What is brand, and how are brands built? Our founder, Julian Kynaston, answers these questions and more in this no-holds-barred, fast-paced account of how he launched and grew Propaganda into one of the UK’s most successful brand consultancies.
Available now from Amazon and all good book shops.
You may have spotted in the press that we’ve been retained by Ann Summers in a deal that will see our partnership continue well into the future. The exciting news follows our work to redefine the brand’s position in a changing marketplace and a number of highly successful campaigns that have helped the pleasure retailer to regain market share.
The relationship, which first started in Autumn 2013, is now set to continue and build on the foundations laid over the past 18 months. The strategic changes implemented to the Ann Summers brand over that time have helped deliver impressive results for the business and arrest a decline in footfall to their stores.
The strategic brief has addressed challenges to Ann Summers’ retail offering, and helped ensure the brand is well placed for future growth. This latest contract extension will ensure that the work to increase brand awareness around Ann Summers continues in an integrated and strategic way.
The average British mobile user has no signal 15% of the time – that’s a lot of missed calls and a lot of missed opportunities. Whether you’re a consumer, business or even the Prime Minister.
Whilst David Cameron had to cut his UK staycation short when he was unable to answer his calls and emails due to poor signal – 24Seven founder David Samuel was already underway with solving the problem….
The answer: JUMP.
Unique to 24 Seven, the aptly named National Roaming SIM card works by jumping networks when the host network signal is lost – meaning you never lose your signal, wherever you are.
It’s time to say goodbye to “sorry you’re breaking up”, “no connection” and “lost signal” and say hello to JUMP.
Today sees the debut of The Car People’s latest TV ad. A part of the ‘We’re here for you’ campaign, the ad will run throughout March on ITV Yorkshire and Granada.
Based on valuable insights gathered from a process undertaken by Propaganda in 2014, the campaign addresses the needs of a changing consumer mindset and purchasing journey.
Consumers invest heavily, both financially and emotionally, into finding the right car for them, and they want reassurance that they will be taken care of long after they drive home.
The campaign showcases The Car People’s unwavering dedication to delivering a truly hassle-free experience, and highlights just some of the lengths they go to for their customers, before, during, and after they buy a car.
Last weekend saw the re-launch of Nouveau Lashes at Professional Beauty in London, the culmination of Propaganda’s unique Discovery research programme and brand creation process.
A leader in professional lash techniques and training, Propaganda Discovery recognised an opportunity for Nouveau Lashes to step forward and own the market as the Ultimate Lash Brand.
Lashes are one of the industry’s fastest growing treatments and an essential part of everyone’s beauty routine. However the lack of a brand leader and poor training standards, has previously left technicians lacking confidence in lash treatments, and clients uneducated and wary of damage.
Similarly everyone’s vision of their dream lash is different: some seek a natural enhancement, whilst others desire all out glamour, and salons training in just one lash technique fail to capitalize on the commercial opportunity. By combining Nouveau Lashes three innovative treatment types under one ultimate brand, and investing in a new consultation-led approach, salons can for the first time cater for every potential client.
Nouveau Lashes Ultimate Technician programme combines training in individual extensions, express lashes, and the brand’s innovative natural enhancement, LVL. In one hassle-free training programme, trainees benefit from Nouveau Lashes best-in-class technical training and now combined with ongoing commercial and technical support to help master their skills and grow their business.
The result of a strategic and brand development process led by Propaganda to reshape the business from within, the new position will enable Nouveau Lashes to grow in new and existing salons within the UK and internationally.
The new brand can be seen across trade and consumer touch points, including the new look NouveauLashes.com, salon and trade collateral, and an industry-leading product range.
It’s great to see our work for Ann Summers is contributing to the pleasure retailer’s strong performance and the Dark Desires campaign is continuing to blow the stockings off their customers.
As referenced in Retail Week, Valentine’s week online sales increased by 84% compared with 2014, and in the following week – which can often see a post valentine’s lull – there was a 130% increase from ecommerce compared with the previous year. This coincides with our Dark Desires campaign, which draws on the themes explored in the film 50 Shades of Grey, but turns the idea on its head. Instead of the submissive female character portrayed on screen, it echoes Ann Summers’ defining message of female empowerment.
In the Retail Week article, Ann Summers MD Vanessa Gold is glowing in her praise of the Dark Desires campaign and the results it has achieved: “I am delighted with the positive performance during these peak trading periods and I’m incredibly proud of our Dark Desires campaign, which I truly believe is our strongest campaign to date.”
“Although we anticipated a spike in sales during Valentine’s and the film release, these brilliant sales figures across all of our channels surpassed our expectations.”
We’re pleased to have helped set the scene for these impressive results and have plenty more in store for the future.
As part of the launch of Total, the new managed services proposition from Southerns, Propaganda has delivered a collaborative feature with leading trade magazine, FM Journal. Alongside a new ad execution, Propaganda also secured a substantial editorial contribution, explaining how managed services works in practice.
The interiors article, which quotes Southerns Principal and Founder Andrew Kendall-Jones, references the Big Thinking and Big Delivery on offer from the business. In order to promote this new service to key audiences, we’ve also designed a belly-wrap, which will ensure selected recipients will be able to open the feature on the relevant page and be amongst the first to read about Total.
Strolling through our archives, we spotted this gem from our ghd days. It just so happens that the pleasant young chap we cast 2nd from right turned out to be Mr Grey himself, Jamie Dornan, the lead actor in 50 Shades of Grey – released worldwide today.
We’ve always been keen to support young talent, and we’re delighted to see he’s gone on to secure this big part, via his work for Dior. The visual was used as part of our New Religion for Hair campaign, and took inspiration from Caravaggio oil paintings. Obvs. The photographer for this piece of Urban Angels work was David Short.
Completing the loop on this creative, some of our most recent work has been with Ann Summers on their Dark Desires campaign, which has got everyone hot under the collar. Unlike 50 Shades, our campaign places the woman as the driving force behind the encounter, reiterating the pleasure retailer’s role in empowering women.
The temperatures may have dropped outside, but Ann Summers are heating things up with their latest campaign, Dark Desires. Launched online and in their UK retail stores earlier this week, the campaign will promote the brand during the lead up to Valentine’s Day, their busiest time of their retail year.
Coinciding with the much hyped arrival of the 50 Shades of Grey Film, and within an increasingly competitive market, Propaganda empowered the Ann Summers team to release their most erotic campaign to date as part of a longer term strategy to solidify the brand as the leading destination for pleasure.
Created and directed by Propaganda, Dark Desires explores people’s different sexual fantasies – filming, domination, restraints… But unlike 50 Shades of Grey our female heroine is always in control, as we motivate the Ann Summers’ customer to not just read the book; don’t re-enact the film; but live out their own sexual desires in reality.
Hooray – we’re in a book!
And not just any book.
Our Illamasqua work is featured in Read Me – 10 lessons for writing great copy.
The book explores all types of copy techniques and our work comes under the Parallelism umbrella.
Of course, WE didn’t have to look up what Parallelism means, of course we didn’t…
But just in case you don’t know the definition is:
When a copywriter presents two or more parts of a sentence in a similar way to give the whole a well-defined, regular form.
Or basically
A list that doesn’t read like a list. A combination of repeated words that marry together and create a rhythm like mantra, that flows well off the tongue and looks attractive on the page.
If you want to buy the book and see our campaign, which was used at Selfridges, Oxford Street, do it here:
Until next time, we’ll be exploring this cracking read and maybe taking on a few more tips to produce even more great work.
Propaganda has been working alongside leading interiors specialist Southerns, to develop plans to enhance its service offer to new and existing customers, which will be central to its ambitious five-year growth strategy. The business is now looking to double turnover within three years and treble it within five.
Southerns designs and delivers end-to-end Fixtures Fittings and Equipment (FF&E) solutions for a variety of sectors and has worked with Propaganda to implement a new brand strategy, following a Brand Discovery.
Central to the business’ new strategy, will be a ‘managed services’ offer which will take the hassle and risk out of the design and on-going management of offices and workspace, in relation to FF&E. Southerns will offer this consultative service to aid developers build best practice interiors into their initial designs, combatting the long held industry challenge of FF&E being treated as an afterthought.
Along with a new brand identity and marketing strategy, the business will now set about making the necessary changes to achieve its next phase of growth.
It’s been a busy and exciting time for the lash team at Propaganda as Nouveau Lashes prepare to reveal some exciting changes happening in 2015.
This weekend, we took over the Nouveau Lashes Northern Training Academy to capture the lashes in all their glory.
Here’s a sneak preview of some behind-the-scenes shots.
Hello, I’m Sophie and I’m new to the Propaganda creative department. I’ve been designing my way around Yorkshire for 10 years now, working at some great agencies and now here I am at another one. I quite like design and could go on forever about how I love this and that, oooh and that too. But I’ll keep it brief:
http://www.toiletpapermagazine.org/
This is my new favourite website, single handedly bringing back Dadaism:
I would very much like to purchase these books in the not too distant future. Mainly for the beau-tiful covers.
This was my favourite christmas present. If it looks like it was designed in 1964, then I am in.
This is my current favourite colour combo. It just is.
It was nice to meet you, bye. x
