Latest project in Sussex

I am really excited to be working on this project, a grade II listed flint manor house in the heart of Sussex.

Latest work: Hosspitality Cornwall, Lewinnick Lodge and The Plume of Feathers site launched

http://www.hospitalitycornwall.com/

 http://www.hospitalitycornwall.com/lewinnicklodge

http://www.hospitalitycornwall.com/theplumeoffeathers

Hospitality Cornwall website now live!

We have launched the fabulous Hospitality Cornwall group website!

As the culminating piece in a brand evaluation and development exercise we are all very excited to see it up and running. The project began as a brand investigation for my other company Approach Agency with client Dan Trotter (Faronpark Ltd) and draws to a close utilising my McOwen+Banks design skills to create a fitting website for the new brand.

Creating an overarching brand ethos and rolling that out across the name, identity and all communication (including staff training) has been a great project to be involved in. The final element of the website creation, design and implementation was made possible working with our fab friends at Web Footed designs and results in a swathe of work we can all be proud of.

Read the brief write up in the news section: here
Or if you're in the Newquay area and fancy a fabulous meal head to the website to find out about their restaurants and rooms.

Coast to coast creatives - now in East Sussex!

We've recently followed the work flow back up to the South East - couldn't quite release the sea though so have set our stall out in the beautiful town of Rye.
Still retained by clients in Cornwall we get to pop back every so often which gives us the best of both worlds. Looking forward to finding new opportunities and friends in Sussex.
Pete has already started work on a fabulous, Grade 2 listed flint house just outside Brighton and I've been setting creative minds a buzz with work for Suzuki as well as doing great things for The Bay and Hotel Penzance. So we're truly a coast-to-coast creative offering!

PR Latest - Great article in County to sea magazine this month

[click on pic for larger version]

Latest article in Cornish press - the lovely Sarah Lillicrap, editor of County to sea did a fab job.
Thanks Sarah!

Our latest clients - Hall for Cornwall

We were recently asked to help out the Hall for Cornwall (theatre in Truro, and main live venue for West Cornwall) with ideas for giving the interiors a spruce up. Fabulously they liked Peter's proposals and the work is underway.
Here's one of the boards from the presentation:

When others Zig - Zag' Latest repost on citysumers from Trendwatching

Seems we may have reversed trend on this one - leaving the city for the coast.

Back to actual CITYSUMERS. Consumption-wise, the fast pace and ever changing nature of urban life guarantees CITYSUMERS an endless number of new and fleeting social connections, experiences and (commercial) temptations. All of which means that CITYSUMERS are addicted to the here-and-now, experiences,  choice and freedom, flexibility and rawness, unrestricted opportunity, and yes, the hunt for the Next Big Thing if not the Next Big Story. In fact, urban culture is the culture these days*.
Here are some quick indicators of urbanites' spending power and behavior:

• The average Manhattanite household spends 59% of their USD 13,079 food budget on dining out, compared to the average American household that spends only 42% of their USD 6,514 food budget on dining out. (Source: Bundle, May 2010.)
• Even four years ago, Harris identified 'Urban Hustlers' (who comprise 21% of US consumers aged 12-34), spend close to USD 9 billion (10% of their annual spending), on recreational activities. Urban Hustlers are spending, on average, over USD 100 more than the non-urban population monthly, with their overall discretionary spending reaches USD 383 per month. (Source: Harris Interactive, June 2007.)
• The lifestyle of urban Chinese consumers has changed from a “survive” mentality to an “enjoy life” one, with 54% now pursuing a more fun lifestyle. (Source: GfK Roper, 2010.)
• Only 17% of Chinese urban dwellers say they are 'reluctant to spend money'. (Source: Economist Intelligence Unit, August 2010.)

* Not just because of mass urbanization, but also because widespread online access enables remote rural audiences to participate in urban culture.
Constantly exposed to a wide variety of alternative lifestyles and experiences, CITYSUMERS tend to be more open-minded. Just one telling nugget: In August 2010, a Voice of India poll showed that almost a third of Indians in Bangalore and Mumbai support same-sex partnerships, a figure that would have been unheard of only a few years ago**.
All of this means that a large URBANE audience is up for brands that challenge, thrill, titillate, or even shock (just as long as it's done in the best possible taste ;-). At the very least, brands need to show some personality, loosen up and embrace urban culture, in all its gritty glory. Risky? Yes. But not as risky as being bland.
** No, we're not suggesting that every CITYSUMER is enthusiastically and overwhelmingly liberal, but as we saw in MATURIALISM, the clear (if gradual) global social trends are towards more tolerant attitudes towards abortion, euthanasia, casual sex, homosexuality, drug use, women's rights etc. More diverse living arrangements and the removal of many of the traditional social structures in cities is a big part of this.


Thanks Trendwatching for the heads up. For more from them go to the full article here.

What's next for apps, search, display gaming and privacy in 2011 - trends from Millward Brown released

Popped up on my radar courtesy of the chaps at Contagious.

Millward Brown's Futures Group's global innovation director identifies the hottest digital trends for 2011

1 / Brands will juggle their presence in the Splinternet. 

The internet will continue to splinter into a public open web and semi-walled gardens, as surfing the web is often replaced by running apps or viewing pages on Facebook.   Applications and fan pages are popular because they allow marketers to control and simplify consumer interactions. However, brands will increasingly need to tend multiple 'gardens', often building different applications for specific platforms to ensure they are both relevant and present everywhere their consumers want to encounter them. 

2 / Evolution of online shopping as augmented reality technologies bridge intangibility gap. 

Despite some remaining fears around disclosure of personal information, online shopping will continue to grow strongly. Many countries will follow the US in their enthusiastic uptake of collective buying services like Groupon. Fuelled by their love of a bargain, there are currently more than 500 of these sites in China, though many are expected to fade into obscurity. In the UK, mobile shopping apps will be particularly popular, while in India we expect to see growth in online travel ticket purchasing that helps consumers bypass long queues at stations. Globally we also expect brands to use innovative new technologies, including augmented reality, to help bridge the 'intangibility gap' that exists because consumers can't touch and feel a product they purchase online. 

3 / Online display explodes out of its box. 

Marketers will increasingly attempt to deliver immersive and engaging branding messages within the ad itself, using expandable formats and interactive features which often replicate part of the experience of a microsite or social media page. In line with this, display formats are constantly transforming and many new formats are growing in popularity including: double-teaming, where planners combine multiple formats on the same page; social titbits where banners include a taste of live social activity such as a Twitter feed; and slide-up formats, which use small but intriguing imagery to capture attention, and then expand to take over larger portions of the screen.  

4 / Viral video is no longer an afterthought.  

Viral potential is now an increasingly important element of digital campaign planning. More readily available viral measurements - such as Millward Brown's viral potential pre-test and Kantar Video's in-market tracking - allow marketers to better plan, monitor and adjust  accordingly. However, as each new viral hit raises the bar of consumer expectation, advertisers may need to be more distinctive than ever. To counter this, more advertisers will promote their ads in a viral environment, particularly since our recent YouTube research shows that paid online promotion generates a 'free' incremental viral bonus over and above the paid views.

5 / More 'made for web' video content. 

With online video advertising spend in a high growth phase, marketers globally are likely to invest more effort optimising their online video creative in 2011. Dynamic Logic research has shown that repurposed TV ads can effectively generate awareness, but made-for-web video tends to be better at driving persuasion. 

6 / More mobile eyeballs. 

The improved performance capabilities of mobile devices mean that more people are online, more of the time (there is almost a 'presumption of connectedness').  Marketers will seize this opportunity, particularly since newer devices enable better mobile ad experiences. Mobile advertising budgets will increase significantly over 2010 and the brand impact achieved from mobile will continue to out-perform online through 2011.

7 / Brands find their places with geo-location.  

Today, geo-location is all about 'checking in', but 2011 will provide a more rewarding experience once the user has checked in, and we also expect to see a development in "check out" features (e.g. suggestions of where to go next). We also expect to see growth in apps such as Shopkick that automatically award points/promotions upon entering a store. The arrival of Facebook Places alongside services such as Foursquare means that more brands will use location as an app feature, as a communication platform, a fan page feature or as the key to a deal, possibly tied in with loyalty card data. Brands which don't have locations of their own will seek out appropriate tie-ups.  

8 / Search: increasing personal, mobile and impactful. 

Consumers will trade privacy for relevance. Links with social media profiles, search history and behavioural segmentation will allow greater search relevance for users prepared to share this information with search engine providers. Mobile search will make further gains as developers take full advantage of the unprecedented breadth of information available and consumers realise the benefit of searching via applications such as Google Maps. Search results will also become more visually impactful, increasing the need for marketers to understand the brand impact of search.

9 / Gaming on the move. 

The recent launches of Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect have breathed new life into the Playstation and Xbox consoles, and will drive further innovation in game design during 2011. Meanwhile, casual gaming, driven strongly by the capabilities of Apple's iphone and ipod touch, is likely to grow further as these gamers continue to feed their app-snacking habits, and developers take full advantage of the larger ipad interface. Growth in the use of social games is also likely assuming developers such as Zynga can build on the success of FarmVille and Mafia Wars. Research from Dynamic Logic has revealed that brands can benefit from in-game branding where it's seen to be relevant, and we predict this to be a growth area in 2011.

10 / Social graphs will make targeting more relevant. 

Relevant social integration can delight consumers. Consumers will remain active in the biggest social network (Facebook) because so many contacts are there, but they may increasingly be more engaged in other niche networks that play to their particular interests.  Facebook's scale provides excellent targeting opportunities for brands, but to really be effective, sophisticated algorithms are needed to make sense of the complex relationships between people. 

11 / The battle for online privacy will intensify. 

Marketers will make progress on the development of online transparency frameworks as consumers are increasingly empowered to look under the hood. They will avoid regulatory measures to protect online privacy by enabling users to manage their own profiles and by being clearer about their data models. Despite these efforts however, the battle will continue between regulators and the industry about  the scope of personal information which forms the building blocks of online identity.

 http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2011/01/11_digital_predictions_for_2011.php

Back to school?

Whilst Pete's been brushing up on his design programme skills, Becky heard she passed her Web design course with flying colours.

So, if you're in need of a qualified web designer, look no further or drop us a line.

Courses provided by DPN in Penzance - with thanks to Anita and Sioban.

15 minutes of fame

We're in the January edition of Cornwall today - hurrah! Let's hope it get's those bells ringing.

Many thanks to the lovely Liz and photographer Charles - what a lovely story. Email us if you fancy the full readable version!

Take a look at our site on www.mcowenandbanks.co.uk