Wild West's design and marketing blog
Toyota ad from the US
Bet Toyota regrets pulling stunts like this in the light of all those recalls. Bad taste advertising can get you noticed, but as someone once said, to have your ad stand out, all you need do is put a gorilla in a bathing suit.
For us, an intelligent and credible proposition is the place to start. Humour is one thing, but, like photos of a smiling Tony Hayward, bad taste can come back and bite when things go wrong.
Some PR agencies like to invest in their own in-house design capabilities. Others either aren’t of a sufficient size, or they just like to choose the right designers for the right project. After all, design, like a pair of shoes, doesn’t come in one size for everyone.
Even a big agency like financial specialists FD have been known to look to WildWest for design and programming skills, and over the years, we’ve worked variously for Brands2Life, Octopus (and their Loudhouse research subsidiary), Bite, Lexis and Hill and Knowlton.
The projects have included everything from interview sets for British Lions rugby, through to client magazines, props for photoshoots, websites and advertising. Some of these companies have come to us because of our particular knowledge of sponsorship and sponsorship activation; others for more general help, or to ask whether something they have in mind is actually feasible.
Zelens are one of those companies who know their target market.
If you find yourself sitting in a Ferrari today, and you’re female and concerned about the look of your skin, you probably won’t want us to tell you that Zelens products occupy the higher reaches of the scientifically-based (and expensive!) end of the market for skin care products.
The Zelens website (which WildWest designed and implemented for them) uses JShop technology to make it a true eCommerce site with all the facilities a company selling to an international market would need.
Security, shipping, credit card administration, tracking orders are all handled from within the JShop system, providing a full retail system at a very affordable price.
If you would like to know more about eCommerce possibilities for your company and its products, please do get in touch.
Digital billboard in the US
The world is becoming digital. Everywhere you look, technologies are converging on a digital future. It’s already happened with music. With broadcast media, it’s begun. Now it’s happening in what were traditional print media, like outdoor.
Some years ago, our award-winning tradition began with an outdoor campaign we put together for Barclaycard (it won gold, silver and bronze in that year’s Money Marketing Awards). Today, the requirements for implementation might well include digital media as campaigns run in press, outdoor and display are taken into websites, web banners and social media.
Since the time of those awards, we’ve invested in the possibilities of digital – on the web, but elsewhere too. And when – as they inevitably will – new digital requirements emerge, we’re ready.
70% response? Impossible! (or not?)
Who else but Wayne Rooney was going to win this year’s Football Writers’ Award? He has been, as almost everyone agrees, this year’s most consistent and most consistently impressive player.
The Barclays ad for the Football Writers' Award Dinner
Wayne Rooney has made the Manchester United number 10 shirt his own this season and that’s what the Barclays advertisement in the evening’s dinner programme was keen to underline, making Rooney “the Perfect 10″.
Of course, we’re now all hoping that Wayne Rooney will go on and show his remarkable talents at international level in the World Cup, which starts on June 11 this year in South Africa.
England boss Fabio Capello seems to put Rooney’s name first on his team sheet this season, and if he can stay fit, he could yet play a big role in England’s success.
The Barclays ad for the night was of course designed and produced by WildWest design.
Tectura UK, whose business is implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications, principally built around Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics AX, have implemented a new specialist press advertising campaign through Wild West design.
The first of Tectura's new press ads
The campaign features two very different clients of Tectura UK, Poupart and Amcol.
Poupart deliver fresh produce to the UK’s supermarkets, and, as the ad copy states, ‘they are masters of a tight and dynamic supply chain, where delays cost money, as well as reputations.’
Amcol’s business is built around the extraction of natural resources, and then processing them in readiness for their use in products as diverse as nappies and lubricants.
Both creative executions stress the very practical advantages that the Tectura applications are bringing to both companies – tracking and traceability in the case of Poupart, moving to one integrated system across multiple locations in the case of Amcol. In both instances, the new business systems were built around Microsoft Dynamics NAV software, for which Tectura is a Gold-certified partner.
Tectura have a very strong yet adaptable corporate look and feel and both of the press ads created by Wild West have been implemented within that framework. Wild West, who have a track record in working with hi-tech companes, wrote the copy for the ads and for a complementary set of internet banners.
More on Tectura and their ERP and CRM capabilities at www.tectura.co.uk
Spaces for Sport in the Arsenal matchday programme
Barclays Spaces for Sports is an award-winning and international programme aimed at giving young people from deprived areas the opportunity to play sport.
It is the focus of the overall Barclays corporate social responsibility programme and operates in the UK and Ireland, South Africa and the USA.
In the UK, the programme operates in conjunction with the Football Foundation and runs alongside the Barclays commercial sponsorship of the English Premier League.
Now, Barclays have asked Wild West to put together a series of advertising feature pages, each one directed specifically to the work that Barclays and the Football Foundation are doing with each of the clubs in the Premier League, and highlighting the achievements of this remarkable initiative – which not only creates the areas for sports of different kinds, but also gives constructive assistance to community groups, helping them to get into a routine of managing and maximising the use of the space.
Barclays Spaces for Sport in Liverpool
Barclays Spaces for Sports are already up and running in the neighbourhood of each and every Premier League side and in many other areas too. But Premier League sides, and the Football Foundation too, are also taking a hand in helping to establish the credentials of these new facilities and playing an important role in attracting local publicity for what Spaces for Sports can offer.
Everyone involved hopes that these new facilities will become etched into the fabric of their local communities, providing a focus and an outlet for kids who otherwise might be attracted to gangs and crime. So, in many important ways, Barclays Spaces for Sports is helping to revitalise areas where problems of various kinds have been in evidence, and helping to get lives back on track by encouraging individuals to develop their sporting skills.
Who knows? Barclays Spaces for Sports may provide an important platform for British success in our very own Olympics in 2012. And Wild West is very pleased to be involved in this important initiative.
International Advertising for the Barclays Spaces for Sports Programme
The Barclays Spaces for Sports campaign has received an award for Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative of the Year at the Peace and Sport Awards in Monaco.
The awards ceremony was held as part of the third Peace and Sport International Forum, and the Barclays’ award specifically recognises programmes which help rebuild bridges between divided or opposed communities.
Barclays has spent more than £37 million on the initiative since its inception, and it has also benefitted from a further £30m donated from the Football Foundation, a body funded by elite football and the government in the UK.
The Spaces for Sports programme runs in the US, South Africa and the UK.