It was a blue blue Christmas

What do you get if Martin and Russell spend 18 hours a day for 3 days in a studio with 50 packs of blue Fimo and some cameras? 3 lovely stop-frame animations for Skype that’s what! The charming banners were created to promote keeping in touch with family and friends using Skype over the festive period. Check out how we made it and our favourite banner below. Liz and Aimee would like to thank everyone who lent a hand in making these, the man-hours were definitely worth it.

Skype - The Making of Our Online Christmas Banners from Albion London on Vimeo.

Skype - Online Christmas Banner from Albion London on Vimeo.

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.

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.

Reaction to Absolute Radio

Some links to the coverage of Absolute Radio:

BBC News: 'Virgin Radio to become Absolute'

MediaGuardian's 'The end of Virgin Radio? Absolute-ly.'

Brand Republic's 'Virgin Radio rebrands as Absolute Radio'

Digital Spy forum

One Golden Square blog

What's amazing is how intelligent and balanced the discussion in the comments is on each of these... apart from the 'marketing professionals' commenting under the Brand Republic article. Hmm.

Absolutely no puns. Doh!

Sorry for not posting for a while. We’ve had our heads down, working on rebranding Virgin Radio.

We had to do the whole thing in 60 days, because they have to hand the Virgin brand back 90 days after buying the company. If you’ve ever worked on a rebranding, you know that’s pretty aggressive. There's a lot to do.

The new name was announced to VIPs (registered website users) by email and SMS yesterday, and on-air this morning by Christian O’Connell.

And the new name is Absolute.

Image used under Creative Commons license from James Cridland.

Some people have commented that the “sandal-wearing marketing folk” have really pulled off a trick this time, as the new brand name was also the name of the new management team’s consultancy Absolute Radio International Ltd.

Well, the story is that we did come up with some cracking names (IMHO), but whenever we were talking about what the new brand should stand for, our clients always kept underlining one name in particular on their pads. The one that was already printed at the top!

So Absolute met one of the most important criteria for a new brand name – that the people who work for the company like it and feel that it signals their ambition. It also met another criteria for the new owners – that it was available as a domain and trademark internationally. Plus, as James points out, it will appear first in the list of stations on DAB radios, and DAB is the future.

So what exactly have we been doing then?

• Creating their ‘open way of doing business’ strategy, including building and maintaining their staff blog onegoldensquare.com.
• Defining the new brand platform and endline – ‘discover real music’.
• Designing the new brand identity.
• Working with them on the ‘crossfade’ launch strategy. (You’ll notice on air that the station is now being referred to as “Virgin Radio, soon to be Absolute” Keep listening and see how that evolves…)
• Writing and designing a newspaper-style ‘brand book’ for the trade (advertisers, media agencies, commentators).
• Working with their online team on the new website design (to be launched soon).
• Developing an integrated launch campaign for later in the year.

Phew. After a pause for a quick glass of Champagne it’s straight back to work. There are only 30 days until Mr Branson wants his brand back and there’s still a lot to do.

Agency familiarisations the Kiwi way

Over the last 10 days the Albion Air New Zealand team have met people across the business from the deputy CEO to operations, PR and local marketing teams. And we have been lucky enough to have been taken on a whistle-stop tour across the country. It was a military operation prepared especially for Albion and two US agencies. At times it was hard to believe that it was work. Helicopters, bungy jumping and jet boats aren't a usual feature of a normal working day.

But by the end of our trip we really felt immersed in the Kiwi spirit and there is nothing like seeing the product you are selling with your own eyes. We'd like to thank the team at Air New Zealand for being the ultimate hosts. We really felt spoilt and privileged. We have our heads down now!

Style
Jason  8
Keith   9.5
Nick    3

Look of fear
Jason  2.5
Keith 1
Nick     10

The Air New Zealand Cultural Ambassador

Andrew Baker is the Cultural Ambassador at Air New Zealand. He's been with the company for some 19 years, having spent a lot of this time as a Flight Services Manager on board. Andrew's new role is to educate new Air New Zealanders (many who are not Kiwis) about the values of the company and
in particular maori culture. As a proud Maori himself, Andrew exudes the openness and generosity of spirit that he talks about. He visited us in London and taught the team how to do the Haka.

And when we met him again in New Zealand he showed us he's a man of many skills by playing us a traditional song on his guitar about new beginnings.

We also traveled with Andrew to visit the Waitangi Treaty grounds - the birthplace of the New Zealand nation. This is where a treaty  was signed between the Maoris and the first English settlers in 1840.

The Waitangi grounds are beautiful and tranquil place containing a Maori meeting house. A meeting house is not a "church" but more of a "library". The carvings contained within reflect a verbal history rather than a written one. In Christchurch we visited a modern art gallery and saw a contemporary interpretation of a meeting house by a Maori artist.

Kiwi entrepreneurialism

The Albion Air New Zealand team made a stop at Peregrine Wines in Otago. Greg Hay is the founder of the vineyard and won the Air New Zealand wine award for his pinot noir in his first year of production, creating a name for the Otago region. His winery is housed in a wonderful piece of modern architecture that is inspired by the falcon that is also the symbol of his label. Greg has also organised gigs on the the estate which he thought "wouldn't be too hard to pull off". He talked of the power and importance of the brand in winemaking and also what he does to protect his brand. He once declined an offer from a major fizzy drinks manufacturer to use his venue to launch a new product because he thought their brand did not fit with his.  Greg defines what it is to be a Kiwi - inventive, can-do and daring, whilst still being very humble and down-to-earth.