Whilst the Tour de France may have been hotting up in Yorkshire, there was a distinct chill in the air last week as the Propaganda team descended on London for the Ann Summers Christmas photoshoot.

Sitting alongside Valentine’s as the peak in the iconic UK retailer’s calendar, the three-day shoot with legendary photographer Tim Brett Day involved plenty of party season sparkle, and secret santa naughtiness.

But just like Christmas morning, you’ll have to wait until the full integrated campaign is released in Ann Summers stores and online from November.

The ReFood brand film has been developed as a compelling tool to promote the brand proposition and business benefits. The film has been updated from last year, to build on ReFoods growth success and focusing on the commercial benefits that ReFood can offer.

Train tickets? Check.

Notes? Check.

Overpriced travel coffee? Check.

Forget to download stuff to listen to on train? Check.

Start of new campaign for LVL lashes? Check.

Yesterday saw myself and the team head down to London for the casting of our first campaign for LVL lashes.

LVL is a new treatment for lashes that enhances the natural lash using length, volume and lift (steep learning curve for this 34 year old Bradfordian)

Here’s a few shots from the day, and we’d love to reveal more, but we obviously cant reveal too much! You’ll just have to wait until August to find out more.

The Hacienda, Corrie, a couple of decent football teams. Manchester’s famous for quite a few things. Well now you can add The Car Buying Service to that list as that’s where we were recording their latest radio ads this week.

As part of The Car Buying Services latest campaign the radio ads follow hot on the heels of the TV ad we just finished off last week (more details to come on that soon). Look out for the campaign very soon, plus listen for the lovely sounds of Ade Edmondson, once again voicing the campaign. Cracking.

Propaganda believes in practising what we preach and our current position from the pulpit is that lashes are back and better than ever. Last week it was learning about LVL – the groundbreaking treatment that lengthens, volumises and lifts your natural lash. This week we were trained on the Nouveau Lashes and Let’s Go treatments.

Nouveau Lashes: Nouveau Lash extensions are an innovative semi-permanent lash extension treatment designed to give thicker, longer and natural looking lashes. They are individual lash extensions, which are monofilament synthetic fibers, perfectly shaped like a natural lash.

Let’s Go – The Let’s Go range includes options to suit different consumer needs ranging from strip and cluster to individual lash application. With shorter treatment times these lashes suit those people on the go needing that quick route to longer, thicker sexier lashes.

So how did we get on?

Having watched expert trainer Jo Cusworth perform the treatment, the Propaganda team felt confident that we could do Jo justice. However, when we set to work attempting to apply individual lashes it soon became clear the skill and knowledge required and why Nouveau Lashes provides the most rigorous and professional training on the market.

Speaking on behalf of the Propaganda team, I can assure you that we won’t be giving up our day jobs anytime soon, but with such expert training being provided by Nouveau Lashes, luckily, we don’t have to.

Propaganda and long-standing client Boost Drinks have collaborated to create an innovative new mixer for premium spirits, designed to meet the changing drinking habits of the nation. Boost Drinks have launched Gloworm to the on-trade with strategic guidance from Propaganda, to fill a void in the ever-evolving bar and club drinks market.

Four distinct flavours have been developed, each with an uplifting hint of stimulation and provide a flavourful alternative to traditional mixers such as tonic and bitter lemon. The range has been designed to match and enhance premium spirits. The initial reception has been highly successful, with the drink now stocked in bars in major UK cities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and Belfast.

The move seeks to inject new life into the energy drink market, which research shows hasn’t evolved in line with changing industry trends. Arguably, this has meant that traditional energy drinks, as well as other mixers, have failed to fully realise their commercial potential in the on-trade.

Laura Kynaston, Managing Director at Propaganda said: “The creation of Gloworm is a perfect example of Propaganda’s unique relationship with its clients and the dynamic way in which we work. By taking a pro-active business opportunity to our client, which is mutually beneficial, we have created a new product to fill a gap in the market. Gloworm has been developed using our Brand Discovery™ process and answers a real market need to offer consumers a broader option of mixers to match the increasing popularity of spirits.”

Simon Gray, Managing Director of Boost added: “Gloworm offers a sophisticated compliment to premium spirits and something new for customers. We developed the product and the brand alongside Propaganda through many months of research and testing, which gives us the confidence that it will be a success. As we launch this new proposition to bars and clubs, we’re sure that it will be well received by the on-trade and their customers alike.”

The brand was created as a result of the long-standing relationship between Boost Drinks and Propaganda who worked together on the core Boost brand for more than five years. Through our work in the energy drinks market, Propaganda identified a potential opportunity to evolve the offering and create a new brand to target the on-trade sector. We took the initial concept to Boost who commissioned us to develop the idea into a product, which will now form part of the Boost Drinks corporate stable.

The insight led development process took the brand from the concept stage through to creation, packaging development and the recruitment of a dedicated sales team. The initial brand roll out is being supported via social media, PR and events across the UK encouraging consumers to “rethink your drink” and experience this new mixer alternative.

The brand launched in early in 2014, with four unique flavours including Cucumber and Apple, designed to mix with Gin, and Raspberry and Orris, designed to mix with Vodka. The brand was named in The Spirit Business magazine’s Top 10 Spirit Trends for 2014 and has already secured its first award with the Cucumber and Apple flavour winning silver in Drinks International’s 2014 Pre-Mixed Drinks Challenge.

We are happy to announce that the 7th country to be added to our international client Kryolan’s webshop portfolio is the UK.

Sophie’s mum has been awarded an OBE for her work to Stamp Out Prejudice, Hatred & Intolerance Everywhere in her murdered daughter’s name.

Seven years ago in August, Sylvia Lancaster’s daughter, Sophie, and her boyfriend Rob were attacked in a Lancashire park; kicked and stamped on for being goths. Sophie never regained consciousness after the attack and died two weeks later.

Since then, Sylvia has worked tirelessly to change the law, promote tolerance towards alternative subcultures and create a lasting legacy to Sophie. And we are honoured to have worked closely with Sylvia throughout the past seven years to help bring these changes into play.

From her close working relationship with the police and the government, to her grass roots work with young people, Sylvia has captured the hearts and minds of the nation in her quest for a more tolerant society – and we will proudly support her as she continues to make her mark. We couldn’t be more delighted for her as her OBE was announced over the weekend in recognition of her energy, dedication and spirit. Well done, Sylvia.

Read the full story here.

For more details of the charity’s work or to donate, visit www.sophielancasterfoundation.com

One hundred thousand (100,000) is the natural number following 99999 and preceding 100001. In scientific notation, it is written as 10^5.

And at Propaganda, we are over the moon to be celebrating this magic number of Facebook fans with our brilliant client, Kryolan Professional Make-up.

Working with the brand’s social media channels since October 2012, we have created hugely popular sharable content, introduced clever crowd-sourcing initiatives, celebrated 100s of Kryolan store openings, events, shows, trendlooks and tutorials, and engaged fans with inspirational content – all based around the amazing world of professional make-up artistry.

Kryolan is famous for its heritage, world-class products and its unique scientific approach to creating make-up. Kryolan’s founder, Arnold Langer, is a chemist, and the brand is now run by three generations of the Langer family – giving Propaganda a strong foundation for a sustained creative social media strategy for the brand that’s seen the numbers of dedicated Facebook fans rise from 25,000 to 100,000. What’s more, the levels of engagement and sentiment for the brand are second-to-none.

Nadine Langer, Kryolan’s marketing manager, says: “As an international brand experiencing an intense rate of growth, social media is crucial to us. Make-up artists are the life blood of our business, and social media not only lets us share our news on a real-time basis, but allows us to have a dialogue with the people who are SO important to us – and celebrate and share their work too. Our social media fans and followers are all fantastic.

“We are absolutely overjoyed to have hit 100k on Facebook. Here’s to the next 100,000!”

To mark the milestone, Propaganda has created a visual countdown of key Kryolan milestones to share on Facebook – #KryolanInNumbers – to highlight the elements of its business that Kryolan holds dear; its scientific heritage, the family, product innovation, its ongoing growth and commitment to global audiences and, of course, its expanding audience of professional make-up artists.

Check out the #KryolanInNumbers, and ‘like’ Kryolan on Facebook: facebook.com/kryolanprofessionalmakeup.

You can also keep up with @KryolanOfficial on Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest.

Twelve months on from the official launch of ReFood’s Waste For Good brand campaign, their first campaign working in collaboration with Propaganda, the results make for impressive reading: a 33% increase in their customer base and a huge 256% increase in physical bin collections. In total ReFood diverted an incredible 103,377 tonnes of food waste away from landfill. That’s the equivalent weight of 261 jumbo jets! So it’s fair to say that food manufacturers and retailers found ReFood’s greener, safer and cheaper proposition, compelling.

For the 2014 campaign, the Propaganda Creative team will build on the great success of the last 12 months, spreading the word that sending food waste to landfill doesn’t make sense commercially, socially or environmentally.

The campaign message focuses primarily on the commercial benefits ReFood can deliver. With the increase in landfill tax in April 2014, ReFood can now save businesses, on average, 45% compared to sending waste food to landfill. Equally, it promotes the growing nationwide network of cutting-edge Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plants that will enhance ReFood’s processing capability by 450% over the next 12 months, cementing their position as the UK’s leaders in AD.

The new campaign was launched in April with an exhibition at Wasteworks, a new event aimed at the hospitality sector. Also, following last year’s success, ReFood will be exhibiting at Eco Fair later this month. The advertising campaign kicked off with a 3 month sponsorship of the Yorkshire Post Business pages, containing a series of banners and adverts each highlighting why recycling food waste with ReFood isn’t just good for the environment, but good for business too.

Today marks the launch of the latest Ann Summers campaign, Hot Summers, created in collaboration with Propaganda.

Irrespective of the weather forecast, as the UK’s favourite purveyor of pleasure, Ann Summers proposes customers enjoy their hottest summer ever thanks to their unique mix of lingerie, erotic dress-up and sex toys.

Starting only with the new product line-up, Propaganda delivered a combined creative and strategic marketing solution to bring the concept to life across all Ann Summers channels in the UK and Ireland. The campaign includes the elevation of an exclusive collaboration with famed British fashion designer, Giles Deacon, in the top 50 stores.

The Ann Summers Hot Summers campaign is live in store from today.

Here’s some behind the scene shots from the photo shoot.