy Duster into space.”
Dept has created the advertising industry’s first virtual AR (Augmented Reality) apparel drop, using NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and Snapchat’s new full body-tracking tool. The initiative is designed to help brands better understand the value of virtual fashion and goods while highlighting the burgeoning trend for digital ownership. The drop comprises a limited number of NFT virtual puffer jackets, available to try-on in AR on Snapchat. Designed by Dept-owned marketing technology agency, Byte, the gravity-defying 3D jacket features bold bright animations of Dept’s logo. Using Snapchat’s new full body-tracking tool, Byte also created an AR lens so that the jacket’s buyers can post clips of themselves to the platform wearing the limited edition item while on-the-move.
Doubleverify has announced an expanded brand safety and suitability integration with Facebook, extending verification to new premium inventory channels such as Facebook In-Stream Reserve, while providing new tools to boost control and efficiency. With the expansion, DV now offers comprehensive brand measurement solutions on Facebook and Instagram, optimizing campaign quality. In addition to its brand safety and suitability capabilities, DV has partnered with Facebook for fraud protection and viewability measurement across their inventory.
Purpose-led creative agency, 23red, and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), the part of the Ministry of Defence which manages military land, has launched a film to urge the public to stay safe when accessing military training areas. Featuring the views of regular users of military training areas and soldiers, the hard-hitting film is part of Respect the Range, a public safety campaign to protect the public and soldiers, and limit disruption to military training. The recent Covid-19 restrictions have made it more likely that people are exploring their local area, including military land, for the first time without understanding the potential dangers. The campaign, which is targeting Salisbury Plain and Aldershot initially before being rolled out further, aims to raise the public’s awareness and understanding of the very real risks to personal safety when using military land. The film was developed to highlight the dual use of lands as it can shift from tranquil to dangerous by the hour. Targeting mountain bikers, dog walkers and ramblers, the film is encouraging the behaviour of always checking training times and routes before using the land.
A local digital marketing agency is teaming up with Northumbria University to deliver a skill-sharing guest lecture, in a bid to inspire and encourage young people to seek a career in the sector. Two senior staff from Glass Digital, an SEO and digital marketing agency based in Ouseburn, Newcastle upon Tyne, will present a guest lecture to students enrolled on the university’s Mass Communication degree course in April. Jennifer Macdonald, Digital Marketing Manager at Glass Digital, and Bettie Moran, Outreach Team Lead, will provide students with an insight into what it’s like to work in digital marketing, as well as sharing tips for starting a career. The lecture — titled ‘An insight into life at a digital marketing agency’ — will form part of a series of guest presentations from industry insiders. The lectures will be heard in the context of a module examining contemporary practices, trends, and developments within media and communications.
Sports retailer Decathlon has appointed Forever Beta as its lead strategic & creative agency. The agency will launch the new positioning to the UK market with a TTL creative campaign. The new creative campaign will aim to catapult Decathlon into the UK consciousness and make it the go-to destination for sporting goods. Forever Beta was appointed the business due to its strong creative approach to the briefing. The campaign will run across TV, OOH and digital channels through early summer 2021.
ITB Worldwide, the full-service talent and influencer marketing agency that connects brands with culture, has announced the launch of ‘The Power of Influence’, its quarterly talent and influencer trends and insights review, to connect people in the marketing industry with the most current information about the world of Influence. Volume 1 of the series of new reports, at the close of the first quarter of 2021, takes a look at key consumer and content trends of the moment, including: authentic connections in the age of conscious consumerism, community-driven collaborations, advocacy in the world of social gaming and esports, how brands can integrate with the new age wellness trend, addressing screen fatigue and finding escapism with audio-social platforms and the return of the meme and power of nostalgia. The launch of ‘The Power of Influence’ report coincides with a revamped ITB website.
Leeds-based digital marketing agency, Wolfenden, has been chosen as the SEO partner for Komodo, a global influencer agency that works with the likes of ASOS, PrettyLittleThing and TUI. Wolfenden’s SEO strategy looks to strengthen Komodo’s organic market share in what is an increasingly competitive space, supporting the company’s plans for further growth and expansion in 2021.
Green search engine, Ecosia, in partnership with Sky Media and JCDecaux, launches its first major international brand campaign in the UK and cities across Europe. The multi-channel campaign lets millions of potential users know they can turn their searches – no matter how weird – into trees. With more than 120 million trees already funded by users’ searches globally, Ecosia expects the campaign to generate significant growth for tree planting. Aiming to build brand awareness of the tree planting search engine, Sky Media and JCDecaux UK have developed a campaign incorporating TV and OOH to reach Ecosia’s target audience of eco-conscious 18-to-34-year olds. The inspiration for the campaign stems from an award-winning bespoke brand video created by students at Germany’s Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg for a class assignment. The film consequently won a number of awards, including a Silver Screen in the prestigious Young Director Award at Cannes. Ecosia’s marketing team has since obtained a 12-month license for the video.
ExpressTest, one of the UK’s largest Covid-19 screening service providers, has brought in service design agency Absurd to lead its next phase of transformational change. As well as introducing innovative platform functionality and design updates, Absurd will also now manage the platform with a focus on ensuring it scales with and capitalises on increased demand. The firm predicts it will soon be processing more than 300,000 Covid test bookings every day. A refreshed website, with a revised infrastructure, is being created to cater for the huge number of bookings now being made via the platform. The new site will feature a refreshed booking process and the focus has been placed on creating an enhanced user experience throughout the booking journey, with scalability allowing new testing sites and additional Covid testing products to be added with ease.
