Werkshop Weekender (formerly known as Werkhouse) is finally back! This year they’re changing it up, and the torch for hosting has been passed on to Halo.
The weekend, where future designers, copywriters, and strategists are given the chance to connect with the industry and get a taste for agency life first hand through a real brief, is happening in Bristol on 16th and 17th November 2024.
Breaking down barriers
As Halo takes over the mantle, they are continuing to dial up the focus on diversity and inclusion. The weekend is open to anyone over 18, no matter their previous experience or education, and all applications are being judged blind.
“We know that university isn’t accessible, or even the right route, for everyone but yet there’s still such a heavy onus on having a degree when trying to move into the Creative Sector. We don’t think this should be the case. Creativity is open to everyone, and always should be, no matter where you are in life or what you’ve been (or are going) through. “ ~ Bryony Greenwood, People & Studio Coordinator at Halo
Werkshop Weekender brings together professionals from some of the best studios in Bristol and Bath, with curious individuals looking to enter the creative industries. Participants are divided into squads to tackle a real life brief from a client in the charity sector, developing ideas and communicating their concepts, with the support of assigned team leaders and on hand professionals.
Studios that so far have signed on for the weekend are:
How to apply
Applications open on 2nd September and close on 1st October, but if you for any reason need more time to finish, please contact Halo at [email protected] and they’ll do what they can to accommodate you.
The Werkshop Weekender team has made it clear; the weekend isn’t for those with experience. It’s for those with an interest in communications, design, and commercial creativity. They aren’t looking for professionals, they’re looking for those with a curious attitude and drive, who want to gain insight into agency life.
“If you’re passionate, if you have ideas, if you’re curious, we want to hear from you. Good ideas come from every aspect of life, and the experiences and the way people perceive life right from day one are what forms rounded ideas. We know life isn’t linear, and your journey into the creative space may not be either (mine wasn’t), so if you have even an inkling to apply, please do!” ~ Bryony Greenwood, People & Studio Coordinator at Halo
Go to the Werkshop Weekender website to find out more and to access the application when it opens.
We are thrilled to announce that Varn has been selected as a finalist for The Small Business of the Year Award, at the prestigious Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards 2024. This is a real honour and a testament to the hard work and dedication of our entire team.
The Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards are the UK’s largest awards programme celebrating the best of British business. These awards welcome and celebrate businesses of all sizes, from entrepreneurial start-ups and SMEs to well-established key industry players in the FTSE 100. Being selected as a finalist in this prestigious awards process is an incredible milestone for Varn, particularly as this year there has been an unprecedented number of entries.
The Small Business of the Year Award is a highly competitive category open to organisations with up to £5 million turnover in their last financial year. This category celebrates companies that demonstrate strong growth & resilience, plans for sustained growth and innovation, as well as customer/staff engagement, an ethical approach to business and strong business results.
Rob Wilde, Managing Director of Varn proudly shares that, “Being named a finalist for category of The Small Business of the Year Award at the Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards 2024, is a fantastic recognition of the hard work and dedication of our wonderful team at Varn. We are truly honoured to be acknowledged alongside such outstanding businesses and are excited for what lies ahead.”
The winners will be announced at the Awards ceremony, to be held at Grosvenor House Hotel in London, on 12th November 2024. Being part of this esteemed awards process is a remarkable achievement for Varn. We are immensely proud of our team’s efforts and delighted to part of the awards process, as we eagerly look forward to the next stage of this journey.
If you would like to find out more about the Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards or have any questions for our team, please get in touch and you can contact us here
Mostly Media, the Bath-based media planning and buying specialists enjoyed recent success at the Independent Agency Awards scooping not one, but two awards.
Hosted by the Alliance of Independent Agencies at the leading worldwide marketing and digital festival ‘MAD//FEST’, this prestigious award ceremony celebrates the finest work across the independent agency sector.
Firstly, for the third time in four years, Mostly Media proudly received the Best Use of Media award, this time for their work on behalf of the UK charity, Crohn’s & Colitis UK.
Secondly, Mostly won the coveted Freedom Award for Client Service, a testament to their exceptional culture and dedication to clients.
Head of Digital Tom Marshall who led the team’s digital campaign commented: “It is a fantastic achievement for such a wonderful cause. To receive the recognition for both Best Use of Media & Client Service was really special, and so well deserved for all the amazing planning and strategic work from the CCUK (Crohn’s & Colitis UK) team, they were amazing to work with on this campaign, so a big thank-you to them for trusting us with this project. Special mention also to the Mostly Team for their brilliant strategy, planning, implementation, and optimisation work – 250,000+ symptom checker completions & delivery of the campaign message to potential sufferers of Crohn’s & Colitis is out of this world!”
Recap of Mostly Media’s Recent Award Wins:
– **2021**: Best Use of Media on behalf of thortful (DTC / Brand Response)
– **2023**: Best Use of Media on behalf of Cawston Press | B-Corp™ (FMCG / Brand)
– **2024**: Best Use of Media on behalf of Crohn’s & Colitis UK (Charity / Performance)
– **2024**: Freedom award for Client Service on behalf of Crohn’s & Colitis UK (Charity / Performance)
About Mostly Media
Based in Bath, Mostly Media is an award-winning top-20 independent media planning & buying agency that prides itself on scaling businesses at pace through media strategy.
Founded on the principles of creativity, agility, and client-focused service, Mostly Media has a proven track record of achieving exceptional results for a diverse range of clients.
Bristol creative agency SIM7 has taken home a prestigious ‘Búho’ award for Brand Strategy at Spain’s Educafestival. The agency was recognised for its work creating the Real Leadership brand campaign for IESE Business School.
The Búhos (Owls) are awarded to the best global creative campaigns in the education sector, welcoming entries from Europe, Latin America and the USA. They are part of Spain’s Educafestival, an annual event (20 June 2024) held in the Centro CaixaForum de Madrid.
Simeon de la Torre, owner and creative director of SIM7 says, “As an agency that works with higher and business education clients around the world, winning a Búho is a huge honour for us. And we did it by creating something really different with a big dollop of humour and heart.
“The Real Leadership campaign for IESE has been a huge strategic branding exercise that brought together all our skills in messaging, design and positioning. It spawned a slightly insane video featuring unicorns and gorillas that has been watched over two million times, a hit podcast, billboard ads in Germany and Spain, and more.”
The Real Leadership brand campaign was conceived as an antidote to the clichéd ‘business speak’ creative that has dominated the sector in recent years. By using an authentic narrative and tapping into the genuine concerns and motivations of business leaders, it resonated with IESE’s
core audiences and has delivered substantial results in the form of awareness, enquiries and admissions.
Oriol Gil, IESE’s Brand & Content – Senior Manager (pictured, above) says: “The world of MBA and executive education is changing fast, with a more nuanced audience profile and expectations. SIM7 created a major campaign for us that pushed the boundaries of our brand guidelines and created a completely new strategy. The Real Leadership campaign features an honest, authentic and human approach that playfully mocks the outdated ‘hustle’ culture.”
SIM7’s Búho award was judged by a panel that included celebrated Spanish film director Daniel Sánchez Arevalo, as well as creative leaders from Google, Coca-Cola and Clear Channel. The Real Leadership campaign was scored for:
• Educational value and content
• Developed strategy
• Idea and execution
• Obtained results
Says SIM7’s Simeon de la Torre, “We knew from the start that this had to be a campaign with cut-through, and that pure creativity wasn’t enough. It had to be built on the foundations of solid strategy and an understanding of the sector. This is what our team does best and it’s superb to see all our hard work recognised. On a personal level, it’s been great working on something that my Spanish father can be proud of and talk to his family in Spain about – he’s always been a bit clueless about what I do for a living!”
Notes
SIM7 is a Bristol-based creative agency that works with clients around the world in sectors including education, property, technology and more: sim7creative.co.uk
Founded in 2017, the agency uses language to empower design and drives growth by creating brands, campaigns and strategy. SIM7 currently employs six people, has increased its turnover significantly in the past 12 months and is set to build its international client base even further in 2024/25.
IESE Business School is ranked #2 in the world (Financial Times).
For interviews, quotes and further images contact: Simeon de la Torre, [email protected]
For more information on the awards, visit educafestival.org/2024-edicion (Spanish language)
Specialist CRM agency Flourish was celebrating Thursday 18th April following the announcement at the Campaign Media Awards that their work for Pai Skincare had won ‘The CRM and Media Award’ category.
Award judges described the campaign, which utilised first party data to inform a media strategy which ultimately increased conversion and reduced CPA as, “…clever, rock solid.”
The achievement was even greater as Flourish was one of only six agencies up for an award that didn’t come from the Campaign Top 20 (Campaign School Report Billing 2023). Flourish’s Managing Director Ian Reeves commented: “I’m so proud of the team, but I’m not surprised by the win. With stricter privacy regulations in the UK and EU, and the death of cookies, first party data is becoming increasingly important. It provides marketers with ways of reaching customers with more relevant and engaging comms – something CRM specialists like Flourish have been championing for decades!”
Pai is a ‘clean’ skincare brand selling products direct to consumers via their website. Offers are a vital tool in securing a sale, but Pai wanted to reduce their CPA which had crept up over time.
The award winning work utilised Ometria’s Predictive Attributes to identify customer behaviours and classify them as active, at risk or lapsed. The ‘pot’ customers were put in determined the content of the email journeys they would then receive – with offers as a last resort.
In addition, instead of offer / discount messaging, web visitors were retargeted with product ads focusing on quality, to build brand value. Demographic data gained from CRM meant that only visitors who were most likely to buy were retargeted.
Flourish’s Managing Partner and Head of Media Steve Davis said: “This work shows how powerful media strategies driven by CRM insights can be. This campaign was absolutely transformative in terms of reducing CPA and increasing conversion for Pai and demonstrates the ROI agencies like Flourish can deliver for our clients.”
Notes for editors
Flourish is an independently owned, specialist CRM agency based in Bristol. Platform agnostic, the agency works with the tech clients have in place to deliver data-driven customer journeys to OPTIMISE, ELEVATE and ultimately TRANSFORM their clients CRM.
For more information contact Ian Reeves, Managing Director [email protected].
The RTS West of England Student Awards were announced on Monday, 4th March, 2024, with boomsatsuma Film School degree students winning a handful of Craft Awards.
The Royal Television Society Awards celebrate the very best student films from across the UK, with categories ranging from Factual to Entertainment and Comedy Drama. Boomsatsuma’s Film School students picked up five craft awards at the event, acknowledging creative and technical talents behind the following films:
KILLING BUGS – Writing Award to Jack Lee Pitchford.
THE BRISTOL CROCODILE – Writing Award to Lucy Rowe and Teddy Smith.
SUICIDE HEADACHE – Sound Award to Tom Foster, and Editing Award to Suleman Aqeel and Leon Lock.
SUNFLOWER – Production Design Award to Dora Pamment.
Freya Billington, Head of boomsatsuma’s Film School, attended the event at Bristol’s Watershed Cinema. With a celebratory glass of champagne in hand, she said:
“I am over the moon that our students are already making their mark and winning awards. This is an amazing achievement considering our Filmmaking Production and Post Production degrees have only been running for two years. I could not be prouder of the students and the fantastic teaching team I am lucky enough to work with.”
For Dr Susan McMillan, Executive Dean at boomsatsuma, the awards came as no surprise:
“Boomsatsuma’s Film School is fast developing a local, regional and national reputation. Our industry partners, whether that’s Films@59 or the BBC, know we are developing the next generation of talent for Bristol’s film and TV sector. This shows we are heading in the right direction – expect to see more award-winning films in the future.”
You can watch the films on boomsatsuma’s course pages for Filmmaking: Production and Filmmaking: Post Production, by scrolling down to the Projects section.
Phoenix Wharf created a candy-coloured fantasia at the Bradford site. The hospitality outlet was funded by investment from the show’s host, Lord Sugar, now also a partner in the business. The 144 sq m, 55-cover, sit-down ‘Oh So Yum!’ dessert parlour is the flagship for the brand, set to ‘take over the dessert world’. The immersive, ‘wow factor’ space, is inspired by Harpreet’s desire for a clean-lined, Willy Wonka-style interior experience.
A big thank you to the project team and Harpreet Kaur for helping to make the project come to life.
You can view the project entry on the Better Future London Design Awards here.
Until recently, the menopause was something that was not understood and not talked about in equal measure. But after several celebs spoke about their experiences, it became something of a hot topic, with many ‘experts’ appearing to offer help, like tips for a ‘menopause diet’.
We needed to cut through this noise when we created the Hartwell brand. This was different: its founder Natasha Hartwell was a nutritional therapist who based her work on science and evidence-based results, and made real-world, practical suggestions. This was a real expert who could actually help with the symptoms of menopause, and help people feel like themselves.
Hartwell’s approach was a fantastic differentiator and a great place to start, so we began the process of building the brand around this strong core idea.
As with any branding, whether we’re creating a brand or refreshing one, we need to understand what makes it unique, what makes it tick and what makes other people care.
We started a deep dive into Hartwell’s way of working, including how it does it, what it values and its ambitions. The answers to these big questions would help define the new brand’s values and personality, which would lead us towards how the brand should look and feel.
Hand in hand with that, we also carried out an audit of the busy world Hartwell would be entering, specifically focusing on the menopause diet market. What were existing competitors doing? And was any of it working? We discovered an ocean of word salad, bland imagery and ‘mumsiness’, with very few examples of brands who really knew how to communicate what they were doing.
We held a focus group for people going through menopause, to find out about their general experience and if they had tried menopause diets. It was clear that they felt unseen and unsupported, and were suffering emotionally as well as physically.
Our research showed us that to reach as many people as possible, Hartwell had to be very clear with its messaging, putting its unique science-based approach front and centre. But to connect emotionally, this clarity had to feel personal. As a result, we made the decision that the voice of Hartwell would be Natasha, so it would be all written in first person, and talking directly to the target audience – just as it would be in a one-to-one consultation.
This connected perfectly with the decision to use Natasha’s surname as the name of the brand (her name, her voice) and also helped to complete the circle with the logo, which feels like a signature.
This hand-drawn logotype not only gives the brand a personal, human appeal, it also shows that Natasha is not afraid to sign her name to her work. The brand’s confident because its work is based on evidence – Natasha knows that she can genuinely help her clients.
We created a stacked version of the logo too, primarily to work with social media and smaller spaces, but also with one eye on the future, where ‘Eat well’, ‘Live well’ and other variations could be used.
The logo had been developed as part of a stylescape. These are visual explorations of a brand driven by a core thought, and include everything from brand palettes and imagery through to typefaces. They’re a great way to ensure everything is designed as a family, not in isolation, and to see the entire brand working together.
This particular stylescape was based on the idea of empowering clients, factual information, non-judgemental advice and friendly support. Those building blocks led us to a colour palette that was vibrant and earthy, warm and dignified. We purposefully kept away from a palette that was overtly feminine.
Brand imagery centred on collages which connected the way of life our audience wanted to get back to, with nature. The collage construction gave us the scope to tell infinite stories, while the connection to nature was a common theme throughout the work, coming both from Natasha’s understanding of nutrition, and people’s connection to cycles.
Finally, and developed from the hand-drawn logo, we introduced the squiggle. This graphical motif doesn’t have a defined form, and instead is unique each time it’s used, just like Hartwell’s clients and the advice Natasha gives them. The squiggle device can be used to frame text, create direction or simply bring some visual interest to a design, and helps to bring the whole visual identity together.
As part of the brand launch, we designed and wrote the Hartwell website. We initially mapped out a number of user journeys so we could design the perfect UX for the busy audience. Our goal was to show enough to prove Hartwell’s credentials, and then invite the audience to take the next step by getting in touch. Copy was therefore kept to a minimum, with the approach being to balance the warm, personal tone with the science that backed it up. This was helped by the brand fonts, the soft and warm New Spirit, paired with the strong and steady Elza Text.
The look of the site mirrored this balance, with a clean look punctuated with lifestyle/nature combination images that brought energy to every page. With minimal copy, the space in the design really helped to deliver a fresh experience, in contrast with nearly every one of Hartwell’s competitors.
The finished brand feels like a modern lifestyle/health brand (not a faddy menopause diet plan), which has the confidence to show what it can do, without having to tell its audience everything it can do.
Find out more about Hartwell Nutrition here
We’ve won a few awards to date but this is the biggest one so far, our first gold! “The Third Angle,”, a podcast we make for industrial software company PTC won the Gold for Best Business Podcast at the British Podcast Awards in September. In all honesty I was shocked, not that I think it’s not worthy, I’m hugely proud of it and the team who make it, but, the competition was heavyweight! It beat podcasts from the likes of the FT, The Economist, and the BBC.
The judges said some kind things: “This is how to do a corporate podcast, I love the fact that they get more from the guests than just a simple interview. The tours and interactive parts bring this to a different level. It’s a blend of geeky and clever – but also really accessible.”
“The Third Angle” provides a refreshing dive into the design and engineering world. It’s not just a corporate message board for PTC. Instead, it offers listeners an intimate tour behind the curtain of innovation. By avoiding the cliché Zoom chats and taking the listener into real-life settings – whether that’s a Danish lab, an Essex workshop, or a Nairobi production line.
I really do think our Bristol roots inspire us to think differently, to be authentic, and we always try where we can to harness the rich tapestry of creative talent that we have here.
Every detail of “The Third Angle,” from its visual identity to the futuristic and playful soundtrack (created by a Bristol-based composer), is curated to make the podcast memorable and stand out, something that listeners would eagerly share with friends and colleagues, which is vital when the business podcast space is so competitive.
The win I think reaffirms our belief that corporate podcasts, when produced with flair, can compete with anything out there. A big part of the success is also down to our client PTC who have really got behind the creative vision.
For anyone contemplating stepping into the branded or corporate podcast world we’re always happy to chat about how to make sure you get cut through. In this vibrant Bristol community, standing out is what we do best!
Claire Ladkin, founder of All About The Cooks – a Bristol-born online marketplace for home-cooks to sell their food – has been nominated as a “Community Food Champion” finalist at the BBC Food & Farming Awards. The category, sponsored by BBC Morning Live, celebrates those working in food who are making a difference to their community.
Driven by the belief that food acts as a catalyst to bring people together, Claire wanted to create a platform where talented home-cooks could make money selling their food to local people. And so, late in 2021, All About The Cooks was born.
Food is usually ordered through the platform about 24 hours in advance and cooks and buyers arrange collection or delivery between them. This ‘doorstep interaction’ is a place where food, cultures and stories are shared, and enriches the whole experience. Through All About The Cooks, buyers can discover home-cooks living near them who they would never have known about.
Following the nomination for the award, Claire said: “I’m over the moon to have been shortlisted. I have a vision of a future where the sharing of home-cooked food within and between communities is commonplace. Where it is perfectly normal to order from a neighbour, pop around to collect your food and stop for a chat on the doorstep. I think that would be a nice world to live in. It’s great to see that others seem to agree too!”
The marketplace is proud that diversity and inclusion is at the heart of what they do, with 75% of home-cooks being women and 80% from ethnically diverse backgrounds. As of August 2023, operating in Bristol and Bath with over 70 cooks, All About The Cooks has supported local home-cooks by putting £80k into their pockets.
Only three finalists have been shortlisted as “Community Food Champions” for the BBC Food & Farming Awards and the winner will be announced on 25 October, in a ceremony broadcast on TV and radio. Keep your fingers crossed that Claire Ladkin brings the trophy home and makes Bristol proud. In the meantime, you can find out who cooks near you or apply to sell your home-cooked food at allaboutthecooks.co.uk.
As a BCI member, enjoy 25% your first online order on All About The Cooks with the code BCI25.