Agencies have many ways of wooing clients. They wine and dine them. They try to win awards. They send out press releases to trade media. They try to destabilise the incumbents. They invest in fancy offices to create the perception of success should they visit. And they also show off their work, their strategy and their talent to online visitors. The agency website is basically a digital shopfront and it’s often seen as an indication of the type of work it might be able to do for clients. Many agencies are guilty of creating boring and/or unfunctional sites and regularly slipping into cliche. But there are some good ones out there. So here are a few of our local favourites.
Browsing: Barnes Catmur
Nude ironing isn’t generally recommended, unless you’re trying to win an Xtreme Ironing competition. But Meridian, its new agency Barnes Catmur and spokesman Jeremy Wells have decided to embrace it.
The Effies Worldwide Index was released last week and, after tallying up the points earned through finalists and winners in the local Effie awards shows, FCB New Zealand and Colenso BBDO were ranked fifth and eighth respectively in the individual agency rankings, with Barnes Catmur fifth in the independent agency rankings. PLUS: all the Kiwi wins from the Asia Pacific Effies.
Late last year, Meridian shifted its advertising account to Barnes Catmur after a four-ish year relationship with Assignment. And the new couple have released their first ad to promote its moving house offer—with Jeremy Wells reprising his role as the entertaining spokeshuman and becoming a very literal embodiment of the brand.
Barnes Catmur put a bit of effort into its Christmas gift. And it also delivered the goods with its Christmas card: a traditional festive scene that is subjected to client feedback and then modified accordingly.
As Mulberry’s #WinChristmas campaign showed, giving is basically a competitive sport these days. And that’s also true in the corporate realm, where many businesses attempt to one-up each other by giving expensive offerings of thanks to their VIPs. Just as The Downlow Concept took the opportunity to show off its skills and sense of humour with its Christmas message, Barnes Catmur & Friends has honoured its special friends with a bespoke whisky named in honour of the street where its office lies.
For the second year in a row, Barnes Catmur & Friends’ Friends Electric took the top prize at the only ad award that really matters, BOTAB.
Spanning over six generations and almost twice as many brewers, the Duncan family have been brewing Founders in Nelson for almost 160 years. But the company is thinking a bit bigger than boutique and its newly refreshed range of craft beers are now available around the nation.
The 2013 Global Effie Effectiveness Index has just been released, with Colenso BBDO maintaining its position as the fifth most effective agency in the world based on 2012’s award haul and Barnes, Catmur & Friends punching well above its weight to be recognised as the fifth best independent agency in the world and the leading independent agency in the Asia Pacific.
There’s a perception that canned-beer is of lower quality than the bottled variant and makes the drinker look like a lout – an image that Boundary Road Brewery (BRB) and its agency Barnes, Catmur and Friends are attempting to push aside with their ‘Blind Taste Test’ campaign.
While Samsung has shot a few ads in New Zealand, the local executions have been few and far between. Colenso BBDO has done a few things for the South Korean behemoth, like Peter Bromhead drawing cartoons live on nzherald.co.nz and a virtual queue to launch the Galaxy S4. And now Barnes Catmur has given the Galaxy Note 2 the full Kiwi treatment by getting actor/director Taika Waititi to do his mad thing in an online only, long-form video called ‘State of the —ATION’.