It’s less than a week to go until our new campaign for cottages4you and VisitEngland is launched, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to look back on everything we’ve achieved – boy has it been a whirlwind few months!

This project started over 6 months ago, when we were asked to pitch for a joint campaign with cottages4you and VisitEngland. That in itself presented quite a challenge: 2 separate clients each with a different objective. It meant we really had to put our heads to together to come up with a cracking ad that essentially met 2 briefs! We knew it would be tricky but we couldn’t wait to start.

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Red C has created a new marketing campaign for a joint partnership between VisitEngland and cottages4you. The campaign, which will promote self-catering cottage holidays in England’s countryside and coastal locations, is set to launch on Boxing Day.

The TV advert, which cannot be revealed yet, will run through the key January to March booking period and is aimed at families, particularly focusing on cottages located in the countryside and on the coast. It will be supported by newspaper advertising, online advertising, direct marketing and radio.

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There’s a few sore heads here this morning at Red C as we had a few ‘shandies’ last night after picking up an awards at the Travel Marketing Awards, which were held at the InterContinental Hotel at park Lane, London last night.

The Travel Marketing Awards are the only event of their kind recognising marketing excellence in travel, the awards ceremony is attended by senior agency, travel and tourism professionals representing the entire spectrum of the travel sector.

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Everyone at Red C today is chuffed to bits after hearing that our TV Commercial for Cottages4you has been nominated in the ‘TV Commercial Over 30 Seconds’ category at the 2010 Roses Advertising Awards. Attended by around 400 key individuals from the advertising industry, the Roses Advertising Awards allows the creative community the opportunity to demonstrate and prove their innovation and creativity.

The nominated advert aims to highlight the benefits of a self catering holiday by focusing on the experiences guests take home with them. Customer research carried out by HCG showed that the main features of a cottage holiday were relaxation, freedom and enjoying being ‘back with nature’. The scenarios depicted in the 40 second advert reflect these feelings and capture the essence of a cottage holiday.

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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…

Before we go any further… no… the 14 times World Darts Champion is not moonlighting as a Commercials Director… the Phil Taylor we’re talking about is far taller, skinnier and has considerably less hair! Phil recently finished filming a new advert for us for Cottages4you… an ad that everyone here at Red C is incredibly proud of and was brought to life by both Phil and Sharon Gunnel, the Producer at Velvet.

Our first introduction to Phil was through his reel which immediately grabbed us for his clever subtle use of humour and ability to capture some lovely moments on films as well as getting some memorable performances from his actors. On meeting him I was instantly sold by his passion for both our concept and his desire to stay true to my original idea and deliver an advert that had high production values and quite simply and beautifully converted a singular message in a memorable way.

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I love it when a plan comes together

It was that great leader of men Hannibal Smith who once said… “I love it when a plan comes together”. And that sums up perfectly how I feel about our TV advert for the holiday cottages brand cottages4you. It took  a large number of talented people to create the 40 seconds of film that is embedded within this posting… and to give you an insight into how we ended up with the advert we did… I thought I’d tell you the story of the commercial’s creation.

From the original client briefing to some insights into the creative process and the ideas we presented you’ll hopefully see what went in to creating the final concept that went before the cameras. I’ll then look at the filming process as well as the work that went into the post-production and resulted in the final commercial… which is hopefully enticing people up and down the country to book a break with cottages4you.

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At Red C we love working with talented and passionate individuals, which is why we thoroughly enjoyed working recently with Trevor Forrest… who was the Cinematographer on our recent commercial for Cottages4you and also qualifies for the status of ‘bloody nice bloke’.

The Director of the commercial, Phil Taylor, told me how he had wanted to work with Trevor for a long time… and having worked with him on this project I can see why. The consummate professional at all times, Trevor worked his socks off to ensure the shot that was captured on camera was as lush and inviting as it could be… which has led to a great looking commercial.

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Anyone who has ever visited the Creative Department at Red C will know that we love our music… and there’s nothing more we like than discovering some new sounds to tap our little feet to during the working day… that is until Dawn makes our ears bleed by putting on some awful rave radio station like Energy 98.

The band Urusen have just supplied the music for our recent TV Commercial for Cottages4you, and as well as the track ‘Now that she has flown’, that features in the advert… they have some other great tunes as well… which is why we thought we’d do a little piece about that as we also quite like listening to them to help our creativity.

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Holiday Cottages Group (HCG), the UK’s number one holiday cottage rental agency with more than 10,000 properties in the UK, is launching its first TV campaign in three years. The advert will premiere on Boxing Day and run throughout quarter one.

Holiday Cottages Group has reported sales of domestic holidays are up by 12 percent on 2008 and following this success it is looking to strengthen its position further in 2010.

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