When I looked at this We Like section of our website, I was surprised to see that no one in the agency had written an article about what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest films ever made. Therefore, I’ve decided to give Avatar the Red C recognition it deserves…
Avatar has completely dominated the box office over the last couple of months and has now officially become the highest-grossing film of all time, making more than £1.15bn in ticket sales around the world. The only film to even come close to this figure is Titanic – also directed by James Cameron. For the minority who haven’t seen this sci-fi epic, Avatar is about humanity’s quest to export a valuable mineral from the distant moon Pandora – and threatening the existence of the Na’vi race in the process. The humans have to create a relationship with the natives and learn about their environment in order to persuade them to move habitat, and leave their valuable resources to them, so they grow Na’vi-human hybrids called avatars, controlled by genetically matched, mentally-linked humans. A soldier who controls an avatar then falls in love with the Na’vi princess – and it’s your typical Hollywood love story!
No matter how hard you may have tried, not many people managed to escape the ‘Big Freeze’ that hit Britain a couple of weeks ago. The whole country pretty much came to a standstill when snow and ice covered the UK, in what was some of the worst weather we’ve seen in thirty years.
Businesses and schools across the country were forced to close when roads became impassable and public transport ground to a halt. Even us hardy folk at Red C struggled to get into the office, with only those that come on foot making it here. With so many people off work, you’d have thought the high street would be bustling, but figures from Footfall indicate that shopper numbers on 5th January were down 13.5% on last year. 53 of the 285 stores in Meadowhall shopping centre, Sheffield were closed on this day, and The Trafford Centre in Manchester only managed to open half of its stores and restaurants - before closing the entire complex at 4pm. Read more…
When I was growing up in a quiet little town in the south of England, I was always jealous of people with accents. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful” I thought, “to be able to ask for jellied eels, or a sausage barm, without sounding like a ponce. Wouldn’t it be bloody brilliant if the sound of my voice alone communicated a deep-rooted link to the precise location of my upbringing.”
I do, of course, have vocal indicators that identify me as southern English. Many people are even able to place my accent in the south east. But am I from Basildon or from Basingstoke; from Berkshire or from Kent? My part-BBCpart-Estuary English style of speech gives few pointers to a precise location. The fact is, millions of people across a large chunk of the country speak in much the same boring way as I do. My voice is a poor compass. It’s hardly surprising, then, that I dreamt of having a real accent.
And I wasn’t the only one. Quite a few of my schoolmates, acutely aware of our shared non-accent, tried to adopt alternatives – with varying degrees of success. Out of my best friends, Mark went Cockney, Dave became Brummie and Pete plumped for Pakistani: a particularly ill-considered move that did little for his reputation among the local Asian community.
Now in our mid-twenties, I think we’ve all accepted we’ll never have real accents. We’ll always be simply ‘southern’. Yet I remain absolutely fascinated by cities or small regions with a unique style of speech. So when I was given the opportunity to move to Manchester in mid-2008 there was just a single thought that crossed my mind. Mint. Read more…
Marketing is not a nostalgic business. With the constant emergence of new technologies, advertisers need to keep bang up to date to avoid being left behind. Just think back a year. At the beginning of 2009, Twitter was still a relatively niche social network, Spotify wasn’t yet available to the general public and search engine Bing didn’t even exist. One year on and all these technologies may be fundamental to creating a successful advertising campaign.
So what’s next? What will the ‘big thing’ of 2010 be? Well, I’m not going to try and predict that, but I will tell you what will make the next ‘big thing’ happen – and that’s the Ubiquitous Network. In fact, I’m confident it’ll change the future of advertising and marketing forever…
I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is you are only a few short words from success in your next email campaign. The bad news is that establishing what those “few short words” should be is a task that takes a great deal of deliberation and consideration. Well, it certainly should be. Subject lines can literally make or break an email’s performance – influencing everything from the opening rate to the click through rate. Obviously there are other contributing factors – the day and time of send to name but two – but without a doubt the key influencer has to be those “few short words”.
Now, I’ll be up front with you. I’m not going to give you a magic formula for “can’t fail subject lines.” For one thing I don’t believe such a one-size-fits-all solution actually exists. However, what I am going to give you is a series of tips and factors that you should always consider, when trying to establish what works for your audience. Bear in mind this is not a something you will complete in an afternoon. It will take a great deal of time and patience, but the rewards can be substantial.
A couple of months ago, I booked a weekend break with cottages4you – one of the UK’s leading holiday property companies and, incidentally, one of my favourite Red C clients (because they let me write copy like this). Just before I was due to go away, it was suggested that I write an account of my holiday cottage experience and post it here on this website. Naturally, I started to panic. What if it was a holiday from hell? What if I turned up to find a glorified tool shed decorated throughout with kitten vomit? Luckily for me, I needn’t have worried. Everything about the place was just about perfect… Read more…
Our love for our smartphones has led to two quite cringeworthy nicknames “iNat and Katieberry”. Which is best though? Is it my lovely white 16gb iphone 3GS or is it Katie’s sexy Blackberry curve? We aren’t the only ones to be having this debate, the internet is littered with articles and forums where other smartphone users have either argued their case or sought advice from other users before making that all important purchasing decision.
In terms of popularity, Research in Motion, the company behind the Blackberry phone, shifted 382,000 handsets in Q3 2009, compared to 254,000 iPhones sold by Apple.
Katie and I have given this some serious thought – she has tried to persuade me (even through some rap songs) but im pretty convinced that my iPhone beats her Blackberry curve hands down!… Over to you Katie… Read more…
Saul Bass was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century, but also the undisputed master of film title design. With a career spanning over fifty years – which included collaborations with Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese (among others) – the work he produced was consistently innovative. While always of the moment, Saul Bass’ work is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago as it continues to appeal to the audience’s emotions and intellect. Read more…
Once upon a time, back when I was young and carefree, I dreamt of being an advertising creative. An art director to be precise. There was something about getting paid for drawing pictures at the pub that really appealed to me as a university student… I forget why.
It was during this time that I took a trip to the Tate Modern to get some inspiration for a Yellow Pencil winning idea. After an interesting half day I ducked into the gift shop and found myself face to face with this weeks’ book; ‘No Copy Advertising’ by Lazar Dzamic.
When I looked at this We Like section of our website, I was surprised to see that no one in the agency had written an article about what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest films ever made. Therefore, I’ve decided to give Avatar the Red C recognition it deserves…
No matter how hard you may have tried, not many people managed to escape the ‘Big Freeze’ that hit Britain a couple of weeks ago. The whole country pretty much came to a standstill when snow and ice covered the UK, in what was some of the worst weather we’ve seen in thirty years.
Marketing is not a nostalgic business. With the constant emergence of new technologies, advertisers need to keep bang up to date to avoid being left behind. Just think back a year. At the beginning of 2009, 
Once upon a time, back when I was young and carefree, I dreamt of being an advertising creative. An art director to be precise. There was something about getting paid for drawing pictures at the pub that really appealed to me as a university student… I forget why.
