Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

NDA Agency News: Raptor PR, TMW Unlimited, Clarity and many more

Raptor PR, a b2b communications agency for video games, web3 gaming, and media brands, has announced three new business wins. These include Kinetix, a metaverse platform for user-generated 3D animation; Sandsoft, a MENA-based mobile games developer, publisher and investor powered by AAA games industry talent; and Bidstack Group PLC, the most well funded in-game advertising company in the world. For each of its new client wins, Raptor PR is engineering and deploying fully integrated global communications strategies, designed to cut through highly competitive markets. Across its brief history, Raptor PR has honed its data-driven communications consultancy, delivering highly creative earned, owned and paid campaigns across the globe.

Following an open tender, The Prince’s Trust has appointed integrated creative agency TMW Unlimited to be their Youth Marketing partner of record. TMW Unlimited is part of UNLIMITED Group. TMW Unlimited has been hired to support strategic consultancy across digital marketing activities, helping the trust to evaluate its current marketing and accelerate a more connected approach to youth recruitment. This will be followed by implementing creative campaigns that encourage disadvantaged young people to engage with The Prince’s Trust. Specifically, the work will focus on getting the target groups of young people to understand the value of what The Trust delivers: initiatives that help to build confidence and skills for work. The work will span across the full funnel, all channels, from influencers and content strategies to performance media buying and optimisation, with insights provided by the Human Understanding Lab. This will be the first time The Prince’s Trust has trusted a partner to support the entirety of its youth recruitment programme.

Email signature management leader, Exclaimer, has appointed Clarity, the global marketing communications agency, to lead its UK communications and content. Through sustained media relations, thought leadership, content strategy and creation, Clarity is tasked with establishing a strong voice for Exclaimer in the market and cementing its position as a leading solution of choice for marketers and IT teams. Exclaimer provides solutions that help clients to build customer relationships and maintain brand integrity, allowing email signatures to act as a new and valuable marketing channel.

Following a competitive pitch, ‘Rebel Fibre’ has appointed Leagas Delaney and The Kite Factory as its Creative and Media agencies respectively. Both agencies will now work with Rebel Fibre to plan, create and execute marketing activity. Founded and led by former BT senior executives, Tucker George and David Groth, Rebel Fibre launched in March 2022 as a challenger brand to the incumbent broadband providers (BT, Virgin, Sky, TalkTalk).

After a three-way competitive pitch process, Proximo EMEA APAC has appointed Creature London as its lead advertising agency on Proper Number Twelve. The partnership sees Creature tasked with defining and bringing to life a new brand platform for EMEA APAC as Proper No. Twelve establishes itself as a significant contender in the spirits category with the ambition to become the go-to spirit brand of choice for Gen Z and Millennial consumers. Creature will also be charged with the creation of the visual identity and brand world, all culminating in a global brand campaign in early 2023. Working with Proximo EMEA APAC Global Marketing Director Michael Cockram & Global Senior Brand Manager Mark Connaire, Creature’s creative ethos of ‘intelligent misbehaviour’ and strategic thinking are the perfect match for Proper No. Twelve’s bold international growth ambitions.

Borkowski has launched a new division dedicated to Metaverse, Web3 and Blockchain clients with an original experience on Roblox and a virtual office and events space in new metaverse pax.world. In Borkowski’s Roblox experience, a virtual Mark Borkowski gives a guided tour of some of the agency’s greatest publicity stunts and underlines the potential for such creativity to flourish in the metaverse. It was created by Outstanding Move, whose ‘Gucci Garden’ sold over $1M in virtual handbags and whose other projects include Gucci’s permanent Roblox world, as well as work for the likes of Hyundai and Crocs (an experience for which Borkowski also provided a voiceover). Borkowski is currently consulting on the launch of upcoming land-based metaverse pax.world, including acquiring a plot of land on the pax.world ‘island’ and building a virtual office and event space.

Improving and investing in customer experience (CX) will be the main priority for over a third (40%) of all UK marketing decision-makers in 2023, according to research released today by digital agency iCrossing. The study, conducted by YouGov for iCrossing, explores the attitudes and intentions of more than 1000 UK marketing decision makers towards digital transformation (DT) projects in 2023, and reveals that while a large proportion recognise the importance of investing in digital transformation as a key driver for business success, they are facing a number of barriers to achieving their goals.

Ozone, the UK high attention digital advertising platform, announces the launch of its pre-roll video capability with a debut campaign from the integrated creative, marketing and advertising agency, AKA. As part of Ozone’s broader Premium Only Video proposition, this new pre-roll capability builds on the outstream and outcomes-based opportunities already available across websites in the premium publisher alliance. The launch will add an additional activation layer for brands looking to run their advertising prior to publishers’ own video content. As an agency born out of culture and entertainment, this first campaign planned and bought by AKA will be for ABBA Voyage – the virtual concert residency by the Swedish pop group at a custom-built venue in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The campaign will run across Ozone sites nationally, over the next two months.

Chopped tomatoes are not just bulking agents. Olive oil is not a commodity to be idly tossed into a pan. And thinking the spaghetti is the support act to the Bolognese is pasta beyond a joke. As any Neapolitan would say, these ingredients make all the difference to a dish, if they are good, quality ingredients. And that’s exactly what Napolina ingredients are, so they have the right to be anything but humble. This is brought to life in Lucky Generals’ first work for the UK’s number one Italian cooking brand. The agency is bringing hyperbole and humour to the busy and serious category with a suite of OOH, DOOH, digital and social assets, all designed to bring to life the new platform “Not so humble ingredients” they developed for the brand. The campaign’s look and feel is inspired by the brand’s iconic packaging and features imagery of Napolina’s products shot in a beautiful and heroic style by Patrice de Villiers. Wavemaker UK’s role was to deliver a media plan that packed a punch and added a dash of pizazz to the creative.

Deliveroo customers will now see Sky Glass, the TV that is smarter than a smart TV, promoted on Deliveroo’s app as part of the roll out of its new advertising platform, Deliveroo Media and Ecommerce. Sky Glass is the first non-grocery partner to advertise on the Deliveroo order tracker page. The new advertising partnership means Sky Glass will be able to advertise to millions of highly engaged Deliveroo customers, who after placing an order check the order tracker page multiple times. Deliveroo launched their FMCG advertising platform earlier this year offering brands the ability to advertise to Deliveroo customers with relevant offers across its app, on Deliveroo’s website and as part of social media, email and push notification campaigns. The Sky Glass partnership will run for eight weeks with the second phase roll-out at the commencement of the World Cup. Customers that click on the ad in the Deliveroo platform will be directed to a Sky landing page dedicated to Sky Glass. 

O2, the UK’s largest mobile network, is launching its Christmas campaign ‘The Snowgran’ combining Christmas spirit with real action as it commits to gifting an additional one million GB of data to those in need this festive season. The integrated campaign will run for six weeks and comes as around¹ two million UK households are now at risk of digital exclusion. To help address this, The Snowgran campaign aims to raise further awareness of the National Databank, an initiative pioneered by Virgin Media O2 in partnership with Good Things Foundation to help tackle data poverty, and to get data into the hands of people who need it the most via bespoke O2 Christmas SIM Cards. O2 is also stepping up its support for people most affected by the cost-of-living crisis by piloting the National Databank at 10 O2 stores across the country, making it easier for those in need to access free data. O2 worked with UK agency of record VCCP London, content production studio Girl&Bear to bring ‘The Snowgran’ to life alongside VCCP’s Product and Service innovation company, Bernadette who created a campaign landing page.

To commemorate Remembrance, Ancestry, the global leader in family history, has launched an integrated campaign revealing untold personal experiences from the First and Second World Wars with acclaimed poet, Nikita Gill. The campaign, proposed by Ancestry’s UK PR agency Red Consultancy, is focused on the emotive poem titled, ‘Who You Are’, created by Nikita Gill and commissioned by Ancestry. The poem, inspired by the original ‘trench poets’ from the First World War, blends real-life stories discovered in the extensive collection of UK and Ireland wartime records found on Ancestry with tales recounted by Nikita’s own grandfathers who served in the Indian Army. Media planning and buying was handled by the7stars who will also be overseeing the 30” advert across TV and BVOD during the campaign. The advert will be featured across ITV, Channel 4 and Sky on TV, with BVOD including All4, ITV Hub and Sky, as well as YouTube. A radio advertising campaign will also run from 4th-14th November, running across stations including Absolute, Radio X and Heart. Ancestry will promote the Remembrance activity across their social channels, supported by 1000heads. This will include a Facebook Live event featuring Nikita Gill and Ancestry’s military family history expert Simon Pearce discussing the process of creating the poem and the importance of maintaining family history stories. This will be supported by additional social content featuring the video.

London-based ecommerce agency Vervaunt has announced a number of new client wins, as well as a swathe of new hires and a new affiliate department, as it completes a year of strong growth. New clients won in the last quarter include retail brands Finisterre, We Are Tala, Travis Perkins, Ganni, Timex and Strathberry. Ongoing work includes paid search and paid social. The agency has announced a number of new senior positions and a senior promotion across the team. Bethan Callely has been appointed as affiliates lead to head up the new affiliates department, while Paul Barrett has been appointed as business director and Liam Quinn has been promoted to technical director. The agency has also appointed several new account directors and junior account directors including Tom Hancock, Lauren Randell and Tom Wilson as part of their growth and expansion plans.