Rural Insurance has engaged Propaganda on a strategic brief to help position the business for significant growth, with an ambition to double turnover to £100m over the medium term. The Harrogate based business has ambitions to become the second largest agricultural insurer in the UK, and will work with Propaganda to transform the brand in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Rural handles a range of agricultural and rural specialist insurance policies for clients throughout the country. The business is the fastest growing agricultural insurer in the UK, with a current turnover of just under £50m. Over the coming years, the business is looking to significantly increase its market share and strengthen its position. Brand Discovery will help Rural to better understand the market and opportunities.

Gary O’Brien, Digital and Marketing Strategy Director of Rural Insurance said: “We were impressed with Propaganda’s difference. The fact that they build unique strategies tailored to individual businesses was key to this partnership. The insurance sector at large has gone through immense change over recent years, largely driven by advances in technology. We know this will be key to the success of our business moving forward, and combined with the technological advancement in agriculture, this presents us with an opportunity. This is a very specialist sector with many unique quirks and challenges, therefore it’s vital that we put ourselves in a position to achieve sustainable and significant growth.”

Craig Harrold, Director at Propaganda said: “This is a really exciting brief for a business with big ambitions. They’ve seen significant successes in recent years and have a clear intent to further professionalise their services and customer proposition. Our processes will allow Rural to make these changes in the right ways, through informed decision making. Key to this will be allowing the business to articulate its difference and raise brand awareness amongst key target groups.”

Propaganda will work with Rural Insurance over the coming months to help reposition the business and gear it up to achieve its ambitions of becoming a £100m turnover business by 2020. Based in Harrogate, Rural Insurance has been established for more than two decades and employs more than 100 people locally. The business has experienced double digit growth over the last 5 years and is seeking to build on this success through investment in its brand, digital capability and people.

We love your big hair and so should you! But surprisingly, when we did our research we found that people with thick, curly and afro hair were fighting a daily battle and felt like their hair was out of control. With shelves of wet products offering to tame and smooth hair, there wasn’t a brush in sight – and that’s where Tangle Teezer stepped in… Their new Thick & Curly detangler has longer, stronger, Firmflex teeth technology and an ergonomic concave design, making detangling and defrizzing afro, curly and thick hair effortless. It was our job to take this product to market – we wanted to create a campaign that showed confident women who have embraced their big hair with the help of Tangle Teezer.

It’s time give your big hair some big, big love!

Just under 12 months since we were engaged on a new Discovery for Harrogate based supplier of natural gas, CNG, this week marks their brand launch. And it’s fair to say it packs a punch.

Following our 12-week consultative process, our planners hit on a powerful theme – the realisation that energy customers, particularly CNG’s SME target market, felt a complete lack of control. However, in an industry that was seen as price-driven and customer-service light, CNG were carving a different path. They’d become known by their customers for service excellence and doing the right thing. But the wider market wasn’t aware of this, and that’s where we stepped in.

We hit on the idea of giving customers more than energy, we wanted to give them power too. The power of control over their service and experience by getting things right first time around. And it wasn’t just an end-user audience we needed to address. We had to tailor our message to CNG’s broker partners, bringing them along on the journey with us. Added to that, the business is also the largest independent shipper of gas in the UK, with more than 30 supply partners and more than 800,000 end-users. Making sure we gave them power was a priority too.

Over the past year we’ve been putting in place the changes required to help CNG achieve its ambitions and develop into new areas. This has included a completely new strategy and direction, bold new CVI (including website), advertising, partner collateral, corporate communications programme to raise their head above the parapet, community engagement planning and media engagement.

Under the bold new concept of Power Up, CNG now has the assets in place to grow its reputation and penetration of the market, which includes expansion of several divisions and a move into electricity in 2017.

But this is just the start. CNG has always done things a little differently, so our creative and strategic approach has allowed them to put in place the base to achieve its medium and long term goals. And we’ll be there alongside them, every step of the way.

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve recently completed a Discovery project for specialist furniture consultancy Ralph Capper.

With over 40 years of heritage in the North-West working with, predominately but not exclusively, Architects and Interior Designers, Ralph Capper have successfully delivered a vast array of furniture solutions for a range of end clients including Chelsea Football Club, Albert Dock, Manchester Airport and Grado Restaurants. You can see some of the stunning results here. It’s this unique ability to create great spaces and translate the vision of their A&D clients into fantastic furniture schemes that really sets Ralph Capper apart.

Implementation of the brand and creative strategy is underway, so watch this space for the unveiling of some fantastic work in a couple of months.

Ann Summers has the power to help you reign supreme this Valentine’s day.

Ann Summers is a brand that speaks to every woman: across ages, personality and sexual experience. With Propaganda’s latest campaign for the retailer, we encourage all women to take the lead, take control, rule!

The campaign celebrates individual confidence that starts from within but is clear for all to see. Whether your style is cute and sassy, or a little bit saucy, Ann Summers has the lingerie to ensure you look and feel like a Queen.

Propaganda created the campaign from initial concept through to photography, working with fashion and beauty photographer Pete Pedonomou. The campaign is live across stores and online now.

In the run-up to Christmas, The Car People have a treat lined up for visitors to their showrooms with the launch of their new in-store TV channel, TCP TV.

The new solution runs two screens in each showroom, one a huge 85in across. The TV channel will run throughout the day, making use of The Car People’s fun and friendly visual identity to provide useful information on car buying essentials and highlight some of the key brand differences that set The Car People apart from other car supermarkets. The solution has been integrated with The Car People’s own POS platform, so that customers collecting their new cars are welcomed on screen and The Car People characters will also be introducing live weather and traffic feeds to make sure any trip to their Wakefield, Sheffield or Manchester showrooms runs smoothly.

Propaganda created brand new content for the TV channel including a unique logo and introductory videos explaining warranty options and The Car People’s exclusive aftercare programme, ‘Friends’. Introduced in July this year, the loyalty scheme – which features benefits such as discounted MOTs, reminder services and free loans of accessories such as bike racks and European sat navs – has already prompted a fantastic response from customers.

The channel was installed across all Car People showrooms last week and will run all year round, so keep an eye out for it next time you’re looking for a new car!

Diaphanous flowing dresses, a vintage iron bed, glitter, wind fans, a hell of a lot of wafting and a year of seasons all in one day…

The Neal & Wolf new brand shoot took place last week in London. Shot by the very talented photographer Jan Masny and brought together by a fantastic creative team including Chrysostomos Chamalidis on hair and Elizabeth Hseih on Makeup. The shoot concept was a combination of an ethereal fantasy world mixed with reality, using four models to create the four new strong brand images for the salon professional hair care brand.

The beautiful imagery will be used on campaign collateral from Spring 2016 with a hope for the brand to expand further overseas with its recent success.

Look out for the new imagery on Neal & Wolf branding next year.

Because more food is wasted at Christmas than any other time of year, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for the UK’s greener, safer, cheaper food waste recycling service to be able to make a big difference to those who may go without this festive season.

That’s why over the past few months, we’ve been working with ReFood on a Christmas campaign with a difference.

ReFood have joined forces with various homeless charities in Yorkshire and the North West with the objective of raising money through each new bin collection sold during the period of November to January. We’re proud to say that for every new bin collection this Christmas, ReFood will donate 50p to local homeless shelters in their collection areas. Not only this, ReFood employees will also be volunteering their time at the charities’ shelters.

The campaign is now live, with bespoke sell in tools developed for the sales team and a regional advertising and digital campaign. Keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground.

Find out more here.

When Liverpool FC launched their new signature collection, an exclusive range of quality lifestyle products, which includes finest knitwear from Glenbrae, Propaganda were on hand to provide support.

The Signature Collection was launched at the glamorous Titantic Hotel on Liverpool’s waterfront. In attendance, amongst club dignitaries, assembled media and lifestyle experts, were Liverpool first team players, Daniel Sturridge and Divock Origi, who both sported Glenbrae knitwear bearing the famous Liver bird emblem.

The Signature Collection is a limited edition range influenced by British luxury fashion, designed to ‘work off the terraces as well as on’. Glenbrae’s expertise in knitwear made them the perfect match for the partnership and Propaganda were on hand to lend support at the event and ensure the media were aware of Glenbrae’s quality, history and heritage.

Our work alongside Ann Summers has once again made the shortlist for the prestigious Retail Week Awards, set to celebrate the luminaries of the retail world at a glitzy London ceremony next March.

We worked with the pleasure retailer to develop a new range of sex toys, Moregasm, which has been shortlisted in the Own Brand Range/Product of the Year category. And with the reception it received from customers, it’s no surprise. The collection achieved sales growth of +25% versus sales plan in the first month alone – in fact, it was so popular, some lines sold out completely. The campaign resulted in their most successful product launch since the iconic Rabbit.

Our strategy for Ann Summers has help to reposition and elevate the business, since we carried out a Brand Discovery back in 2013. The insights gathered during that process have underpinned the strategic direction of the retailer and helped ensure eye-catching success across its channels.

During development and launch, we worked with the Ann Summers team on naming the collection, brand positioning and communications / sales strategy, which included point of sale and a money back guarantee if users didn’t experience ‘their most intense orgasm ever’.

Moregasm represents the latest success story of a brand looking to hit new heights and we’re all excited to be up against other retail giants for the awards in March. Watch this space.