Archive for September 2009

Given we know over 300 of you read this blog every week we thought we’d try something. If you are, or know, someone who would like to beapart of Hive then we would love to hear from you. We are actively recruiting in junior account management, art direction and digital project management. We’re looking for people who share our aim to place patient centred brand planning and programming at the heart of the pharmaceutical strategic process.

We’ve grown quickly, but carefully and if you’d like to join 16 slightly mad individuals its a lot of fun, very challenging and enormously rewarding. Give us a shout if you are interested.  beapart@hivehealth.com

Currently loving this campaign done by M&C Saatchi and DSGi marketing team in a sector that’s normally chucking boredom our way. It’s having all the easy to identify retailers featured moaning like mad.

I thought the planning and insight that went into the writing was spot-on. We’ve all done it, gone to see what we like in John Lewis, and gone online to order it. I feel understood and not such a cheap skate!

I also love the nice end-line too: “Dixons.co.uk. The last place you want to go.” Awesome.

Typically, the idiots have hit back and raised the prospect of legal action further fueling the bubbling media coverage of this campaign. A Harrods spokeswoman said: “Not only is this is a low-down swipe by Dixons, but it is potentially misleading to customers who may think we offer a similar range of product, whereas in fact there is relatively little overlap. “Our lawyers have sent Dixons a letter demanding that it substantiates the claims, but in the meantime customers might like to know that one of the few brands…”  Stopped reading – what a wally.

Thursday saw us in Manchester launching a biggie campaign to help patients discuss treatments with healthcare teams, solve problems with therapy and understand their treatments better.

We took an art gallery in Manchester’s trendy side and mounted an exhibition showing the issues at hand, the thinking behind the campaign, its development and the execution of some of the work of which we are so proud.

Catherine, who was responsible for one of the best briefs we have seen, was our curator for the evening, introducing how the collateral fits into the world. It’s a totally proud moment when you see your work being presented so fantastically, it brought a tear to my eye.

The show travels to three other venues, where it will be rolled out to community groups, opinion leaders, charities and internally.

It was a resounding success despite the usual courier mishaps, lost packages, countless hours hanging and discarded Dewalt batteries we closed the launch with rounds of applause, a real sense of purpose.

The morning saw us discuss with much mirth Jas dropping a 6ft high flower arrangement an hour before the kick-off! How we all laughed.

When we started, 4 of us sat in the big room we now find cramped and jammed. We often catch one of us casting a gaze from the photocopier beaming with pride at the people we have and the culture we have built.

As mentioned in a previous blog we move next month, in the mean-time we have more people than desks, and its changing the way we work. Our laptops are becoming our place of business and the location is too often, (for me anyway) Flat White in Brewer Street, a client’s office, a random desk  or even the kitchen table at home.

We are finding our mobile devices are defining how efficiently we work. The availability of bandwidth is trumping office space. We’re all becoming digital nomads. No longer tethered to Ethernet cables but free to work in whatever space we can get hold of or whatever space free our minds most.

The area we work in – Soho is geared for this. Everywhere has Wi-Fi, every table has a laptop, a latte and a nomad. Yesterday saw me grab a table for an hour proposal writing , co-create a tender document with a partner agency in Chiswick, join Kate on a conference call to chat through a web project, and Skype our  illustrators in Kolkata  who are running tight on a deadline due to their freak weather conditions.  How mad is that? All from a wooden table with the best coffee in London.

Walking past a pub on the way home yesterday evening I spied my old creative director supping a pint. 10 minutes later the old days were back; him, me, lager and discussion. He is talented as hell – scarily so, sharp to the point and fiercely no-nonsense talking. He makes me wish I was more instinctive.

We got talking about briefing and about how we need to reframe expectations of briefs to be more understandable; to drive to what is special, where the stand out come from, and what’s its going to do for you.

4 (or is could have been 5) in we stumbled upon the conclusion that a good metaphor is the job market. In many cases, a brand like a candidate competes to become occupied, it competes against other candidates, it needs to be relevant to the role specified, to have experience and stand out amongst a crowd.

We thought this was amazing. Writing this on this very bright morning  having woken up in my clothes it seems to make sense but it’s not as brilliant as it was at 1 am – but it’s tidy.