Homeware and gifting retailer, Portmeirion Group, has appointed performance marketing agency, Journey Further, to serve up its first video campaign for Christmas. The appointment follows a three-way competitive pitch process, which will also see Journey Further manage media activity for two of the retailer’s largest brands, Portmeirion and Spode, who produce ceramic and homeware gifts worldwide. The agency, which has offices in Leeds, London and Manchester, employed its unique ‘data meets creative’ offering to form the brand’s ongoing marketing proposition, ‘serving togetherness’, giving the brand an emotive yet functional message with which to engage its customers. The Christmas campaign is the first of many that look to bring the brand’s new proposition to life in a series of short content films directed by Adam Riozzi. Journey Further will also transform Portmeirion Group’s ecommerce offering with an integrated acquisition strategy across paid search, social, SEO and influencer marketing.
O2 has launched ‘We’re better, connected,’ the new Christmas campaign designed to promote the UK wide rollout of the National Databank, launched by Virgin Media O2 and Good Things Foundation to help tackle data poverty. O2 worked with UK agency of record, VCCP London, to mastermind a new integrated Christmas campaign that will see mobile data donated to those in need this festive season. For the first time ever, for ‘We’re better, connected,’ O2 has created a loveable Bubl army of reliable and loyal robots on an important mission this Christmas: to connect people across the country. Virgin Media O2 and Good Things Foundation are today rolling out the National Databank across the UK, as O2 pledges to donate even more free mobile data to those who need it. The company has pledged to gift 10GB of O2 data to the National Databank with every plan purchased between 1 November and 31 January and the launch is in response to the data crisis that sees 1.5 million homes in the UK currently without internet access. The Christmas ad will make its TV debut today, Friday 12th November during Gogglebox on Channel 4. The fully integrated campaign ‘We’re better, connected’ is live from today and will run for the festive period. The hero TV spot will play out across ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, and the creative will roll out across multiple formats including BVOD, OOH and OLV. Media has been planned and executed by Havas Media. PR is supported by Hope & Glory.
Growth marketing agency Space & Time is announcing the launch of Precision Press, a product that offers advertisers access to programmatic inventory across premium titles as well as national and local press. Leveraging the targeting opportunities provided by first-party publisher data, Precision Press comes in response to the demise of third-party tracking cookies and is delivered alongside Space & Time’s existing PrecisionM product which offers hyperlocal targeting. Both products are designed to drive regional excellence at a national scale. Partnering with premium publishers and a number of tech providers, Space & Time’s product combines customised contextual targeting with scale to provide an optimum solution to clients.
H&T Pawnbrokers has unveiled its new Christmas campaign, “Ready to be loved again”. The push is the first activity the brand has launched in partnership with M&C Saatchi since it appointed the agency earlier this year. Tapping into the growth of shopping for pre-loved items, with 12 million people in the UK purchasing something secondhand in 2020, H&T’s new festive campaign seeks to drive sales of pre-loved diamond jewellery. It also prompts people who may not have thought of buying gifts from a pawnbroker before to consider it as a way to gift something unique to a friend or loved one. M&C Saatchi has worked closely with H&T to develop a series of striking hero executions, each bringing the pre-loved concept to life by fusing vintage black and white photography with a modern, colour image, connected by a piece of diamond jewellery. The ads use a dramatic black background and feature lines such as “Timeless. For less” and “Pre-loved diamonds. Ready to be loved again”. All the executions carry the strapline: “Give a loved one a pre-loved diamond this Christmas”. The campaign will run on social and digital channels and in over 250 stores throughout the UK. Media buying for the push is by M&C Saatchi Performance and campaign photography is by Nick Dolding at Horton Stephens Productions.
The past 18 months have brought many disruptive challenges for businesses as they grappled with an increasingly complex environment. Now, managing uncertainty has become a key focus for marketers in 2022 with over a third of those surveyed (36%) saying it’s a priority within their business for next year, according to a report by digital agency iCrossing UK. The insight comes from the Marketers Priority Index which was created in conjunction with data from an online survey conducted by YouGov and considers the views of marketing decision makers in the UK and uncovers their priorities for the year ahead as well as the challenges faced.
Beagle Street, the direct to consumer life insurance brand, has appointed Medialab as its full-service media partner. Beagle Street is part of the BGL Group, one of the UK’s largest consumer insurance groups that also owns comparethemarket.com. Medialab will support Beagle Street’s life insurance sales growth objectives through integrated digital and offline channels as well as providing data insight through Apollo, their proprietary marketing intelligence platform. Following a competitive pitch process, facilitated and run by intermediary Slik, Medialab have taken over the account from incumbent Wavemaker. Medialab have an established expertise in the insurance and financial services sector, working with a number of organisations including ClearScore, Sunlife and Zopa.
Jargon PR, a small international PR agency, has today announced its appointment by Qualifio, the innovative Belgian technology scale-up. Jargon PR will work with Qualifio to raise the company profile and drive awareness of the business through a content-led PR campaign. The partnership will see Jargon PR raise the company profile of Qualifio across the international martech, business and technology media. The agency will drive brand awareness of Qualifio, positioning the business as the market leading audience insights SaaS specialist through a range of content and media relations. Jargon PR will communicate Qualifio’s key messages to its growing audience, to ultimately drive brand credibility.
Flash Pack, which connects solo travellers on boutique adventures around the world, has hired Words + Pixels to manage global B2C communications around the relaunch of the business and brand, exactly one year on from filing for administration. The brand, which began on a first date in 2012 and grew to £20 million revenue by 2019, was forced into administration in November 2020 as a result of the pandemic. One year on, the business is relaunching to deliver a fresh take on solo group adventures, targeted specifically at people in their 30s and 40s. The agency team, which has a broad range of B2C and B2B travel experience, will help re-engage the brand’s community of solo travellers and relaunch the business in both the UK and USA – working closely with New York based agency Pace PR.
