Fee Fi Fo Fum

Mini are always at the cutting edge of marketing across the globe, with inventive new ways to engage their target audience and getting people talking and buzzing about the Mini brand. Berlin formed the base of their latest guerrilla marketing campaign, backed by social media technology and a bit of creativity to engage a global audience.

Mini’s marketing team installed a branded Photo booth on one of Berlin’s busiest streets, and asked visitors to wear a pair of specific head phones and have their photograph taken for their chance to win a Mini. The ear phones were designed to resemble the wing mirrors of the mini. The resulting image was then digitally inserted into an advert along side the Mini, within the familiar Mini branded adverting format, with the supporting slogan ‘Be Mini’. The finished image was displayed on a giant digital billboard across the street for all to see.

Be Mini - Guerrilla Marketing Campaign

This resulted in the people of Berlin texting, photographing, uploading images & video, sharing content, and taking about the marketing event through the usual social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

To engage a world wide audience in the marketing activity, Mini didn’t just stop there, they introduced a custom-built Facebook App. This App brought the photo booth to the comfort of your own home through Facebook, allowing you to take a photo of yourself using your webcam and some carefully designed graphic headphones digitally overlaid to form part of the finished image. All you had to do was to position your head in the right place within the template and click for your chance to win a mini.

It’s a very creative and clever idea, designed to create a buzz on the street itself, along with people advertising the product through social media, backed by a social media engagement interface to capture a global audience.

If you want more information on how social media marketing can help you business, then contact the Urban Giants Design studio to arrange a chat.

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At Urban Giants Design we like to encourage our clients to be creative and get out there and make an impact through something different, either through traditional media or social media marketing. We are currently delivering social media seminars at Business Link’s Start Your Business Events where we discuss just that, demonstrating how big brands such as Ikea and Levi’s use simple but clever ideas and a mixture of on and offline marketing to create a giant impact.

It’s easy for small businesses to think, ‘well these are big household brands, how can my small business do something like that?’, but you’d be wrong to think that. These ideas are generally very low cost, they use existing technology, and best of all other people do the advertising for you in the end… all you need is a little creativity.

Local luxury lingerie designer, Michelle Taylor from Tallulah Love, has demonstrated just that with her recent flash mob style hijacking of the Turner Prize at Gateshead’s Baltic art gallery. Well, maybe more flasher mob to be fair, ha ha!

Tallulah Love Luxury Lingerie

The Tallulah Love Luxury Lingerie team set about creating a PR promotional stunt which would get people talking about their brand through word of mouth, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and through mobile technology. It is a giant accolade for the region and the Baltic to secure the hosting of this years Turner Prize, as it’s such a high profile creative event, with a high profile media presence to match. So, if you can engineer something creative around it’s launch then that would be ideal… and that’s exactly what Michelle had planned.

She gathered together a group of young female models by recruiting through friends on Facebook and Twitter (all of which were capable of keeping a secret! Which was vital.) and planned a flash mob style fashion show at the opening of the Turner Prize 2011. For those who don’t know, flash mobbing is where you get a group of people to turn up to a public location and then they perform a routine to the public, such as singing or dancing usually, which was recently made most famous by T-Mobile TV advertising.

Each model was briefed (pardon the pun) and then given a set of lingerie form the Tallulah Love range. A big red bus was then sourced to transport all of the Tallulah’s to the location on the night.

The Tallulah Love Bus

Clues and teasing messages were given by the Tallulah team through their social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, hinting as to what was planned, when, but not where. Readers and followers had to stay tuned to discover more clues, and finally where the location was on the day. If the location was leaked too early then the promotional stunt wouldn’t have worked as the element of surprise would have been lost. This generated more followers, and along with it people discussing the Tallulah Love brand name across the social media platforms, increasing brand awareness as a result.

Once the event grew closer the location was revealed, Michelle and the team boarded the bus to travel to Gateshead’s Millennium Bridge to cause a stir. Once there the models strutted their stuff wearing nothing but Tallulah Love Luxury Lingerie and a cheeky smile, catwalking across the iconic Millennium Bridge and outside the Baltic art gallery. The models were also accompanied by Newcastle based musicians ‘My other Life band’ who providing the love themed backing tracks to the performance.

Tallulah Love on Gateshead's Millennium Bridge

Tallulah Love Models outside The Turner Prize 2011

The event caused quite a stir both inside and outside the Turner Prize 2011 launch event, with many people not only talking about Tallulah Love Luxury Lingerie, but photographing and videoing the promotional stunt to send to friends and upload to social media sites, in addition to texting their friends. It also generated much media interest through, newspapers, magazines and TV coverage. The event also coincided with the launch of Tallulah Love’s first promotional video launch… http://youtu.be/p9r0ndpFjaw

So it just goes to show you that you don’t have to be a massive household brand to create a giant impact, all you need is a little bit of imagination and planning. Well done to Michelle, the Tallulah Team and all of the models involved for braving the cold for the greater good! A fantastic campaign and a giant impact! Hopefully this will inspire more of you to think and create something a little different.

Michelle Taylor with the Tallulah Lovelies

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Urban Giants Design were recently selected to design the branding and promotional marketing material for this years Marketing the Art of event at the Sage in Gateshead - 10 November 2011

MTAO11 Brand indentity

We were delighted and flattered to have been selected to brand and provide marketing support for such a high profile event in the region.

Urban Giants were asked to develop the brand identity for this years event, and develop the brands image with a new twist for the supporting marketing material. We have designed and been involved with the brand identity, flyers and leaflets, advertising for printed publications, digital advertising banners, Twitter page design, event brochures and booklets, event stage design (with Spacecraft Events), digital presentation templates and the website design (supporting Koodoo Creative who did the programming).

MTAO11 Website (design only)

The event this year has a digital focus, centring around brand positioning across digital platforms, social media marketing, mobile technologies and developing new technologies. It’s a creative event at the cutting edge of technology and marketing, aimed at inspiring and opening the minds of creatives and general business owners alike.

For more information on the event:

Twitter: @Marketingartof
Website: www.marketingtheartof.com

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Urban Giants Design are again proud to be part of the Start Your Business Events series hosted by Business Link. This is the third or forth year we’ve been selected to be part of this event series as an advisor and to deliver free creative seminars, and we love helping and supporting new business startups within the region.

The event is free and designed to give free advice across a range of business support subjects and areas, to anyone who is looking to start a business, in the process of launching a new business, or a young business which would like some support to develop. Experts can advise you on anything from finance to logistics.

Our role at the event is to provide you with free advice on how to create a company name and the things to consider, designing and developing your brand, brand protection, identifying and profiling your customers, advertising and marketing ideas, marketing strategies, website design and development, social media marketing… basically anything to do with design, marketing or promoting your business. We’ll just sit with you and have a real good chat about your business and things you need to think about and consider, what you realistically need in place to launch and then how to stage your marketing as you grow.

In addition to our advisors role, we have also been selected by Business Link to deliver a short seminar on Social Media Marketing for your business. We cover what social media actual is, open your mind to what it’s actual potential is and what it can be used for, and how that actually impacts on your business. No jargon, no magic, just good honest advice… that’s just the way we work.

Two weeks ago the first of the four events was held at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, where we spoke to a lot of fantastic people with some really exciting business potential, which was a pleasure. One of those people said this about us ‘10 mins with Urban Giants today, and i learned more about marketing and reaching out to customers than I have in the 5 years on my own.’ which is a nice thing to hear!

This Saturday is the second event of the series, which is being held at Newcastle Civic Centre. The event runs from 10am til 4pm, so feel free to call down and pick some brains, including ours, and to really find out what to do to get your idea off the ground and made into reality. We look forward to meeting you there!

If you can’t make the event then there are two other events, in Alnwick and Middlesbrough, which you can discover more about by visiting www.sybevents.co.uk.

If you can’t make any of the events, feel free to give us a call to arrange a meeting to discuss your new business on 01429 277 604

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Urban Giants Design were recently approached to design a brand identity for a new hair & beauty salon based in the north east. Initially we were asked to assist with brand name generation around a concept/theme and then to design the logo and branding to communicate that through.

The concept was set around creating angels and heavenly relaxation, along with a feeling of bliss and purity. We set about researching other salons with a similar theme and words associated with the chosen concept, to ensure that we created something unique and without any brand clash issues. Finally we established the name ‘Seraph Hair & Beauty’, which is the highest order of angels which sat above the throne of God.

Once the brand name had been established, we then set about the difficult task of trying to design a logo which represented the Seraph concept, but which also communicated the business itself, which is hair & beauty. We wanted to do this in a modern and clean way, avoiding all of the cliched cherub like representations you might expect. As you can see from the brand sample below, we did this by combining expanded wings with the natural flow of hair, complimented by a halo. The head brand device was printed in metallic Pantone Gold to help give that special heavenly feel to the stationery and print promotion.

Seraph Hair & Beauty Brand Identity

The brand identity was then translated through to store signage for the front of the salon, internal signage, stationery, flyers, advertising, loyalty cards, price lists and other promotional material, with a view to developing a website in the near future backed by a social media presence.

We specialise in logo design, brand identity, corporate identity, brand design, brand strategies, brand roll out, brand guidelines, brand consistency and a brand new way of thinking. Can you tell we love branding? So, if you’d like to discuss your companies branding, please contact Urban Giants on 01429 277 604 or email us at creative@urbangiants.co.uk

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When you’ve been in your industry for years, it’s sometimes easy to forget that not everyone has your knowledge, and sometimes what you may think are obvious others may not agree. So we thought we would try to explain a few things to help some of you out, and make you feel more comfortable.

At Urban Giants Design we always think of our clients in everything we do. When we develop creative campaigns, whether it’s branding, marketing, a new website or a social media marketing campaign, we always take the time to explain exactly what we are doing and why, and most importantly how it will impact on your business and your clients, how that happens and why. We believe that there’s no point in providing our clients with a powerful communications platform if there’s no explanation of how to truly get the best out of it and make it work for their business. This is especially true for social media campaigns.

One of the things we’ve discovered is that some of our clients aren’t very familiar with the terminology surrounding the building of websites, and to be honest, why should they be? If our clients knew as much as we did then they wouldn’t need us would they. With that in mind I thought we should share one easy analogy with you, which may help some of you when approaching a website project for the first time…

Many people are confused with domains, hosting, and website design, and what you need in place to get a new website off the ground. The easiest way to describe this, is if we explain it like building a house…

1. Firstly, you need a plot of land on which to build your house, and you can’t build a house without it. - This plot of land is your ‘hosting’. Hosting is essentially the renting of some hard drive space on a computer (server) which is fully managed by a team of specialists in a chilled storage unit to ensure it always runs perfectly. Depending on what valuables you store on your plot, such as financial or personal details depends on what level of security you need. Think of secure certificates and firewalls as big iron gates, an 8ft high wall, cameras, a security guard and guard dogs around the edge of your plot.

2. Secondly, we need to think about what house we really need to suit our requirements and how we wish to entertain others. We also need to consider how much money we have to build it, and how are we going to grow in the future so we can allow for easy expansion. Your house is essentially the design and build of your website. As with a house, everything is possible and you can design pretty much whatever you like within budget.

3. Finally, you need an address to give people to be able to find you, which is your website address (domain name), of which you can have more than one pointing to your house if you wish.

This explanation isn’t suitable for everyone, we know, but we also know from experience that there are a lot of people who would actually benefit from this, so we hope it’s been helpful. Even if this only helps one person, from our point of view it was worth writing.

If you would like to discuss a new website design, online marketing strategy, a social media campaign or any other creative support, then let us know and we’d love to chat with you about your business and the ideas you have.

Contact Urban Giants Design on 01429 277 604 or email us at creative@urbangiants.co.uk

You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Urban Giants Design have just produced a new logo design and brand identity which got us using our brains quite a bit.

Following our design and creative advice workshops and seminars for Business Link earlier in the year, we were approached by an existing business to develop a new brand identity for them. Images in Mind provide a range of services for both individuals and companies centred around the human mind and how it functions. There service offering includes a range of solutions, from positive thinking and turning your dreams into a reality, right through to assisting and working with individuals who maybe suffering from mental health issues or depression.

This varied and wide range of services left us with a complicated task of visually communicating two completely different ends of the scale in an equally positive light, without any negative connotations arising.

Creatively we were tasked with the design of a new logo and brand identity, along with a strap-line which could then be used on a wide range of marketing and promotional material both on and offline. Something which allows for future growth and possibility, whilst projecting the professional integrity of the service level offered and visually communicating the process involved.

Images in Mind : Logo Design & Brand Identity

The logo is designed to visually communicate the fact that you have a vague picture in your mind, which then can be interpreted and given more clarity in order to make more sense of it and realise the reality of it. This was achieved using the rearranging of the word images from the brand device, through to the supporting text below, taking it from a block through to a written word. The use of typography allows us to select a typeface which looks a little under developed and not quite a full picture (Fur), through to the clean and perfectly formed Avant Garde, which communicates the process well. This was complimented through the use of colour, with the expected colour we visually associate with the human brain in pink, with the contrasting use of dark grey to suggest the thought process, as in the term “grey matter”.

We developed a marketing strap-line to support the brand identity which played on a double meaning… ‘Mindful of positive thoughts’. This is to suggest that you need to be mindful of positive thoughts, and the company are, along with the fact that the solution is intended to leave you with a mind full of positive thoughts.

Have a look at the logo design above and make your own mind up.

We specialise in logo design, brand identity, corporate identity, brand design, brand strategies, brand roll out, brand guidelines, brand consistency and a brand new way of thinking. Can you tell we love branding? So, if you’d like to discuss your companies branding, please contact Urban Giants on 01429 277 604 or email us at creative@urbangiants.co.uk

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Urban Giants Design have rebranded local training and apprenticeship specialists Baltic Training Services, helping them to better reflect on their quality of service and position within the education and training sector.

As brand specialists we began the process by redesigning the Baltic Training brand identity itself, following discussions with key staff members and analysing the marketplace, competitors and the target market. The logo needed to be clean, professional and modern, engage with a wide range of potential clients from company owners through to school leavers, with an underpinning feeling of heritage and experience. By retaining some of the original colour value from the initial brand, but with a lighter and fresher feel, we kept an element of the heritage along with a clean traditional shield shape. The modern element was introduced through by implementing a social media inspired typeface as the corporate font for Baltic, which reflects their specialist knowledge within the IT Apprenticeships.

Baltic Training Services New Brand Identity

The design and feel of brand identity was then carried through to letterheads, business cards, branded document folders, course inserts, email stationery, interactive presentation templates and printed promotional material. It was therefore important for the logo design to be flexible enough to adapt to both print and digital based promotional marketing material, and the consistency was ensured by the introduction of a brand guidelines document. The brand identity has also been trademarked within the UK with a view to ensuring brand protection going forward.

Baltic Training Services New Website Design

In order to help Baltic Training to engage more with their clients and reach their target market, Urban Giants developed a new content managed website which is flexible enough for future growth, allowing them to shift and respond very quickly to any changes within the sector. The new online presence is then complimented by an intelligent social media marketing platform and strategy, utilising blogging software, Twitter and Facebook, which is designed to engage with new and existing clients, raise brand awareness, improve market reach and provide a platform for PR and company updates.

Visit: http://www.baltictraining.com

Tw: @baltictraining

Fb: http://www.facebook.com/baltictraining

Bl: http://www.thefutureoflearning.co.uk

We specialise in logo design, brand identity, corporate identity, brand design, brand strategies, brand roll out, brand guidelines, brand consistency and a brand new way of thinking. Can you tell we love branding? So, if you’d like to discuss your companies branding, please contact Urban Giants on 01429 277 604 or email us at creative@urbangiants.co.uk

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Every year at Urban Giants Design we select an organisation or a charity to give a little helping hand to, with the aid of design, marketing and promotion. This year we discovered a charity which was full of love and growing in stature day by day; Abbie’s Love raises awareness of Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP), following the sad loss of the charities namesake, Abbie, who past away in her sleep on 1st December 2006.

The charity contacted Urban Giants to design some branded popup banner stands which could be used at the local hospital to raise awareness, or taken to charity events etc to aid promotion. We developed a design for the banners based on their existing brand identity and corporate style, and worked with them to ensure that the banners would have the desired impact and instant recognition.

Abbie's Love Charity - Banner Design

Once the design had been signed off and approved for print, we informed Abbie’s Love that Urban Giants would be donating our design work and studio time for free, which was greatly received. Hopefully our donation will continue to raise awareness of the charity for years to come and provide a much bigger donation as a result.

Shortly after we completed the design work for the charity Urban Giants received some fantastic news, Abbie’s Love had been featured as part of Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire show which was hosted in Middlesbrough. This will not only have a wonderful impact on the charity from a potential cash injection, but will also generate national awareness through the televised show, the resulting press coverage, as well as an impact on the internet and social media. As a result of the Secret Millionaire show, Abbie’s Love can hopefully continue to grow and help thousands more people to cope with SUDEP.

The secret Millionaire show will be on air Tuesday 26th April 2011 (Tonight) at 9:00pm on Channel 4, so please watch it and give them your support. Whether it’s time or money every donation, no matter how small, makes a giant impact.

You can visit the Abbie’s Love website at www.abbieslove.com or alternatively visit the charity on Facebook.

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Last weekend Urban Giants Design were once again invited by Business Link to provide free expert advice to startup businesses within the North East as part of the Start Your Business Events.

The event was held within the very impressive businesses facilities at Alnwick Castle & Gardens, which seemed to be a very fitting venue to help new businesses grow. SYB Events are aimed at those who are thinking of launching a business, are ready to launch a business or have just launched a new business. Visitors are offered advice from discussing the initial idea, sourcing funding and financial support, the logistics of getting the business setup and ready to launch, understanding who to inform and how, through to getting your brand name right, how to effectively market your business to your customer base, how to identify who your customers are, intelligent marketing and promotional techniques and how to develop a powerful social media presence.

SYB Events @ Alnwick Castle & Gardens

SYB Events @ Alnwick Castle & Gardens

Urban Giants provided free advice all day at the event on, branding, brand protection, design, marketing, promotion campaigns, advertising, how to engage and connect with your customers, website design and social media marketing. We also ran a free open workshop on the Power of Social Media and how it can really help your business, which explored what social media really is, the impact it can have, and how it can be used intelligently to promote your business and engage with customers.

During the day we met some fantastic, lovely people who were passionate about self employment and has some great ideas for new businesses. It was a pleasure to be involved with the event and a breath of fresh air from all of the doom and gloom of the economy discussions on the news channels. It is great to be supporting those individuals who will hopefully be driving the economy’s recovery through private sector growth.

So far the event has already successfully supported budding entrepreneurs from across the North East, from venues including Durham, Darlington, Newcastle and Alnwick, which Urban Giants have proudly supported throughout. We are now looking forward to being part of this Saturdays event at Middlesbrough, and then the last in this years series which is to be held in Sunderland on 5th March. So if you’d like some free creative advice please come and see us. If you can’t make it, feel free to give us a call to arrange a meeting to discuss your new business on 01429 277 604

We look forward to seeing you there!

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