Friday 13 August 2010

It's Simple....no, really!

What do you get if you combine a top-rated TV programme with the UK's number one over-the-counter skincare brand? The Simple Wellbeing Challenge.

It all started last year on ITV's Tonight show, when teenagers agreed to rid themselves of all make-up, fake tan, fashion and gadgetry for a social study by Emma Kenny, GMTV's resident psychologist. The marketing team at Simple saw the programme, called Make My Kids Happy, loved it and knew it was a perfect fit for the Simple brand. They nabbed Emma and came up with the idea of using the massive Simple database – carefully developed over the past few years by many, many on-line campaigns created by our team at Idealogy – to target teenagers in schools across the country and challenge them to see if removing lippy, binning the mobile and taking up volunteer work would lift their spirits. And then they handed the brief over to us.

We say us, we actually mean Simon Johnson, Idealogy's digital media director. He and Shelley managed the project, creating a new promotions page on the www.simple.co.uk site with downloadable leaflets and flyers, an area for teens to take the Rosenberg test (the measuring tool for the experiment) as well, of course, ways for users to share the information with others, such as via Facebook. It looks clean and simple (and Simple) thanks to Shelley's superior design skills and the talent of our web developers.

So, job accomplished, and in a very fine and dandy way too. Now we're just waiting for the Simple team to take inspiration from Top Gear. It will happen. We're just waiting for the call.


Posted by Simon Johnson



Thursday 5 August 2010

Dan, Dan, the Otis Redding Man

Finding a Photographer who really ‘gets’ the intimate nature of Wedding Days and understands that these never-to-be-repeated moments are precious, is very rare indeed. Too many try to be ‘the show’. Others seem to have no empathy with the day, herding guests around without ever really getting the ‘money shot’. And even more, who double or triple book the days, rushing around, leaving bemused couples breathing in fumes and dust from departing tyre tracks. Where’s the value in that?

But Dan Akerman is different - he gets it! He knows that this is ‘their day’.  To stay in the background but still step up. To reflect their hopes, their fears and their journey. And his work showed us just that. It was so very different…

So when he asked Idealogy to sort out his Wind and Kite (web site), http://www.daphotographyuk.com we all jumped at the chance to help – after all, he was one of us, talking our language, however hard to understand that was.

So, we wrote the story and the copy, his brother Darryl (Idealogy’s Design Director) designed the look and Simon Johnson, Paul Skinner and Richard Sprinks developed and built the platform. And it all tells a compelling story – painting a picture of a guy with a different slant but a creative bent. A guy who, when your Bricks and Mortar (daughter) wants to get Cash and Carried (married), he’s more than just a pointing and clicking Whistle and Flute (suit).

So, if you want a memorable Otis Redding, Dan’s the man who won’t give you Lionel Blairs (work it out for yourself!).

Get it? Good!


Posted by Idealogy