Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
Business in the Community have recently developed a new series of workplace events which focus on employee engagement. The purpose being to share knowledge and engage organisations to develop their current best practices, look at their people management and to focus on increasing employee engagement.
The final event in this series took place on Thursday 19th May at Police College, Belfast and focused on the importance of developing successful employer branding. Our very own Creative Director Stephen Moore was asked to deliver a presentation on how AV Browne continue to deliver success within this field.
During his presentation, Stephen highlighted AV Browne as a best practice organisation and explained how we have successfully created a strong employer brand through development of a positive environment, through a culture that attracts and retains talented employees and by having an emotional connection to your organisation. His creative and thoroughly entertaining presentation highlighted the importance of engaging the mind, body and soul and that attitude is key – everything else can be taught.
Well done to Stephen on delivering such an inspiring presentation, which was described on the day by BITC representatives as ‘a breath of fresh air’!
Pictured with Stephen is Tanya Kennedy, Workplace Director from Business in the Community.
Monday, May 23rd, 2011
After a competitive tender process, we have retained the Northern Ireland creative and media account for the National Trust brand, extending our current contract by an additional 2 years.
Our work together has included the current National Trust ‘Time Well Spent’ campaign, encouraging time well spent with family and friends in beautiful places and spaces, all over Northern Ireland.
We are really delighted to have retained this account and having always found the brand to be a fun and refreshing account to work on, we are really looking forward to building on this base in the months and years ahead.
Pictured from left to right is Maurica Lavery (National Trust’s Communications & PR Consultant), Sarah Corr (Jnr Account Director, AV Browne) and Stephen Moore (Creative Director, AV Browne) inside The Crown bar, which is maintained by the National Trust.
Visit nationaltrust.org.uk Trust for full listings of events.
National Trust – time well spent.
Monday, May 16th, 2011
We’re delighted to announce that following a nail biting ceremony at the Drum Awards in Manchester last week, AV Browne and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) were presented with a highly commended award within the Brand Extension/ Extension category. We faced stiff competition from Kingspan, Ronseal and oilcareers.com, so the competition and judges expectations were incredibly high.
The judges were impressed by the strategic planning and application to the NITB brand framework with particular attention to the development process involving NITB staff and key stakeholders. The brand development process saw the brand extend across multiple audiences from consumer to industry to government, each retaining the values that are at the heart of NITB but communicating them in an audience appropriate format.
Congratulations once again to the team at AV Browne for all their hard work, but ultimately to the staff at NITB for truly bringing the brand to life.
All winners, commendations and nominations can be viewed here.
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
Following a three way pitch, we have successfully secured the contract to launch West Coast Cooler’s latest offering – Citra, in Northern Ireland. An altogether zestier and edgier offering from the West Coast Cooler family, be prepared for something a little bit different. We can’t say what exactly, because if we tell you, we’d have to kill you…
The fully integrated campaign launches on May 9th so watch Facebook for details!
Monday, April 4th, 2011
After a competitive tender process, we are delighted to have retained the all-island creative account for global communications solutions and IT provider, BT.
BT’s Head of Consumer Marketing, Don Brennan said, “The contract renewal with AV Browne is testament to their imaginative and effective creative approach. In light of the communication services and entertainment market becoming much more competitive, we feel they are best placed to help us deliver on our key objectives in the coming years”.
We are the agency behind the current ‘BT Everywhere’ testimonial style campaign featuring local BT employees and a re-record of the famous Johnny Cash track to include Northern Ireland towns and villages. It has been the most successful BT campaign for several years and the account extends to all of BT communications products available to business and consumers, from phone lines and BT Vision TV to BT Infinity super-fast broadband.
Monday 4th April 2011 saw the launch of BT Northern Ireland’s latest campaign – a better place, supported through TV commercials, Outdoor, Press and Online as well as PR activity.
Check out the latest TV campaign here.
Friday, April 1st, 2011
AV Browne scooped the top prize awarded in the Best Use of Media NI - Medium/Large for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board at the inaugural Irish Marketing Journal Media Awards in Dublin’s Burlington Hotel last night.
In all, 160 entries were submitted to the Awards, the first of their kind in Ireland. A top class panel of Irish and international judges were assembled and chaired by Mark Holden, global planning and strategy director of PHD, and the NITB came out above stiff competition in the £25k+ category from the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, University of Ulster and Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau.
More info on the awards and categories can be found here:
http://www.adworld.ie/news/read/?id=f19dbcb3-d880-46e4-b2e8-a692d05bc2e9
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been shortlisted in the Marketing Week Engage Awards for our Spring 2010 Campaign for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board in the Travel and Leisure category. The awards will be held in London on May 24th. Shortlisted alongside us are some of the biggest agencies in the UK for brands like Asda, Dove, Smirnoff, Yeo Valley, Carlsberg, John Lewis and Nike. So we’re pretty happy to have got this far!
Check out http://www.marketingweekawards.co.uk/shortlist.aspx for more details.
Friday, March 25th, 2011
We’ve been busy working with NITB in the lead up to Wednesday’s launch by Tourism Minister Arlene Foster of a £5million fund for a programme of events to promote Northern Ireland tourism in 2012.
The £5million funding package comes from the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment (DETI) and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB)
Launching NI2012 at Titanic House in Belfast, Arlene Foster said: “2012 will be a year of opportunity for Northern Ireland. The eyes of the world will be on Northern Ireland, which is why I reallocated £3.5million from my department’s budget settlement to the Northern Ireland Tourist Board to prioritise the promotion of tourism during this significant year.
2012 is significant to Northern Ireland for many reasons and presents a unique opportunity to deliver a year-long celebration of Northern Ireland. Many events lie ahead such as the centenary of the maiden voyage of Titanic in April 2012, the 50th Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queens and the arrival of the Clipper Round the World Yacht race to Londonderry. The maiden city will also be preparing to take up the mantle of UK City of Culture 2.
The events programme for 2012 and beyond is expected to boost visitor numbers and, in turn, bring significant economic benefits to Northern Ireland and we are very much looking forward it!
Friday, March 11th, 2011
We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been appointed as the Agency for the new Metropolitan Arts Centre (MAC) in Northern Ireland.
The MAC is a long anticipated, world class home for the arts in the heart of Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter opening in 2012. Standing six storeys high, the centre will include three major visual art galleries, two theatres, a dance studio, education, workshop and rehearsal spaces, offices for resident arts groups as well as a resident artist and a cool café and bar.
Having been chosen after a 3 stage competition and a pitch shortlist of 8 agencies from throughout Ireland and the UK, we’ll now begin work with the MAC team on developing a compelling brand and engaging the many differing audiences this new venture seeks to attract.
Thursday, March 10th, 2011
NITB has been shortlisted in The Drum Awards in the Brand Development / Extension category and with the judging panel including such prestigious names as Disney’s Burcin Ergin; Paul Simmons of easyjet; Land Rover’s Mark Beamont and Honda’s Head of Marketing Martin Moll, we couldn’t be more delighted to have got this far!
Other nominees in the awards include Talk Talk, MORE TH>N, Panasonic, Nike, Asda and Unilever, so we are keeping good company…
Fingers crossed for the final in May.
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
We’ve been working with BT on launching a new online competition for Ulster Colleges GAA affiliated schools called “BT MacRory Countdown” today. The competition, which launched today at http://ulstercollegesgaa.org/macrory-madness/index.php has been created to celebrate the excitement around the upcoming BT MacRory Cup Final taking place on 17th March between St Patrick’s Academy Dungannon and St Colman’s College Newry. Every day in the 15 day run up to the final, BT will be giving away a selection of fantastic prizes for students and schools on the website.
Peter Morris, Head of Consumer Marketing BT, “The BT MacRory Cup Final is one of the most exciting days of our extended sponsorship of Ulster Colleges and we wanted to mark this fantastic final with a countdown event that would reward and celebrate all of the students and schools who participate in Ulster Colleges competitions throughout the year.”
The launch of the competition coincides with the launch of the BT Education Bursary that supports young GAA players by giving five cash prizes of £1000 to Ulster Colleges GAA players each season. Nominations for a BT Education Bursary can be made by teachers and coaches on behalf of eligible students. Applications for this year’s bursaries will close on 15th April 2011 and winners will be announced in June 2011. More information can be found here: www.ulstercolleges.gaa.ie
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
If you’re an NI music maker, this could be your big break…
Every year the Northern Ireland Tourist Board runs a series of campaigns in the NI and ROI markets to encourage visitors to take a break in NI with the theme of “Explore More”. They are now looking for a new, original soundtrack to replace the John Shelly and the Creatures track ‘Long May You Reign’ to accompany their advertising campaigns.
There are some entry rules of course and you can find out all the details here http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/music/competition.aspx - the competition closes on 28th February.
Good luck!
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
After a recently completed tendering process we are delighted to continue our relationship with National Museums Northern Ireland by winning both their advertising and retail design accounts.
National Museums Northern Ireland are Northern Ireland’s premier cultural, learning and visitor attractions, and include the Ulster Museum, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum, Ulster American Folk Park and Armagh County Museum.
We will be responsible for the creative and integrated advertising campaigns for the group for the year 2011/12 which will entail working with them to bring their vision and ethos of Explore, Engage, Enjoy to their target markets.
Monday, February 7th, 2011
Congratulations to our student design team (Ruth Baxter, Lucy Liddell, Patrick Willis and Declan Mount) who claimed first prize in the NI Design Alliance competition.
Their presentation for a pop-up Art gallery “Kaleidoskope” was selected as the winner at an event in the Art College last Thursday evening.
A D&AD brief had been set to create a new name and brand identity for a pop-up art gallery that would tour a number of hospitals around the country. As part of the process, AV Browne were required to give help, advice and guidance to our student team on how to tackle a brand identity project.
We’ve had brilliant fun working with the guys on this project and would like to congratulate them on a great achievement.
Here is the final logo that was generated for the project.
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
We are very excited and proud to have played a part in the launch of NIE Energy’s new advertising campaign. The campaign went live on Monday 17th January with outdoor, print, radio and online.
The campaign is called ‘The BIG Save” and has been launched by NIE Energy to communicate the various ways they can help their customers save. “Save Money. Save Energy. Save Time”, something for everyone. To find out more on how you can save with NIE Energy visit: www.nieenergy.co.uk
We have thoroughly enjoyed working with such an iconic, homegrown brand and we look forward developing this further throughout the year.
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
After winning the DoE Rethink Waste account in November, we are delighted that our first campaign with our new client goes live on TV today with 2 x 10 second ads. These are swiftly followed next week by another 2, and a full communications campaign including outdoor, online and press. The aim of the campaign is to get the public to better understand what waste prevention and management really is (it’s not just about recycling you know!) how they can personally take steps to better manage their waste with the simplest of actions, and to reinforce, the reduce, reuse, recycle message.
We are also very proud to announce that the DoE and ourselves are practising what we preach - this campaign is Northern Ireland’s first carbon neutral advertising campaign as verified by Carbon Footprint!
View the first TV ads on our YouTube channel and the Rethink Website.
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
Congratulations to the year 10 pupils from St Gemma’s High School in north Belfast who were announced the overall winners of Belfast City Council’s ‘Litter-ally Yours’ competition. Their entry, “Chewing gum makes you taller” focused on the issues of chewing gum litter on the streets of Belfast.
The competition encouraged young people to get creative and come up with their own anti-litter campaign for radio, TV, posters or online games. There was a very high standard of entries with 137 entries in total, so the judges had a tough job on their hands!
We were overwhelmed with the standard of entries, but we were delighted to present Leonie McKenna from St. Gemma’s with their prize of £1,000 worth of equipment for their school. Find out other ways that you can get involved in keeping Belfast litter free.
Year 10 pupil, Leonie McKenna is pictured accepting the winning prize on behalf of St. Gemma’s High School. Presenting the winner is Councillor Ian Adamson, Chairman of the Council’s Health and Environmental Service committee and Sarah Corr, AV Browne.
Monday, January 10th, 2011
Rory McIlroy popped into Bluecube on Friday afternoon, much to the surprise and delight of many of our avid golf enthusiasts! He had tweeted about having lunch at a nearby bistro, one of his Bluecube followers replied, and a few moments later he was having his picture taken with Operations Manager, Sinead Murphy! The power of social media, eh?!
Thursday, January 6th, 2011
After a tendering process we are delighted to have been retained on the Design and Advertising Panel for Belfast Harbour. We’ve worked with the Harbour for several years now, with our work including the creation and implementation of a new brand and we are delighted that our relationship will continue into the future.
Friday, December 3rd, 2010
Film is much more than entertainment; it enlightens and enriches people’s lives. Our client, the QFT is Northern Ireland’s only arthouse cinema and is dedicated to giving audiences here the opportunity to experience the best of cinema through their unique programme of films, events and education activities.
But the QFT’s 40 year history of doing just this is now under threat due to proposed funding cuts and shrinking resources. As film is an art form which many people are keenly interested in and care passionately about. QFT hopes to engage this passion in a material way to ensure they can continue their work for the next 40 years.
To this end they have launched a campaign through www.thebiggive.org.uk in order to raise funds aid their overall sustainability and expand and improve the scope and quality of what they do by enabling investment in their programme, creative projects, equipment and other much needed resources. You can help them reach their target of £2,300 by donating at www.thebiggive.org.uk or find out about other ways of supporting http://www.queensfilmtheatre.com/news/bigartsgivecampaignevents
