We were approached by the VIP team over at Freemans Grattan Holdings to help improve the financial performance of their email programme, which in their view was massively underperforming. At the briefing, we instantly recognised some quick wins that we could implement to make some initial improvements so we accepted the challenge.
To entice the Freemans customers online and to get them to start thinking about Christmas early, Red C developed a fun game to provide some theatre around the daunting task of Christmas Shopping. We developed a charming Rudolph character to deliver various Christmas Gift ‘riddles’ via email to the customer base.
When Julian asked me to give Gary Numan a call about some illustrations, I was unimpressed. Partly because I’m often the butt of the practical jokes round here, and partly because I’m more of an Ultravox man myself. So it was with some apprehension that I went back to my desk to make the call. As I dialled I decided I’d play it safe: skip the musical chit-chat and get straight down to business, which turned out to be a wise move when illustrator Gary Newman – and not the King of synthpop – answered the phone.
A pioneer of doom-laden electronic music he may not be, but Gary Newman is one of the UK’s top illustrators. His signature style is zesty, hedonistic, jet-setting. Just the kind of thing we were looking for to add some wow-factor to a “WIN YOUR DREAM HOLIDAY” DM pack.
It’s not every day you walk into the studio to be greeted by a lingerie-clad lady striding confidently around reception. It wasn’t even that warm, as I recall. Some of the guys in the studio quite liked the idea though. (There you go Steve, Leigh and Lee… told you I wouldn’t mention any names.)
