Business

Photojournalist Horst A Friedrichs, who spent more than a decade recording the modern day British Mod community by travelling all over the UK, enlisted the support of Océ for the launch of a new book charting the history.

The award-winning fine art photographer had his works of art brought to life on Brighton seafront for the official launch of “I’m One: 21st Century Mods”, which is a compilation of monochrome and colour photographs, published by Prestel.

Mods, both young and old, were invited to an exhibition on Brighton seafront. Océ’s award-winning Arizona 350GT printed high quality prints of the photographs used for a display to officially launch the book. And then a follow-up event was held at club in London. Friedrich, whose photography has been exhibited internationally, was born in Frankfurt and now lives in London. He said: “Océ’s contribution was fantastic. Many people commented on the stunning quality of the prints taken from the photographs. It really helped bring a lot of colour and interest to the exhibition – book sales are going well.”

Derek Joys, Océ UK Product Manager for the Arizona 350GT, said: “We are delighted that the photographs reproduced on our award-winning Océ Arizona 350GT were so well received. And it’s great to be involved in a book that brings to life visually what people will recall is an important part of our history.”

More details of the book, costing £19.99, from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it...  Prestel Publishing covers photography, art, architecture, design, cultural history and ethnography.

PSP Network makes it easy for agencies and enterprise marketers to leverage the benefits of digital printing

HP today launched the PSP Network, an on-line service that enables print buyers to find local print service providers (PSPs) to produce applications from business cards, professional photobooks, POP/POS displays, exhibition signage, vehicle graphics, billboards, labels, flexible packaging and more.

Accessible at www.hp.com/go/pspnetwork or via the HP Graphic Arts portal, the directory was developed for advertising and graphic design agencies and enterprise marketing personnel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to help them find digital printing resources. At present, more than 1400 HP Indigo, HP Designjet and HP Scitex press and printer users producing graphic arts applications are listed.

The user-friendly facility is easily searchable via country and application to be printed. Optionally, cities and post codes may be specified to help the selection process. Users will be shown a list of relevant PSP entries that include the business name, city, post code, services provided and a link to the company’s website.

Agencies, designers and enterprise marketers who have used digital printing are familiar with the advantages of short-run, print on-demand high quality printing. This PSP directory is intended to help those who have either not used digital print, and those who may have only used it for one type of application. The list of fifteen different application types to choose from presents the user with a comprehensive portfolio of digital opportunities.

Extending the reach

Though developed for the EMEA market, other regions, notably North America and Asia-Pacific have begun plans for using the PSP Network. With the globalisation of business, the requirements of international brands and the environmentally positive practice of having products printed near where they will be used, the PSP Network can become a valuable resource for large and small design and marketing agencies and enterprises.

“The launch of the PSP Network is an exciting first step that brings a new dimension of versatility and reliability to print buying,” said François Martin, marketing director, Graphic Solutions Business, EMEA, HP. “Digital printing offers great benefits (on-demand, new substrates, reduced waste) to PSPs and end-users. The challenge is that print buyers often don’t know where to find digital print service providers. The PSP Network is an ideal and accessible solution.”

The spectacular world of James Cameron’s new blockbuster AVATAR has been brought to life on London’s Cromwell Road for a four-week poster campaign.

Stretching 60 metres across and featuring blue halo lighting, sculptured front-lit lettering 2.5 metres tall and a variety of 2D cut-out characters exploding out from the poster, the interlinked billboards are the longest advertising face in the UK.

AVATAR will be released in cinemas nationwide and in Ireland by Twentieth Century Fox on Thursday December 17, 2009.

Chris Green, Marketing Controller at Twentieth Century Fox UK, said: “Avatar will be an epic film on every level and this will be reflected in the advertising. The Cromwell Road special allows us to create a real stand out piece of media that really captures the essence of the movie”.

The outdoor campaign was developed by Twentieth Century Fox with Clear Channel Outdoor’s Create division, creative agency TEA, media agency Vizeum and outdoor specialist Posterscope.

This is the first time in more than a decade that the opportunity to dominate one of London’s most famous outdoor locations has arisen. Located between Heathrow and the West End, this campaign will deliver almost 6 million impacts, according to data from the Department of Transport.

Richard Simkins at Hyperspace, the innovations and special projects division of Posterscope, said: “A movie of this quality and scale deserves advertising that is equally as impressive. We know that out-of-home campaigns of this nature are likely to be more memorable and entertaining for our audience, and think the final execution of this build will not fail to amaze everyone who sees it.”

A live action film with a new generation of special effects, AVATAR takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home. James Cameron first conceived the film 15 years ago, when the means to realise his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of production, AVATAR, delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.

Visitor pre-registration for FESPA 2010 (22 – 26 June 2010, Messe Munich), the industry’s largest global imaging event is now open. All those who pre-register before 26th February 2010 will be entered in a draw to win an IPod Touch.

Promising a fresh and vibrant event that showcases the latest in screen, digital and textile printing, industry professionals cannot afford to miss FESPA 2010. Visitors that pre-register will not only gain admission to the exhibition free-of-charge, but they will also be kept abreast of the very latest FESPA 2010 show news and developments.

For your chance to ‘Catch the New Wave of Innovation’ at FESPA 2010 in Munich and to win an IPod Touch, simply visit the FESPA 2010 website at http://www.fespa2010.com and click on the ‘register now’ logo. The lucky winner will be announced on Friday 5th March 2010. Good luck!

Like buses, you wait ages for one, then 2 come at once.

Earlier this week we posted details of a boat wrap carried out by Image Monster, it was the first ever wrap of a boat featured on LFR, yet no sooner had the pixels dried on the page than another one came in.

This boat wrap was designed, printed and installed by wrap specialists Pro DeZigns for client Tom Haley, owner of waterfront club and bar, Jolly Rogers.

Tom bought this 38' Carver boat at a very reasonable price and wanted to spruce it up a bit, and as an alternative to a very costly paint job they looked at wrapping the boat in vinyl graphics as an option.

Jim Wheat of Pro DeZigns met with the client, discussed a few design ideas and ultimately landed on this very cool looking pirate ship - a look that is sure to catch the eyes of passing boaters. What a great, and fun marketing tool.

 

The latest research conducted by Acacia Avenue and commissioned by Clear Channel Outdoor UK - Sign of the Times - reveals how outdoor advertising can be used by advertisers to build trust and influence audiences in the current climate. The results were unveiled by Caroline Hayter, Co-founder and Strategist at Acacia Avenue, at Clear Channel Outdoor’s Ideas Seminar, held at the London Transport Museum and attended by more than 100 agency and client guests.

In the context of what’s going on in the world, Acacia Avenue has identified five major themes impacting consumer behaviour:

• Erratic decision-making behaviour - can be explained by the phenomena of ‘choking’ and ‘perceptual narrowing’. People are either losing faith in their own intuition or relying too much on it.
• Reappraisal of entrenched habits – has led to people trading down and trimming expenditure wherever they can, or trading up to little indulgences instead of big ones.
• Behaving in step with popular culture – people are feeling a need, whether or not they’ve been directly affected by the recession, to behave in a more modest way.
• A time of nostalgia – people are looking backwards rather than forwards, giving themselves a sense of stability.
• The issue of trust - people are on the look out for brands that offer them reliability, consistency, knowledge and professionalism and are quite apt at reading signals of desperation or lack of transparency when it comes to decoding every day brands.

So what does this mean for brands? According to the respondents, brands should:

1. Give me confidence. One of the worst things that a brand can do at this point in time is to go silent – just as nature hates a vacuum, in a climate like this, brands going mute are likely to have their relationships with customers severely compromised. Out-of-home’s stature gives it credibility and newsworthiness that punches well above its weight in today’s environment. Frequency of both message and touchpoint is an important part of projecting a brand’s confidence.

2. Tell me a story. Story-telling is an implicit way of gaining people’s trust as the brand is giving something to its customers – any intrigue gains attention, it engages the viewer and enhances talkability. Because outdoor is so public, more people are likely to be part of the storytelling and subsequent word-of-mouth activity. Multiple sites and messages can also be used to dimensionalise a story and maintain momentum.

3. What’s the catch? Press ads with a heavy amount of copy were criticized by the respondents, with small print in particular being found to have the potential to undermine an entire ad. Consumers are calling on brands not to overstate or say too much – simplicity is king as it communicates confidence and transparency. This is where outdoor comes into its own.

4. Make it easy for me. Ads that direct people to instant call-to-actions were praised as the decision could be made before they knew it. Outdoor was heralded in particular for being able to democratically plant an idea in people’s minds, particularly at point-of-sale.

5. Take me away from it all. Pyschology reveals that for the human mind, bad is stronger than good. People want to be lifted from the doom and gloom around them, and the more lifts they get, the better. Entertainment is more important than ever, and outdoor is a medium that people turn to for entertainment when they are out and about, particularly when driving or waiting.

6. Let me decide. People resent being second-guessed by a brand, they want to decide what is worthy of their attention. Consumers recognise that outdoor may have a subconscious effect on them. For example, one respondent said: “It gets inside people’s minds, it is silent but deadly.”

7. Urban colour. Whether consciously or not, people use outdoor as a means of day to day navigation – ads act as signposts that people look out for, and they miss them when they’re not there. Long-term ownership of an outdoor site has particular relevance for this theme as it makes the brand a daily presence and expected part of a journey. It also demonstrates that a brand is stable, committed and reliable.

8. Standing alone. Independent messages that are not fighting clutter deliver messages and provide newsworthiness. The surrounding context and nature of outdoor advertising give brand messages strength and help them to be perceived as clear and independent. Isolated sites in particular punch well above their weight.

 

According to Pip Hainsworth, Marketing Director at Clear Channel Outdoor UK: “This study reveals essential insights into how outdoor is perceived in the context of trust and will enable us to better inform current and prospective advertisers about how outdoor can build brand influence and engage audiences.

“Clear Channel Outdoor’s investment in research is the largest in our industry and this latest study, in conjunction with our work in the area of econometrics, will continue to push outdoor as a vital, and increasingly important, part of the media mix.”

Methodology

The research project recruited ABC1 consumers aged 18 to 34 years and tasked them with following a number of brands over a 10 day period. Respondents were invited to blog about every interaction they had with these brands – from above the line advertising, to shop-fronts, to people using the product/service, to word of mouth. Over the fieldwork period, respondents captured photos of ads, noted down what caught their eye, what mood they were in, and how they felt about the ads they saw. The blogs formed the basis for discussion during eight individual face to face depth interviews, to enable a better understanding of the role of outdoor within the media mix.

Two mini focus groups were also carried out, acting as a forum for a dynamic conversation with consumers around trust and the role of outdoor. Prior to attending the focus groups, participants assembled a collage about what trust meant to them, and also wrote a story about trusting a brand.

About Acacia Avenue

Acacia Avenue is a research and strategy consultancy, specialising in a multi-strand qualitative technique. Their toolkit encompasses a full range of consumer interviewing, observation, ethnography, workshops, desk research such as semiotics and cultural analysis.