semaphore, advertising, branding, design

Sucessful rebranding by south west agency

2009-11-11T16:00:00.000-08:00

A company whose technological solutions include sonar systems to survey the polar ice cap and controls for wave energy electricity-generating machines have been put firmly on the global map themselves, thanks to a rebranding by south west agency Semaphore.

Sarsen Technology Limited, which is based in Marlborough, is an industry-leading distributor of embedded COTS hardware and software, supplying some of Europes leading players in the telecommunication, defence, instrumentation, research and aerospace industries.

Angela Boyce, marketing director of Sarsen, says the company wanted to refresh its branding before exhibiting at DSEi, the world's largest fully integrated defence and security exhibition, at ExCel in London early in September.

"DSEi is a closed trade show that attracts 20,000 visitors who are looking for everything from radar systems to helicopters and we needed exhibition material and marketing collateral which would show our solutions off on the world stage and raise awareness of Sarsen itself, and not just the manufacturers," says Boyce.

Sarsen approached advertising, branding and design agency Semaphore on the basis of the work Semaphore is doing with global brands such as Hilton and Orange Business Services.

"Semaphore listened very well to our brief and came back to us with three workable options, and we've built up a really strong relationship with them very quickly," says Boyce.

New website for law firm

2009-11-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

Local design agency Semaphore has given specialist solicitors Andrews Martin a rebrand and new-look website to reflect the law firm's recent step-change.

Andrews Martin moved from their Swindon town centre offices to Little London Court in Old Town following a restructuring of the business. The practice offers expertise in niche areas of law, particularly in protecting the interests of elderly and vunerable people, property commercial and employment law. Andrews Martin have also achieved a first with the appointment of partner Patricia Martin as a Notary Public, making it the only firm in Swindon where both partners are Notaries public.

Business in Brief. Design agency one of the best

2009-07-20T03:16:00.000-07:00

Marlborough design agency Semaphore has been recognised as one of the UKs top performing design specialists.

The industry's bible, Marketing, has ranked semaphore 73rd in it's 2009 Design Agency League Table.

It is the first time semaphore has appeared in the table, which is regarded as the definitive guide to design agency performance.

The ranking comes hot on the heels of semaphore's recent recognition by the advertising industry's foremost professional body, the Institute of Practitioners In Advertising, for achieving Continuous Professional Development standard within its first year of accreditation.

Real Times to move on-line

2009-07-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

Orange Business Services is taking Real Times, its quarterly publication aimed at CEOs and senior directors, on-line.

It has been masterminded by its agency, Semaphore, of Marlborough, which developed the original concept of the Real Times newspaper-style publication in 2004 and refreshed and doubled its content last year.

Real Times is the authoritative voice on major trends and issues and emerging markets in technology as well as providing news from Orange Business Services.

Until now a print only version of Real Times has been mailed out to about 15,000 leaders of top global companies.

Orange Business Services’ Real Times goes digital

2009-06-05T02:57:00.000-07:00

Orange Business Services are taking Real Times, their quarterly publication aimed at CEOs and senior directors, online.

The development of the digital presence has been masterminded by their incumbent agency, Semaphore, who developed the original concept of the Real Times newspaper-style publication in 2004 and refreshed and doubled its content last year.

Real Times is the authoritative voice on major trends and issues and emerging markets in technology as well as providing news from Orange Business Services.
Until now a print only version of Real Times has been mailed out to c.15,000 leaders of top global companies.

But over the past 12 months Orange Business Services has been looking to move Real Times onto the next level, offering subscribers of the printed version a complementary digital partner with a supporting website.

James Knight, Account Director at Semaphore, said the advantages of the change are many:

Knight commented:

“We have been working with Orange Business Services to broaden the readership and this move to offer Real Times in digital format as well as a print version means subscribers can access real-time articles to their BlackBerries and it also introduces a social aspect via Twitter, Linkedin, Delicious and other networking platforms.

“This also gives readers the opportunity to change their subscription from print to digital format, cutting down on paper, and it enables Orange Business Services to enter into dialogue with customers to get input into solutions, through online opinion polls, blogs and feedback.”

Bill Douglas, Head of International Customer Communications at Orange Business Services, said:

“We are very excited by this new move, which means we can offer the mix of independent articles and bite-sized information to more global decision-makers such as CEOs, senior executives and senior IT and technology specialists than we have so far. Like the printed version of Real Times, the digital product will be high level, focusing on business issues and solutions as opposed to technical details.

We have a long-standing, strong relationship with Semaphore and once again we are delighted with their handling of this new project.”

Advertising agency Semaphore engineers design success for national research council

2009-05-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

8th May, 2009

Advertising brand and design agency Semaphore have been added to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s list of preferred designers.

The EPSRC is the UK’s main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences, supporting research areas that are of interest to a particular industry as well as the people who are crucial to the success of the UK’s research and industrial competitiveness.

Jo Enderby, of EPSRC Corporate Communications and Marketing, said:

“The EPSRC was looking to bolster our support on the design side which is why we are happy to have added Semaphore to our agency roster."

Nick Clements, managing partner at Semaphore, said:

“There is some tremendously important work going on in science and technology in the UK, whether it’s in healthcare, the internet, manufacturing or construction, and it’s very exciting to be working so closely with those who are helping to drive that forward.”

Semaphore have already produced a mini-brochure for the EPSRC’s Pioneer 09 conference which connects business with pioneering research promoting the manufacturing research centres of excellence across the UK.

Semaphore wins plaudits for professionalism

2009-05-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to report that Semaphore have been congratulated by the advertising industry’s foremost professional body for achieving its Continuous Professional Development (CPD) accreditation within our first year of membership.

Just twelve months ago we became the only advertising agency in Wiltshire to be admitted to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and now we have also reached the Institute’s CPD standard, confirming that the advertising, branding and design specialists at the agency keep abreast of new developments in the industry and enabling us to recruit and retain the most talented individuals.

We asked Jill Fear the CPD Senior Manager with the IPA to say a few words and this is what she said:

“The IPA’s Continuous Professional Development Standard ensures that agencies are constantly refreshing their skills and knowledge and have the best talent working for them. It’s crucial that the people responsible for developing and building brands are professionally trained.”

“Semaphore Marketing have demonstrated how they have used the initiative to help re‑launch the agency and it’s commendable that in their first year in the scheme, they have achieved CPD accreditation so successfully.”

Our staff were taken through the process of working towards accreditation by our CPD Manager Pip Brooks who relished the task.

She said:

“To reach the standard we had to meet various criteria, including communicating the Semaphore vision internally following rebranding, delivering all the appropriate software training, making sure clients’ objectives are translated correctly internally, and taking every step to keep colleagues up to speed with the latest skills, technology, industry thinking and professional best practice.

Every Account Director has passed the LegRegs Certificate – legal regulations around issues such as copyright law, trade marks – that are so crucial in protecting our clients, and we’ve drawn on the senior staff’s extensive experience of working with world-renowned agencies such as Lintas, Foote Cone & Belding, Bates, JWT Wunderman and Publicis to ensure that such expertise and knowledge is cascaded down through the entire company.”

We’re obviously proud of Pip and of the achievement of all our staff and now it is important we make sure that it translates into an even better service for all our clients.

IPA Hot Topic

2009-04-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

"The best speech I've ever heard", "a breath of fresh air", these are just some of the quotes made following the IPA President Rory Sutherland's inaugural speech.

Nick Clements, Managing Partner of Semaphore Marketing is quoted by the IPA stating "Witty, inspiring and a good tonic....rather like the man himself it seems."

Click here to read the speech in full.

So what makes a good design anyway?

2009-04-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

At the heart of any piece of good design is a good idea. And the best ideas are usually incredibly simple. But keeping it simple is actually very difficult, which means that good ideas are rare. And because they’re rare, they’re memorable when brought to life through design.

It takes on countless forms and means different things to different people, depending on everything from culture to context. Here are just a few examples of top class design in hard-working commercial action. Meanwhile, down at the Brazilian Institute for Oriental Studies, one fears that

Graphic Design

Do you remember from your days as a youthful philatelist those wonderful first day covers produced by the Royal Mail? Well, in 2007 Royal Mail commissioned a special stamp to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendale.

This design twists the use of the famous poppy symbol, using it as the backdrop to the almost hauntingly silhouetted figures of the infantry troops, 140,000 of whom died in capturing a mere five miles of ground. Lest we forget.

Packaging Design

The Absolut brand has long believed in “the message as the medium” - in other words using the bottle (itself an iconic design shape) as the vehicle for its communication.
Absolut continued that theme with Absolut Disco, which was used in 75 different countries including the UK, Germany ,China, USA and of course Sweden.

The idea is simple and brilliant.

When the vodka is finished, the bottle inside is removed and then the packaging can be hung from the ceiling to glitter like a mirror ball. Eat your heart out John Travolta.

Book Design

That business about not judging one by its cover is fine as a metaphor, but shouldn’t be applied too literally, especially when something quite so clever as Sculpture Today is involved.

The aim of this book cover was to present the book as an authoritative overview of contemporary sculpture, and the three-dimensional use of the title letters does just that.

Product Design
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, once said ‘’Design is not just what it looks and feels like. Design is how it works’’ and, with a 3.5 inch widescreen display, five hours of video and 22 hours of music on one battery charge as well as fingertip access to the internet, he has a point when it comes to the iPod touch.

It is 8mm thin (not thick, you’ll note), includes wireless technology and is available in 8gb and 16gb models. But never mind all that. What really matters is it looks great and makes you look great, too.

There’s an old saying that if you design by committee you get a camel, but the committee of 13 people (including Jobs himself) involved in this design put the lie to that and leave both the dromedary and the bactrian wishing Jobs had been on the job when the bible began.

Brand Identity Design

If you remember the iconic love heart logo that spawned dozens of imitators and millions of T-shirts you would be forgiven for thinking that NY was sorted when it came to brand identity; but no.

There may only be one NYC but there’s no one New York City, but rather five boroughs,191 neighbourhoods and more than eight million people speaking more than 138 different languages.

So when creating a new brand identity for NYC the designers sought to reflect this kaleidoscopic quality through a melange of images capturing the diversity of the cultural mix and the colour of the city.

Dangerous Design

But some design just gets it wrong. We may never know what the Computer Doctors were thinking of when they agreed to go with this particularly unfortunate design, although we have a fair idea of what was on the designer’s mind.

Meanwhile, down at the Brazilian Institute for Oriental Studies, one fears that there might have been a pre-occupation for Ugandan affairs which influenced this extraordinary offering.

At Semaphore we do our own small bit to encourage young talent offering work placements and exhibitions to local design and art students not just out of altruism but because we really believe that design matters and helps uild businesses.

Aleksandr The Great

2009-03-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

Car Insurance is really dull.

But it is really really competitive. A search on Google for ‘car insurance comparisons’ produces an astonishing 78,000,000 (78 million) results.

Unsurprisingly brands in this market rely heavily on TV and Press advertising to help create an awareness in the hope that you’ll consider them when your annual obligation to think about this lowest of low interest categories comes around.

Equally unsurprisingly one of the hardest groups to appeal to in this market are young adults, and it’s against this background that ‘comparethemarket.com’ has turned to the natural world for inspiration.

It comes in the form of Aleksandr the meerkat who, as you would expect, is a cheeky chappy with a Ruskie accent and a vocabulary all of his own whose charm has brought the unlikely world of car insurance to a vast new audience- albeit indirectly.

In the finest traditions of fully integrated marketing campaigns Aleksandr’s TV ads are complimented by his own website ‘comparethemeerkat.com’ which is not to be confused with ‘comparethemarket.com’ which is of course where the conceit comes from in the first place.

Visitors to the site can indeed compare meerkats by sizes, hobbies and locations and the chosen one can even be sent to friends.

This is known as ‘viral marketing’ and contributes hugely to the cult character that Aleksandr has become amongst a much younger audience than would normally pay any heed to car insurance comparison sites.

He receives great reviews on Youtube, his Facebook profile page has over 250,000 friends and he currently has in excess of 2000 followers on Twitter .... I know I’m one.

And it’s not the first time that the humble meerkat has come to the marketers assistance.

Ultra Fresh Clorets recently turned to a mob of meerkats to extol its breath freshening virtues while Telecom New Zealand used a lonely single male to encourage use of its cheap rate direct dial service.

Both advertisements showed the enduring appeal of the meerkat marketing but neither gets close to Aleksandr and his ability to bring a new and younger audience to the brand he represents.

And if further proof were necessary that this the meerkat that can you need look no further than the Red Nose Day comic relief sketch broadcast on the Beeb on Friday 13th which saw Aleksandr in the company of other such cult giants as The Honey Monster and Bertie Bassett.

It just doesn’t get better than that or, as Aleksandr himself would say...’simples’.

What exactly is a brand?

2008-09-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

Nick Clements of advertising, brand and design agency Semaphore explains - and argues why it matters

Take a brand like you

We are all brands now. That is the view first promulgated by business guru Tom Peters, and it has been taken to heart by recruitment consultants and employers alike.
It’s an important concept, because a brand is a promise, a big idea, and a set of expectations that live in people’s minds.
People fall in love with brands, trust them, develop strong loyalties to them and believe in them. A brand is a shorthand, which stands for something and stands out in a densely crowded market, and in the job market it’s your personal brand that counts.
So if you’re a brand - let’s call your brand Brand U - is it the one you have chosen to be, one you like and feel comfortable with, born of clarity and self-awareness?
Or are you simply a brand created by circumstance and defined by other brands, which you use or associate with?

Naming Names:
First things first, what does your name say about Brand U?
Let’s face it, your Mum and Dad probably didn’t sit through what marketers call a “namestorming” or give much thought to the brand values your name suggests.
So if you ended up as an India or Chelsea - or even Talula does the Hula from Hawaii – it’s probably down to your parents’ wonderlust, football favourites or plain stupidity, rather than their determination to set you on the road to being a great personal brand.
Of course, you can change your name to something which sends out the right message about your brand - which is why Marion Morrison sensibly became John Wayne and Diana Mary Fluck had (even) more fun as Diana Dors.

Be Driven:
One of the most public representations of Brand U is what you drive.
Are you sporty and bright or more mainstream and conservative? Are you green and hybrid or big and thirsty? Does it matter to you that you drive a well-engineered German car, rather than a little known Korean?
Well, it does to others.
In fact ‘’brand reputation’’ is by far the single most significant reason people give for their choice of car - far more so than green credentials, fuel economy or even reliability.
And as global automotive brands account for four of the top 20 most valuable brands on the planet, brand means bucks.
According to brand watcher Interbrand, Toyota, Mercedes, BMW and Honda have a combined brand value of $195bn and between them they spend many millions on building and managing their brand image and reputation, each in a distinctive way.

The car keys you throw down on the table in the pub say so much more about you than the house keys you don’t bother to show. That’s because, although the house is worth more in real terms, in brand terms it doesn’t compete because housing brands just don’t exist in the same way or enjoy the same marketing budgets or care.
According to www.coolbrands.uk.com, Aston Martin is the coolest brand in the world, with Ferrari and Lamborghini also amongst the top 20. James Bond’s association of the 007 brand with Aston Martin undoubtedly helped that rating, though in the latest Bond film the Ford KA also makes an appearance. No doubt Ford hope the association will also work in their favour – though while Ford should be happy, I’m not sure that Bond will be filled with solace by this particular association.

All in the game:
What you play and how you play it also speaks volumes about Brand U.
iPod, Bang and Olufsen, YouTube and iTunes all have top 20 “coolbrand’” status, as do PlayStation and Nintendo. So don’t worry too much about your dodgy musical taste or ineptitude on the sports field. The right kit can convert geek to chic at the press of a button.

You are what you wear:
For Brand U, what you wear is what U R.
It is your packaging, and has real symbolic and psychological value.
Your wardrobe and look tells your daily audience about your sense of style, your mood, your wealth, your sense of pride and even your self-esteem.
Get it right and you are the brand you want to be to a critical, if not necessarily streetwise, audience.
Get it wrong and ‘thanks for coming’ is the best U can expect.

YouGov:
Still not convinced? In the end, of course, it’s your choice and choices as to how you will manage Brand U. And cynical rejection of this sort of thesis is fine - it shows exactly the sort of self determination which will set U apart from the crowd just like a good brand should!

What is the difference between a brand and a logo?
A brand identity is a visual symbol or device to allow a brand to be recognised. You might know it as a logo.
Born on the medieval field of battle where full armour made recognition difficult, the heraldic banner was the first form of brand identity and then as now it helped the individual stand out in the crowd.
A brand, on the other hand, is much more then latter-day heraldry.
It is something that lives in peoples minds and with which they have a relationship. It is a promise, a big ideas, a set of expectations.
People fall in love with some brands and hate others, develop strong relationships with them and imbue them with meaning.
A strong brand can be a very valuable commodity indeed. Take a look at the Best Global Brands panel for just how valuable!

Best Global Brands and their brand value*
1 Coco-Cola $65,324m
2 Microsoft $58,709
3 IBM $57,091
4 GE $51,569
5 Nokia $33,696
6 Toyota $32,070
7 Intel $30,954
8 McDonald’s $29,398
9 Disney $29,210
10 Mercedes $23,568
11 Citi $23,443
12 Hewlett-Packard $22,197
13 BMW $21,612
14 Marlboro $21,283
15 American Express $20,827
16 Gillette $20,415
17 Louis Vuitton $20,321
18 Cisco $19,099
19 Honda $17,998
20 Google $17,837

* courtesy of Interbrand 2007