Fat Freddy's at Roundhouse

People who don't "get" the line for Air New Zealand - "Is it just a Kiwi thing?" - have obviously never been to a Fat Freddy's Drop gig. Effortlessly excellent yet modest as you like - even at the end of a European tour. However I don't think the guys realised how many Brits were actually in the crowd though, believing it to be  made up of ex-pat kiwis. But there was one Londoner definitely standing up (and bouncing about) being counted as a big supporter of Kiwi music. Bring on the new album.

Description of last nights gig in 2 words:

(expletive) brilliant

I've seen them at Big Chill, in Brighton, Hammersmith and now at the Roundhouse and no two gigs have been the same - but all of them have been amazing - from the great hip hop in Brighton to the battle between Alice Russell and the brass section in Hammersmith.

Never heard them? Get Based on A True Story - but jump at the chance to see them live. Seriously.

or listen to Fat Freddy's on Last.FM along with these guys...

Black Seeds
Fly My Pretties
Katchafire
The Feelers
Kora

- The Hinchmuffin

Albion Live

On Thursday we had our 6^th Birthday party. To celebrate another milestone year for Albion we took over Bar Music Hall around the corner from our headquarters in Shoreditch. We hosted the party in conjunction with one of our main clients Absolute Radio.

As everyone knows the soundtrack to any party is of vital importance so between ourselves and Absolute we not only got some great bands on board for the night – The Vibrants, Finger Eleven, Jersey Budd and Grovesnor – but also a bloody great sound system rigged up in Bar Music Hall.

These bands we interspersed throughout the night with music chosen by everyone at the party. Each invitation we sent out gave the invited a chance to pick a party track of their choice. We compiled the best and span those out at every opportunity. Party winners were Marlena Shaw’s ‘California Soul’, Chairlift ‘Bruises’, and Cheryl Lynn’s ‘Got To Be Real’.

Acts-wise first up on stage was acoustic singer/song writer Jersey Budd. He hails from Leicester but with a name straight out of mid-west America Jersey's guitar music makes more references to folk rock legends Neil Young and Bob Dylan than anyone from his hometown (errr Kasabian, Corner Shop). Thanks for coming down Jersey.

 

Next on stage were The Vibrants whose lead guitar player is the big brother of Joe, one of our designers. They recently returned from touring North America where their unique brand of South London indie went down very well. It did on Thursday as well. Great presence on stage and great tracks. One Absolute are tipping to watch.

Following this we had ex-Hot Chip drummer turned solo electronica act Grovesnor. His red jeans among other things got everyone dancing. Thanks Rob for bringing the synthesiser to the party.

And last but certainly not least was Canadian alt-rock band Finger 11. These guys have been around the block forming in 1989! Absolute broadcast this gig live which featured their cult hit ‘Paralyser’, newest track ‘Talking to the Walls’ and a number of heavy rock covers. It was quite surreal to have such a full on rock band rocking the stage at our birthday party but it went down really well. So thanks to them for coming down the night before their only British gig this year. Check out Jason and Kat with the band in the photo above.

The mosh pit was returned to disco dancefloor with friend of Albion Mr Doris DJing old school funk, house and cosmic disco out until the end of the night.

What an evening. Thanks to everyone for coming down and getting involved. Check out all our photos on the Albion Flickr page.

Wallace and Gromit Visit Albion

What more could you ask for on a dreary mid-week morning than a visit to the office by 2 special guests. Wallace and Gromit popped into Albion to show us a sneak preview of their new epic film.  Never before have I seen two people create such a buzz and a stir in the office. One person was so star struck by Wallace that they almost collapsed, it really was ‘A Matter of Loaf and Death’

 

 

A good night

On Thursday evening we won a couple of awards.

Our Skype Nomad campaign won the Technology category in the IMA awards:

And our eBayTV ads with a live web feed (made with ITV) won the Media Innovation category at the Media Week awards.

These both make us happy, because they're for innovative projects that we worked really hard on. So it's nice that other people recognise that.

Don't worry though, we're not going to let it go to our heads!

Where the hell is Doug?

You can also interact with him through the Doug Hub on Absolute Radio's site. They finally gave into his demands for his own page and blog.

Absolute Albion Society

We had a great Albion Society on Wednesday evening, with Clive Dickens and Chris Lawson of Absolute Radio.

As regular readers will know, the ‘Society is a forum where we invite entrepreneurs to talk to Albion staff, client and friends about what makes them tick.

Clive and Chris led a fascinating conversation about what motivates them, how they came to takeover Virgin Radio, and gave us some real insight into their back story and their ambitions for Absolute.

Some of the highlights were:

• Clive’s story about deciding to buy Virgin Radio when he accidentally drove past Richard Branson’s Oxfordshire home in January.
• Learning that Clive and his partners had been exploring opportunities in India, or partnerships with Indian companies, for years previously. A far cry from the oversimple ‘the Indians take over another British company’ story that the media tell.
• Chris’s background in online community marketing, whether for charities or Bauer, and the different perspective it gives him on what the Absolute brand needs to be, and how it needs to behave.
• Their simple measure of success: “If we’re still a radio brand in 12 months then we’ve failed”.

“Very energising” is the consensus from the people who were there. The Absolute story continues to build and build. we’re delighted to be part of the journey. We didn’t even mind missing the Keane gig they’d invited us to on the same night!

We’ll post some video highlights of the talk here soon.

That’s good, that’s real good

Our launch campaign for Absolute Radio breaks today.

The brief was to demonstrate their ‘discover real music’ proposition, in a way that stands out enough to instantly establish the new brand in the public’s mind. We also wanted to let people see behind the scenes at Absolute, continuing the ‘open rebranding’ strategy we developed for them.

So we’ve created a campaign that’s more like mini-series than conventional advertising. It centres around Doug, the fictional security guard at One Golden Square, and the self-appointed guardian of real music.

Doug is played by Jordan Prentice, who last week picked up a Loaded Lafta for the brilliant dark comedy In Bruge, in which he stars with Colin Farrell.

We worked in a really collaborative and agile way with production company Hungryman, director Stephen Pearson, and Jordan. Instead of setting out to film just a set number of highly scripted spots, we instead filmed as much as possible while the actors improvised around some pre-planned scenarios. We have also been filming extra online stuff with Bonney & Klein to capture even more content.

This means that we’ve got a load of content. The Guardian say there are “9 ads”, but there’s more. In fact we’re still shooting today and tomorrow. All this will be released onto the YouTube Channel in stages.

We hope the ads shown on TV are funny enough that people will want to go online to see them again. And when they do they’ll be rewarded with alternative versions, and extra content that deepens the characters. Real fans should have a good search around online; there are some hidden surprises out there.

You can see the media schedule for the first weekend here.

Thanks to Steve and Nick who created the idea, and Petrina, Simon, Sarah and Kevin who made it happen.

Is it just a Kiwi thing?

From today's Metro

This week our new work for Air New Zealand breaks online, outdoor and in print. We think we have captured the Kiwi spirit that sets them apart in the airline industry. What really struck us was the huge support we received from not only the marketing team, but people across the business that are still smiling and hugely enthusiastic despite trying times.

One of these people is  B747 Captain, Peter Clulow. He's flown for Air New Zealand for 35 years. When we went looking for someone to hand paint a headline on the largest portrait poster (12.22m wide x 20m high) in London, he was in. However once he arrived from New Zealand and saw the site he had to admit that he though it was 'not that big'. Peter is spending Tuesday and Wednesday (7th & 8th October) on  the end of a rope with a paintbrush and a can of green paint demonstrating a bit of Kiwi can do.

Thanks Peter. Rather more elegant than Jason, Nick or Keith on the end of a rope.

Goodbye Camille

Camille was our 8th full time Albionite, joining as a fresh-faced graduate from St.Martins. She brought a box of tricks and a sharp wit and also made tea that was acceptable for a Frenchy. Camille worked as a designer across all of our clients and could bring a sparkle to just about anything with her illustrative flair. We also liked the way she could put down anyone and get away with it; her parting email “Oh and if we're not friends on The Book yet, let's sort it out. Jason, I'll accept your request this time.” Nice.

As part of Goodbye Camille Week we did a bunch of things including a little party with way too many artificial colors and flavorings. The piñata was also a hit when she eventually hit it.

Good luck Camille. Enjoy your travels. We will miss you greatly.

You can see Camille’s work here. She is available for freelance assignments of the illustrative or design variety. Expensive, but you're worth it.

Jason mentoring at Seedcamp

Seedcamp is an organisation founded by Albion non-exec Saul Klein (and with a visual identity by Albion) that aims to foster and nourish young entrepreneurs across Europe. It runs the annual Seedcamp Week - kind of a Investment Idol for startups - where young companies compete to win funding.

Seedcamp first ran in 2007, and the idea has really gained momentum since then, with loads of coverage. You can read all about the week on the Seedcamp blog.

Once again our very own Jason Goodman was a mentor, alongside people like Brent Hoberman of lastminute.com / MyDeco and Vartin Varsavsky of FON.

He says "it was a very enlightening experience. The enthusiasm of businesses starting up in a very tough economic climate, but also the openness and benevolence of the experienced entrepreneurs giving their time and advice freely to help other businesses start up. Maybe it's been happening in Silicon Valley for years, but it feels like something genuinely new and exciting for Europe. Our own industry could learn a lot from this way of behaving..."

You can see Jason in action in this video (1'11" in, if you want to skip straight to the hot action):

Seedcamp Day 3 Highlights from Seedcamp on Vimeo.