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Our launch campaign for Absolute Radio breaks today.

The brief was to demonstrate their ‘discover real music’ proposition, in a way that stands out enough to instantly establish the new brand in the public’s mind. We also wanted to let people see behind the scenes at Absolute, continuing the ‘open rebranding’ strategy we developed for them.

So we’ve created a campaign that’s more like mini-series than conventional advertising. It centres around Doug, the fictional security guard at One Golden Square, and the self-appointed guardian of real music.

Doug is played by Jordan Prentice, who last week picked up a Loaded Lafta for the brilliant dark comedy In Bruge, in which he stars with Colin Farrell.

We worked in a really collaborative and agile way with production company Hungryman, director Stephen Pearson, and Jordan. Instead of setting out to film just a set number of highly scripted spots, we instead filmed as much as possible while the actors improvised around some pre-planned scenarios. We have also been filming extra online stuff with Bonney & Klein to capture even more content.

This means that we’ve got a load of content. The Guardian say there are “9 ads”, but there’s more. In fact we’re still shooting today and tomorrow. All this will be released onto the YouTube Channel in stages.

We hope the ads shown on TV are funny enough that people will want to go online to see them again. And when they do they’ll be rewarded with alternative versions, and extra content that deepens the characters. Real fans should have a good search around online; there are some hidden surprises out there.

You can see the media schedule for the first weekend here.

Thanks to Steve and Nick who created the idea, and Petrina, Simon, Sarah and Kevin who made it happen.

From today’s Metro

This week our new work for Air New Zealand breaks online, outdoor and in print. We think we have captured the Kiwi spirit that sets them apart in the airline industry. What really struck us was the huge support we received from not only the marketing team, but people across the business that are still smiling and hugely enthusiastic despite trying times.

One of these people is  B747 Captain, Peter Clulow. He’s flown for Air New Zealand for 35 years. When we went looking for someone to hand paint a headline on the largest portrait poster (12.22m wide x 20m high) in London, he was in. However once he arrived from New Zealand and saw the site he had to admit that he though it was ‘not that big’. Peter is spending Tuesday and Wednesday (7th & 8th October) on  the end of a rope with a paintbrush and a can of green paint demonstrating a bit of Kiwi can do.

Thanks Peter. Rather more elegant than Jason, Nick or Keith on the end of a rope.

Camille was our 8th full time Albionite, joining as a fresh-faced graduate from St.Martins. She brought a box of tricks and a sharp wit and also made tea that was acceptable for a Frenchy. Camille worked as a designer across all of our clients and could bring a sparkle to just about anything with her illustrative flair. We also liked the way she could put down anyone and get away with it; her parting email “Oh and if we’re not friends on The Book yet, let’s sort it out. Jason, I’ll accept your request this time.” Nice.

As part of Goodbye Camille Week we did a bunch of things including a little party with way too many artificial colors and flavorings. The piñata was also a hit when she eventually hit it.

Good luck Camille. Enjoy your travels. We will miss you greatly.

You can see Camille’s work here. She is available for freelance assignments of the illustrative or design variety. Expensive, but you’re worth it.

Seedcamp is an organisation founded by Albion non-exec Saul Klein (and with a visual identity by Albion) that aims to foster and nourish young entrepreneurs across Europe. It runs the annual Seedcamp Week – kind of a Investment Idol for startups – where young companies compete to win funding.

Seedcamp first ran in 2007, and the idea has really gained momentum since then, with loads of coverage. You can read all about the week on the Seedcamp blog.

Once again our very own Jason Goodman was a mentor, alongside people like Brent Hoberman of lastminute.com / MyDeco and Vartin Varsavsky of FON.

He says “it was a very enlightening experience. The enthusiasm of businesses starting up in a very tough economic climate, but also the openness and benevolence of the experienced entrepreneurs giving their time and advice freely to help other businesses start up. Maybe it’s been happening in Silicon Valley for years, but it feels like something genuinely new and exciting for Europe. Our own industry could learn a lot from this way of behaving…”

You can see Jason in action in this video (1′11″ in, if you want to skip straight to the hot action):

Seedcamp Day 3 Highlights from Seedcamp on Vimeo.

Sorry, last post on Absolute today, I promise. But I’ve just seen something amazing.

Zippy is one of Virgin Radio / Absolute’s loyal listeners and an active contributor on their forums. He came along to one of our research groups at the start of the process.

This morning he interviewed Absolute boss (and our client) Clive, and now they’ve published the whole things on their website as a stream, podcast and photoset.

We had nothing to do with this, but I think it’s genius. THIS is how you do a rebranding – open, transparent, conversational, and as honestly as possible.

Also, they’ve already got over 16 pages of SMS feedback from listeners, which we’re pouring over, and already acting on. Modern radio is an amazing business. A real-time conversation with millions of listeners participants. Remember that from a few years ago?

Some links to the coverage of Absolute Radio:

• BBC News: ‘Virgin Radio to become Absolute’
• MediaGuardian’s ‘The end of Virgin Radio? Absolute-ly.’
• Brand Republic’s ‘Virgin Radio rebrands as Absolute Radio’
• Digital Spy forum
• One Golden Square blog

What’s amazing is how intelligent and balanced the discussion in the comments is on each of these… apart from the ‘marketing professionals’ commenting under the Brand Republic article. Hmm.

Sorry for not posting for a while. We’ve had our heads down, working on rebranding Virgin Radio.

We had to do the whole thing in 60 days, because they have to hand the Virgin brand back 90 days after buying the company. If you’ve ever worked on a rebranding, you know that’s pretty aggressive. There’s a lot to do.

The new name was announced to VIPs (registered website users) by email and SMS yesterday, and on-air this morning by Christian O’Connell.

And the new name is Absolute.

Image used under Creative Commons license from James Cridland.

Some people have commented that the “sandal-wearing marketing folk” have really pulled off a trick this time, as the new brand name was also the name of the new management team’s consultancy Absolute Radio International Ltd.

Well, the story is that we did come up with some cracking names (IMHO), but whenever we were talking about what the new brand should stand for, our clients always kept underlining one name in particular on their pads. The one that was already printed at the top!

So Absolute met one of the most important criteria for a new brand name – that the people who work for the company like it and feel that it signals their ambition. It also met another criteria for the new owners – that it was available as a domain and trademark internationally. Plus, as James points out, it will appear first in the list of stations on DAB radios, and DAB is the future.

So what exactly have we been doing then?

• Creating their ‘open way of doing business’ strategy, including building and maintaining their staff blog onegoldensquare.com.
• Defining the new brand platform and endline – ‘discover real music’.
• Designing the new brand identity.
• Working with them on the ‘crossfade’ launch strategy. (You’ll notice on air that the station is now being referred to as “Virgin Radio, soon to be Absolute” Keep listening and see how that evolves…)
• Writing and designing a newspaper-style ‘brand book’ for the trade (advertisers, media agencies, commentators).
• Working with their online team on the new website design (to be launched soon).
• Developing an integrated launch campaign for later in the year.

Phew. After a pause for a quick glass of Champagne it’s straight back to work. There are only 30 days until Mr Branson wants his brand back and there’s still a lot to do.

…or at least that’s what the crew keep singing at the 8-woman all female team from Albion and Remington.
Our first shoot for Remington kicked off this morning at Shepperton. A snapshot of a day in the life of a busy city girl with beautiful glossy hair.

Aimee and Liz, the creative team and Petrina, the producer are pictured here with our favourite prop. Sadly as it’s 12 feet tall it doesn’t fit any of us.

Liz.

Over the last 10 days the Albion Air New Zealand team have met people across the business from the deputy CEO to operations, PR and local marketing teams. And we have been lucky enough to have been taken on a whistle-stop tour across the country. It was a military operation prepared especially for Albion and two US agencies. At times it was hard to believe that it was work. Helicopters, bungy jumping and jet boats aren’t a usual feature of a normal working day.

But by the end of our trip we really felt immersed in the Kiwi spirit and there is nothing like seeing the product you are selling with your own eyes. We’d like to thank the team at Air New Zealand for being the ultimate hosts. We really felt spoilt and privileged. We have our heads down now!

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