The UK’s most effective brand activation agency, ZEAL Creative, supported Yeo Valley Organic to engage consumers, drive trial and deliver memorable brand experience inspired by nature.

During the first lockdown, the University of Cumbria found that Brits’ connection with the natural world deepened, as people spent more time in nature every day. In particular, two-thirds of parents and guardians said their children spent more time than usual in nature¹. To capitalise on greater public interest in wildlife, ZEAL developed campaigns that celebrated Yeo Valley Organic’s brand value: ‘Put Nature First’.

ZEAL launched two direct mail campaigns in August 2020 that enabled the brand to engage with its target audience, contact-free. Rooted in Yeo Valley Organic’s dedication to supporting Britain’s bee population through building hives, adopting sustainable farming methods and protecting natural habitats, the first campaign distributed wildflower seeds, brand information and activities to one million people. The initiative enabled Yeo Valley Organic to connect with consumers in the comfort of their own homes and give them materials to actively contribute to its mission.

ZEAL also developed ‘Get Back to Nature’ activity boxes, which were delivered to 15,000 families with young children, to educate and keep small minds occupied during a summer of restrictions. To broaden reach, the activities were available online, providing an important digital method of activation and capitalising on increased time consumers spent online this summer.

The results increased brand awareness and by incorporating a money-off coupon to encourage sampling with new shoppers, the brand could tangibly track uplift in sales.

Lisa Nyman, Account Director at ZEAL Creative, comments: “This is our first experiential project for Yeo Valley Organic, and we were excited to exercise our creativity and develop campaigns that would be effective even during the national lockdown. By understanding how consumer purchasing behaviours were changing in response to the pandemic, we developed campaigns that resonated and took quality brand experiences directly into UK households.

“As well as an uplift in sales, the ‘Get Back to Nature’ boxes supported Yeo Valley’ Organic’s content strategy. The activities drove visitors to the brand’s online activity hub and were used to strengthen influencer relations, providing social media interaction.”

Kate Sharrock, Yeo Valley Organic Brand Manager, says: “We had to completely reinvent our activation plans for 2020 and focus on reaching consumers at home. It was still important for us to connect with new consumers and communicate what our brand stands for. Distributing wildflower seeds meant households could contribute to our mission of supporting Britain’s bees, which play an integral role in food production.

“We loved the final campaigns. The team at ZEAL developed an innovative concept to help us to drive sales in challenging conditions but also reach young families and give them something fun to combat boredom during the summer holidays.”

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The 2019 Effie Europe winners were announced in La Madeleine in Brussels on 15th October. McCann Worldgroup won the Agency of the Year Award, as well as the Grand Effie for their outstanding campaign ‘Like Brands’ 2011-2018.

The winners were selected by an international jury of senior agency and client representatives co-chaired by Bastien Schupp, Vice President, Global Brand Strategy and Marketing Communication at Groupe Renault and Harjot Singh, Chief Strategy Officer, Europe & UK at McCann Worldgroup.

Bastien Schupp, Vice President, Global Brand Strategy and Marketing Communication at Groupe Renault, said: “While most of us push to get the most creative campaigns out there, the only thing that really counts is their effectiveness. I am honoured to chair the jury of this prestigious award and look forward to reviewing powerful cases with my fellow marketers!”

Harjot Singh, Chief Strategy Officer, Europe & UK at McCann Worldgroup, added: “Effectiveness is the only measure of the value of our work. As the landscape of our industry changes and broadens the discourse on effectiveness must keep pace. It must be dynamic. The Effies are the most definitive, credible and recognized standard of the most compelling effectiveness stories for our industry. The new changes to the Effie program and the new categories that have been introduced as a result are all very exciting and timely. They have been made possible by the relentless hard work and deliberation from all members of the steering committee and I am very excited to see it all come to life in 2019.”

McCann Worldgroup scooped the Agency of the Year award, as well as the prestigious Grand Effie for their outstanding ‘Like Brands’ 2011-2018 campaign for Aldi UK. An instant hit and a long-running success, Aldi UK aired over 100 Like Brands ads, and exported the idea to USA, Australia and Ireland. Yet, the real success of Like Brands laid in reversing Aldi’s fortunes, winning it a special place in the hearts of UK shoppers by transforming consumer attitudes to private label.

Click here to see the full list of winners.

The Effie Europe – Steering Committee has met for the second time around the Effie Awards Gala celebrations to help steer the overall programme, providing guidance across all programme areas, such as the call for entry, learning initiatives, awards gala, categories and more. The organiser has the pleasure to announce the new committee members: Achim Rietze, Strategy Lead ZOO EMEA at Google; Vasileios Kourakis, Global Director Marketing ROI Consumer Products Division at L’Oréal and Szymon Gutkowski, Managing Director at DDB Warszawa.

The Effie Awards Europe are organised by the European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA) in partnership with Facebook, Procter & Gamble, The European Publishers’ Council, WARC, Adforum.com, European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA) & Viva Xpress Logistics.

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Bray Leino, leading marketing and advertising agency, were appointed by Freixenet to help raise their brand awareness and increase sales amongst a target audience of men and women aged 25-34. The new series of hit reality show ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’ represented a perfect fit for sponsorship, aligning with both target audience and the brand’s mission to help celebrate the big and small moments in life.

From the 0% Rosé to the Cordon Negro, every Freixenet wine has a unique identity and individual look of each bottle. With the media plan engaged, Bray Leino tailor-made a series of 17 idents to complement ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’—spotlighting individual Freixenet wines in a celebratory cascade of confetti. The creative was devised and shot in-house with a two-week turnaround, in time for the September launch.

The 10-week campaign runs until early November and covers every ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’ episode along with four weeks of repeats across E4, E4+1 and VOD.

Samantha Cross, Senior Brand Manager at Freixenet, says: “This is a great sponsorship fit for Freixenet’s fun spirit and love of celebration, an opportunity for us to connect with our target audience who may be unaware of the scope of Freixenet products.”

Kate Cox, Bray Leino CEO, says: “This is another example of our market-leading ability to identify the right sponsorship opportunity at great value for the Client, and deliver a brilliant creative campaign with a fast turnaround.”

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Experience12, the pop culture marketing agency, continues its year of growth as George Bateman is promoted to Business Director.

George is the first person to hold this position at Experience12 after almost four years at the agency, where he has been heavily involved in its growth and the development and implementation of the agency’s positioning.

As Business Director, he will be taking a step back from day-to-day team management following a solid year of hires to the client services team which has left it stronger than ever. George will also maintain oversight of creative, pitches and campaigns, while also continuing to service larger client accounts.

Alongside client responsibilities, his role will focus on overseeing the next big stage of growth for the company. This is largely centred on business development in new sectors, and organic client growth, working with brave clients to produce great creative work and developing the agency’s brand, offering and services.

George Bateman, Business Director at Experience12, says: “I’ve been fortunate enough to see Experience12 go from strength to strength – from a single desk in a shared office, through to our very own HQ on Greek Street. It’s been a challenge and a privilege to be a part of a young, aspirational agency, with a lot of lessons learnt along the way. I’m proud of how far the company has come, the brand, our clients, the work we’ve delivered and, most importantly, the team! It’s now time to look toward the next stage of agency growth – building brand awareness, developing existing client relationships and establishing ourselves in new sectors.”

Chris Whittle, Founder and Managing Director at Experience12, adds: “The impact that George has had on Experience12 since he’s worked with us is significant – from business development to evolving our agency positioning. He’s been a massive part of raising the bar for client-delivery and the team that we’ve become, and I am really looking forward to him stepping up into his role as Business Director and our next stage of growth.”

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The IPM, the UK’s trade body for promotional marketing and brand activation, and new business consultancy Ingenuity are ready for a busy post-summer pitch season with their ‘IPM Agency Referrals: Powered by Ingenuity’ service, bringing agency recommendations from the IPM’s member base.

The recently launched service gives IPM members access to exclusive brand owner briefs that fall within their discipline expertise. Ingenuity are managing the service to help create the right brand and agency/supplier partnerships that support viable growth for everyone. The IPM manages the ‘agencies looking for service/supplier agencies’ aspect of the service.

‘IPM Agency Referrals: Powered by Ingenuity’ is part of a wider strategic shift for the IPM as it strives to deliver an even more comprehensive membership package, going above and beyond to help members grow their businesses, and identifying and partnering with key industry players is a key part of this. As the sector leader, Ingenuity is well-placed to support new business and networking for the IPM’s members.

Brands are able to reach out to the ‘IPM Agency Referrals: Powered by Ingenuity’ team to discuss their challenges or brief and start the journey to finding the ideal agency partner. It’s free for brands to use, and agencies only pay a finder’s fee if they end up working together.

Paul Cope, Managing Director at the IPM, said: “The IPM prides itself in counting amongst its members some of the best agencies and service agencies operating in the promotional marketing and brand activation space. We want to help our members grow their businesses and give brands access to the wealth of expertise and talent that we know they offer. Ingenuity is the perfect partner to help facilitate this.”

Dario Pagani, Head of Brand at Ingenuity, said: “Ingenuity’s integrated new business offering allows us to have an unrivalled, bird’s-eye-view of the agency landscape – we believe that brands should have this information at their fingertips. Our partnership with the IPM strongly supports this. We have a long-standing relationship with them IPM and we’re really looking forward to getting great results for their members as the post-Summer pitch season kicks in.”

This service can be accessed by visiting the IPM website here.

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According to the third annual JFDI New Business Barometer, the definitive guide to new business trends in the UK advertising and marketing agency world conducted by Opinium Research, it appears that medium sized agencies are now in the sweet spot for new business success in 2019.

In the previous year (2017), medium sized agencies (50-150 employees) found themselves squeezed between the well-resourced large agencies (150+) and the energised smaller agencies that were taking the lion’s share of new business opportunities. However, in 2018 the medium agencies reacted quickly to the squeeze, took actions to improve their new business operations and are now benefiting from this change in strategy.

The JFDI Barometer found they are also benefiting from changes in the market that is affecting both the way clients are purchasing services and what they are looking for from their agencies.

The key trends in the JFDI 2018 Barometer found medium sized agencies:

• New business targets dropped by £385k over the year to £1.75m, reflecting a more realistic approach to new business targets
• In 2019 the main focus will be creating more new business opportunities/ filling the pipeline and building upon the 5.8 new business opportunities a month pursued in 2018 (up from 2.5 per month in 2017)
• Became less effective (38% down from 47%) in converting these opportunities to pitches leading to an average of 2.5 pitches per month with a high 49% win rate, of which 73% were valued over £500k
• Pursued higher value opportunities with 73% of new business opportunities now over £1m compared to 42% in the previous year
• Increased spending by 10% to £91k on agency marketing which is 2.5 x less than the big agencies spend which secure higher value pitch wins
• Use client referrals and lead generation agencies as their main prospecting tools
• Overwhelmingly (91%) have an agreed written marketing plan agreed with senior management, an increase of 10% in the past year

In further analysis, the research found that medium sized agencies are struggling to compete with the smaller and larger agencies to demonstrate their relevant expertise / capabilities which is given as the main reason they lose pitches.

The Barometer covers small, medium and large agencies, and provides an in-depth benchmark of their new business performance for new business managers and business leaders. In summary it found:

• Small agencies are fighting for advantage, with little resource, in an increasingly competitive market and from rejuvenated medium sized agencies
• Medium sized agencies grew-up in 2018 and their investment and focus on new business prospecting is delivering results
• Larger agencies are accelerating the benefits of working within larger networks but may face headwinds with clients buying ‘what you can do for me’ rather than the brand.

This article provides a brief summary of the JFDI 2019 New Business Barometer comprehensive analysis of the UK advertising and marketing and agency world. If you would like further information about the Barometer, please contact mark@jfdi.uk.com.

The IPM Learning team has announced an exclusive, Member-only partnership with JFDI for 2019. IPM Members receive a 15% discount against a selection of JFDI’s commercially-focused half-day sessions. Click below to find out more about the next workshop ‘Feeding the New Business Pipeline.’

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Butcher’s Pet Care has appointed Birmingham-based creative agency, LIFE, as its strategic and creative agency.

Rachel Collinson, appointed as Director – Food for Dogs, in 2017, was responsible for the hire.

Collinson has been the driving force behind the brand’s recent packaging re-design and the removal of shrink wrap from its canned food – resulting in the equivalent of 4.2 million plastic bottles being removed from its supply chain.

Earlier this year, Butcher’s picked up the award for Best Brand Sustainability Initiative at Tesco’s Household and Pet Supplier conference.

Commenting on LIFE’s appointment, Collinson said, “We were very impressed with LIFE’s excellent insight, and the understanding the team showed for our ambitions for the Butcher’s Pet Care brand”.

Managing Director at LIFE, Rachel Deacon, added: “It is impossible not to share the passion of the Butcher’s team. They are utterly committed to providing good quality pet food that is accessible to everyone. We are incredibly proud to have been appointed and are looking forward to working with them to leverage their pet food heritage in today’s market.”

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PrettyGreen, has promoted Sarah Henderson to Managing Director, along with a seat on its board.

Since joining PrettyGreen to lead the Cadbury London 2012 Olympic account in 2011, Sarah Henderson has been instrumental in helping establish PrettyGreen as a leading independent Entertainment, Sport and Lifestyle PR Agency.

Henderson said: “It’s an honour to step into the role of MD at such an exciting time for the business and in a landscape where the role of earned media & integrated campaigns are increasingly important. I look forward to being part of what PrettyGreen achieves in 2019 and beyond.”

Mark Stringer, CEO & Founder added: “Founders are incredibly protective of the companies they started, but there is no one that I trust more than Henders to take control of PrettyGreen and to take us to the next level. She has an unwavering belief that it’s about delivering the holy trinity of clients as partners, best in class specialists and outstanding creative work.”

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British gin brand, Warner Edwards, has appointed Birmingham-based creative agency, LIFE, as their BTL agency. This comes as the brand strengthens its agency roster to support its strong performance across both the on and off-trade.

Amanda Kinder, Warner Edwards Channel Marketing Manager, commented: “We’re really excited to be working with LIFE.  They demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the category and a passion for Warner Edwards. We’re excited to work with them in bringing to life what makes Warner Edwards unique in the gin category.”

Chris Walker, LIFE, Managing Partner, added: “Everyone is aware of the popularity of gin at the moment.  What people won’t know are the amazing stories that sit behind Warner Edwards that make it such a unique gin brand. We can’t wait to getting stuck into telling them with the team in 2019.”

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