Well, it’s that time of year again… That some of us dread, and some of us welcome with open arms… It means we are a little older and, hopefully, a little wiser.

IT’S JAMES’ BIRTHDAY.

Now he may tell you that he is only 27… And he still may have those boyish good looks that so often belong in Hollywood. But no… Wrinkle cream DOES perform wonders… So let’s put our hands together and a hip hip hooray for James’ 37th B’day.

Have a good one… No have a double one… As it’s also his Wedding Anniversary. Yep he got married on his birthday so he would always remember his wedding anniversary, and therefore stay forever in his wife’s good books. The relality… He forgets both…

So, congrats James and Maria. Have a fun weekend… Whatever you may be up to…

The reason for this post was to help shine a light through the marketing fug of buzzwords and industry mumbo jumbo surrounding brand. We’ve recently joined our local Chamber of Commerce and I wanted to make it more relevant, more accessible to a market that assumes it to be the domain of only the larger corporations, or quite often hears it as some kind of generic background whine generated by design agency sales spiel.

Quite bizarrely, as I sat down to write this, I received a very nice email from Andy Barrington, Group Head at Saatchi & Saatchi. He loved the idea behind our company and the sentiment of our website, and wondered if we’d encountered the Lovemarks work of Kevin Roberts (worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi). It’s basically a theory behind what happens when Brand takes the next step up the evolutionary ladder, when it evolves into something more intimate… More all consuming…

However tempting as that sounds, I won’t get side tracked with it in this post, as I’d really like to cover it more fully another time. But it was worth noting in as much as many of the values, purpose and reasoning that We Love assign to brand cross over very nicely with the ideology behind Lovemarks. And no this probably isn’t a coincidence. The concept of Lovemarks has been developing for a few years now and has no doubt pervaded the consciousness of most design and marketing professionals at some level or another. Apparently in my case, subconsciously ; )

Ok, so what is Brand?

For starters it’s not your logo. It’s not your nice blue colour scheme. And it’s not even your brochures, website and spanky new business cards. At it’s base level, brand is what your market believes you represent. From your values to your dreams. In it’s simplest form brand is the promise you make to your market. The expectation you create within their mind…

It’s then up to you to deliver this promise through all relevant channels and customer touchpoints – from your pricepoints, your telephone manner, your brochures, website and sales team; from the sign above your shop to the wallpaper you have in your office, all the way though to your supply chain, your R&D, how efficient you are, the quality of your work and service levels you provide.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tasked with moving the focus of Carewatch Bromley’s business from the public to the private sector, we reviewed all current communications and put together a multi-channel strategy for the coming year.

Taking into account environmental and social factors the strategy includes a range of media – from broad to highly targeted – including non-traditional channels such as elevator doors, taxi seats and branded mugs in local cafes! All the way through to the more traditional bus backs, 96 sheet posters and local press. Oh, and don’t forget the mainstay of any good campaign – their web presence, now live at www.carewatchbromley.co.uk

The real challenge was in changing the publics perception of a brand fixed firmly within a prescriptive, task oriented sector. A much more positive, outcome based solution was required. One where an end product of independence, health and enablement takes priority over the shopping list mentality of services provided.

The answer – an emotive offering that distinguishes itself from the competition by its supportive and human approach. Tone of voice and graphical language were key. Large, positive images dominate the main media space and by using a palette that was warm and expansive (whilst still tipping it’s cap to the brand’s core elements), we added depth and scope, not just to their online but to the future use of an array of channels. Behavioural habits and cognitive load were obviously taken into account for the website, and along with a healthy focus on SEO, these were combined with a confident tone, grounded in sensitivity, respect and independence.

We’ll keep you posted on how the campaign develops – looking forward to getting those BIG graphics out there ; )

Previous Homepage

Oh so true… click on the image to see your true calling…

Coffeeeeee!! Please… I need coffee… It’s been a long (but productive) week. A number of potential new clients about to come on board, new staff looming on the horizon… And finally we my have found an office with the right ambience and character necessary for our creative genius to flourish within

And yes, I need coffee. More coffee! Desperately. But not if it’s been passed through the digestive system of an Indonesian tree dwelling monkey that looks like a cat.

I went to a lovely rare breeds center the other day, with wife and demon toddler in tow. Rather than being satisfied with your usual line of meretricious gift shop nonsense, they’d indulged in a rather more… diverse approach. The highlight of which was Kopi Luwak.

Apparently, the palm civet (or freaky cat monkey thing as we wittily named it) just happens to like ingesting the ripest and reddest coffee beans, which also happen to be the best ones for brewing. It eats the outer covering of the beans in the same way that is accomplished by de-pulping machines. Something happens to the beans in the journey through the cat’s intestines that gives it a flavour that is celebrated by coffee drinkers the world over. Apparently.

Needless to say I remortgaged my house, bought a miniscule packet of Kopi Luwak and spent the next week drinking…

wait for it…

Crappuccino.

Hahahahahhahahahaha. Genius. But sadly true. And slightly musty.

A month ago that Google announced it had enhanced its robot’s crawling to index the text embedded within Flash movies (with the help of Adobe). At the time there was cheering, whooping and it even made the BBC website – which made it pure fact.

As the dust settled however, gaps started appearing in the official press release. The announcement was incredibly vague – the basic gist was that something had been changed to make this happen. Developers, it seemed, had to work out what had changed themselves. And it turns out this is exactly the way it was meant to happen. Two main points were particularly mind-boggling, leaving many questions unanswered:

“…if your web page loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google may not be aware of that Flash file, in which case it will not be indexed.”

Due to Internet Explorer activation action, all websites must use JavaScript to embed their content. Does this mean that they will not be indexed? What would be the point of indexing flash if you can’t view any of them?

“We currently do not attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files…[if your movie] loads an HTML file, an XML file, another SWF file, etc., Google will separately index that resource”

Any self-respecting Flash Developer will be loading their text content dynamically. Again this will make the indexing completely useless for most well developed websites – but if the XML content is indexed separately Google will lead the user to the XML content instead! Beautiful.

Thankfully Google responded in the comments of the original post (why not a new post to clear things up?) and we now know that the external content linking and javascript flash embedding problems are being fixed – but it looks like there’s still going to be a long wait for true indexing of flash content.

A ridiculously talented designer, a pixel perfect master who just loves the digital domain. You have amazing design sensitivities and can put them into practice through extensive software knowledge.

Someone who is mature enough to understand a brief, can take direction as well as contribute and show initiative. Minimum of 3 Years with a degree or equivalent in graphics.

Open to learn and grow. Become someone within this industry of ours. Big personality without an ego but with an all in attitude.

CV’s and Folio site to:

work@welove72.com

We Love’s first electronic newsletter (aka: Love Letter) landed in an inbox near you in the last couple of days. And what a success it has been. We have had an open rate of Unique Open Rate of 47%, with an astonishing 45.69% Unique Click Through rate.

I haven’t seen figures like that since I used to Design and Art Direct Sony eDM whilst at MediaCatalyst, and then we ‘only’ achieved a max of 34% click through rate (amazing success) when we PRed the relaunch of the Sony Walkman MP3 player – and that was supported with major media buying!!

If you want to sign up to our newsletter and keep up-to-date with our latest news and views then fill in the form below, or the one on our homepage.

So, we did it… With wit and charm… And we can do it for you… Contact us if you want us to inject a little magic into your company’s communication- be it print or online.