Poster we’ve just done for the Tempest Sailing World Championships, this year held in the Netherlands. Ok, we know it’s subtle, but it looks nice…..

There’s been a lot of talk recently on the perils of Ad Creatives looking to YouTube for creative inspiration/solutions… ‘YouTube and Creative Suicide’. Which, admittedly is a weak link for us to show a gratuitous slice of television gold recently found on YouTube.
(Groom + Innuendo – Singleton = Classic)

LOVE’s all new global ad campaign for Umbro’s Stealth football boot launched over the weekend and is already causing a bit of a stir by posing a simple question:

‘ARE YOU FOX OR CHICKEN?’

The premise; quick, light and deadly, Stealth wearers become cunning predators on the pitch, allowing them to hunt down and obliterate the competition.

Media includes print, retail, digital, in-stadia, video and guerilla.

The print executions, shot by Tom van Schelven, feature a combination of predator and victim scenarios while the video, directed by LOVE’s own Mike Hughes, sees a more abstract on-pitch hunt play out. See below.

Here’s the press and retail executions:

And here’s some shots from a guerilla projection live from Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

Thank you to Jono Brain, of digital blah blah fame, for his ‘digital brrr brrr’ scarf which we received through the post last week. A great piece of seasonal self promotion, sure to get lots of wear this summer at LOVE.

I think a digital bah bah branded sheep might have been more attention grabbing, but probably not as easy to fit through the letter box. Maybe next year.

Here’s something we just stumbled upon in the retail press from a few months back. It’s some work we did for an old client of ours All About Food. We helped them launch Nando’s Crisps into the market sometime last year (or the year before) with a range of packaging designs and they’ve notched up 1 Million sales (it’s probably a few more by now). We’re not saying it was all down to our lovely packaging that has contributed to this but it’s always good to see something you’ve worked on become a success story. And we think creating a Nando’s range of crisps is such a wonderful idea…

We attended the wonderfully difficult to compartmentalise event, The Story, last week. It was excellent. Curated by Matt Locke, the aim of the day was to get back to what a lot of us in the ‘creative industries’ enjoy doing best… telling stories. Matt had rightly identified that “This is surely the most exciting time in history to be in the story-telling business. Yet most of the conferences and events for the creative industries focus on collapsing business models, the end of once certain monopolies and the perpetual nail-biting uncertainty of living during change. The sheer visceral pleasure of story-telling has been lost beneath the surface of our industry’s obsessions with technological change and economic uncertainty.” I couldn’t have put it better myself Matt.
Many a brief comes our way that asks for the technological bells and whistles of today’s marketing toolkit to be bolted on to campaigns in the interests of generating further reach and engagement, but Friday’s event served as a timely reminder that having a good story to tell and knowing how to tell it are the cornerstones of success.
We’d certainly advocate the use of all the tools in the modern marketer’s armoury to help fan the flames, but an insight into what makes your audience sit up and listen, and a skill in talking to them in a way that leaves them wanting to spend more time with you, will make them much more likely to pass on what you’ve got to say than all the ’share this’ buttons you can throw at ‘em.

Highlights for me included performance artist Tim Etchells,

The very entertaining – and moving - Tim Wright. His tales of correspondence with Harrison Ford’s office about a fictitious meeting, invented solely to wind up his business partner, were first class. (There’s absolutely no truth in the rumour he’s inspired us to do something similar to Dave P). Tim is also the guy who did that Kidmapped thing last year…retracing the route taken in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel for the digital age.

And finally, the avuncular David Hepworth, whose poignant story was a fitting climax to the day.

So, well done again Matt for a great event, right down to the newspaper of the day given to all attendees. There are plans to repeat the event next year, so if you get the chance, go.

Here’s a shufty at some of our packaging work for Umbro.
Designed in Manchester, sourced in China and manufactured in Turkey.

Apologies but we couldn’t resist….

But this is what happens when you pass on your old mobile phone to friends and relatives…. It happened to me when I gave my old mobile to my mother. She hasn’t spoken to me since.