Cogent Beekeeping: November 2018.

Time flies when you're having fun.

The countdown is on. The tree is up at HQ (we’re decorating it together this year), the battle of the Christmas ads has commenced, the sound of Mariah Carey is echoing its way around the office and the Christmas jumper has made its annual come back. But before we drown ourselves in mince pies and knock back an eggnog or two, we reflect on what November had in store for us here at Cogent.

We kicked off the month by heading to the IPAs annual event in Digbeth, Birmingham. Patrick Collister, advertising legend, gave a talk on his old work, and how it might have been executed differently if it had been briefed in today. An enjoyable evening filled with lots of delicious food and advertising nerdy-ness.

November also saw the come back of the famous Kwik Fit jingle ‘Kwik Fit Fitter’. The original jingle was made famous on TV between 1984 and 1989, and this year, Cogent brought it back to radio… with a twist. Working with Kwik Fit, we revamped the original sting by recreating it with different instruments (we even created a festive version too!). The radio ad first aired on the 5th November across a whole bunch of national radio channels, including Absolute Radio, LBC, Kiss, Heart and many more. The ad will be live until January, so if you haven’t heard the nostalgic tune yet (which is guaranteed to get stuck in your head), you’ve still got time!

Our PR team have also been busy this month. They headed down to Hayter’s press event in High Wycombe for the exclusive reveal of Hayter’s latest models; Harrier 48 and 56. Our PR team invited and looked after trade press and gardening vloggers, helped them to test out the machines and photograph the products, and answered questions. It was a fun day and a great chance to hand out lots of press packs and our press releases. The day concluded with a three-course meal courtesy of Hayer and Toro. Yum!

We also launched the Marstons Inns website this month. After hosting successful IA workshops and insightful prototyping, we designed and built the final website, before pushing it live for the world to see!

Now onto Homemover. We headed down to London to attend the Ideal Home Show at Christmas. While really getting into the festive spirit, we immersed ourselves in the home setups, created by Ideal Home Magazine. A great opportunity to take note of all the interior and home seasonal trends. It was lovely seeing our client Lintbell’s fab stand at the event too!

 

Speaking of Lintbells, our PR team also managed to secure some great nationwide coverage on a recent campaign that saw dog owners calling for tougher laws around the use of fireworks. The coverage promoted a recent survey conducted by Lintbells which uncovered that 96% of dog owners believe the laws around fireworks should change. In fact, 60% of those surveyed called for an outright ban on unlicensed fireworks itself. It was our job to spread this news far and wide while advocating a change in the law around the sale of fireworks. The PR team was able to secure over 30 pieces of coverage including some fantastic news segments on ITV!

We’ve also just launched the new Priority Services Campaign for Yorkshire Water. This campaign targeted vulnerable customers, their carers and families in Yorkshire. The aim of the campaign was to target people who don’t necessarily identify as being vulnerable. We were tasked with representing each of the key demographics without pointing out the obvious need for the service so as not to create ‘victims’. The campaign is running for the next four weeks across OOH and online. The campaign will feature on buses in Hull and Sheffield. That’s not all, we’re using programmatic to drive maximum results too!

As we watched the world scramble and fight over half price TVs, we launched our Black Friday campaign for Perrys. This topical campaign went live across digital, including digital display banners which were promoted across social media channels.

Our clients Nottingham Building Society are the main sponsors of The Nottingham Panthers ice hockey team. As part of our work with NBS, we were tasked with creating a series of ads which were to be placed in the Nottingham Panthers matchday programs. You can see some of the final shots below.

Two members of our Relationships Hive, Lucy and Alisha, were also invited to Birmingham City University to present to the first year Advertising and PR students about the industry and life at Cogent. They had a blast while inspiring the next generation of creative minds.

Congrats are also in order to our clients Network Q who won the Auto Express Used Car of the Year award for the Insignia, for the third time in a row. We created a celebratory ad which went live in Auto Express magazine this month. 

We also announced our latest new business win this month. We welcome GoGo SqueeZ to the Cogent family as we embark on a journey to spearhead a multi-channel marketing campaign into 2019 and beyond.

So, that’s all from us this month. Until next time, eat mince pies to your heart’s content, play charades (badly) and celebrate. But most of all, have yourself a merry little Christmas, from all of us here at Cogent.

Quote of the month: 

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the ONLY thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead