Raising the profile of Signalling Solutions

April 23, 2012 Leave a comment

Signalling Solutions Brand Campaign

In the build up to a period of significant investment in the UK’s rail infrastructure Signalling Solutions approached The Think Tank to raise the profile of the brand and support the marketing function of the business in a variety of ways.  

Signalling Solutions is a joint venture between leading energy and transport solutions company Alstom and Balfour Beatty, one of the world’s leading infrastructure businesses. It was formed to provide advanced signalling solutions to the rail sector in the UK, combining the technology of Alstom with the contracting expertise of Balfour Beatty. The company provides design, installation, testing, commissioning and product support for signalling, power and telecommunications applications. 

In answer to the brief, The Think Tank developed an eye-catching advertising campaign that promoted the three core products provided by Signalling Solutions. These combined abstract images that represented the core benefits of the products alongside a new brand style for current and future advertising.  

This campaign was also extended to a corporate advert which brought together the three core solutions to demonstrate the opportunities for integration that Signalling Solutions offers.  

An advertising schedule was planned by the client with ads appearing across the rail press in the build up to a series of tender opportunities. The goal was to position the Signalling Solutions brand at the forefront of the minds of specifiers and purchasers within the sector during this period, raising awareness whilst also communicating the brand ethos and values.   

Find out more about Signalling Solutions here.

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Developing a brand to Nurture growth

March 27, 2012 Leave a comment

The Think Tank was recently briefed to create, from conception, a new brand and identity for a recently incorporated property asset management company and the subsequent launch of the business in the North West area of the UK.

We worked with the client on a selection of brand names and identities until Nurture was chosen for this fledgling company, complementing their ethos of asset growth through effective management.

Through a coordinated campaign of advertising, PR, direct mail, telesales and social media we launched the business to landlords and tenants across the North West, delivering enquiry and new contracts and raising the profile of the brand. The campaign focussed upon Nurture’s Guaranteed Rent scheme and the offer of a Free Gas Safety Certification for new customers. Advertising and PR in the local property pages was supported by a direct mail campaign and telesales to local landlords. The brand profile was further raised through social media activity focussed upon Twitter and LinkedIn.

There has been a great response to the marketing so far and the campaign continues.

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The Kracken – Myth or Reality

March 25, 2012 Leave a comment

We recently found this great brand work for Kracken Rum by Brooklyn based agency ‘Dead As We Know It’.

The campaign launches what was apparently the world’s first spiced black rum. The agency developed the backstory of the Kraken’s true existence from a scientific point of view through a journal and a series of movies which brings the brand to life in a an interesting way.

There is a series of animated videos for the brand which you can find here. We have added Chapter 3 of the series below which we thought was great fun.

Well done on a very engaging launch campaign.

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New insight into the best online advertising formats

March 19, 2012 Leave a comment

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has recently completed an international piece of research into online advertising which highlighted that brands are benefiting from bigger online display formats.

The ‘Size Matters‘ study was carried out in the UK, the US, Europe, Australia and South America over a period of almost two years and collected data from 770 campaigns.

The results showed that billboard formats outperformed other online advertising including more recent display formats such as wallpaper and half page, as well as the more traditional ones, such as MPU, banner and skyscraper. Formats were analysed according to five criteria: aided brand awareness, online ad awareness, message association, brand favourability and purchase intent.

The Billboard format performed significantly better across some criteria, scoring three times better in terms of ad awareness and twice as better for brand favourability than wallpaper, the second best format of those measured.

The Wallpaper format offered the highest brand awareness against all other formats and was five times better than the average in terms of message association.

However, not to be left out, the Skyscraper format was the most successful in the purchase intent metric.

Tim Elkington, IAB director of research and strategy, commented, ‘The industry can only benefit from the new large display formats, as both brands and consumers seem to be excited by them. The findings from the Size Matters study highlight the advantages of formats like billboard and wallpaper.’

To find out more about online advertising you can find interesting insight on the IAB’s website however some of it is only available in full to members.

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Sensory marketing that grows on you

February 29, 2012 1 Comment

Last week TTT met CURB, the natural media company that helps brands create innovative and award winning media.

CURB uses attention-grabbing media such as chalk advertising or bespoke interactive productions where the individual acts as an instrument for creating the experience or message – pedal to charge your phone or dance to make the music louder!   CURB also uses natural media which they tailor to their clients’ briefs – to promote the movie Contagion they worked with a world renowned microbiologist to create an enormous Petri dish inoculated with mould, penicillin and Pantone-matched live bacteria. Over the span of a few days these grew into the movie title ‘Contagion’ (and yes, it went viral).

During the Multisensory Media demonstration TTT’s meeting room was filled with the scent of grass from the AC Milan’s San Siro football pitch. Unfortunately for CURB there were no football fans in the meeting to appreciate this particular experience; nevertheless we were amazed at how particular they can be with creating scents and sounds. We found out that specific scents can be used to change an emotion as well as perception of time and environments.

CURB has also developed a technique to package the scents in a way that is sustainable and fun. We enjoyed the experience of small customizable pouches that released a lovely scent with just one squeeze – some of the scents included the smell of chocolate truffles or red roses (a note to all men – do not use as a substitute for a gift).

CURB uses entirely natural or sustainable materials that are recycled after they’ve been used. If that is not possible, the materials are upcycled; for example a huge poster of Michael Jackson’s album next to Heathrow airport was made out of plastic that was later upcycled to mobile phone cases and various other goods.

To find out more about their fun and innovative approach to Out-Of-Home media, PR and experiential marketing, visit www.curbmedia.com

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Twitter launches Brand Pages

December 13, 2011 Leave a comment

Twitter has announced that it is launching ‘Brand Pages’ to meet the growing demand from advertisers to be able to promote their products more prominently than at present.

The pages have two key elements, both of which are free. Ad Age tells us ‘They can be customized with large header images that advertisers can use to display their logo and tagline more prominently than under the standard format, where branded elements of the page design are often partially covered by the time line of tweets. Brands can also choose to keep a particular tweet at the top of their time line, and that top tweet also auto-expands to reveal an embedded photo or video from Flickr, YouTube or other sources, without requiring the user to take action.’

Ad Age interviewed Twitter’s Chief Revenue Officer Adam Bain to find out more about their plans. The launch will initially include brand pages for 21 marketers including American Express, Best Buy, Bing, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Dell , Disney, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and McDonald’s who are all deemed strategic partners.

To read the full article please click here or to find out more about how to enhance your page click here.

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Can discounting serve to bring back consumer trust after a crisis?

November 22, 2011 Leave a comment

The Marketing Society Forum, published in Marketing Week and Campaign Live, has looked at the theme “Can discounting serve to bring back consumer trust after a crisis?”, referencing airline Qantas’s offer of free travel to passengers affected by its recent industrial dispute which grounded its entire fleet.  And that got the Think Tank’s PR team revisiting discussions about issue management.  

It’s a fascinating theme in that it runs right to the heart of brand experience and corporate reputation.  In terms of PR, how you handle an issue makes all the difference, and ultimately as one of the commentators in the Forum points out; “we all mess up sometimes… apologizing and accepting responsibility for [one’s] failings often diffuses the situation”.  

How you attract people back is another matter. Discounting or offering a free replacement of some sort is often the accepted short-term response to help ameliorate the immediate frustration that your customers have felt.  But the tone of that communication is also key, as is the way your employees/staff handle the situation.  If the whole process is felt to have been handled swiftly, in a straightforward and fair way, then most people will give you the benefit of the doubt.  

Ultimately though, as the Forum respondents agree, this activity also needs to be part of a broader series of responses too to re-establish trust in a brand and ultimately as part of more regular, strategic reputation and risk management planning that the Board or senior management need to undertake.

See the full article here

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A new media neutral idea for Glidden

September 29, 2011 Leave a comment

The Think Tank was invited, through a formal pitch process, to develop a new media neutral (MNI) idea for the Glidden Trade which would support the marketing and positioning of the brand over the next few years.
This MNI would be required to work across a wide range of marketing channels and collateral including advertising, point-of-sale, direct marketing, digital channels, social media and sales collateral.

See how we got on – click here

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Top Five Building Product Brands Chosen by Architects

May 18, 2011 Leave a comment

A new survey of UK architects lists Kingspan, Trespa, Velux, Schüco and Otis as the “strongest brands in building materials.”

In the Q1 2011 research from the European Architectural Barometer, which is a quarterly study of attitudes of 1200 architects across Europe, architects were asked which brands they perceived as “strongest” in building materials such as bricks, concrete, mortar, insulation, facade and cladding material, aluminium systems, construction floors and roofing material. The top five firms for the UK were Kingspan (with 40% of responses), Trespa (15%), VELUX (8%), Schüco (7%) and Otis (6%).  

Read more on Building Products

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Creating a profile for Permasense in the Oil and Gas Sector

May 11, 2011 Leave a comment

Permasense is an offshoot of Imperial College London that has developed a unique inhospitable wireless monitoring system to accurately measure the corrosion of pipes in Oil and Gas processing.  

The Think Tank created a range of marketing and presentation materials to launch the company, including web site, sales brochure, presentation tools and video. Working with BP we then promoted the technology and company through the use of PR to a global industry sector.  

This resulted in a successful launch and the trial of the system by many of the world’s leading Oil and Gas players. Interest in the product is significant and has led to the rapid growth of the company.  

See and read more here

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Refreshing the Capital Capture Brand

April 13, 2011 Leave a comment

The Think Tank was asked to review the Capital Capture brand image and propose a refresh of all collateral, both on and off-line, for this leading document management business. We carried out an audit of collateral and other marketing materials and proposed the redevelopment of these to reflect Capital Capture as the leading business in its field.
Read more here

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A tasty form of branding

May 25, 2010 Leave a comment

Massimo Gammacurta’s logo lollipops are brought together in a new book, a sickly sweet collection of corporate iconography rendered in brightly coloured sugar…
Gammacurta first distributed his special lollipops over the internet, as an art experiment, and they were picked up (licked up?) by numerous bloggers. Read More in Creative Review

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