Manchester-based advertising agency, Red C, has been commissioned to undertake a ‘brand refresh’ exercise for Wolseley UK’s ‘Center’ brands. The brand refresh exercise will see new logos and collateral designed for Plumb Center, Parts Center, Pipe Center, Climate Center, and Drain Center. As part of the initiative Red C was also asked to rebrand the Integrated Supply business to Integrated Services, complete with a new logo.

Wolseley UK is the UK operating company of Wolseley plc, the world’s number one distributor of heating and plumbing products. Speaking about the rebranding exercise Julie McLean, Head of Marketing for Plumb and Parts Center, who was part of the project commented: “We wanted an evolution not a revolution as we were building on our high brand equity and the trust our customers have in each of our individual brands. This was a very important project to get right and we knew we could trust Red C to understand that and deliver for us, and they didn’t disappoint.”

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I have a real love/hate relationship with those emails that pop into my inbox before I even open my eyes in the morning, tempting me to must-buy experiences, weekends away and 10 vibroplate sessions.  These emails may appear harmless, but the promise of self-improvement and gourmet food just proves too hard to resist for me!  And such is the reason for Groupon’s success…

The name Groupon comes from the term “group” and was developed by now CEO, Andrew Mason in 2008.  It grew out of a website called The Point, where you can start a campaign and ask people to participate and deliver action because of the strength in numbers.  Just as the campaigns need a ‘tipping point’ of people to become viable, Groupon needs a certain number of buyers to make the deals valid.  This collective buying gives us the access to the deals which just seem too good to be true.

To date Groupon serves 500 markets and 44 countries.

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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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Thursday 17th November 2011- why is this such a significant date you may ask? Well I shall tell you. At approximately 11pm on that very day, at the Ramada Jarvis, Manchester, Red C won an MI award for the Best Retail Marketing Strategy on Jessop’s! Whoop! Celebrations all round. You may be thinking that’s fab but what does it mean? Why were we worthy of this win? Well as you read through this you’ll find out the intricate details of what a winning retail marketing strategy involves….

Who are Jessops?
Jessops is the UK’s largest specialist photographic retailer with 208 stores. Visit any of these to enquire about a camera and you’ll leave furnished with a wealth of knowledge and insight about the product in question. However, Jessops’ emails didn’t exude the same enthusiasm, expertise, personality or product range that they offered. This was a key factor in the failure of their emails to convert sales, especially when combined with a design that was dull and uninspiring. In a crowded marketplace, having enthusiastic staff with this level of expertise can be a key differentiator for customers. Jessops needed to make effective use of their emails to communicate this to their database of customers.

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This year at Red C we have decided to take a different approach to our agency Christmas card… we’ve created six cards that we can pack up and sell in aid of the charity Mustard Tree. The cards we’ve created aren’t just a pretty picture of a winter scene like other Christmas cards… each of the six cards is an inspirational story for Christmas.

Everyone here at Red C has been heartened by the work that Mustard Tree do to provide life support for the homeless, marginalised and vulnerable across Greater Manchester… so this year the dreaded agency Christmas card brief had only one solution… create something to help this Charity at the time of year when it needs help the most… Christmas!

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So here we are, three months in, and Red C has had me unleashed upon them without the safety net of my predecessor Anna Chan around to guide me. Though whilst I’m holding my breath and wishing myself luck, I think I’m going to be alright.

Here’s why:

1. The people I’m working with are ace. They are funny, clever and helpful

2. Holiday treats, birthday treats, leaving treats…there’s always some kind of sweet treat on offer, not to mention the decent coffee. Suddenly 7am starts don’t seem so bad

3. It’s a bit of a cliché but I can honestly say I’m learning something new thing every day

I remember when I first started searching for a placement last year and thinking that just getting one was what counted. Now I realise actually just how important getting the right one was. And I certainly found that at Red C.

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Pot Noodle... it's what students live off you know!

It’s been a month since I completed my placement at Red C, and I’m back studying at university. I’m back into student life, which, in case you’re wondering, doesn’t just mean sitting around eating beans on toast and watching Doctors on daytime TV. But it does feel  strange as the reality of returning to university as a final year student is a far cry from what I imagined it to be. Whilst I’m sat in a stuffy lecture hall struggling not to fall asleep from the lecturer’s monotonous voice, making notes about theory models, I can’t help but think back to my time at Red C and think how different it was.

I find myself missing the hectic bustle of the office, the ringing phones, even having to check through all the email links. It’s then I realise just how much Red C has changed me, motivated me and inspired me. When I look around at the other students who didn’t complete a placement, I can’t help but feel they’ve missed out. I feel my time at Red C was invaluable in helping me develop and for setting me on course to achieve my goals in advertising.

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When Stuart and I were developing the film competition for Jessops and The Mob Films that would eventually become The Shot we had three strong looks that we wanted to explore… top of our list of the three was a Saul Bass type feel that would really make this campaign stand apart from any other work Jessops had done before.

We’d also been inspired as well by seeing some quite retro interpretations of some modern film posters by such designers as Olly Moss who had created some minimalist posters for The Alamo Drafthouse. Luckily for us, we had a designer on board who really loved our initial thoughts and took them on and created some fantastic poster designs.

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Olympic Dreams Book Cover by James Dodd

Having realised that most of my ‘we like’ articles are about photography, I started work on a lovely little article about illustration. But that all came to a stop as soon as I saw ‘Olympic Dreams’ – a beautiful series of photographs by James Dodd – that I just had to write about. So it’s photography again!

When I first saw them, these beautiful black and white shots really stopped me in my tracks. I’m now kicking myself that I missed the exhibition in Sheffield late last year. Read more…

It was Punctuation Day on 24^th September which, I’m sure, was observed respectfully by you all.  No doubt you spent the day taking extra special care to ensure all your apostrophes’ were correctly placed… and tempered your use of ellipsis and exclamation marks!!!

This weekend also saw a surprise appearance from the interrobang on Q.I., and, believe it or not, I actually knew both the name and purpose of this peculiar punctuation mark – probably the first and last time I’ll ever know a Q.I. question outright. So after gaining my massive chufty badge, I began digging around the weird and wonderful world of obscure punctuation and uncovered some bizarre characters indeed.

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