It all started badly with the loss of some of our friends in Paris. RIP guys. We’ll keep the light on and keep celebrating what we’ve always cherished: life.
“Show must go on”.
We’re ever inching closer to Christmas, but we’re not feeling festive just yet – we’re far too busy with our heads in 2016 strategy planning.
We’ve just finished a creative strategy for our cosmetics client with focus on some innovative new products on the horizon. We’re excited to bring them to life on digital channels and rest assured, we’ll give you the insiders’ view when everything launches.
Actually this week has been an all round ‘creative’ week – first the team kicked off the week with a tone of voice workshop for Value Retail, lead by Dan and Krish. They explored the way brands like Harvey Nichols, Hermes, John Lewis and a few more in between, communicate with their customers online.
Of course, we put our own RE-UP twist on it and our Art Director, Andrea, worked on designing a selection of – wait for it – exotic animals, for one of the exercises. For what? Well, we can’t reveal that now – it’s a RE-UP secret…you’d have to be in one of our workshops!
Méduse was all ‘lights, camera, action’ yesterday with a photo-shoot lead by Nuveen and Andrea, featuring a new, stylish girl on the block – Grace. Things are under wraps for now (except for this little sneak peak), but we’ll be revealing some super cool shots across Instagram soon.
We’ve also quizzed artist, photographer and cat-loving fashion & lifestyle blogger Emma’s Looking Glass that told us all about her concept of charity illustrations and style trends for this season. Make sure not to miss this quirky Q&A, going live any day soon on Méduse blog.
Our planning maverick Ania presented some interesting insights around the luxury watch industry by presenting examples of new creative that’s more focused on social media….The watch industry is certainly a very specific one. It talks about itself, its carefully sourced materials, skilled hand crafting and fetishisation of the product. This makes a watch a desired object to have rare and over-the top in both its materials and design. More to come in and new post soon…
Huge congratulations to our client, the Mozilla Firefox OS Africa team – the KLIF smartphone won the award for Best Device for Africa at this year’s Africa Com! Hip hip hurray!
Winner of ‘Best Device for Africa’….is the #FirefoxOS KLIF! @Mozilla #FirefoxOSAfrica pic.twitter.com/lyyDF6Yrxn
— John Bernard (@thejohnbernard) November 18, 2015
Few industry highlights that got us talking:
- Ford has just released new creative to promote safe driving using Instagram creative to transmit a powerful message ‘Don’t Like and Drive’. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ford-using-instagram-perfectly-these-dont-and-drive-posts-168223
- Big news for the recent ‘High School Girl?’ spot by Shiseido – they took home the Film Grand Prix for Epica 2015! Great news and a much needed energy spike for the cosmetics industry in favour of a new way to play in ‘beauty’. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/shiseidos-gender-shifting-makeup-ad-wins-grand-prix-film-epica-awards-168216
- A new Google platform recently came to light, a very ‘timely’ piece of content considering the increased political tension and awareness of the refugee situation globally. In a climate of increased social media opinion and conversations around very complex topics, it’s interesting to see digital being used in a simple way to give a strong perspective. http://betagoogle.com/
- The Balmain x H&M latest collection has certainly created buzz both off and online. The ‘Balmainia’ was visible both within the stores around the world and on various social media platforms. Shoppers were not only queuing and literally fighting to grab at least one piece from the collection, but within hours after the launch they began selling them online for at least a double prize. As consumers become increasingly digital savvy, alongside the creative directors, soon we may expect such brand promotions to be introduced just on social media channels. Approaching sellers and making purchases through direct messages on such platforms as Instagram can be a new form of successful brand promotion with an opportunity for driving more exclusive form of product promotion. https://twitter.com/search?q=balmainia&src=typd&lang=en-gb
- For the upcoming Christmas season, Harrods decided to outreach its most demanding and savvy customers – children. The department store introduced a mobile game available to download for free, which main objective is to reveal and unlock hidden chests. Wittily, the game may serve as a great guide for children’s Christmas wish list – and therefore encourage their parents to purchase wished presents exclusively from Harrods. Even though the app is strictly directed to young audience, it instructs entrants to enter their personal information with an email address (in that case guardian’s one) allowing the retail store to gather more customer data and personal insights. Such form of gamification can certainly work as a great benefit for any brand capturing diverse target groups. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/harrods-toy-kingdom-game/id1049358836?mt=8
- Popularity of vloggers has been acknowledged by majority of beauty brands promoting their content on various social media channels. One of the most popular companies in the industry – Sephora has just went one step further; introducing a new campaign, the brand will create videos featuring customers during their visit within the store. As majority of users purchase beauty products on the basis of the ability to recreate desired look at home, Sephora decided to document and prove efficiency of their products. Screens located within the store will include make-up tutorials, allow free-consultation with team members and allow sharing the experience on shoppers’ personal channels with their community. Such a clever technique will not only celebrate the customers but also the brand itself. Recording real-life customer experience is a great way to present more human side of the brand and also strengthens the relationship with its users. http://digiday.com/brands/look-inside-sephoras-digitally-driven-next-generation-store/
The launch date of Khoollect is edging closer still, and we’re working on developing content ideas to tie into keyword and SEO in the New Year. Content will be live January onwards, and we’re sure you’ll find plenty of articles to sink your teeth into, foodie or otherwise!
Lastly, more somber thoughts go out in light of the horrible events that unfolded in Paris.
In our world of social media, and more importantly managing branded content, we become ever more aware of the impact it can have. We saw a number of brands recognising the tragedy, some with humility…and some without, and some of our French clients found the best form of respect, in this case, was something simple or silence.
We wrote on the subject of whether brands can human when a tragedy strikes in a blog post last year, and with the recent influx of ‘mark safe’ and ‘flag profile pictures’ from Facebook, it’s got us rethinking things a bit. What do you think is appropriate for a brand to say or enable?
A little thought to end the week with anyway…until next week.