Goram & Vincent were appointed to redesign and re-platform the existing Philip Mould website.

The project objectives were to stimulate more enquiries about the works for sale, and to reposition the Philip Mould brand and gallery as more accessible, broadening its potential market appeal. It was also important that staff had a bespoke content management system that enabled them to add and remove works of art (and other digital elements) without recourse to the agency.

Fundamental to our solution was the creation of  an interface that showcases the paintings. As Philip Mould recounted in a 2006 interview "Something that pictures need in their presentation is oxygen, they need air around them.” It was this philosophy that led the business to choose their gallery location in Mayfair, and it was imperative that it was also replicated online. As a result, the ‘product pages’ take their cues from luxury fashion ecommerce to display the paintings to best effect, with a slick ‘zoom’ feature and an introduction from Philip via streaming audio clip.

As a part of this brief we were also asked to create and implement email communications, which included the design and creation of an email template, site integration, and training for clients on both the new website content management system and email platform.

Everyone at Philip Mould Ltd was a pleasure to work with, and we’re delighted that they are receiving positive feedback from their client base on the ease of use and clarity of communication provided by the new site. Finally it’s not everyday that you design and build an site with a £30,000 or less section! Why not have a browse now and pick up a bargain?

Location based apps, or geosocial to give the technology its more sexy name is often touted as being one of the key digital trends for 2012. It’s certainly been the source of some wonderful infographics from Jess3 and the next web. It’s all too easy however, especially for those of us who work in design, to be seduced by these visual delights, and to start recommending clients allocate budget to geosocial this year. But, and it’s a big but – should we be doing so? What are the facts as they currently stand?

Download the full PDF article here.

We all have two decision making states. Cold - super ego, rational. Hot - id, irrational, emotional. As the  authors of ‘Nudge – Improving Decisions about health, wealth and happiness’ by Richard H Thaler & Cass R Sunstein', point out

“For most of us… self control issues arise because we underestimate the effect of arousal. When in a cold state, we do not appreciate how much our desires and our behaviour will be altered when we are ‘under the influence’ of arousal. As a result, our behaviour reflects a certain naivete about the effects that context can have on choice.”

We first explored this with the NPA, utilising the research of  Daniel Ariely and his book ‘Predictably Irrational’ regarding the area of sexual arousal and the effect it has on our decision making processes. Ariely and colleagues asked male students a number of probing questions, such as: “Could you enjoy sex with someone you hated?” / “Would you slip a woman a drug to increase the chance that she would have sex with you?” / “Would you always use a condom?” and other choice queries.

There were then further sets of questions that went even further and asked about the likelihood of engaging in immoral behaviours such as date rape. The male participants were then asked to arouse themselves to a high level, but not to ejaculate. They then took the questionnaire again.

“Across the 19 questions about sexual preferences, when all the participants were aroused they predicted that their desire to engage in a variety of somewhat odd sexual activities would be nearly twice as high (72% higher) they had predicted when they were cold.”

“In the five questions about their propensity to engage in immoral activities, when they were aroused they predicted their propensity to be more than twice as high as (136% higher than) they had predicted in the cold state.”

“Similarly, in the set of questions about using condoms, and despite the warnings that had been hammered into them over the years about the importance of condoms, they were 25% more likely in the aroused state than in the cold state to predict that they would forgo condoms. In all these cases they failed to predict the influence of arousal on their sexual preferences, morality and approach to safe sex.”

The challenge for sexual health marketing is therefore that when you talk to the audience they are likely to be in a ‘cold’ state – but you want to influence them when they have got the hots for someone. Daniel Ariely says “We can teach them how to say no before any temptation takes hold, and before a situation becomes impossible to resist”  but this relies on the superego making decisions before the powerful id takes over, and this seemed to be unrealistic given the levels of promiscuity and the highly sexualised culture of the UK. However he goes on “alternatively, we can get them prepared to deal with the consequences of saying yes in the heat of passion (by carrying a condom for example)” which seems to be a far more realistic ambition.

The implication for our work with the NPA was that the client took the brave step forward of actually acknowledging that young people will have lots of sex. That it was pointless to ask them to “just say no’ because they won’t. When they’re hot, they’re not bothered.

For Drinkaware, the very current issue is that in December a lot of people, under the influence of alcohol, make a lot of 'hot' decisions. These will to be have more, health damaging drinks, to take drugs, or make a sexual pass at someone. First of all though, drinking. When consumers are in a hot state they are of little interest to our client Drinkaware, as their influence will be reduced.

After every 'hot' night out however, comes the 'cold' light of day. Where our rational self reasserts itself. Where we want to be good, well behaved and healthy. So does this mean that they will immediately download the mydrinkaware app, or pledge to 'never drink again?' Not in December. For though you might crawl back to your bed with your hangover, there'll be another great drinks party or dinner coming up, and there's no way you're going to miss it!

Behavioural economics tells us that procrastination is caused by this 'hot' temptation (for the next party) overcoming 'cold' intentions. So we give in to drinking again because we tell ourselves that we'll be good tomorrow, or the day after that.

Research studies show however that the best way to defeat procrastination is not to set yourself harsh rigid deadlines, nor to have no deadline at all. Rather it is to put in place a 'middle way' which is self imposed deadlines. So could we exploit the high incidence of 'cold' state hangovers in December by offering people the opportunity to start being 'drinkaware' in January? We acknowledge that December is party time, and we shouldn’t try and set people harsh deadlines or conditions, because we know that they will simply become 'hot' and fall into drinking again. We also acknowledge our propensity to procrastinate, and tackle that through what appears to be a realistic, manageable goal - start in January. So look out for Drinkaware activity in December, and if you’re in a cold, rational hungover state, sign up to MyDrinkaware and start your resolutions for 2012 a little bit earlier than planned!

Goram & Vincent (or Digby Digital as they were known then) did get back and invited me in for a chat, which resulted in an internship. They also offered to pay me too, which is a pretty rare occurrence for an internship these days!

I was keen on working within an agency environment as my background since graduation had been almost exclusively in the charity sector and I wanted some experience within a commercial environment.  I believe it’s one of the most exciting areas to work in at the moment as technological progress and availability of high-tech devices mean that there is a great potential to create unique online experiences for users, and that’s something I really want to get involved in! The experience has been invaluable, and it’s been great to absorb some knowledge from a bunch of people who’ve got heaps of experience in the area.

Something I found particularly exciting working in an agency environment is the range of sectors and variety of clients that you work across during the day. The morning could be spent working on a project for a fitness brand, then followed by an afternoon carrying out work for an alcoholic drinks company.  In my opinion, this is a really neat part about agencies, enabling you to gain a great deal of knowledge about how all sorts of companies work, preferable to becoming embedded in one particular area for your career.

Another aspect about agencies that’s different from working in-house with a small charity is actually having a budget to carry out projects. I’ve got used to running campaigns that have almost no budget or having ideas for digital campaigns, but knowing that it’s something that the charity wouldn’t be able to afford. Being forced to think of projects that you can be implemented very cheaply does have its advantages. You have to ensure that your campaigns that are original to be able to capture people’s attention rather than relying on traditional advertising and marketing channels for promotion.

My role at Goram & Vincent has allowed me to try my hand at a bit of everything.  From working on ideas for how a campaign could run, writing copy for a site, working on-site for a client, carrying out social media analysis along with more general tasks like, transferring copy onto a new site and cross browser testing. I haven’t been stuck with being the drinks boy (I suck at making tea/coffee) and photocopier robot.

Hopefully Goram & Vincent have got a few benefits from taking me on as an intern also. I’m enthusiastic and up for pitching in whenever needed, and don’t mind doing more menial tasks like testing and content migration – and they can use the time that would have been spent on this to do other things.

Being a 16-24 year old male allowed me to provide a fresh perspective on brands, from someone who is a prime target market for many of them. This came in particular use when designing social media campaigns as I could tap into my own personal knowledge of campaigns that have worked well on these channels – and what companies do that makes you quickly unfollow them.

The internship opportunity has strengthened my desire to continue working in the digital marketing sector and I have gained valuable contacts in the Bristol hub. This has already provided some freelance work on exciting projects, and shall hopefully lead to a long-term career in the sector.

First of all, we were formed out of two distinct businesses - Double Art & Digby Digital. Different and diverse in terms of skills, we are now united in a common aim; blood brothers in our commitment to creativity and effective design, digital and marketing communications.

When we came together we wanted a name that was:
Creative – memorable, surprising and different.
Effective – easy to search and find, on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin.

After all, that's what we offer to our clients. Effective creativity.

Creativity - we produce marketing, design, digital user experience, web and mobile apps, advertising, media and content ideas which are surprising, engaging, and capture peoples imagination and attention.

Effective - we deliver results. Increased sales. Higher awareness, clicks, impressions and conversions. Changed attitudes and behaviour.

How do we work?
We like - A brief. An objective, goal, dream. An opportunity, problem, project.
We bring - freshness, originality, perspective, wit, ideas allied to experience, expertise, delivery & effectiveness.

G+V designed and built a web-based application with a full-featured ‘desktop’ version and a streamlined mobile version. It performs two key roles: giving users a simple way to record the drinks they consume, and provide interesting (and sometimes surprising) feedback about how those drinks could be affecting their health and lifestyle.

We just completed a further round of development to allows user to make the most of social side of the web. Users can share their information with selected friends, set themselves challenges and see how simple changes to their drinking habits can have an effect on their health, waistline and wallet. The app has now got over 100k registered users.

Visit my.drinkaware.co.uk

CIBSE Knowledge Portal is a new online resource which provides unlimited access to a collection of published Building Services information written by experts in the industry.  The publications available range from the very technical through to ‘hands-on' practical, user-friendly information and industry best practice on a wide variety of topics; from lighting to ventilation, solar shading to lifts, and much more.

The full launch campaign in January 2012 will consist of digital, press, direct mail, e marketing, content marketing, social media and PR. In the interim, the new site is launching to existing CIBSE members and features a motion graphics film created by G+V.

G+V director Pete Blackman commented “We’ve got a strong track record in helping membership organisations both retain existing members and attract new ones, so we’re delighted to be working on such a fascinating challenge as the launch of the Knowledge Portal for CIBSE.”

CIBSE Head of Development, Tina Cardy added:

“We believe that the CIBSE Knowledge Portal is a unique offering, and as a result, getting the launch right is critical. We’re looking forward to working with G+V over the next few months to create an exciting, effective and creative campaign, of which this film is just the first step."

The issue was that firstly that these ‘adventurous’ events were hugely time consuming to organise and not as profitable as mass participation, lower cost challenges in the UK. Secondly, from competitor feedback, and the undeniable web traffic statistics, it was clear that the ‘Adventures’ brand was not engaging either members or non members. BMF needed a rethink of their event brand strategy.

On your marks, get set…
Working with the BMF Events team it was agreed that as the fitness event market was becoming more and more cluttered with new and established competitors, it was more important than ever that every BMF event had a clear brand identity and promise, so that potential participants could appreciate immediately what they were being offered. 

Go!
It was agreed that going forward, each event would have its own brand identity, and that the BMF brand would serve as an endorsement of quality and reassurance. Using this endorsement model, we were able to ‘dial up or down’ the military emphasis for each separate event. For example, the cross country runs, featuring as they do obstacles, mud, smoke canisters and BMF instructors shouting encouragement have an undeniable military atmosphere. So they became ‘The Major Series’, featuring a uniformed, moustachieod officer who dares potential runners to take on his challenge.

Conversely, resort fitness holidays at a luxury complex in Spain, branded SunFit, have virtually no references to BMF, and everything about the brand communicates health, fitness and wellbeing. Over the last six months, we have launched three new brands for BMF, and given a facelift to the presentation and positioning of those events, such as The Three Peaks Challenge, which the client decided to retain. 

Since the change in strategy, and the application of the new event led brands, sign ups to events have improved across the board, and in addition many people have joined BMF for their local fitness classes, once they've experienced one of their extremely well run events.

Visit bmfevents.com