Our Logbook » Archive

We are chuffed to bits with today’s piece in the Telegraph. Check out the full article online here.

Introducing Betty, Earl and Joyce the brains behind Wonga.com!

The campaign launched on Saturday 9^th June and features the elderly trio (known as the Wongies) who demonstrate the ease of using Wonga.com.

The campaign shows that Wonga.com offers a simple and straight-forward  application process, which has an upfront and transparent approach to costs and gives its customers complete flexibility and control – including being able to pay back early.

We are really excited to be working with Wonga.com as they are an innovative company that is offering a fresh alternative to the world of credit and lending.

The second in the series features the trio demonstrating the ease of using the online ’sliders’ to choose how much you wish to borrow and for how long. Go Earl!

Albion’s superhero team of 6 have left the agency and begun their three peaks journey, which will see them climb three of the tallest mountains in Britain in under 24 hours. I would like to say that this is after months of gruelling, dedicated training but for the most part, this is totally untrue. But that’s why this makes this expedition more of a feat than most.

Apart from a couple of half-hearted lunchtimes spent ‘stair running’ (one of which was about two months ago), the only training Andrew and Jack had put in was walking to “the big Tesco’s” for their lunch. And since Nick only realised yesterday that the day of reckoning had quietly crept up, I’m fairly sure he hadn’t been nailing the cross-trainer anytime lately either.

It’s not just their day jobs that have been getting in the way of training, though. Each hiker has been gathering an enormous, and ever-growing, list of equipment. A list of equipment that would put any sane minded folk off. Blister plasters, hydration salts, painkillers, head torches (yes, they’ll be climbing in the dark, too), waterproofs, spare waterproofs, spare spare waterproofs…the list is probably getting longer as I type.

So, needless to say, everyone here is extremely impressed. Especially for giving up their spare time, on a weekend, for an exceptionally worthy cause. Jason, Nick, Rowan, Amy, Andrew and Jack will deservedly wear their Albion super capes as they conquer each summit and we look forward to giving them a hero’s welcome when they return, however battered and bruised that may be.

You can watch their progress on the Feeling Peaky blog and if you fancy supporting with a bit of cash (it’s for a great cause) then check out our Just Giving page.

Anthony Nolan is a pioneering charity that saves the lives of people with blood cancer such as leukaemia or lymphoma. Every day, they use our stem cell register to match remarkable donors willing to donate their blood stem cells to people they have never met, who desperately need lifesaving transplants.

They currently have over 400,000 potential donors signed up and this helps to find matches for two people in need of a transplant every day.  Sadly though, this only accounts for half of the requests they receive from patients.

Albion was tasked to produce a short film to bring their brand into life and raise awareness of who they are – Who to better tell the real story then the real patients, donors, fundraisers and staff of Anthony Nolan? We’re extremely pleased with the results, and very honoured to share the brand film here. You can hear their story in this 4 minute short film and learn how you can get involved in helping the cause:

And amazingly, Anthony Nolan is the 10K London Run Official Race Charity of the Year, which is happening on 10^th of July. There are 9 of us from Albion running to help raise money for Anthony Nolan. Not all of us are the fittest of people, but we’re giving it a go anyway!

It takes £100 for Anthony Nolan to register one person to the bone marrow register (with all the testing and sampling), so our aim is to raise this amount each.

So please show your support by sponsoring us here www.justgiving.com/albionathletic, and wish Rowan, Amy, Ed, Romney, Simon, Mike, James, Nick and myself (Nes) a good luck! We’ll keep you posted on how well we’ve done and who has made it.

On a Friday, we like to down tools and celebrate the week’s achievements with a nice (bucket full of) beer….and boy did we have a good week!

We went along to The Marketing Society Excellence Awards and are very pleased to inform you that not one, but two of our clients picked up awards!

giffgaff picked up ‘Best New Brand’ while Absolute Radio picked up an award for ‘Mobile Marketing’.

See below for a few pictures of the champagne and cake extravaganza! (And it wasn’t just any old cake…it was a giffgaff, Absolute Radio and Albion branded cake.)

Two teams of determined Albionites are taking on two challenges to help raise money for our client Anthony Nolan.

Anthony Nolan currently run the UK’s largest and most successful stem cell register. They use it to save lives by matching donors to people who desperately need a lifesaving stem cell transplants. Often, a transplant is the last hope for a person suffering from blood cancer.

Please take 2 minute to watch this video

Team One – Albion Athletic who are taking part in the Asics British 10k run on the 10th July 2011

To donate simply click

Team two – we have 6 brave Albionites who are taking on not one, not two, but three mountains to help raise awareness for Anthony Nolan.

To donate simply click

We are very proud of everyone who is taking part and we wish them the best of luck!

Here at Albion HQ, we are extremely pleased to announce not one, but two wins at the annual Marketing Society Awards!

giffgaff picked up the award for ‘New Brand’ with Absolute Radio following closely behind with a win for ‘Mobile Marketing’.

A huge congratulations goes out to both of our clients and to the teams involved in making this possible….We’d like to thank our Mum’s and Dad’s…..

This year at Albion, winning pitches won’t be confined to the boardrooms.

Introducing Albion Athletic; a crack squad of finely-honed pitching, batting and fielding superstars, focused on taking the London Advertising Softball League by storm.

We’ve had a few practises and are shaping up to be a formidable force in Division Five. Laura “Geordie Girl” Muse is a calm and collected Pitcher; a vital role in any successful team, Simon “White Sox” McMahon’s mitt seems to be glue to any incoming fly-ball, Romney “Yoga Bunny” Taylor is a solid batter and outfielder, Matt “Geordie Boy” Hull seems to pluck the ball from the sky and Aaron “Hinchmuffin” Hinchion smacks balls out of the park.

Our first match is against Pearlfinders on Thursday 12 May and we hope to garner your support for this, and indeed the rest of the season.

Keep your eyes peeled for the subsequent match report!

Amy Larkin

Captain

Albion Athletic

giffgaff don’t sell handsets so members have to re-use handsets or buy new ones that are locked to their “original” network. To highlight that unlocking your mobile phone is not illegal, we created the giffgaff Illegal Theater. This showcases Youtube delights of ridiculous, fantastic and mostly idiotic illegal goings-on, presented by a giffgaffer with a cardboard box on his head (we can’t reveal his identity, we saw what happened with The Stig).

We believe that it’s the first use of side-by-side Youtube clips created to tell a single story. The timing of the performances was obviously key. As well as getting the performances to synch, each clip had to be exactly the same length as the original so they could be toggled together by the user. We hope the giffgaff Illegal Theater encourages people to fight the tyranny of big mobile tie ins.

Here are some interesting unlocking tidbits.

There are around 25 million people in the UK who own a locked handset – which means they can’t necessarily move easily to another provider to get a better deal.

The average charge by the big networks to unlock a phone is £17 – meaning that UK consumers would have to pay a staggering £430 million to free their phones.

28% of people think that unlocking their mobile is illegal, which it isn’t, and two thirds of them think that networks should be compelled to provide unlocking information at point of sale.

There is also an Unlockapedia on the giffgaff site – the free guide on how to unlock any mobile phone. The Unlockapedia code for the site was written by one of the members and all members write the reviews and score the providers so it’s completely unbiased.

The giffgaff Illegal Theater was directed by Ben Wilson at Mind’s Eye Media. Thanks Ben.

Today saw our first Digital Shoreditch event take place….The Albion Society!

We had a fantastic morning with a great turn out, so thanks to everyone who came along. We kicked off with Mads Holmen (Planning Director from goviral) followed by a very energetic presentation from Gustav Von Sydow (CEO of Burt) and last but by no means least our very own Glyn Britton (Managing Partner at Albion)

For those of you who couldn’t make it, we have ever so nicely filmed the event for you. Keep your eyes peeled, as it will be hitting the net in the next 24 hours!

Until next time…..

Follow The Albion Society on Twitter