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Gray & Osbourn, a leading niche clothing brand in the UK premium home shopping market, have appointed Red C to expand the role of online marketing and broaden the brands appeal to attract new, younger online customers. The business was founded as a division of Selfridges in 1989 and is now owned by the N Brown Group. Red C won the business in a 5 way pitch that included the incumbent and came down to a final 2-way shoot-out.

Red C’s Creative Director, Julian Gratton, commenting on the win said: “We are particularly delighted with this win as we have strong credentials in the home shopping market generally, and in particular in fashion. We knew we could bring a fresh new approach to the brand and the marketing to give it more of a personality to broaden the appeal to a slightly younger audience looking for fashionable, but not high fashion, upmarket clothing, whilst not alienating Gray & Osbourn’s core stylish mature customer. ”

According to Gray & Osbourn’s Commercial Director Katy Ingram: “Red C ticked all the boxes for us. Not only did they demonstrate a solid understanding and insight into our brand and our customers, but they delivered some great creative and the bonus is that they have worked with the N Brown Group for many years so already understand the N Brown web platform and systems. It is an exciting time for us with a new MD and fresh team with new ideas and we are very much looking forward to working with Red C as part of that team to help move our business forward.”

The agency will begin work with the 2010 Spring/Summer Campaign across the website, email marketing and online recruitment initially.

It’s fair to say over the last year and a half our campaign for the Swinton Mystery Tipper has racked up a few awards. Two DMA Awards, two ISP Awards, an IDM Business Performance Award, a B2B Marketing Award and now the icing on the cake… two IPA Effectiveness Awards!

The IPA Effectiveness Awards are recognised by agencies and clients as Adland’s most rigorous awards scheme because entrants have to prove to a jury of experienced clients that their communications strategies have worked in hard business terms.

Held at the very swanky Hurlingham Club in Fulham, last night’s award ceremony saw us pick up a silver for the campaign’s creativity and results and win the Special category of Best Small Budget… to say we’re a bit chuffed is a bit of an understatement.

Our paper showed the Judges how powerful iconic imagery can inject new life into the fragmented and competitive world of taxi insurance. After a period of rapid growth up to 2002, Swinton’s taxi division had plateaued as a result of increasing competition in the market. The challenge was to increase the volume of policies sold by 10 per cent in 2008. The strategy was built around a central cartoon character inspired by Dick Tracey with a hint of Jessica Rabbit – the Swinton Mystery Tipper – who visited towns and cities in the UK giving cab drivers a £1,000 cheque. Combining sales promotion, DM and PR, the campaign created a sharp and sustainable rise in business for the brand by exploiting the effect of word-of-mouth on the cab ranks and in taxi offices across the country. The campaign generated a payback of £4.31 per every £1 spent.

Commenting on our entry, Mark White the Managing Director of Five said “The Swinton Taxi case interested the judges as it took the principals of digital media but did it in a traditional fashion to generate an excellent return on investment.”