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Our friends at The Guardian have put together a showcase page of the best advertising videos for 2010, called ‘Creative Lounge’…..guess who clocked in at number 5 with our Epson Video!

Check out our handy work below:

To check out the full article just click here.

What a way to end 2010!

We were at the Marketing Society annual dinner last night, where they announced their ‘brand of the year’ award.

Brands were nominated by anybody, long-listed by a panel of experts, and then online voting decided the shortlist. The final award was decided by an audience vote (by ARS) on the night. Brands on the long-list included Facebook, Twitter and Apple.

Our big news is that giffgaff made the top 5! Seriously, a brand we launched in beta just under a year ago, and that publicly declares ‘we don’t do big glossy ad campaigns’ was a top 5 contender for the Marketing Society’s brand of the year.

Here’s the film we made to show at the event:

On the night we were up against British Gas, Aviva, Innocent and John Lewis. In a room full of 1000 senior and mostly traditional marketers, many of whom had never heard of giffgaff until that night, we never stood a chance. (We considered stealing handsets from other tables to cheat the vote. They would have gone well with our smuggled-in bottles of Cuervo.)

John Lewis took the prize. We’re glad – they’re a genuinely different and interesting business. It would be a pity if Aviva or British Gas won just for spending a lot of money on advertising. (* See note below.)

But we’re incredibly proud that giffgaff got that far, and had that platform to get in front of that audience, who we’re sure will now sit up and take notice.

And this on the same day giffgaff won a Forrester Groundswell award.

* Update: We made this comment about Aviva back when they seemed mainly to be to be doing very consistent yellow advertising that was unmissable but, you know, not unmissable. However since they’ve made this TV spot featuring Paul Whitehouse as (spoiler alert) a dead dad, which is really quite brave, so we might have to take our words back.

We are pleased to announce that our promo for Five’s Don’t Stop Believing won a Promax award for Best Use of Music at a glittering awards ceremony held last Friday. If we’d have been there our acceptance speech would have gone something a little like this…

“Firstly I’d like to thank Academy, Soundtree and everyone at Albion for all their hard work and dedication, secondly I’d like to thank my mum, dad, brother, cat, iguana, next door neigbour’s cousin’s aunt who’s been like a sister to me….”

Charles: Starting at a new school is always scary no matter what but changing industry slightly brings a whole new level of terror. The uniform is different. The culture is different. And you don’t speak the same language. So imagine my joy when on my first day Albion partnered me with a German foreign exchange student! w00t. And imagine my disappointment when on our first outing as the Coffee Twins she starts talking to me about Brand Molecule theory. This was no foreign exchange student but a small, precision engineered (it’s ok – I asked) planning mastermind.

We’ve reached a good balance now – essentially, as a Londoner, I show Corinna where the best lunch and coffee spots are.  Where to take your parents to dinner and the best way to cycle from Shoreditch to London Fields without having to go up Hackney Rd. In return she teaches me about the importance of PowerPoint, propositions and purpose ideas.

Corinna and I are not the only people starting at new schools. Dan Hon’s recent move to W&K and Jeremy Ettinghausen’s move to BBH perhaps show that advertising is really willing to play properly with the internet. Or perhaps these types of recruits will help ad agencies evolve into something new. Either way it’s pretty exciting times. And so I find myself, a community manager amongst the admen and women of Shoreditch. Alone. And cold. So cold. But seriously, one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Albion was the fact that they get digital and are naturally social and entrepreneurial. The other main pull was the promise of some good old fashioned intellectual rigor. As much as Albion is about doing stuff it’s just as much about great business ideas, and those, my friends do not grow on trees. They grow on the vines of mind grapes.

Corinna: Starting at a new school is always scary no matter what but changing countries slightly brings a whole new level of terror. The uniform is different. The culture is different. And you don’t speak the same language. So imagine my joy when on my first day Albion partnered me with an English bow tie wearing school teacher! w00t. And imagine my disappointment when on our first outing as the Coffee Twins he starts talking to me about sewing. This was no English bow tie wearing school teacher but a small dictionary full of interestingness and awesomeness.

Actually, I knew a lot about Charles before I even got to London. I knew he had quit alcohol in favour of tea. And I knew about the beard and the bowtie obsession (ask him about his pinnie trauma!). The interwebs in action. His passion for it in action. So now, when he asks me about supposedly smart planning stuff, I ask him why bus drivers never stop on me. When he asks me about how things work around agencies, I ask him for coffee places that might do unicorn milk foam figures for me.

I left Berlin with little luggage and arrived in London with great hope for two things: a new and interesting culture to explore. And to get to do awesome, interesting and useful work beyond what most people in Germany call advertising. So I am excited to have joined Albion as they are a bunch of smart thinkers and doers with a compelling vision and the passion to make stuff happen. Always thinking in solutions, not ads.
Let the fun begin.

Chorus: So despite our different backgrounds and the many miles we’ve travelled to get here we share a view which is perhaps why we’ve arrived at the same corner of Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road at the place in time. And that is a belief that, in this day and age it is the companies with the strongest notion of who they are, why they exist and what their purpose is, that are able to create the most exciting work.

We’ve just developed a brand identity for  ‘Bridge the world’ a  digital holiday brand from STA travel which specifically targets the +50 market. The identity will run across all business comms.

You can read more about the concepts and ideas behind this new brand here on Figaro Digital

Today (Monday 4th October) sees the launch of a campaign that we’re particularly excited about for our client Epson.

The campaign ‘Engineered for Speed’ launches the new Epson Stylus Office inkjet printer (BX625FWD) specifically targeting small businesses with its high quality printing and incredible speed – it can print up to 38 pages per minute.

We wanted to create a campaign that would engage a business audience on a rational and emotional level (not your normal B2B campaign). As  a result we created the ultimate product test and our team really got to have some fun with it as they set out to test the speed of the inkjet printer alongside one of the world’s fastest accelerating cars – an Ariel Atom which travels 0-60 mph in 2.7 seconds (super FAST).

The two products were combined for the challenge as engineers from Epson and Ariel worked together to form a unique partnership and then raced the printer against the car around Rockingham race track (in the UK) to see whether the Epson printer could print a map of the track faster than the car could drive it.

It’s a really exhilarating Pan European campaign that spans across several platforms. These include a film of the race (housed on the campaign microsite), online banners and EDMs  and it will also run across point of sale and PR.  It’s our first big campaign for Epson and we’re really proud of it.

Thanks to all the team involved – you know who you are.

Watch to see who wins here…..

Yesterday Thursday 23rd September the Albion Society breakfast brought together a panel to discuss Gen Y – shorthand for 16-25 year olds.

Untitled from Albion London on Vimeo.

First up was our Planning Director Sam Ashken, who presented a brief summary of a thinkpiece which can be downloaded here. The argument is that teenage and early adult years are for Gen Y not a time of rebellion but of personal aspiration.

Eliza Robeiro, the seventeen year old founder of the Lives not Knives project and campaigner with Battlefront comprehensively floored the room with her drive, activism, intelligence and precocious self-assurance.

Emi Gal, founder of online video advertising company Brainient, and a comparative oldie at 23, charmed the audience with three stories explaining his entrepreneurial drive.

Robin Klein VC of The Accelerator Group sagely analysed the differences between Gen Y and earlier generations of entrepreneurs.

Mike Butcher Editor of Techcrunch Europe showed that the Gen Y can-do spirit is a European as much as a British thing. A number of key themes emerged from the panellists. Gen Yers tend to be driven by personal mission, don’t sit around waiting for permission to do things and are unconcerned by the cynicism of older generations or the fear or failure.

Gen Y-ers’ innate drive, the panellists agreed, is accelerated by an environment in which it is easier than ever to get hold of tools and capital, and equally easy to make direct connections with contacts and partners all over the world.

All of which makes a Gen X-er wonder whether it’s possible to be a born again Gen Y-er…

The quote of the day was from Eliza who, when asked how much common ground there is between her community and young entrepreneurs like Emi responded in jest that, “A lot of the kids in Croydon are good at business, just the wrong kind of business!”.

Last week I spent another amazing few days helping out at Seedcamp, running one of the marketing panels and meeting/mentoring the finalists.

By a long shot, it was the highest standard of entrepreneurs to date and demonstrated the massive potential of creating the competition and fund. My guess is Seedcamp is going global. Its started its focus in Europe but has no reason to narrow its search in EMEA. Most of the finalists have fully functioning businesses with near proven business models and I was particularly excited by the next gen ecommerce businesses and fresh thinking on how to use customer data.

I also got together with my good friend Saul Klein, Seedcamp founder and we had a chance to look back at why we all got involved.

My main conclusion is about the opportunity to learn new stuff from some of the brightest business upstarts in Europe. For me, its all about looking for insights into how to create and build businesses and I get more out of a couple of days at Seedcamp than the more conventional business education I’ve done in the past.

If you haven’t seen this week’s Campaign or today’s brand republic as yet then you won’t have read about our appointment by Adstream.

We’ve been selected to help develop their communication strategy which will be launched through an integrated communication campaign later this year for the Adstream 4.

Thanks to all those that worked on the pitch and helped us win this business – you know who you are.

Tickets are now available for Gen Y – Activists & Entrepreneurs and the death of teen rebellion, the next Albion Society breakfast taking place on the 23rd September 2010.

This Albion Society brings together a panel of gen Y gamechangers – a group of very special 16-25 year olds; Eliza Robeiro a young campaigner and Emi Gal an entrepreneur. Both demonstrate that this generation understand how to take on big challenges, that they are opportunists, positive and hopeful for the future.

Robin Klein Venture Partner at Index Ventures and founding partner of The Accelerator Group joins to give his expert advice on Entrepreneurism and how Gen Y are shaping the future. And Sam Ashken, Albion’s Planning Director will wrap up the event by presenting some fundamental research that determines that this generation are already making a big difference. These are the people that will shape ‘The Big Society’ and they are using every possible modern marketing technique to negotiate their ambition.

Places are strictly limited and will run out fast. Reserve yours by entering your details here