Count every ” F ” in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS…

How many could you find?  3?

WRONG, there are 6.
Read it again if you do not believe me.

Here is another:

It deosn’t mttaer in what oredr the  ltteers in a word are, the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is that the first and last  ltteer be in the
rghit pclae . The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed
it wouthit a porbelm.

Many of you will have come across tests like this before. Both of the examples above show that people skim-read text unless they know the content will help them. Once a visitor lands on your site, picks up your book or opens your blog, you have just milliseconds to grab their attention. Images and videos are the kings of content, so why do so many cram their websites and products with text where it is not necessary?

This is a short and simple blog and if you’re bored by now, it is probably because I didn’t embed any pictures or videos.

Promoting the MINI Countryman vehicle is a rather quirky iPhone application that has already caused chaos in Stockholm.

How to hunt and catch a virtual MINI in Stockholm city… and win a real MINI Countryman:

• Find the virtual MINI with your iPhone
• Take it when you get closer than 50 metres
• Get away! Everybody within 50 metres can take the virtual MINI from you
• If you have the virtual MINI in your iPhone after one week of gaming…you will win a real MINI Countryman

This campaign was designed to disrupt Stockholm in the same way that an accident disrupts traffic, and, since everyone wants to know what it is that is causing the hold up, it was certain to work.

Cities are too predictable, and so it is the unpredictable that gets noticed. Imagine the guy in Stockholm who loses his job because he stormed out of a meeting in a bid to remain 50 metres away from a Countryman rival. Or the lady, who, because of approaching countryman rivals, was seen fleeing a salon in the buff – half tanned- half red with embarrassment. When creating a competition, throw a decent enough prize into the mix and remove as many rules as possible. Let the contestants do the marketing for you.

Here’s an idea. The British Legion  have created a charity single which enables people to buy two minutes of silence for the bargain price of £1. Although the track may be lacking in sound, the singles accompanying video certainly makes up for it in celebrity appearances, with the likes of Prime Minister David Cameron, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, DJ Mark Ronson, tennis star Andy Murray and popular actors David Tennant and Bob Hoskins appearing on screen.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph Newspaper The Royal British Legion’s Director General Chris Simpkins disclosed why he believes sound won’t be missed on the release; “Rather than record a song, we felt the U.K public would recognise the poignancy of silence as its clear association with remembrance.”  Sunday 14^th November – is Remembrance Sunday – The Silent Singles campaign is rooting to be number 1 on this date, you can show your support by purchasing the track and accompanying video from: www.silentsingle.com  

This concept is a moving and unique spin on the charity single. However, it is in fact not the first silent single to ever be released. In the 1950s the composer John Cage created 4’33 which as the title suggests, is a totally silent track that lasts exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

Cage’s track incredibly is also making a bid to top the UK charts this winter. In a growing movement to keep Simon Cowell’s X-Factor from dominating the coveted British Christmas Number 1 spot. A group on facebook have begun a movement to get Cage’s 4’33 to the top of the charts. www.facebook.com/cageagainstthemachine

This year’s campaign cageagainstthemachine is a tongue-in-cheek parody of last year’s successful campaign to keep X- factor winner Joe McElderry from the top of the charts by the mass buying of the 1990s cult smash Killing In The Name by Rage Against Of The Machine. Watch the following video to see a leading world orchestra “performing” Cage’s soundless masterpiece.

To me, the nation’s continued efforts to regain control of the charts, once again confirms that we have come to the end of reality televisions dominance of our TV screens. The UK has fallen out of love with this once leading program format. With the demise of Big Brother earlier this year and with the continued negative press and social media coverage of this year’s X-factor we have gone from loving, to ruthlessly bashing these shows and enjoying it.

John Cage 4’33 will be available to download from December 13^th to receive the chart eligible link sign up here: http://bit.ly/cageagainstthemachine Lets make this year’s Christmas truly a Silent Night!

Just a quick blow of the Big Cat trumpet. We’re extremely proud to announce we walked home with Silver for “Most Effective Stand or Display” at this year’s Field Marketing & Brand Experience awards! The project was part of the campaign for CSI: The Experience at Birmingham’s Bullring, entered for the award in collaboration with Limited Space who organise advertising sites in prime retail locations around the UK.

The CSI ad campaign aimed to recruit potential visitors, enticing them to “become an agent” and take part in CSI: The Experience, an interactive entertainment experience. The lift advertising treated the space as the crime scene, with the graphics making the lift appear to be covered in bullet holes and police tape. People entered the lift as if they were the CSI agent, and were then encouraged to visit the experience and solve the crime.

So a big hand to everyone who worked on the project!

Big Cat Group and AMP Entertainment recently joined forces to launch a new European live entertainment consultancy, Big Cat Europe. The new entity has operations in Barcelona, Birmingham, London and Paris and will be delivering projects across Europe.

Below MD of Big Cat Spain, Daniel Rena answers questions about Big Cat Spain.

• What is Big Cat Spain:

Big Cat Spain is the natural extension of the brainchild Nick Morgan and Mike Molloy had: creating a Pan European company that can cover different areas such as full service marketing and event production. Being based in Spain has given us the chance to also work the Latin America market as well.  From our experience and background in these markets, it was a chance we couldn’t miss. In addition, we have a fantasitic strategic partnership with Zoopa, one of the leading marketing and show producing agencies in Spain. Having proved we could work together both effectively and efficiently, our combined potential is spectacular.

• What are you working on at the moment

We are giving the final touches to Scooby Doo and The Pirate Ghost production, which will go on tour in Eastern Europe in 2 weeks.  We will tour Poland, Lithuania and Greece.

We have just finished the initial design and pre production of the Pirates Exhibition, which is a very exciting project we are building.

And as we also cover Latin America in our territories, we are going to expand our operations with our leading shows (Pirates, Scooby Doo, the Ashton Brothers, etc, etc..) Very exciting new business opportunities!

• What are the biggest shows in Barcelona / Spain right now?

We just finished the first residency of the Ashton Brothers at Theatre Victoria in Barcelona. A very exciting experience. In addition, at this very moment we have the Star Trek Exhibition at the amazing Museo de las Artes y Las Ciencias in Valencia, in its first European premiere.

• Tell us about the Big Cat Spain office

We have the pleasure to share offices with Zoopa, our partners for Spain. We worked on Ashton Brothers together and created content for the Pirates exhibition. We are developing our common marketing and branding experience, so you will hear great things from us soon.

Zoopa is a highly talented and young group of people, in a pleasant and creative environment.

• What does the future hold for BCS?

We have really ambitious plans. We want to do more Ashton Brothers shows in Spain and Latin America. Same thing with Scooby Doo and The Pirate Ghost Tour. More European countries can be added, and a Latin America tour is in sight. Pirates is a key project, as it involves all our teams, and it is 100% our own creation. Pirates is born with an International touring capacity. And I can say its concept will be groundbreaking for the entertainment industry. In addition, we expect to develop the BCG marketing philosophy with leading  Spanish brands, something we are developing with our Zoopa Partners. A hectic and exciting future to come!

Hello Business is a 2 day digital conference which aims to help businesses in all sectors to innovate and grow using the latest technology and techniques through an intensive and interactive programme of events. Covering topics from social media to change management, and digital IP to future trends, the conference featured a mix of panel discussions, seminars and workshops, enabling delegates to interact with industry leaders.

Big Cat was the major private sector partner in a public private partnership which included Digital Birmingham, Advantage West Midlands, Business Link, Screen West Midlands and Marketing Birmingham. The agency co-curated the programme, created the brand identity and marketing communications strategy and was then responsible for the implementation of the 3-month promotional campaign. Big Cat’s events team coordinated 25 interactive sessions across 2 venues, working closely with both the ICC and Custard Factory.

The commercial segment of the Hello Digital week, the 2-day conference attracted almost 50 speakers and over 400 delegates. Big Cat is currently working with the partnership board to plan next year’s conference and a programme of year long activity to support and promote the region’s digital sector.

Nick and I incorporated Big Cat Group Limited 10 years ago following 2 years working together as a partnership; and during this blog I would like to share some experiences we had along the way.

I met Nick through an ex colleague of his who introduced us in 1996. We had the same work ethic and were equally ambitious and we started collaborating on various music-related projects.

Our first office was in the basement of a nightclub, which was situated adjacent to the ladies changing room at a popular Gentleman’s Club. This made meetings a little awkward although we had a surprisingly good relationship with our Bank Manager, who would visit us frequently

Eventually we moved up in the world (literally) into rather cramped 100 sq foot office on the Hagley Road. We could only fit 2 desks, a mini fridge and 1 filing cabinet but at least we had a window.

Although we were working for well known brands like MTV and Cream times were hard in the music industry where minnows didn’t hold much weight or power.

A micro business providing event marketing in the music and entertainment sector, we were offering something unique. We were driving as many as 10,000 customers to events every week and managing their experience in multiple venues across the UK.

In 2000 we won a contract to turnaround Coventry University’s entertainment complex, which had posted a £1/2 million loss the previous year. Our strategy was simple: give the students what they wanted, 7 days a week. Nick booked pretty much every chart topping act and comedian on the circuit, I promoted the hell out of it, and Rob Dudley (our Exhibition Manager currently managing the Tutankhamun exhibition in Manchester) sold the drinks. At the age of 23 and 25 we were managing a £1million+ business.

It was towards the end of that project in 2001 when the phone rang; and it was Brixton Academy calling for the old Ents Manager – to ask if he knew of PR company to help launch the Birmingham Academy.

Needless to say I convinced him that Big Cat could provide this service and that was the start of our consultancy business offering discrete services from our Experiential and Marketing skillset.

2006 was a pivotal year. We started working with the Custard Factory managing their venues business and we organised the Soundstation Festival. One of them launched us into the Creative Industries sector and introduced us to brands ranging from Hugo Boss and Dulux; the other lost £100,000 and brought us close bankruptcy.

If it was not for my fellow director’s financial wizardry and total commitment we probably wouldn’t be here today – so thank you Nick for that!!!

Around 3 years ago we took a call from an American gentleman namely Mike Molloy who represented Jam Exhibitions, Miami.  He represented Bodies Revealed and approached Big Cat to partner with them in Birmingham.  The following two year’s of exchanges included a Venezuelan crises and Human Tissue Authority accreditation and resulted in a successful opening of the exhibition at the Custard Factory in October 2009.

The exhibition was not without controversy and the threat of huge protests began to build during the pre opening weeks, so we hired a prestigious crisis management consultancy from London to stymie the uprising.  On the opening day, a wet October just over a year ago, stood one lonely gentleman shouting “Remember the War!”

From dealings with Mike and his teams in both Paris and Spain there seemed to be complimentary values and vision and so began a plan for European collaboration and expansion.

This brings us through to the present day: Big Cat is an Events Marketing consultancy working with some amazing clients and projects, with operations in both France and Spain. We were born and our European Headquarters are in Birmingham and we feel we owe it to the next generation of home grown business leaders to offer the support we received along the way.

We have a lot of memories of doing business in this great city for and as we grow in size and scope we will continue to glance back occasionally to remember the experiences of our formative years.

Birmingham will see a new side to its LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community this month as SHOUT, the regions only Queer culture festival returns promising to be the biggest yet.

Building upon the success of last year’s festival, SHOUT 2010 will continue to enhance the city’s queer aesthetic. This year’s programme boasts a wealth of activity, bringing internationally acclaimed artists to the city, providing local producers with a unique opportunity to be part of a number of exclusive projects.

The 2010 programme’s visual and performance arts activity is based on the theme of ‘Invisible/Visible’, exploring the place of Black and Asian LGBT people in the city’s cultural landscape. The varied programme aims to promote the diversity of the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities whilst consolidating Birmingham’s developing role as an LGBT tourist destination.

This year’s festival covers a number of strands including: film, theatre, visual arts, music, performance, literature and community with activities taking place across the city at venues such as mac, Town Hall, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Nightingales and The Victoria.

November traditionally the month of Guy Fawkes burning, fireworks and bonfires, this once predictable month – often over shadowed by its neighbour December, has received a reinvention and indeed a rename. November is no more – welcome to the mighty world of Movember.

Movember is a global fundraising event which spans the whole month of November, during this time participants also known as ‘mo bros’ grow moustaches and various other facial plumage in order to raise money and awareness of the still taboo subject  – prostate cancer.

Movember was launched by a group of men from Melbourne, Australia in 1999. The tongue-in cheek campaign really caught people’s imagination and Movember became an official fundraising organisation in 2003. Now in its eleventh year the event has participants that span across the globe. Using social media tools such as Flickr, YouTube and Facebook, the Movember tribe have created an online community, where participants and supporters alike can share their stories and compete with each other to become the ‘Man of Mo’(the man deemed to have grown the ultimate moustache.) There are also awards for individuals and teams alike who raise the most money for The Prostate Cancer Charity (TPCC). This initiative is a genius way of getting men thinking about and talking about their health, this year’s event will not only raise millions of pounds, dollars and euro’s but will also save lives throughout the world by spreading awareness.

Please follow our CEO and MD’s photo diary as we track their ‘Mo’ growth over the next few weeks at www.bigcatpr.tumblr.com and share your photo’s too.

For added inspiration please watch the video from last year’s World Beard and Moustache Championships…these are not men who grow moustaches, these are moustaches who grow men.

Last week was Alcohol Awareness week, did you know? I didn’t.  This lack of communication between awareness organisations and alcohol consumers is unfortunately all too common. The ‘Drink Aware’ campaign endorsed by the Government seems to carry a mixed message. The ‘drink aware’ logo’s that are enforced on all alcohol adverts, be it in print, cinema or television are almost hidden, and hardly a distraction to whatever multi-million pound marketing strategy the alcohol industry moguls have delivered.

Government campaigns that advise people on healthy lifestyle choices consistently fail. Cigarette boxes with health warnings and even photographs of dead cancer patients, failed to stop people smoking. Yet when the government actually changed legislation and enforced bans on smoking advertisements such as billboards, sports sponsorship and television, a greater amount of people quit.

Last Week’s Alcohol Awareness week wanted to discuss the impact of alcohol advertising on children, after it emerged children and young people watching the World Cup, viewed up to 5 alcohol adverts per match. The campaigners wanted to pose the question, should alcohol advertising be banned? And what part does the advertising industry play in the social problem of binge drinking and alcohol abuse in the UK? I would argue that it is not necessarily the advertising industries failings, but the government’s inability to provide stricter guide lines and to actually implement them. If we want to protect young people from the dangers of binge drinking, then the misleading glamorisation of alcohol products in adverts need to be quashed – placing a barely visible ‘Drink Aware’ logo in the corner, it’s as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

This week saw Skittles launch a social media campaign to bury all other campaigns as they set up a room to bury a man in skittles. In order to do this, an ill-fated man stood in a glass box (rather reminiscent of David Blane), and awaited the onslaught of 2 million skittles.

For every person that tweeted about the campaign and for every time it was ‘liked’ on Facebook, 40 skittles would be added to the downpour. This was then fed live through the facebook page so that those of us sadistic enough to keep pressing ‘like’ could see the effect of our efforts.  The nature of the campaign meant that its success was heavily dependent on the rapid acceleration of viral support and unsurprisingly, the box was full by the end of the day – complete with man inside! It is much easier to command a large community of followers when those tweeting, or clicking like, can immediately see the effect their contribution has. This is where many social media campaigns fall down as it is not enough to expect a following purely built on admiration for the brand. Many tweeters may like skittles, but until this campaign, had no reason to tweet about it.

However, I fear that the success of this campaign will be damaged by associating the product with being buried alive. The thought of being buried in skittles is no less daunting than being buried in dirt, and if the asphyxiation/ suffocation doesn’t kill you, trying to eat your way out will.

While such playful stunts are an immediate reflection of the brands values, my concern is that the brand has created emotional links between its product and these fears. This, coupled with the message from my last blog; that ‘anything in excess will make you sick’, means that I will not be making the journey (in the bitter cold) this morning to buy skittles. They make me too hyper anyway!

Whilst heading to a meeting across Birmingham the other morning, I walked through an underpass that I hadn’t seen for some time. What awaited me was rather different from what I remembered; the space had now been transformed into something quite visual. Where once lay a series of dimly lit paving stones and dark corners, now hangs multicoloured lanterns and seasonal pattern effects illuminated on the walls and floors. It was fantastic to see somewhere that has made the most of the space that it has.

It’s by the Mailbox if you can’t tell by the picture but worth a visit if you’re in that part of town.

This made me think, how many more spaces could benefit from something like this and does it make a difference to people’s moods? Do we live in a society where we worry more about the vandalisation of public property so therefore play for the safer option?

Whoever came up with the concept – well done. I for one noticed the effort. Hopefully more spaces like this in Birmingham will take a leaf out of this particular book, after all New York, Paris, London do it so why can’t Birmingham?

The use of cartoons/illustrations within advertising has been done for a long time within the advertising world. Especially when it comes to using ‘retro’ cartoons.

Specsavers have recently introduced a new campaign involving the Roger Hargreaves Mr Men series. This follows on from its popular Postman Pat advert, both working under the slogan ‘Should of gone to Specsavers’.

What is key to these adverts is that they keep their ‘Nostalgic’ looks (i.e. they look the same as the originals).  The only difference is that they have a twist on what you are usually accustomed to seeing previously within these cartoons.

Cartoons can be positive within advertising. They get talked about; they attract new audiences to a product, and give a product a new ‘fresh’ feel.

I have added some current and past adverts using cartoons to sell their products. Please take a look.

Mr Men advert – Specsavers

Postman pat advert – Specsavers

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles advert – Say no to drugs

Iron brew – Using a ‘Disney style’

Tetley – Bringing back old characters from previous adverts

As an event manager delivering events around the UK and Europe I spend so much time researching, planning and worrying about suppliers which in my experience will make your life just a little more complicated.

I think to myself is there anything we as event specialists can do to avoid late and sometimes complete ‘no show’ suppliers; is there no professional conduct left in quality customer satisfaction? It doesn’t even come down to budget as across the board you will have this difficulty. With all the planning experience in the world an event will always be measured on getting the correct product delivered at the correct time.

My advice would be simple use who you know!!

October has been a busy month for Big Cat Group. We’ve celebrated multiple client wins, expansion into Europe and our 10th Birthday. Amongst all the celebrations though there has been a considerable amount of work going on, especially with the run up to Hello Business, part of the Hello Digital week.

If you haven’t heard of Hello Business, it’s a 2-day conference which aims to equip businesses with the tools and technology for them to expand and grow in the evolving digital world we live in.

Working on this project has certainly opened my eyes to the ‘digital’ world. Gone are the day’s where I used to think it was based on Twitter and Facebook. However I didn’t actually expect it to be so vast.

One thing that has surprised me is what the word ‘digital’ actually means. Having done my research, read numerous articles and listened to some of the world’s leading experts, ‘digital’ can mean both everything and nothing. It used to be linked to Freeview boxes for TV’s then came along the digital camera. But now the word encompasses absolutely everything. Every gadget, gizmo and utility in the home is now ‘digital’.

Does that mean the word has lost its meaning? Is digital now the norm, so much in fact that there is no need to call anything digital?

Thought leader, Peter Hinssen covers this topic in his new book “The New Normal”, a definite read if you’re interested what the future holds for the digital world.

Big Cat IDEA have been working with Digital Birmingham and Advantage West Midlands on this years’ Hello Digital Event branding and promotional material.

The event is being held in Birmingham from 18 – 22 October 2010 and comprises a number of events celebrating and promoting Birminghams’ achievements in Digital as some of the best in the world.

This years graphical style utilised the existing Hello Digital brand identity but placed in a digital Birmingham environment. It was created after we recognised the diverse nature of the digital industries in the City, and the potential if all individuals were to merge together to create something rather special. As it’s digital and as we loved the look, we used a multi-coloured pixel effect throughout the campaign, which was combined over images of the city.

We now have posters, banners CIP’s, various publications and literature floating around the city and beyond – so look out for them. Please see some samples of our advertising below.

I was listening to the radio this morning about a BT gimmick that is asking 5 communities to vote for themselves to receive super fast broadband in their area. This represents upgrading just 5 telephone exchanges out of almost 2,500 across the country – hardly about to put the UK to the top of the list of national connectivity.

The discussion was about whether we really need the £5bn investment and the new services such as streaming HD video. My passenger was on the side of the rather sceptical interviewer in that it was probably a waste of money since HD videos were already available on numerous terrestrial and satellite networks.

TED’s Chris Anderson recently talked about how online video is powering global innovation. “Crowd Accelerated Innovation” is the way in which individuals and organisations alike are using the connectivity of the internet to watch and create videos.

He talked about how the human mind is exquisitely designed to use and understand the rich and complex information of face to face communication. The invention of printing and more recently email transformed how information was transferred but that this missed out a lot of non verbal information.

Video however harks back to a time when storytelling and performance were the main media for transferring knowledge. Web videos are causing dance to evolve: by challenging each other incredible new dance skills were being invented. The League of Extra Ordinary Dancers (LXD) were web taught, but so good they got to perform at the Oscars and at TED.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrxOBxlQmho

Superfast broadband is not just about watching blockbuster movies at home but also about sharing, creating and connecting ideas with like minded groups (like TED and TEDx do) across the globe.

Big Cat Group are proud to be working alongside Semmel Concerts to bring the fantastic Tutankhamun – His Tomb And His Treasures exhibition to the UK.  We’ll be assisting with the installation and construction of the exhibit and operating the show throughout the period.

Tutankhamun – His Tomb And His Treasures has so far been visited by over 1.7m people across Europe and now for the first time it comes to the UK.  The exhibit will run from 22^nd October 2010 until 27^th Feb 2011 and will be located at the Museum of Museums at Manchester’s Trafford Centre.

The stunning exhibition features over 1000 beautifully created artefacts and is spread out over 4000sqm and allows visitors the chance to view three of the Pharaoh’s burial chambers.  The exhibit has received praise from industry insiders, press and Egyptologists alike.  Check out the link below for a great preview video…

http://www.tutankhamunmanchester.com

http://www.museumofmuseums.org.uk/

http://www.traffordcentre.co.uk/

Present anyone with too much of something and I promise you that they will grow to resent it. Big Cat have been presented with a “few” boxes of chocolate in preparation for an event we are organising for Mars. We are now discovering that even chocolate isn’t exempt from this rule.

Print advertising is self destructing.

The same rings true for print advertising. This morning I rummaged through a few lifestyle Magazines that had been delivered to me. One of them boasted ‘exclusive fashion show pictures’ and, naturally, this is the one I analysed first. There were three pages of advertisements before the contents page appeared, and a further 15 pages of advertising before the first Article (which reeked of press release).

Sales of Magazines have suffered recently. They are clearly losing out to the internet, which can provide answers to any question, and smart phones, which can give you access to those answers via the touch of a button.  Unfortunately, magazines have been combating this loss of revenue by selling more pages to advertisers and the impact of print advertising has been diluted as a result.

Many predict that print will, to some extent, return as a valuable medium for advertising. This is most likely to happen after media buyers turn their back on saturated publications as this will separate the serious publications from the ones driven by money.

Until that day comes, advertisers will have to find even more creative ways to reach their customers should they choose to continue print campaigns.

Here are some of the more noticeable ones that have caught my eye recently;

Everything in this advertisement is hot – from the Dali style objects that are melting in the heat, to the attention grabbing front girl and this makes the beverage seem very refreshing.

Surprisingly, this one isn’t advertising tools. It is a Hooters advertisement camouflaged. The reason for this (according to the copy) is; “so your girlfriend doesn’t know you’re attending happy hour”. This is an interesting approach but wouldn’t this just get overlooked in a magazine that is saturated with advertisements?

During a trawl through the archives of TED (a website which streams videos from various experts in technology, science, design and other topics), I stumbled across a series of videos which you might all find enlightening. The talks from design legends Stefan Sagmeister and David Carson in particular are worth a watch.

Stefan Sagmeister, who takes a yearlong ’sabbatical’ every seven years, talks about the power of time off to refresh his creative outlook, which actually seems to have a positive effect – not to mention it sounds pretty fun.

Stefan Sagmeister – The power of time off and Happy Design

Stefan Sagmeister - Happy Design (view from the front, then the side)

Steven Johnson looks at the best way to encourage original ideas, and how some of the most notable – namely evolution – can sit for months amongst piles of notes until their discoverer has that eureka moment.

Steven Johnson – Where good ideas come from
David Carson – Design & Discovery

Genuinely inspiring stuff and I recommend having a search through TED anyway. Most of these talks last around 15 minutes, but they can vary from 5 minutes to half an hour.

Philippe Starck – Thinks deep on design

Isaac Mizrahi – Fashion & Creativity

Paolo Antonelli – Design as art

Last Friday saw the Big Cats give something back to the community and where better then Moseley Park, a place where over recent months we’ve held many an event there including Mostly Jazz Festival and Moseley Folk Festival.

So we donned on our gloves, rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in. The task at hand was to build a path leading down from the main gates. The ‘Lads’ grabbed their shovels (and some seriously heavy machinery) and dove straight in. The ladies on the other hand didn’t want to get their hands dirty so decided to paint the fence (in all fairness they helped later on though).

So next time you visit Moseley Park, make sure you take the time to admire the carefully constructed path laid out in front of you.

I went to see Angelina Jolie’s new film on Tuesday and was interested to see something very elegant, fashionable and rather tasty. I am, of course, talking about the new Jack Daniels advert.

The advertisement displays an assortment of mesmerising, morphing graphics which are accompanied by a gentle, slightly husky American voiceover that raises speculation as to what the brands ‘No7’ refers to. Once the advert had finished I had continued to speculate why the number 7 was so important to Mr Jack. Was it that he had 7 girlfriends? Was it that it took 7 measures of his own whisky to get him drunk? Through speculating, I missed the following seven advertisements and for that I praised the campaign. I was very intrigued to see what other marketing methods were in place to support the advert.

I was disappointed to later find that the only reference on the website was the short sentence that was used in the advertisement;

“One story says that it was the railroad shipping number on a barrel. We’ll never know for sure – Mr. Jack took that secret to the grave.”

Before reading this, I expected to find a vibrant forum where both the brand and its consumers had been passionately arguing over various interpretations of the ‘Old No7” mystery. I expected to see a neatly laid down and cleverly thought out competition to find and reward the most creative reason for the numbers importance. I even expected there to be a feedback form about why the number 7 may have been important to the consumer (it is after all one of the most popular favourite numbers). Perhaps social media incentive where seven friends band together to participate in the ‘finest 7’ – a competition to find the most ludicrous, diverse and interesting group of seven friends to appear in the next advertising campaign/ become social media advocates.

Unfortunately there was nothing like this.  Jack Daniel’s spends a fortune on advertising and these other marketing methods could have provided them with a better ROI if managed correctly. I do, however, admire Jack Daniel’s long running efforts to maintain the brands respect. Recent campaigns have lifted the covers off the manufacturing process and have also educated people about how the whisky came about. This will make the brand seem more authentic and accessible.

For a while now, Cadbury’s advertisements have become the focus of much debate. On the one side stand those who do not understand how a gorilla playing the drums can sell chocolate. On the other side are those who can see a cleverly structured and fully integrated media campaign, which incorporates multiple channels of communication.

The latest advert is no less confusing. It starts with a boring ocean scene that springs to life in what seems like a scene from Pixar’s Finding Nemo. The final shot holds the campaigns branding for the new Challenge Bar, along with directions to the companion website. It is hoped that the confusion raised within the commercial will provoke people to find out more by seeking an answer online.

I went onto the website (after taking a break to buy a Challenge Bar from Big Cats local store) and was welcomed by what I can only describe as the Willa Wonka Factory of the digital age. The site, like everything else in the campaign, is split into spots (of which there are 169,000 members) and stripes (of which there are 168,000).There are hundreds of competitions taking place along with many uploads of home videos and fan pictures. My only criticism at this stage was that you have to sign up to take part. While this provides the marketers with some useful data collection, it will reduce the amount of part-takers.

The website links to the Facebook and Twitter fan-sites which are home to an army of stripy people who are challenging spotty people. The campaign relies on our competitive streak in order to ensure its viral marketing intentions become a reality and some tweeters are really taking this competition to heart.

In addition to this, the campaign operates an experiential marketing arm, as a spots and stripes ‘circus’ tours UK’s major cities. This aspect of the campaign focuses on creating a relationship between the brand and the consumer and due to the high level of interaction that is required, this method (it seems) will be successful.

At Big Cat we have long operated under the knowledge that social media campaigns are stronger when supported by offline marketing methods. This is the first time I have seen a social media campaign implemented with this knowledge locally. Whether or not Cadbury’s go on to shove this campaign down our throats will determine its success.

There has been a lot of talk in the PR trade press these past few weeks about internships and the horror stories that young graduates are going through in order to get their ‘dream’ job.

Many high-flying industry experts are stating what a bad idea internships are, with hundreds of graduates being taken for granted every day. I’m not saying that every company is perfect but to slate the initiative off as whole is just madness.

In today’s society a degree is worth didily-squat. Everybody has one, so agencies look for graduates who go that extra distance to secure a job, whether that’s through volunteer work, extracurricular activities or indeed internships.

I say all this from a point of experience; I left university with a respectable 2:1 in Business and Business Law. I worked at high street retailer Next for 3 years, ran a radio station, produced my own shows and even did a bit of freelance for a few record labels.

I got my first job in PR two years ago following a three month internship. Admittedly I did some photocopying and the occasional tea round, but this was of my own accord. I worked on a broad range of clients performing a variety of tasks such as writing press releases, organising features, media liaison and the occasional bit of research.

This internship not only helped me learn the basics of the industry but also allowed me to decide whether it was something I actually wanted to continue with as a career. Obviously the answer was yes otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this.

Since starting Big Cat back in November 2009, we have had a number of interns across all departments, many of whom have gone on to secure a fantastic job. We don’t make you do laborious tasks like photocopying – we throw you in the deep end. We hire interns because sometimes you need that bit of extra help during busy spells.  This could be in the form of writing releases, liaising with press or securing coverage.

Internships are a 2-way street; the agency needs support on its accounts, the intern needs on-the-job experience. If objectives and expectations are not set and met then what’s the point? Nobody wins and infact both parties can waste a lot of time and money in the process.

I’m amazed that it is (once again), fashionable to buy scuffed boots and coats that smell like my shed! We have all noticed that vintage clothing has been flying off the shelves at Cow and Topshop. Now brands are following suit by re-releasing their old advertising campaigns. The objective of this approach is to stimulate a sense of nostalgia in the consumer which, hopefully, will reinstall the fondness the consumer once had in the product and therefore drive sales.

For example, Nigel Holland (regional president for Tetley Global Beverages), is bringing back the ‘loveable’ Tetley Tea folk who he sacked 27 years ago. In addition to this, Heinz is commemorating a century of its ‘cream of tomato soup’ product by launching the limited edition design that they used 100 years ago.

Furthermore, Nestle Milky Bar have released a new advertising campaign which attempts to evoke fond memories among adults. This is achieved by targeting adults who might have wanted to be the milky bar kid as a child. The advert shows the casting process for the next milky bar kid by broadcasting the auditions of the ordinary adults (aged 16 or over) who applied for a part on the campaign’s companion website.

This is the perfect way to launch the new raison and biscuit bar because the new products juxtaposition with the old advertising method further highlights the fact that it is new. However, as with many ‘blast from the past’ campaigns , the impact may be short lived when we remember why we turned away from them in the first place,  and the old stuff – which is now new stuff – will be old stuff again.

Design is now becoming an integral part within the football market, it is not only the design of the kits it’s the tracksuit, the training gear, and even the football itself. The England football team now has a new kit, which has partly been designed by art director, Peter Saville, and in my opinion has been a success, its one of my favourites for a long time.

The St George cross is now repeated across the back of the shirt in multi colours.

So I thought this would be a perfect time to talk about the football shirt design and how it has progressed throughout the football league. The premier league is now dominated by 2-3 brands with sub brands taking on some of the other teams i.e. Birmingham City now has a strong Chinese contingent so they now have a Chinese kit supplier.

In today’s world a great looking kit can bring in revenue, not only from the die hard fans (they will buy the shirt no matter what the shirt looks like) but the fans that like the look of shirt and will wear it not only at a match but when going out socialising.

I think you would agree that there are some great shirts out there now and some ‘not so great’. So I thought I would show a couple of examples of my current likes and dislikes from this years premier league.

Everton Away Shirt (What were they thinking!)

I do not see that there is a place for a neon pink shirt in football, it just looks wrong?! Plus, I do not agree with making your team badge all the same colour when it is a complicated as the Everton badge.

Chelsea Away Shirt

Simple and understated. A black away kit always has a strong statement look to them. The orange compliments this well. The badge is also in orange, but because the logo design is simple, it works.

West Bromwich Albion home Shirt

A Perfectly good shirt ruined by a horrible sponsor. I know clubs these days need a sponsor, but maybe there needs to be a re-think on how the logo is placed within the shirt?

It would be great to know your thoughts on this blog, what shirts do you like and dislike?

Companies house is the name of the government body that regulates everything involved with the incorporation of a business.  There are strict guidelines laid down that need considering when choosing a company name and these are in place to avoid misleading consumers.

Section 66(1) Companies Act 2006 states;

“a company must not be registered under this Act by any name that is the same as another name appearing in the registrar’s index of company names”

In addition to this, it is possible for existing companies to challenge the use of similar names via the common law action; ‘Passing off’. This action prevents new companies from taking advantage of the success and reputation of existing companies, as demonstrated in the case; Reckitt and Colman Products Ltd v. Borden Inc. and others[1990], after Borden launched an identically named brand.  Many of you, like me, may have accidentally typed in hoogle.com or facenook.com for instance, and noticed that the domain name was in use by an imitation website.

The ongoing dispute between Sky and Skype demonstrates how important the name of a company can be an what implications it may have. British Sky Broadcasting is trying to prevent the internet communication service Skype from registering its logo in several territories because it is concerned the two brands will be confused. Such disputes are proof that similar names have a big effect on business.

It is common for brands to try to take advantage of the success of another company and this strategy isn’t unique to company names. The launch of Marks and Spencer’s new vitamin water has been received with heavy criticism due to the products similarity to Glaceau’s Vitamin water. The product is identical in design and shape with only a slight variation in name. Such a “copy cat” approach is usually only adopted by those with limited resources or a lack of creative thought. We will be following these disputes with close attention and will update you when they are resolved.

In recent months I was tasked with hunting down a new Creative to join our busy studio, with so much at stake to keep the level of work consistent – or better – for our existing clients, I felt enormous pressure to get the right person for the job.

So, I requested that each candidate to make it through to round two of interviews would take away a live brief and pitch their concepts back to me. There have been some negative comments regarding pitches in the recent press, but all of the candidates seemed happy to be able to showcase their skills in something as relevant as an existing Big Cat client.

One candidate was Justin Price, who ‘hounded’ me with dog themed ‘Lost’ mailers and e-shots in the hope that Big Cat would give him a chance. Justin’s work was thoughtful, creative, occasionally light-hearted, and I was impressed with his determination in his self-promotion, and so I decided to put him through.

The brief I put to the candidates was to create the next quarterly advertising campaign for RoSPA, a leading Health and Safety organisation based in the midlands. An arguably difficult subject and a very loose brief was thrown at the creatives, with a deadline of three days.

On the day of the presentations, we were excited to see what would come back, then Justin presented, and he had delivered!

A week or so later, we offered him the role, and forwarded the concepts to the client, as they were, we weren’t surprised that the client loved them, and didn’t want to change a thing.

Below are some examples of the new RoSPA speech bubbles campaign using on the mark copy lines, also created by Justin to complement the design.

Once the position was offered, Justin followed up by sending a ‘found’ poster, and very generously donated £250.00 to Birmingham dog’s home to end the campaign. Since them, Justin’s appointment has been covered in The Drum, Creative Boom, Event Magazine, Birmingham Post, and the Express and Star. Well done and welcome to the team, Justin!

There is ample evidence in history to support the claim that, “together everyone achieves more!”

In 2,650 BCE, it took approximately 100,000 workers approximately 20 years to construct the Great Pyramid of Giza. This was achieved with technology far inferior to that used by the engineers of the new Wembley stadium (which took about as long to complete!)

In 1966 a team of eleven came together to bring football home to England and just yesterday, 388 brave bidders exercised true teamwork to get a delicious 3 course meal discounted on the deal-of-the-day website Groupon.

Groupon is one of many sites where consumers can band together to get price reductions on items which might otherwise have been out of their price range.  Such sites are beneficiaries of the recession and a new discount site is being launched every week.

Another internet platform which illustrates the strength in consumer numbers is www.pledgemusic.com. Here an artist can make promises in exchange for the funds needed to create a new album or to pay for a headline tour.

Here –  http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/charliesimpson for example, fans can pay £10 to have their name mentioned in Charlie Simpson’s album booklet. £2000 will buy a private gig!

With more and more artists latching on to this method of fundraising, and with deal websites continually attracting new business partners, it appears that many of these sites will be here long after the recovery.

One final example of a team who achieve great things:

Team Big Cat

Despite my efforts, I found it impossible to escape Gordon Brown’s creepy smile in the run up to the general elections. David Cameron’s airbrushed face was no less frightening.

Despite this, the Conservative’s outdoor campaign was the one of the most memorable aspects of this year’s general election. ‘Bigot-gate’ scandal aside, of course!  The conservatives spent a giant £5.2m on outdoor posters, while the other major parties decided not to focus on outdoor campaigns.  Alistair Campbell initially labelled the Tories campaign as ‘old fashioned’ and highlighted the role of social media as one the primary forums to drive Labours ‘modern’ campaign.

Alistair Darling also commented that … “public resistance to heavy messaging has grown, and for politics in particular there is no guarantee that the rewards of a well-funded, well-crafted and well-executed ad concept will outweigh the risks.” This is a well founded statement as the conservative posters featuring David Cameron received wide-scale criticism, with many expressing that too much focus was on him as a person rather than his policies. In response, the Tories changed tactics and decided to use an image of Gordon Brown alongside a negative statement. This also received heavy criticism –much of which suggested that the Tories were focussing heavily on the pitfalls of the opposition in order to disguise their own shortcomings.

However, the poster campaign could only have received this criticism if people were interacting with the adverts and this is the proof that, with the right message, outdoor is media format-force to be reckoned with. The decline in print options has raised the influence of outdoor advertising.

The Big Cat Group understands that this is the case – and therefore , outdoor features so prominently in our mutli-channel media campaigns. Here are a few examples:

Bodies Revealed

CSI Experience

Leader, unique, great….we’re all guilty of using these buzzwords in press releases, news articles and other promotional material but it seems that so are the rest of the world’s PRO’s. Earlier this year PR strategist Adam Sherk undertook a study of the most overused words in press releases. The results are pretty damming, especially when you look down the list and spot the odd word that you use in your own releases (usually on clients request albeit). Adam created a list of the top 100 overused words however as that’s a few too many here’s a list of the top 10 perpetrators instead/

What is the reason for the overuse of these words though? Have PRO’s become lazy and stuck in a rut, churning out the same old phrases over and over again or is it the clients fault? Are they that driven to have their keywords in a press release that it makes all future releases look the same?

Personally I think it’s a bit of both. In the short time I have been in the industry I’ve been guilty of using the words ‘Leading’ ‘innovative’ and ‘unique’ but can anyone honestly say they haven’t? Of course everyone thinks their product/service is unique. Would people really buy a product if it had no USP? Most likely not.

Note to self – must use new words in press releases

Social media appears to be everywhere, with the likes of Facebook and Twitter regularly making the headlines in news broadcasts all over the world. With this burst of online communities and networks, businesses have begun to look at ways of using it for contacting consumers. So seemingly PR and social media would fit hand in hand as if almost made for each other.

Social Media is being used so much now, to the point of becoming a new form of live coverage, following major events worldwide from the 2010 World Cup finals to the UK election debates not to mention press conferences and pretty much practically anything and everything else. But what are the best ways for PR to tap into social media effectively?

Importantly sites like Twitter and Facebook should not be used for invading clients or customers personal space, or used in a poor and lazy attempt to simply pour out endless streams of what can only be described as ‘spam’. This will only reflect negatively to the targeted audience.

They should be used for interacting with clients and their target networks, advising, commenting and conversing with people around common and business interests. One impressive strategy is making your company more personal by giving their social media a personality of its own through an employee, which leads nicely into resolving complaints in the public domain quickly and efficiently. Virgin and PayPal are just two examples who manage this very efficiently.

Being able to create a relationship with your targeted network is exactly what PR using social media is all about. Of course it lends its hand to showing off your latest bit of coverage or new account wins, but really if you can utilise it to network and build relationships and create a positive rapport then PR fits perfectly with social media.

Social media is still relatively new and with the speed technologies are developing at the moment and instant access to the internet we have available it’s hard to stop and think before the next strategy needs be devised. But as long as you keep on communicating with your networks and stay up to date with the latest talking points you’re on the right track.

Big Cat Group and AMP Entertainment have joined forces to launch a new European live entertainment consultancy, Big Cat Europe. The new entity will have operations in Barcelona, Birmingham, London and Paris and will be delivering projects across Europe.

The pan-European consultancy will offer services including booking and marketing services for a broad range of international touring exhibitions and family shows. The new firm will offer complete tour support drawing on the operational and marketing capacities of Big Cat and utilising the extended international reach of AMP.

The company recently handled the negotiation and set-up of the European premiere of “Star Trek: The Exploration” exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Science in Valencia, Spain. The exhibition opened on 22^nd July and will run until February 2011.

Established in 2000, Big Cat Group is a full-service agency incorporating PR, marketing, events and creative design functions.  AMP’s working relationship with Big Cat has grown through collaborations on the UK debuts of the exhibitions “Bodies Revealed” in October 2009 and “CSI: The Experience” in March 2010. In addition to carrying out the communications and marketing plans, Big Cat handled the setup logistics and on-site management of both exhibitions.

As part of the deal AMP France and AMP Spain will become Big Cat France and Big Cat Spain.  The businesses will continue to offer their core sports, entertainment and experiential marketing services, and will also be expanding their service offer to include creative design, advertising, public relations and event management in France and Spain.

Both AMP and Big Cat see important synergies to be reaped from this merging of forces. Mike Molloy, Founder of AMP now named Managing Director of Big Cat Europe said: “We are looking forward to announcing new clients and projects in the coming months.  I will be working with Nick Morgan, CEO of Big Cat Group, to integrate the teams of the two companies to make these new projects a reality.”

Nick Morgan added: “Big Cat Europe will fill a specific niche in the European market that links major international content developers with promoters and venues. The new business will fully utilise the skills and resources of Big Cat and AMP which offer a range of complimentary services.”

Meet Stephen Holmes – a normal man from Coventry who has been made famous due to being the only person that Kanye West follows on Twitter. Kanye has effectively increased Stephen’s followers from just 60, to over 5, 000 in just over a week! This led me to investigate just how powerful celebrities are at influencing what we do.

There are obviously many benefits in using a celebrity to endorse your product. The brand will instantly be associated with the celebrity and will, in turn, be accepted in the same manner that the celebrity is. The brand will become more easily recognisable and will, in most cases, achieve longevity in the mind of the consumer.

This is certainly the case in sport.  For example, fans will religiously imitate David Beckham and this makes him the perfect vehicle to drive the sales of the latest Adidas boots. However, brand-celebrity associations are a double edged sword, as demonstrated by the relationship between Nike and Tiger Woods. After the exposure of his private life, Nike decided not to drop Tiger- a decision which runs the risk of making it seem that Nike condone his behaviour.

Anyway, I’m off to follow some people on Twitter…  in order to make celebrities out of them!

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is banning more and more adverts each year.  In 2008 alone the ASA dealt with 26,433 complaints which led to 2,475 ads being changed or withdrawn. This comes as no surprise since we are a nation with an ever-growing concern for political correctness.

The threat of offending people has made it increasingly difficult for advertisers to leave viewers in shock and awe. Despite this however, many banned adverts, especially those from well known brands, continue to rack up views on video site such as Youtube. Once banned, the adverts spreads like viral wild fire and since they get sent to people by friends via Facebook or e-mails, viewers are more likely to respond to them. In fact, many brands can thank the ASA for a larger ROI than any paid slot could ever have provided.

VW – Don’t Forget It’s a Diesel.

This VW advertisement was banned as a result of its frequent use of expletives.  It is difficult to believe that VW’S advertising agency ever believed the advert was fit for TV screens. It is more likely that the adverts banning was a result of fine planning – an approach which provoked over 2 million views on Youtube.

Click to play:

This isn’t the only time VW have had an advert banned for being controversial. Any guesses as to why this one got banned?

Polo – Small but Tough

Click to play

Big Cat Events are now back from sunny Spain after having built and opened the fantastic Star Trek: The Exploration exhibit.  The exhibition is now running until Feb ‘11 in the science museuem in Valencia’s stunning Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias.

The build of the exhibition took 2 weeks during which Big Cat worked along side the venue’s in-house crew (muchas gracias) and Victory Hill Entertainment who designed the show.  Long hours and hard work paid off as the finished show looks amazing.

You can check out photos of the build and completed show as well as a daily video diary here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigcatevents/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixyBIHHoc-s

http://www.cac.es/prensa/noticia/?contentId=115554

After recently completing a degree in Theatre, performance and Event Design at Birmingham City University, I began scouting around online for event companies that could offer me an internship. With my aspirations in mind, I contacted The Custard Factory Events team enquiring about possible work placement opportunities. I have always loved The Custard Factory and it has been an ambition of mine to work at events there. Within a week, I had an interview at Big Cat, quit my part time job, worked at my first event and began my 3 month internship as an Event Executive. Fortunately, my course prepared me for the fast pace of the events industry so this was all second nature to me. I have thoroughly enjoyed my first week in the company of all the lovely staff at Big Cat and am quickly learning the roles and responsibilities of a member of the events team. I look forward to my first wedding next week at The Old Library and to many more exciting events in the future.

Birmingham based full service agency Big Cat Group has been recruited by government regeneration agency Urban Living in partnership with Arts Council England to help promote their Beyond Bricks community arts campaign.

Beyond Bricks focuses on engaging creatively with local people and restoring community pride in neighbourhoods within the Urban Living catchment area.* as part of an ambitious regeneration programme which aims to improve housing and living conditions for thousands of people. The scheme is one of a number of projects which Urban Living has established in order to increase community cohesion within the area.

Big Cat will support the campaign by handling the PR for a number of artistic projects and workshops taking place over the next four month which are being managed by community arts organisation Multistory. Activities range from creating a local magazine to erecting community statues, allowing residents to work together and celebrate their community.

Anthony Tattum, Managing Director, says: “We are thrilled to be working on such an important project for the communities of Birmingham. The Beyond Bricks campaign has a community spirited message with the aim to bring people together. We are excited about being involved in such a worthwhile venture.”

Tess Randles, Urban Living’s PR and Communications Manager, adds:”We wanted to ensure that the Beyond Bricks campaign would really get noticed and engender the kind of pride and involvement that makes a tangible difference. This is why we brought Big Cat in and the signs are that the campaign is already getting noticed.” 

Those of you who watched I-Robot in 2004 will agree that viewers are subjected to a considerable amount of product placement.  When Will Smith wasn’t parading around in his ‘converse vintage 2004’ footwear he was racing around in a custom-made Audi.  That is, of course, when he wasn’t at home listening to music on his Sony CD player.  Despite these exploits, branded entertainment in the UK was prohibited by Ofcom.  This prohibition was based on EU legislation; however amendments to these laws have paved the way for product references and trademarks to be used on British television in exchange for money.

I-Robot 2004

The new rules, which are due to be incorporated into UK law at the end of 2010,will allow product placement in TV series, films, entertainment and sports programmes, but not in children’s and news programmes. So to reassure those of you who are concerned – Bob the Builder will not be fixing things with a Black & Decker multi-purpose saw. What we might expect to see however, is a Carlsberg tap at the Rovers Return or even Clear Blue pregnancy tests on Jeremy Kyle.  This will provide a new channel for advertising so maybe now it’s time to think inside of the box (for a change).

Our graphic designer Jason Hannon has created an ad that’s both innovative and tasty. Using the literal imagery of pick ‘n’ mix sweets in the shape of a car, Jason has juxtaposed driver training with the concept of flexibility and choice within a tailored course. The ad, for RoSPA’s Driver Theory Workshop, uses a wide range of calorific treats to create a car with a surprising likeness, from the liquorice wheels to the jelly baby passengers. The ad was a complete success despite several attempts to sabotage the concept through the eating of vital ingredients.

Needless to say, both Big Cat and RoSPA were very impressed with the outcome. Check it out:

Final Advert

Robbie Earle finds himself in troubled water after his performance at the World Cup would certainly have scored low on the Capello Index.

Earle, who was sacked early last week for passing on tickets that he, had obtained through ITV for family and close friends only. The tickets somehow managed to find their way into the hands of 36 female Holland supporters who just so happened to be pulling an advertising stunt for Bavaria Beer.

This landed Earle in big trouble with FIFA, the FA and England supporters. FIFA have launched into legal action with the Dutch beer company, whilst 2 of the 36 females have found themselves in South African Court, possibly facing jail for illegal advertising.

England fans have been complaining that pundits shouldn’t even be able to get their hands on anywhere near the number of tickets Earle had managed to buy from ITV at a discounted rate.

Somehow, I don’t think Earle will be able to pass off the troop of young females as his close family and friends, and the ex Wimbledon and Jamaica international has even been dropped as an ambassador for the 2018 World Cup bid.

This is the second issue ITV have blundered into since the World Cup began, after their HD coverage missed Steven Gerrard’s early opener against USA. With all the bad press around at the moment, they’ll have certainly been hoping for a Gary Lineker love rat story to break at any moment for them. However in true fashion bad things do tend to come in 3’s, and although we can’t firmly put the blame on ITV for England’s lacklustre performance and 4-1 capitulation to Germany so it would seem they are now through the worst of it.

They missed one of England’s 3 world cup goals, one of there pundits sold on tickets and made them and himself look like rather stupid, and before they could redeem themselves England managed to knock themselves out of the competition. Never mind, 4 more years!

The Old Library came alive with energy on the 6^th March when hundreds of fashionista’s flocked to get their hands on the most unique vintage items they could find. The vintage fair was founded by Louise Whitehead, who after running her own chic vintage store in Sheffield decided to open her horizons into the world of fairs.

Situated within Birmingham’s creative community The Custard Factory, The Old Library was the perfect venue for such an event. It’s souring vaulted ceilings and stunning stain glass windows streamed an almost holy glow of light onto busy shoppers, creating an electric energy which only facilitated in the ferocious exchange of money for goods.

Queues streamed down Digbeth High street with people of all ages, willing for the chance to enter The Old Library and be part of the whirlwind of sales within. Inside there was a fantastic old-school unity between stall holders creating an essence of community, which nowadays is a novelty when comparing it to the modern experience of shopping that most have to endure in more corporate large chain stores or shopping centres. This unique Buzz continued solidly from open to close, leaving stall holders exhausted and elated at their empty stalls, and shoppers with endless bags of quality exclusive bargains. To top it all off the organisers had hand-made 200 of the most imaginative cup-cakes in flavours that were truly delicious and so popular they could have sold out 3 times over.   

Not only was this a day of shopping, but a day of fun, excitement and mystery, allowing each to discover the most perfect one-off vintage item they could find. The old library has such a historic and magical essence to it, you couldn’t ask for a better venue. Is this not the sort of shopping we should get to experience all the time? The Vintage Fair returns on June 12^th for its next mini adventure.

Hi, I’m Louise; I’m here at Big Cat to get some work experience in copywriting. I’ve just finished my second year studying English and Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. Having only been here for a day or so, I haven’t had a chance to get really stuck in yet. Still, I’ve been flicking through the Creative Review and a particular article caught my attention: Penguin’s upcoming release of the entire backlist of Vladimir Nabokov complete with classical looking covers redesigned by several different illustrators. The use of frames on the covers is interesting; particularly on Despair, where Karlovich’s hands hold the framed title box to partially obscure the protagonist’s supposed Doppelganger. The first print of Despair was also accidentally produced without a border pattern making it somewhat of a collector’s item.

Having read and enjoyed Lolita, I’ve often considered reading some of Nabokov’s lesser-known novels but have usually been deterred by endless University reading lists and deadlines. However, with a long exam-free summer ahead and the release of Penguin’s stunning new covers, an Invitation to a Beheading could be on the cards.

When opening the post last week we came across the latest edition of Midlands Business Insider featuring this years ’42 under 42’ supplement, identifying the regions cream of the crop in entrepreneurial talent. You can imagine the surprise on our faces when we reached page 28 to find Big Cat CEO, Nick Morgan within the supplement. Ok it wasn’t that much of a surprise as we put him forward for it but its fantastic news that he made the cut.

Well Done Nick from the entire Big Cat team!?!

Sunday 2^nd May saw the first big music festival of the summer in Birmingham and unsurprisingly it was bitterly cold as revellers enjoyed music from Fatboy Slim, Calvin Harris, Chase and Status and Annie Mac. Located slap bang in the middle of Digbeth in the heart of Birmingham’s Independent Quarter, the Electric Carnival entrance was on Heath Mill Lane off Digbeth High Street, Heath Mill Lane was shut off from the general public as well as the adjoining Lower Trinity St, Gibb St, Adderley Street and Bromley St to make way for an inner city myriad of music and hedonistic partying. The site infrastructure had a main stage in AIR car park, 4 marquee structures and 3 warehouses scattered over the site.

Big Cat managed the advancing of the show and all Health and Safety content which included security, police fire and first aid provision, road closures, TEN applications, SAG management, build and break safety advancing, site risk management and sign off with all elements culminating in the event manual document. Big Cat had overall site responsibility pre, during and post the event.

We are happy to report another successful safe event for Birmingham under the Big Cat team.

It seemed to have crossed the line but the FA has evidently seen fit to intervene in the latest scandal to have hit football. Whilst not quite on the national scale of Ashley Cole’s numerous affairs or John Terry’s infidelities, it does pose the most significant threat to the harmony of the England team and strikes at the heart of the credibility of the one time untouchable England Manager, Fabio Capello.

The subject of the controversy is Capello’s new business venture unveiled on 10^th May, which would have seen him publish his post match reports from the World Cup in order to collate a performance table/ranking system. The goal of the service termed the Capello Index, would have been to create an accurate scoring system that would be implemented into Capello’s soon to be released video game Capello XI. The move was immediately branded as a ‘PR own Goal’ from the usually suave Capello.

Imagine if you will having submitted a tender or proposal, that the first thing your bosses did was to immediately Tweet about your performance even going so far as to give you a score out of ten. The embarrassment alone would impair your judgement on your next case and cause you to question yourself, making decisions that normally you would not. That in effect, is the system that Capello was hoping to deploy.

Amidst the growing debate Capello’s employer (the FA) have stepped in and put the kibosh on the deal suggesting that the move is insensitive and could affect the mood of the players. This comes as a massive blow for both Capello and Pitch who were brought in to handle PR for the account. In the wake of all the bad press and with an indefinite postponement and distancing from Capello, it will be interesting in the coming weeks to see how Pitch can disencumber the rubble of their campaign.

In the wake of the sex scandals that have left Woods a virtual recluse for months, last weeks Masters was supposed to be the beginning of the way back for the fallen hero. Behind the return were a dedicated PR team that have guided him through his recent turmoil to deliver him to the Masters. But the reality of the ending is far from the fairy tale Woods’ remaining sponsors would have hoped for.

In basic terms for a man that has not played competitive golf for some six months, to be able to contend on such a brutal course as Augusta is a feat in itself. Alas, his final day with its ups and downs, moments of pure genius and foolery saw him finish the tournament in a commendable fourth. But what was the perception of the new Tiger and did he at times revert back to the man people associate with the scandal?

Prior to the Masters Nike ploughed millions of dollars into adverts that showed a humble Tiger listening to words of wisdom from his departed father. Earl Woods was widely regarded as the only person Tiger was willing to answer to and the campaign was at first heralded as a stroke of genius for its utilisation of a voice over from Woods’ father. Whilst the advert may have swayed fans, it seems to have further enraged his long suffering wife and could potentially be the last nail in the coffin that is their marriage.

This was seemingly the height of the PR effort that frankly has been less than stellar, topping off a catalogue of errors that, in my humble opinion, have made this situation ten times worse. In the first instance Woods’ ridiculous commendation of the efforts of his wife in freeing him from his crashed vehicle reeked of cover up and opened the floodgates for the press to dig deeper and the gold diggers to line up. Subsequent denials then confirmations and stories of huge payouts to tell tale women, have all piled on the agony for the Woods family. This culminated with his presentation to the world where he admitted his guilt. But even this was wooden and did little to assuage the anguish felt by fans who had been let down by their hero.

Finally, Masters week was upon us and what we all expected was a triumphant return. It was not to be however and the polished veneer of a new humble Tiger fell away at times and he allowed the arrogance associated with the old Woods to seep back into his performance. With a week that started with Woods fist punching crowd members, smiling and acknowledging the crowd more than ever before, it ended with him sloping off like a petulant child highlighted by his three putt on the 14th. It seems his PR efforts stop when he is not winning.

Let me clarify my position. I am one of those long standing fans who quite honestly could not care less about what he gets up to off the course. For me it’s all about his talent. I respect and understand his sullen nature at times as he is a consummate professional performing under difficult circumstances. His lack of attending celebrity venues is a representation of his sportsman discipline. Granted, had that same discipline been applied to his love life then none of the last six months would have happened but they have.

With Woods on hiatus for the near future, his PR team will no doubt be dreaming up new ways of presenting brand Woods to the public once more. I just hope that they do a better job in the aftermath of the storm than they did in its eye.   

In 2008 Big Cat were responsible for the PR account for the inaugural Hello Digital festival designed to bring together non-techies and techies alike to explore the new developments in the digital world.

 The efforts of Big Cat generated a PR campaign worth an estimated £180,000 and was spear headed by a publicity stunt involving a 8 foot robot named Titan. He took over the Bullring shopping centre squirting patrons and generally wreaking havoc all in the name of Hello Digital resulting in features on ITV News and multiple articles in regional press. 

It seems the menacing robot has reappeared and was spotted at The Gadget Show Live which took place at the NEC from 8^th – 11^th April, showing that when it comes to forward thinking you just can’t beat a Big Cat.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron need not flex their creative muscles when it comes to smearing the current PM as it seems that Gordon Brown, shovel in hand, is more than happy to dig his own gave.

Having been advised recently to engage more with the public as it was felt he was previously seen as being too aloof, the PM has gone on the offensive meeting the public left right and centre. It seems though that his advisers forgot who their candidate was; the George Bush of British Politics.

The PM was in Rochdale when he came across life-long Labour voter Gillian Duffy. Towering over the pensioner, Brown began confidently defending policies on pensions and accepting praise for the state of the school system in Rochdale. When presses on the issue of migration the PM (seeming somewhat flustered at this point) tried to deflect the question stating “a million people come into here…but a million British people have gone into Europe”. Deflecting the question he returned to policies where Labour has had some success in an attempt to end the matter on a high.

However Brown was unaware as he extradited himself from the situation that his microphone was still. He began engaging in a personal conversation with one of his assistants in which he blames ‘Sue’ for making him speak with the woman and called the woman in question a ‘bigot’, assumedly relating to her pressing on the immigration issue.

This is not the first gaffe the Prime Minister has made but it may prove to be the final one. In Dec 2008 he was ridiculed in the House of Commons when giving a speech regarding the banking system. Meaning to say he saved the banks he instead professed to having ‘saved the world’. Needless to say, the Tories pounced on this momentary slip and the session descended into a debacle. Then in 2009 at the 65^th anniversary of D-Day the Prime Minister, seemingly gushing over his new friend President Obama, repeatedly referred to Omaha Beach as ‘Obama Beach’.

So whilst Brown tries to extricate his foot from his mouth (in the process blaming the news company who owned the microphone for taping a private conversation), Nick Clegg and David Cameron are certainly not going to be hiding their smiles in the wake of the latest Brown gaffe.