Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

NDA Agency News: VCCP London, Wilderness, Studio Dumbar and many more

Nationwide Building Society is launching its latest campaign ‘The power of words’, which aims to tackle bullying in schools across the UK. The new TV film aims to raise awareness of its landmark three-year partnership with The Diana Award, and demonstrate how the partnership will introduce 10,000 Anti-Bullying Ambassadors to schools in the UK over the next three years. Devised by agency of record, VCCP London, ‘The power of words’ seeks to communicate the importance of mutual respect in society, with a focus on bullying in primary schools. The new film will debut on TV with a hero 60” spot during the Stand Up 2 Cancer Bake Off. The thought-provoking film is set in a primary school assembly hall and features school children as they enter and exit the main stage to discuss their own experiences of bullying.

Global social agency Wilderness has announced its appointment by European health and well-being platform, Atida. Wilderness has been appointed to lead on Atida’s social media optimisation as it prepares to launch the brand across a range of European countries later this year. Atida’s brand ethos focuses on demystifying conversations about health and well-being by putting consumers at the centre and starting open and frank conversations about health issues. With this in mind, Wilderness has been tasked with ensuring Atida’s consumer-facing social channels are fully optimised and working to a high standard. This will include conducting large-scale, deep-dive audits and pulling insights across the brand’s owned and partner platforms on social. Other responsibilities include prepping toolkits and sharing recommendations to improve social status and channel health, as well as developing guidelines and best practices for paid social. The agency will also deliver competitor/owned channel analysis to make sure Atida stands out from the crowd. By offering the agency’s social expertise and insight into audience behaviour, Wilderness will help Atida engage audiences in the best possible way. The strategic partnership will allow the brand to establish itself as the leading destination for people to research and buy health products, as well as a reliable source of direct insight from health and well-being professionals.

On Thursday 6 October 2022, Studio Dumbar (part of Dept) will launch the second edition of the Design in Motion Festival (DEMO), the largest motion design festival in the world and the largest open-air exhibition at the same time. For 24 hours, over 5,000 digital screens across the Netherlands will broadcast the best motion designs from across the world. Digital Out-of-Home operators Exterion Media, JCDecaux, CS Digital Media, RET, Hillenaar Outdoor, Schiphol Media, Ocean Outdoor, blowUP media, Clear Channel, Adtrackmedia and NS Stations are participating in this unique initiative, and have collectively agreed 24 hours of ad-free space for the festival. The best motion designs will be visible on thousands of digital screens at metro and train stations, shopping centers, Schiphol, Eindhoven Airport and Rotterdam The Hague Airport, on billboards along the highways, in car parks and in major cities. DEMO includes progressive motion design work from both established names in the industry, and up-and-coming talent. In April, an open call will be sent out internationally for submissions, and the best work will be selected by a team of curators chaired by Liza Enebeis, creative director of Studio Dumbar (part of Dept).

Revitive Circulation Booster has appointed Medialab as its media partner. Revitive is part of Actegy and it is the market leader in healthcare medical devices developed to relieve leg aches & pains due to poor circulation. Medialab will support Revitive’s sales growth ambitions through integrated TV and digital channels, as well as providing data insight through Apollo, their proprietary marketing intelligence platform. Following a competitive pitch process involving a number of agencies, run by intermediary Crosshairs Media, Medialab have taken over the account from incumbent UM Birmingham.

London & Partners, the business growth and destination agency for London, has appointed M&C Saatchi London as its lead global creative agency following a competitive pitch. M&C Saatchi will work with London & Partners, which runs Visit London, to develop and execute a global creative strategy to spearhead London’s recovery as a destination in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. With an initial focus on tourists from the US, France and Germany, the core target audience for the activity has the confidence and means to travel now, and is motivated by new, unique, diverse and memorable experiences. Tapping into pent-up demand, the new strategy will not just aim to put London at the top of traveller consideration lists, but also to attract additional international visitor spend in London. The campaign aims to boost visitor numbers back to 2019 levels, protecting tourism and hospitality jobs in London and supporting the wider recovery of UK tourism. The new creative strategy will build on the successful ‘Let’s Do London’ platform launched domestically in 2021, evolving the campaign to reach and influence new international audiences. The first activity to launch as part of the partnership will be a £7m dedicated international marketing campaign to drive international tourists to London, to go live in May 2022.

Dutch Barn Orchard Vodka, the first product from carbon neutral Ellers Farm Distillery, is launching into the UK this week with a multi-million-pound marketing push. Brand strategy, positioning and creative for the vodka have been developed by drinks marketing agency YesMore, with eight further agencies supporting and driving the launch, design, production, and media. YesMore is coordinating the overall marketing strategy and creative, launching the first campaign, ‘Wanderers Spirit’, which will go live next week in line with its first listing in a major supermarket. This launch campaign positions the vodka as a balanced choice for the environment by focusing on British adventurers, and carbon neutral and lower impact ways to travel. Content creators will shoot video and stills with the brand as they adventure, which will be cut into advertisements that will run across online advertising, paid social, programmatic, search and video on demand. Hatch is providing public relations around launch, and additional marketing support was provided by Orillo Films for video and stills production, Hedonist and Beetroot Box for photography, After Digital for ECRM, social media advertising, paid search and display video advertising via Unruly.

Burger King has launched a new OOH campaign inviting everyone to order with the Burger King app’s delivery feature. The new campaign aims at anyone with a smartphone or a tablet, being a tech savvy or not, just anyone who can’t stay away from the iconic Whopper sandwich to get it from the BK app delivery, with the tagline ‘Every home can be the Home of the Whopper!’. The campaign has been launched with agency Publicis Montréal.

Independent digital PR agency, Bottle, is excited to announce it’s new client, Pet Food UK, which consists of three brands: Barking Heads, Meowing Heads and AATU. The digital strategy for pet food brands Barking Heads and Meowing Heads combines PR, social media and influencers. The goal is to: build awareness amongst key audiences in earned and shared media; improve engagement on social; and increase the website’s authority, search visibility and organic traffic through high-quality link-building. The AATU brief is to increase engagement on social. To date, PR has worked well to drive awareness of the Barking Heads brand in particular; however, the marketing team recognised a more digitally focussed strategy was required to support the direct-to-consumer business objectives – and to build on this foundation with more focus on the other two brands, Meowing Heads and AATU. Bottle will create irresistibly linkable onsite content and findability stories targeted at URDs, to drive organic traffic and increase search visibility, while fame stories will be developed for high quality ‘golden’ media targets. The agency will also create content for Barking Heads, Meowing Heads and AATU social media, manage the channels, and lead on an influencer programme, to improve engagement.

WONGDOODY, the human experience company powered by Infosys, has bolstered its creative and CX capabilities with the addition of digital experience and marketing agency oddity, which has been acquired by Infosys. Joining WONGDOODY’s global network, oddity will bring end-to-end design capabilities, enabling WONGDOODY to satisfy increasing client demand across Europe. oddity will become part of WONGDOODY, joining its network of studios across London, Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Melbourne, and design hubs in five cities in India, and bolstering its presence across Europe and in Asia.This is a significant move that enables WONGDOODY to meet increasing client demand and expand its network across Europe.

Broadcast data company 7th Minute is inviting brands, agencies and broadcasters to trial the free preview of its TV insights platform 7M Discovery to experience first-hand the benefits that TV data insights offer their business. The new 7M Discovery is an evolving rich insights platform that uses content recognition technology to identify and analyse every word spoken on TV. The result is an extensive TV content database that users can search for any mention of relevant terms – such as brands, products and competitors; with knowledge of exactly when and where these terms occurred they can analyse what TV material influences activity away from the broadcast screen. 7M Discovery is the only tool that provides details of TV mentions in an easy-to-read, visual format. The 7M Discovery preview is free to use and does not require registration. Early adopters can search for a wide variety of brands, and compare two at a time, to see when and where they appeared on TV over the past 30 days. Results are presented in a simple graph format. The demonstration tool has been designed to illustrate the granularity of the broadcaster data that is available across TV broadcasters, and shows the power of the insights it offers. 7M Discovery is scheduled to launch in full during the second quarter of 2022.

Neo PR, a business-to-business (B2B) technology public relations (PR) agency, announced it has been appointed as UK PR agency for Cloudapps, the provider of Artificial Intelligence (AI) sales effectiveness and accuracy technology in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) sector. Headquartered in Oxford, United Kingdom, the Cloudapps ‘Sales Effectiveness & Accuracy Platform’ is the first and currently only AI platform to integrate advanced deep-learning and time-sequenced data with CRM. This solution provides highly accurate sales forecasting, deep insights into deal health, guided selling, gamification, and data-driven sales coaching for some of the world’s most successful companies, including SUSE, Vodafone, and LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Cloudapps recognised that traditional marketing wasn’t working to its full potential and investigated incorporating PR into the marketing mix, with the help of Neo PR. With this partnership, Cloudapps will grow its footprint in the United Kingdom through thought leadership to create brand awareness and drive inbound sales activity. Furthermore, to support the campaign, Neo PR has enabled Cloudapps to utilise its social media channels, producing a range of content to engage key prospects and stakeholders, have an authoritative voice on key issues and maximise the reach of media coverage. Additionally, Spinks Creative, a boutique marketing agency based in Milton Keynes and long-standing partner of Neo PR, will work with Cloudapps to develop a multi-platform marketing strategy, employing web design, SEO, proactive email campaigning and graphic design to ensure success. Utilising both Neo PR and Spinks Creative, Cloudapps has effectively created an outsourced marketing team delivering brand awareness and sales traction.