Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

NDA Agency News: M&C Saatchi London, Armadillo, Impero and many more

NHS England has announced that it has retained M&C Saatchi London as the lead strategic and creative agency for its ‘Help Us, Help You’ communications strategy, following a competitive pitch against other agencies on the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) roster. The ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaign, one of NHS England’s two main overarching campaign brands, is designed to save lives by changing the way people access its services, driving effective use of the NHS and encouraging people to get help in the right place and at the right time. M&C Saatchi London will now continue to partner with NHS England to develop all ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaign activity. The initiative is delivered through a number of different phases aimed at different audiences and with separate aims and objectives. The next activity to launch as part of the engagement will be a multichannel campaign to support the NHS 111 service.

Disney is sending its first interactive wordsearch email in celebration of Encanto. Armadillo, the Bristol-based CRM agency, created the in-email wordsearch. Previous interactive email examples from Armadillo and Disney include quizzes, games, and unique carousels – wordsearches never seen in Disney emails before now. With the knowledge that fans of Encanto enjoy taking part in quizzes, polls and other ways to show they know the film inside out, users are asked if they have a ‘gift for wordsearches’ and upon completion of the word search, are warmly welcomed into the magical family Madrigal. Armadillo achieved interactivity in email using pure HTML and CSS. Inputs, labels and animation are the key elements to making this work. Armadillo is able to track the engagement by using tracking pixels that get activated when a letter is selected, and when all correct words have been found.

Carolina Herrera supported by creative agency Impero, have announced the launch of the brand’s new female empowerment initiatives: a podcast, and a career coaching collective. In line with the Carolina Herrera’s spirit and philosophy of female empowerment, Carolina Herrera’s Walk Tall initiative aims to enable a new generation of women to reach their full potential in the workplace and give them the confidence to pursue success on their own terms. Impero was tasked with identifying how to effectively interact with women’s issues, going beyond symbolic campaigns with no relevancy to the experience of real women and girls today. Using Carolina Herrera’s compelling story around female empowerment, Impero and the brand targeted ‘Go-Getters’ as a key audience that embodies the key aspirational values and attitudes of the Good Girl brand and decided on career autonomy as a cultural theme to engage this group. Talent and culture agency, Attachment were tasked with sourcing talent that could speak authentically to the identified “Go Getter” audience that gave practical advice and lessons from their own successful careers across the world of sport, fashion and wellness all of which were central to the talent led “Walk Tall” idea. The Walk Tall Podcast, is a 5-part career podcast, hosted by bestselling author and content creator, Toni Tone, with guest speakers including Olympic hero Katarina Johnson-Thompson and wellness legend Poppy Jamie. It will share tips, tools, and takeaways for defining success on your own terms and help you find the confidence to ‘Walk Tall’. The Carolina Herrera Career Collective, created in partnership with She Almighty, is a 12-month London-based coaching platform designed to kick-start the careers of ten women at the beginning of their journey. The programme will support them with improving confidence, finding the right path and creating a community of like-minded women along the way.

With connected TV (CTV) audiences continuing to grow, Clarins has launched a new campaign for its iconic Double Serum skincare range, leveraging CTV to broaden reach. The new campaign sees the brand explore a number of new formats and targeting approaches to celebrate the iconic status of Double Serum and cement its position as the UK’s leading premium anti-aging serum. Running across BVOD, digital display, search and social, as well as traditional print, this latest campaign for Clarins is handled by media agency Spark Foundry, part of Publicis Media, and the first for the brand to be delivered via ‘PMX Lift’. Launched earlier this year, ‘PMX Lift’ combines the scale and expertise of Publicis Media with Epsilon’s data and tech to offer cross-channel video planning, activation and measurement for brands. The campaign creative has been developed by Leap.

Fluid Commerce has announced a new partnership with Akoova. Akoova provides K-Hosting, a fully-tailored and automated cloud platform for Magento hosting of supreme ecommerce brands. Their highly scalable and fully automated K-Hosting platform, built on AWS, closes the gap between clients and developers via collaborative problem-solving and knowledge sharing. Fluid has already started working with Akoova on a number of mutual clients in the Fashion & Apparel, Home & Garden and Business & Industrial sectors so we can only expect this partnership to accelerate and enhance how Fluid Commerce uses Magento in the future. 

Digitas has announced it has been named Global Digital Innovation agency for Crocs, Inc., a leader in innovative casual footwear. Digitas UK will lead on the account in Europe, with key markets being the UK and Germany. With a deep understanding of Crocs’ innovation goals, Digitas will leverage its media-fuelled creativity to supercharge the brand with never-before-seen approaches. In its new role, Digitas will also use its advanced data and tech connectivity to move at the speed of culture, supporting the Crocs community globally —with local nuances — across the U.S., APAC, and EMEA. The partnership will include work across global brand media, creative, and analytics.

Integrated, independent agency CreativeRace has been named as the lead creative agency for Northern Trains, following a highly competitive tender. Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with nearly 2,000 services a day and more than 500 stations across the north of England. CreativeRace’s focus will be on conceptualising and delivering effective creative campaigns, underpinned by insight-led strategy. The first such campaign is a refresh of its commuter proposition and an integrated campaign to make a compelling, data-driven case for getting to work by train versus the car. The partnership is a huge win for CreativeRace, whose strategy and creative teams will be working together to help achieve Northern’s commercial and brand objectives.   

Clarity Global, the global marketing communications agency, has announced a long-term partnership with LGBTQ+ charity Opening Doors. The agency is working with Opening Doors on a pro bono basis to raise the organisation’s profile and boost awareness of the important services they offer to the over 50s. Opening Doors is the largest UK charity providing services and activities specifically for LGBTQ+ people over 50, a significantly marginalised group that is often overlooked in society and the  media. With over 2230 members, Opening Doors is dedicated to reflecting the identities and self-descriptions of the communities it serves, recognising the history of these communities in order to be fully inclusive. Following global Pride month, Clarity began working with Opening Doors as part of its commitment to provide long-term impactful support to the LGBTQ+ community year-round.

Jargon PR, a small international PR agency, has announced its appointment by Pollen, the platform powering returns pickups. Jargon PR will work with Pollen in a PR campaign that aims to significantly grow the brand’s company profile in key industry press, positioning Pollen as the market-leading package returns service. Jargon PR is set to partner with Pollen in a PR campaign to support the early stages of the brand’s global expansion by targeting key retail, fashion, business and telecoms media internationally. The agency will deliver high-quality content to drive brand awareness for Pollen, showcasing its unique API integration and benefit to gig economy workers. In addition, the campaign will highlight the brand’s strategic relationships with Fedex/UPS to earn credibility and goodwill.