Monthly Archives: August 2020

Appointments, Creative News, News

JDO bolster creative team with senior appointment

JDO, the award-winning brand design and innovation agency, has today announced the appointment of Alex Lazarevic to the role of Design Director.

Alex joins the agency following a successful freelance career that has seen her work across a broad portfolio of world-famous accounts, including well-known Unilever and Mars brands, as well as a number of independent artisanal brands such as Athrú – a single malt Whisky from Lough Gill Distillery in Ireland.

“Alex is a consummate designer and always delivers highly creative and inspired work with a contemporary edge,” says Paul Drake, Founder and Creative Director, JDO “We believe Alex will champion creative excellence and prove to be a strong leader within our global management team.”

Since graduating from Norwich University of the Arts, Alex has honed her craft working with some of the industry’s leading creative agencies including: JKR Global, B&B studio and Design Bridge.

Commenting on joining JDO Alex says: “JDO is an agency that has always committed to the code of creating beautiful things with utility and purpose. It’s an agency on the ascent right now, and I am joining at a pivotal time – being part of its future is something I am very much looking forward to.”

Contract Wins, Creative News, Marketing, PR and SEO, News

NOW: PENSIONS hires AML Group

AML Group, the London-based creative agency, has been appointed by NOW: Pensions – the leading UK pension provider.

Part of the Cardano Group, NOW: Pensions is a business on a mission to change the pensions landscape in the UK – highlighting inequalities to provide a fairer system for everyone, ensuring all pension savers get the retirement they deserve.

On the decision to appoint AML Group a Now Pensions spokesperson said:

“AML demonstrated a thorough understanding of who we are as a business – our ethos, our purpose and what we stand for. They also bring a wealth of experience that made them the obvious choice.”

Commenting on the win Tim Lloyd, MD AML Group says: “We are thrilled to have been chosen by Now Pensions. Whilst the climate continues to challenge and become ever more complex, we remain committed to helping our clients tell the stories that matter – remaining steadfast in our mission to deliver simple ideas for a complicated world.”

Appointments, Creative News, Marketing, PR and SEO, News

LAB Group announces new leadership line-up following addition of Studio BLUP

LAB Group has announced a new leadership line-up following the recent addition of creative agency Studio BLUP to its portfolio.

The agency group has promoted current Finance Director Rachel Howe to the role of Group Chief Financial Officer, and current Talent and HR Manager Priya Unwith to the position of Group Head of People. Howe and Unwith make up the new leadership line-up along with Harpreet Bushell, who recently joined LAB Group as Group Chief Growth Officer from digital agency Valtech.

In her new role as Group Chief Financial Officer, Howe will be responsible for the group’s finance team, ensuring that all decisions made for the business are commercially sound. She will also support the financial growth of all LAB Group companies and roll out consistent processes and systems across the group.

As Group Head of People, Unwith will oversee people and talent for the group, covering everything from on-boarding new starters to implementing HR initiatives. She will advise and support LAB Group leaders on HR best practices as well as helping to attract and retain talent.

In Bushell’s role as Group Chief Growth Officer, which she took on in April of this year, she is responsible for the overall revenue growth of LAB Group’s agencies, with a key focus on digital business. She is working to help unite all of the group’s revenue earners with achievable targets, and to facilitate teamwork and collaboration.

LAB Group recently announced that creative agency Studio BLUP would be joining the group. The group also owns digital agencies LAB and Reflect Digital.

Jonny Tooze, CEO, LAB Group, said: “I’m delighted to announce our new leadership team at LAB Group. Harpreet, Priya and Rachel are outstanding leaders and represent our focus on what we view as the three key areas for agency success: great work, people first, and commerciality. This move will give all three of them greater ownership of their specialisms while enabling me to further focus my attention on LAB Group acquisitions and IP development, as we continue to grow both organically and in-organically.”

Rachel Howe, new Group Chief Financial Officer, LAB Group, said: “LAB has always been an exciting, high-energy company to work for, and it’s great to see like-minded companies such as Reflect Digital and Studio BLUP in the group, to help build on the fantastic service offering and culture that are already in place. I’m really looking forward to working on our growth strategy and building a financially robust and diverse group.”

Priya Unwith, new Group Chief People Officer, LAB Group, said: “It’s exciting to work for LAB Group, as it’s such a forward-thinking agency where people have the same common ground: an understanding of human behaviour, which is something which flows into how we develop our talent. I’ve always had a passion for ensuring that employees are happy, and a belief that our people and their development are vital for business success. Moving into this new role will really help me to instil this at a leadership level, enabling me to champion people initiatives and ensure that employee happiness is always central to any group-level business decisions.

“I’m looking forward to launching new programmes such as individual career development plans, which will be a step in the right direction to ensuring that we are championing our people’s growth and development at every stage.”

Harpreet Bushell, Group Chief Growth Officer, LAB Group, added: “At the heart of LAB Group is an understanding of people, what they want and what they don’t know they want. As the group and our specialisms grow, we can take psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics principles and apply them to more and more channels and avenues, in order to better serve customers and grow businesses. As we adapt to the impact of a global pandemic, there’s never been a better time to harness our expertise in digital and human behaviour to make a difference to our clients and to society, more broadly.”

COVID-19, News

Top Scots whisky brand and Northants sanitiser manufacturer link up to help make leading golf tour safe

An award-winning Scottish luxury whisky brand, a prestigious golf tour, and a Northamptonshire manufacturer of sanitising products. Ordinarily, these would have little in common, but 2020 has been no ordinary year…

Now Loch Lomond Whiskies has donated more than 1000 litres of Shield Guard hand sanitiser, made with alcohol produced at The Loch Lomond Distillery, to the European Tour UK Swing and this is a story, not just of doing good, but of innovation and agility when faced by an unprecedented challenge.

It all began in February when Loch Lomond Whiskies took a decision to manufacture hand sanitiser to protect their own distillery staff. It soon became apparent that there was a huge need, and the distillery donated 32,000 bottles to nearby organisations for their frontline staff.

When Nick Winstone, CEO of Healthguard Hygiene Ltd – which is based at Pury Hill Business Park, Towcester – saw an update from Loch Lomond CEO Colin Matthews on LinkedIn, he contacted their production team with a request to help keep Healthguard’s supply chain going. “We did some due diligence on the enquiries and selected Healthguard Hygiene as the partner we’d most like to work with and support,” explains Tony Brewerton, Operations Director of the Loch Lomond Group. “A call was set up, a relationship quickly formed and within two weeks the first load of alcohol bound for Healthguard Hygiene was leaving the distillery.”

This alcohol is loaded into 1000 litre containers and trucked to Healthguard Hygiene. There it is used to manufacture the Shield Guard range of sanitisers to the highest ISO9001 standards. In May 2020, Shield Guard products were tested and found to be compliant with EN 1276, 1500 and 14476A:2019, which means that they are effective at killing a range of pathogens.

With the European Tour beginning again with the newly launched UK Swing and in the wake of lockdowns across many countries, and the need to protect golfers and support staff, the opportunity was obvious. The Tour should be exciting, with many professionals have had online golf coaching to improve their techniques!

The Loch Lomond Group is donating over 1000 litres of Shield Guard hand sanitiser to the tour. This will help keep the golfers, their caddies and other support staff safe during the Covid-19 pandemic – meanwhile many golfers themselves are keeping safe and turning to online golf coaching programmes to improve their technique.

Reflects Tony Brewerton: “My hope would be, between the Loch Lomond Group and Healthguard Hygiene, that we would have played a part in keeping front line workers and the public safe when they needed to be kept safe the most and that we continue to do so for years after. Shield Guard would be seen as the market leader and a brand of safety for everyone.”

Adds Nick WInstone, “What began as a partnership to meet frontline demand has evolved into a long term business partnership between both groups, for Healthguard Hygiene knowing the providence of our raw material alcohol and ensuring our supply chain is completely UK based.”

News

HubBroker Launches Automatic Invoice Reminder App to Help Businesses Improve Accounts Receivables Process during Challenging Post-COVID-19 Times

HubBroker has announced the launch of their Automatic Invoice Reminder App that can be integrated into popular ERP & accounting systems including Uniconta, e-conomic & Microsoft Dynamics 365. The reminder app will automatically send invoice reminders to the customers for overdue Invoices.

Jens Toke, Founder & CEO at HubBroker ApS, said “Businesses all over the world are facing challenging and uncertain times brought around by the COVID-19 pandemic. This unprecedented situation has had a direct impact on businesses and their ability to manage their accounts receivable process and collect cash. Which is why we have created this app that will allow businesses to streamline their collections strategy right from their accounting or resource planning system.”

Upon integration, HubBroker’s Reminder Invoice App searches the accounting system for overdue invoices. The users can set the desired frequency and threshold of a reminder, based on which the system will send an unpaid invoice reminder mail to the customer. The user can also choose whether to send the reminder invoice with or without the attached original invoice. The user can also choose to have the reminder sent to the customer as a text message.

Jens Toke said “This reminder app, along with our range of e-invoicing solutions, not only enhances the efficiency of billing & collections process but also allows businesses to operate effectively even with reduced staff, which is the need of the hour. Our integrations also improve the overall visibility of the business data that enables users to prioritize the collection of larger sum invoices or at-risk clients.”

He further added “We, at HubBroker, believe that Invoicing is a crucial component of every business operation, much more so in the current environment. Hence, we focus on our solutions to help businesses organize each step of their invoicing process right from their preferred business system or application. Our secure, seamless & scalable integration solutions can bring advantage to any small, medium or large size business.”

HubBroker’s Invoice Reminder App allows users to :

  • Activate all or specific Customers for automatic Invoice Reminders.
  • Send Automatic Invoice Reminder email to Customers with or without original invoice attached.
  • Send Automatic Invoice Reminder text message to Customers
  • Send Automatic Invoice Reminder as electronic file(XML) to Customers with or without original invoice embedded.
  • Send Automatic Reminder electronic to Customers.
  • Create a new draft or booked invoice with late payment fee for overdue invoices.
  • Send confirmation to Sender before the reminder is sent to customers.
  • Use multiple configuration settings including lookup options
  • Define notification settings (Positive/Negative email or SMS notifications)
  • Send Invoice Reminder in real-time, hourly, daily or weekly based on scheduling mechanism.

To learn more visit www.hubbroker.com

Creative News, News

Vungle and Glug team up to launch ‘Forward to Normal’ Creative Competition

Vungle has partnered with Glug to launch ‘Forward to Normal’ — a creative design competition calling on creatives across the UK to use their skills for good, create positive visions of the future and shape the ‘new normal.’ As we look ahead to the post-COVID-19 world, there is a unique opportunity to re-imagine and re-organize the world around us. Graphic creative communications are incredibly effective in engaging people to think and act differently.

The competition features three briefs for creatives to respond to within a limited time window, with the first brief opening for entries Wednesday, 19 August. The final winners at the end of the process, to be announced in October at Glug x Mediatel: Future of Creativity event, will get expert one-to-one support from Vungle Creative Labs to transform their storyboard concept into a real-life playable in-game ad, served via the Vungle ad network that reaches one third of the world’s smartphones. The five runners up will also get access to the Vungle Creative Labs team, to understand how ads are designed and come to life.

To see the details , head to glugevents.com/news. The first brief will be unveiled Wednesday, 19 August 2020.

Headline judges involved in the process include: Trevor Rudder, Founder of Angel London; Ville Heijari, Chief Marketing Officer at Rovio Entertainment Corporation; Steffanie Sword Williams, Account Director at TCO London and founder, F*ck Being Humble; and Neil Shah, Global Marketing Director, Smirnoff at Diageo.

“This is a competition that will push creatives of all stripes – designers, brand strategists, illustrators and artists – to think differently about how they design for the public good and how they use their skills to help us all imagine the world to come. Without a vision of the future – the ‘new normal’ – we can’t chart the way forward. We’re excited to partner with Glug on this challenge and to see the visualizations from the creative community,” said Gavin McNicholl, Global Head of Creative Services at Vungle Creative Labs, leaders of mobile advertising and app monetization.

Pete Bowker, CEO Glug said: “Building on the success of previous campaigns around ‘Glug for Good,’ we’re really excited to be working with Vungle on Forward to Normal. Even in these complex times, there’s always a place for beauty and creativity. We believe that creativity can help change the world – one great creative idea at a time!”

Steffanie Sword Williams, Account Director at media agency TCO London, a DRUM Top 100 Indie Agency and Founder of F*ck Being Humble , said: “As a platform rooted in championing rising talent, F*ck Being Humble is looking forward to joining the panel of judges to review and celebrate the creative responses to these briefs.”

Trevor Rudder, Founder of creative and digital agency, Angel London, said: “Honored to be included in the judging panel and excited to see examples of creativity that shine a positive light on our future.”

Forward to Normal details:
Campaign aims, detailed briefs, timelines and submission process available here:
Key dates:
Brief 1, Wednesday 19th Aug – 2nd Sept
Brief 2, Wednesday 9th Sept – 23rd Sept
Brief 3, Wednesday 30th Sept – 14th Oct

Awards, Events, News

Rutland Company Ranked Highly in Leading Events Magazine

Rutland-based event business Versatile has proudly announced that they have been voted as the UK’s eleventh favourite event supplier.

Back in March of this year, the highly acclaimed event industry publication Stand Out Magazine, launched “The Crystals,” in which they called upon the events industry to vote for their favourite suppliers.
There were no judging panels or adjudicators; the publication simply asked event professionals whom they loved to work with and which events they enjoyed attending the most.

For fifteen years, Stand Out has been at the forefront of the industry, keeping event organisers, festival directors, brand managers, and production specialists abreast of the latest news, expert opinion, and developments within the sector.

Versatile’s Managing Director, Tim Cook, had this to say, “to be voted for by our peers and those in the know and come eleventh in the voting is a huge achievement. Every edition of this magazine reaches about 13,000 people, so it really is the go-to publication for the industry, and it just shows that our years of hard work and commitment really have been noticed.”

Tim continues, “it was a fantastic feeling when we were told where we’d place, and it’s been great to be able to put a smile on the faces of everyone here at Versatile, particularly given how tough 2020 has been.”

Find out more here: https://www.versatilevenues.co.uk/weve-come-eleventh-in-the-crystals-2020/

Creative News, Marketing, PR and SEO, News

Gonzalo de la Mata joins Amazon Agency Molzi as Head of Global Agency Development

Former Adglow Managing Director is responsible for building international agency partnerships

Former Adglow Managing Director UK, Gonzalo de la Mata, has joined Molzi as Head of Global Agency Development. Europe’s leading Amazon Agency has tasked de la Mata with building relationships with media agencies and supporting Molzi’s commitment to  find and  conquer Amazon growth opportunities for the world’s biggest brands.

At Adglow, Gonzalo was responsible for the Amazon sales performance of the global agency’s consumer clients. Previously he was Group Commercial Operations Director at Glow Digital Media.

Gonzalo de la Mata, Head of Global Agency Development, said, “Covid-19 has reinforced to brands that if they’re not performing well on Amazon, they are missing out. Media agencies are reacting to the trend and supporting clients on the platform but are quickly realising that deep expertise and knowledge about the Amazon ecosystem is needed to succeed and accelerate growth quickly.

“Advertising on Amazon has recently become a sophisticated weapon for marketers. It has proven successful for upper funnel campaigns with PPC and now the advanced programmatic DSP is giving brands more choice for conversions. Amazon’s latest results show marketers are investing heavily here.

“But generating Amazon sales is much more complicated than simply writing creative copy for ads. It requires a specialised and diverse team capable of executing on everything from the operational backoffice to retargeting campaigns. This is where Molzi’s experts can integrate with media agency teams to support clients at every possible step on Amazon.

Chris Mole, CEO of Molzi, said: “Gonzalo’s network and track-record is exactly what we are looking for as Molzi’s international expansion continues. If anyone can keep evolving our unique offering to media agencies, it’s him.”

Molzi has grown rapidly in Europe over the last three years. The 60-person team currently manages more than £100m of annualised Amazon revenue. The company ranks as Startup.co.uk’s 29th hottest UK startup and Chris Mole is shortlisted for Great British Entrepreneur of the Year 2020.

News

Commute, not Covid, main reason employees are avoiding offices

– Only one in four cite health concerns as their main reason for not wanting to return to the office
– 70% say loss of work-life balance and commuting again are their main issues
– Two-thirds of people think they are more productive working at home rather than the office

Nottingham, UK. 20th August 2020: Employees worried about returning to the office post-lockdown are most concerned about work-life balance and the daily commute, rather than their health, according to research from absence intelligence company e-days.

Whereas only a quarter of employees are most worried about potential health implications, results of a snapshot poll of 100 workers show that 7 out of 10 of us are more concerned with impact to work-life balance (37%) or the office commute (34%). The research follows the change in government advice on 1 August 2020 meaning employers can make their own decisions about staff returning safely to work.

Respondents were asked to choose between ‘health implications’, ‘commute’, ‘work/life balance’ and ‘routine’ as the area they are most worried about in returning to their place of work. The results come as analysis from US bank Morgan Stanley showed only one-third of UK white-collar employees have gone back to work, lagging far behind their European counterparts, where twice as many have done so. A previous e-days survey showed that 1 in 3 UK workers are ‘reluctant to return’ to office spaces at all now that lockdown measures have been eased, and that 63% felt they were more productive working from home anyway.

Work-life balance is key to employee wellbeing and helping avoid potential burnout. Enabling employees to spread their annual leave throughout the year is just one of the ways e-days helps to prevent burnout. e-days also offers direct health & wellbeing advice from the NHS through its NHS Wellbeing Module including how to manage sleep and tiredness.

Steve Arnold, CEO of e-days, commented: “As more staff return to work, companies need to ensure the time employees do spend in the office is as stress-free as possible. This means being aware of what your staff member’s concerns actually are and how you can help address them. We have e-days customers already using the platform to register who is in the office and who is not, to help address concerns around social distancing. Building in more flexibility to where people do their best work, or making sure that those who like to start earlier or finish later are allowed to do so will also help. And with COVID-19 already restricting how employees spend their free time, managing annual leave to ensure a healthy work-life balance has never been more important.”

Food & Drink, Retail

Welsh firms step up to the plate to meet lockdown surge for fresh food and drink

FOOD and drink businesses have stepped up to the plate and met a surge in demand for fresh produce during lockdown.

Taste North East Wales praised local food, drink and hospitality firms for diversifying and changing business models to better serve their communities since the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic.

From home deliveries to online platforms, stocking new lines and dramatic increases in production, they have supported customers who needed it most, including the vulnerable and elderly in towns and rural areas.

Among the outlets to have continued trading throughout the past few months is Porters Delicatessen in Llangollen, whose owner Tracey Hughes said demand for their products helped the business stave off the threat of COVID-19.

“Lockdown would have potentially devasted our business, but we quickly adapted when it became apparent from customers in self-isolation they would still be enjoying their favourite foods, especially cheese,” said Tracey.

“We have always offered a free home delivery service within a local radius but were able to greatly expand this with the help of our local greengrocer, Dee Valley Fruit and Veg.

“Working together we covered a much greater area and supplied many more of our customers. When people became aware that they could telephone an order and get it delivered the next day the service really took off and is still being used now.”

She added: “Whilst we were never closed to customers, now things are a lot busier we are controlling numbers in the shop and have installed screens and a hand sanitiser station to help keep everyone safe.”

Another to have seen a huge rise in sales is Swans Farm Shop in Treuddyn, near Mold.

Gail Swan runs it with butcher husband Clive, assistant butcher and son, Edward, and daughter Becca, who is also a midwife.

“We have a farm and the farm shop so when the shop is busier it means the farm is busier, but the priority has always been safety,” said Gail.

“Barely a day has gone by where we have not introduced something new, which has been challenging but also rewarding as we have been able to support more local producers.

“We have stepped up production of our own items and businesses locally have done the same; the product range of everyday essentials we now have is incredible because people have been coming in and asking for things we didn’t previously stock.

“We’ve been living and breathing the business but are just glad to have been of service to our community during what has undoubtedly been the most hectic period in the 17 years since we opened.”

The second annual Blasu/Taste North East Wales is taking place virtually this year after organisers Clwydian Range Food and Drink and Llangollen and Dee Valley Food and Drink, with the support of Cadwyn Clwyd, the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB and the local authorities of Flintshire, Wrexham and Denbighshire, decided to host an online celebration to ensure the health and safety of participants.

This will include of a series of short films featuring local food and drink businesses, to be followed by virtual events in the Autumn.

The project is funded by the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, via the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government

Robyn Lovelock, Taste Project Coordinator and Secretary of Llangollen and Dee Valley Food and Drink, praised businesses for the innovative and immediate ways in which they met the uncertainty of the pandemic head-on.

“This was completely unchartered territory for all of them, yet they stepped up when their communities – especially people shielding in rural areas – were in lockdown at home and unable to get out to the shops or access supermarket deliveries,” she said.

“Like never before we have seen the best of the food and drink industry in this region over the past few months. It makes us proud to be able to showcase the huge efforts local businesses have made.”

Her key message to customers now is to keep shopping locally.

“We’ve all appreciated how local businesses went above and beyond during the crisis. The biggest thank you to them is to maintain that support as lockdown eases – to plan which items you want to buy locally and make a plan on when you’ll do that each week,” added Robyn.

For more on Taste North East Wales, follow them on social media @taste_blasu or email taste.blas@gmail.com. Alternatively, visit the website: www.tastenortheastwales.org.

For more information on Cadwyn Clwyd, email admin@cadwynclwyd.co.uk, call 01490 340500 or visit the website: www.cadwynclwyd.co.uk.