July, an extraordinary month. The UK hit record temperatures, we didn’t see rain for six weeks, Love Island graced our screens every night, England made it to the World Cup SEMI-FINALS and M&S sold out of waistcoats…. what a crazy month it’s been. But that’s not all. Join us, as we take a look back on what else happened throughout July here at Cogent.
First up, three members of the Cogent family officially graduated! Congratulations to James Barnsley, our Account Exec who graduated from Birmingham City University with a 2:1 in Marketing, Advertising and PR. Our Finance Assistant also secured herself a first-class honours in Accounting and Finance while Meggan, our PR & Social Account Exec, bagged herself a first in Business Management. Well done to all!
And on the topic of congratulations, our Relationships Director, Kate Davidson, also tied the knot! Cheers to that.
Meanwhile, our sister company, Junction Eleven, offered it’s 15 000 square foot photography space up for something a little out of the ordinary. J11 hosted 160 attendees in their infinity coves at an event organised by employee engagement agency Powered By Humans. Doing something a little different from their usual realm of photography, we hear the team had a lot of fun.
Prepare to get hungry with this next one. July saw us help Marston’s to launch their Burger Fiesta. Kicking off with The Wild Card (yum!) we created all sorts of fun-filled content for five weeks worth of burger specials. Our content rolled out across both digital and print (…and that’ll be a Chorizo Clucker for me please).
While we come to terms with the fact that Love Island 2018 is over, and Jack and Dani will no longer grace our screens, we were all smiles as our campaign for Marmalade Insurance launched with its first ad airing during the Love Island Final. We’ve had a lot of fun working on it since winning the account earlier this year so it was exciting to see the campaign – and it’s main character, Mr Marmalade – coming to life. #freedomtastessweet
To celebrate we took over Cogent HQ reception with orange themed everything, yummy cupcakes and a 6ft cardboard cut-out of Mr Marmalade himself.
Talking of new work, we also created an integrated campaign for client Arriva UK and Catch the Bus Week 2018. This nationwide initiative aims to drive awareness of the benefits of taking the bus. Our new work brings the iconic green hand logo to life.
In other news, our client Network Q sponsored a driver in the British Rally Championship. That means Cogent was tasked with creating all the livery, race suit and helmet designs for the big race. (The sponsored driver even won his class at the Ypres Rally in Belgium at the end of June – which we put down to our lucky designs!)
Off the back of the rally our Project Manager, Andy was asked to organise a two-day Network Q retailer tour of North and South Wales with the winning driver, his car and his trophies – visiting six retailers in two days. In this fast-paced project, we had 48 hours to organise the logistics, photographer, trailer hire and much more. It went so well that we even managed to squeeze in an extra retailer and some pics in the Principality Stadium in Cardiff!
Our latest #AWKS campaign for client Paym is also now live, filling the screens of cinemas in the North. Our team collaborated with the photographers at Junction Eleven to produce an eye-catching campaign. With a voiceover from Gavin and Stacey’s Matt Horne, we really had a lot of fun.
We’ve also had three new starters join the Hive this month. We are over the moon to have Meggan Canning and James Barnsley back in the agency. Meggan and James both completed internships here at Cogent, and now with degrees firmly under their belt, we’ve welcomed them back into the team with open arms. We’ve also had new starter James Cooper join the PR & Social team which we are very excited about!
So, that’s all for July folks. Tune back into Cogent Beekeeping at the end of August to see what else we’ve been up to. Enjoy the heatwave, we’ll catch you soon.