Recently, they ran a couple of creative sessions for us with our VIP EMEA clients. Our clients had a fabulous time recreating our content and making adverts for our key channels, with Creative Nation’s support and guidance. These sessions made our client’s visit to the UK memorable and fun as well as helping them to get to know the Discovery brand better, which is just what we wanted to achieve!

Being that our workload is often diverse and fast paced, the fact that Creative Nation always take the time to look at our requirements carefully and work with us to meet our budgets and timescales is of enormous benefit to us…

Chantal Bindley, Events Manager, EMEA Marketing Communication
Discovery Communications Europe Ltd

After a fabulous 20 months, Creative Nation is taking some time to look at itself in the mirror; pat itself on the back, slap its wrists where appropriate and plan for the future. This is no mean feat!

It has always been our modus operandi to be as flexible as possible whilst maintaining high standards of quality and professionalism. We have succeeded in this through only working with the best, professional freelance production talent without restricting what type of projects and clients we are open to.

During the course of this process, we have remembered quite how diverse our work and clients are, so thought we should start to share some of things we do that may surprise you…. did you know we do things like this?

Last month we worked with Discovery’s events team on a couple of events for some Very Important People- their affiliates from all over EMEA.

Discovery wanted to show them a good time, whilst helping them to better understand their channel brands and content.

Creative Nation;

Analyzed their brief, took into account the other activities and schedule of their clients whilst in the UK and decided that a practical, active and fun creative session would work best.

Created the creative session, working with existing channel content, assets, key messaging and objectives and working alongside key Discovery staff members.

Designed a logo for the event and generated all print based assets including a programme for their visit, display boards, name badges, and worksheets for the day.

Produced reels of channel content relevant to the regions from which the clients came.

Facilitated the day providing a trained facilitator, cameraman, photographer and editor on site as well as all props/materials and an on site studio, complete with blue/green screen.

‘Played’ with the clients, encouraging them to get really creative and helping them to produce some very high quality and entertaining footage.

Edited their footage on site for display after dinner that same day, which raised lots of smiles and enabled a ‘feel good factor’ that lasted beyond the event in the form of the takeaway DVD that we produced for all attendees.

Booked and arranged the after dinner entertainment in the form of The Gents (we could almost brag we introduced the Contemporary Cockney Knees Up to Eastern Europe!).

How did we manage to fulfill so many aspects of this event for our clients?

Because;

The tried and trusted network that we brag about really does exist and it works!
We provided a dedicated Producer to ensure the smooth running of the event from pre production through delivery.
Our clients trust us, as described above!

The future? Help us to best serve you!

We will be in touch soon with our new show reel and ideas. In the meantime, we welcome your participation in our thinking and would love to hear about your challenges, wants and needs both as a client or a freelancer.

Please contact us at hello@creative-nation.co.uk if you would like to participate.

Creative Nation has recently created a series of sponsorship bumpers for the movie release of Splice, through Bskyb for the SyFy channel.

High end graphic elements were created to match the film effects and enable use of film footage within Ofcom regulations, which doesn’t allow film footage to be shown full screen. Working to a very tight deadline and budget, the effects were achieved to such a high level that Ofcom almost rejected them, thinking they were actual film footage effects!

All sound design was completed in Pro tools incorporating existing film sound effects.

Aside from teasing Ofcom with our skills, we have had an amazing summer thus far, from Italian parties, to the sublime Secret Garden Festival- we have been having fun with our work. More to follow soon, including the completion of an exciting digital project; some stunning 3D work AND some education sector work…oh, and a new showreel just as soon as we get it done!

To celebrate the sunshine, our friends at Stop Making Sense (a brand new festival set on the beautiful Adriatic coast) and Positive Touch have offered us special mates rates to join them in sunny Croatia!

If you fancy polishing off the summer in style; dancing about on board boats with guaranteed sunshine, this link gives you a generous discount on ticket price -with a boat party thrown in!

We would love to see you there! If not there, then soon!

Unilever has placed a premium on creativity in advertising over the years and Unilever’s use of outstanding ads to promote products in developing and emerging markets must also have helped to win the award.

The most important take-away from Cannes Lions is that creativity is the remaining differentiator between brands and their rivals, whether in the UK or the emerging markets of Asia, South America and Africa.

So how does creativity lead to winning strategic, tactical and financial goals, delivering Brand equity?   The glib answer is this, listen to what consumers in different segments of your buying population are saying and then intelligently tailor your approaches to them . . . . .

Latent and Spurious loyalty, the two groups with a kinship to the True loyalty population are most likely to be won over by targeted messaging that flatters and favours their values.   These segments – Latent loyalty in particular – can deliver the most brand equity fastest.   Getting the messages right is what matters.   That takes research and intelligent positioning coupled with arresting creativity.

But what of the obstinate lower left quartile – Low loyalty and low repeat purchasing?   To find out, talk to Creative Nation.   There are myriad strategies to deliver brand enhancements, engagement, interaction and bottom line results.

Creative Nation’s unique model can deliver Brand equity and more.   To find out more about how we work and who we are see our website .   The clue is in our name – Creative Nation – creativity and collaboration, the perfect mix . . . .

Here’s a flavour – we worked with Aegis Meda to create this for Cannes Lions:

Avatar movie media video from Creative Nation on Vimeo.

Rosa Leung, Marketing Manager at Carat
www.carat.co.uk

- and they’re not the only ones! After an amazing 18 months of hard work, we’ve finally found the time to archive some of our work! As we went through it we realised just how busy Creative Nation has been this Spring and Summer!

So, instead of talking about the amazing work we’ve done with our clients we’re going to show you some of what we’ve been up to in the last month.

The History Channel asked us to come up with sponsorship bumbers on behalf of Faber & Faber, to promote Giles Foden’s new release ‘Turbulence’ . We produced the entire spot, from the creative through to the post production.

History Channel/Faber & Faber from Creative Nation on Vimeo.

Sky, The History Channel and Faber & Faber were bowled over. It looks like we’re going to have a busy summer!

In Adland, we’ve been working on three after-effects jobs, one for a big telecoms pitch and two for presentation at this week’s Cannes Lions festival, one brings back to life some tv favourites! Here’s a clue . . .

The other, is for an award entry for one of the highest grossing movies of all time… if our client wins, we will be sure to talk more about this next time!

Back to the broadcast world. Last but not least, we had fun with yet more sponsorship bumpers, this time for the Prime Scratch Cards sponsorship of the Biography Channel. This saw us experiencing the peculiar challenges posed by Ofcom regulations alongside the leanest budget imaginable! Here’s one of the three. Big thanks to everyone involved.

Untitled from Creative Nation on Vimeo.

Oh and besides all this, we’re also working on the digital marketing of an innovative and collaborative new software product launch. So, keep watching Creative Nation - we’re better than the football!

Follow Creative Nation on LinkedIn at our new Company page –

With a wobbly new Government in place you can’t deny that there will be interesting times ahead.   What with musical trends, fashion and governments returning to to 80s, it seems we as consumers are too.   Status is the new buzzword.

In traditional consumer society consumption was the leading indicator of success (remember those bankers’ wildly excessive lunches?).   Those who consumed the most of the rarest and most expensive, were perceived to have the highest status.   We have all worked with or for brands which, for decades, have gladly provided the goods, services and experiences to create that elusive perception of ‘status’.

Well, all change.   An increasing number of consumers in our increasingly mature consumer society are rewriting the rules.  We now recognise and respect fellow consumers who stray off the consuming-more-than-thou path.   Status is now as much about acquired skills, generosity, voluntarism, benevolent giving, eco-credentials or connectivity.   As a concept ‘Status’ is a far more diverse beast than most brands and agencies have catered to, ever.

The solution to this new conundrum?  Figure out how and where your customers are now finding their status fix. Talk to them.

If, like Creative Nation, you actively serve a diverse crowd of status seekers then we know you’ve got a great job on your hands.   Figure out how you can help them to better show off their new status symbols or better tell their status stories. Showcasing, visibility, and story ingredients are still key part of the mix.

We’re working with some of the best known brands in the business from TV, Music and Film to Advertising and Publishing and helping them to understand this new status dimension. There is much more to tell and in the fullness of time, we will  . . . keep checking!

What are we on about? Well, as we mentioned last week, Pitch magazine’s Editors have relaunched the Agency Reputation Survey to address the killer question ‘what do clients want from agencies’?  The immediate response from clients is that creativity and return on investment (ROI) are the prime considerations. As far as we are concerned that is as it should be.

Molson Coors UK chief executive Mark Hunter delivered a dissection of the ills of modern marketing at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Mark’s main point is that ad agencies have been slow to grasp that the ground has shifted beneath their feet. Agencies need to transform every aspect of the way they work as the old certainties of marketing recede into memory. Pitch magazine carries full text of his speech. We’ve distilled his main eight points.

• Understand the changing role of consumers- Agencies must constantly test content, change executions and rework creative treatments for optimal ROI. The “pitched battle” approach to marketing is redundant. We agree, all Creative Nation campaigns and strategies are tested, launched and tested again and if need be, adapted or entirely reworked . . . and fast too!
• Take back ownership of the strategic agenda - Market researchers, brand consultants and futurists have taken a lead on ad agencies by offering clients greater understanding of consumers’ lives. Brands (like Diageo and Unilever) are taking back control of strategy. We at Creative Nation believe that an achievable communications strategy is only possible where knowledge of the consumer is at its heart . . . any other approach is sure to misfire.
• There is no distinction between “above-the-line” and “below-the-line” marketing– So true. As consumers we don’t distinguish between brand touchpoints, do you?  So why should our clients? No. The best approach is, as Creative Nation has experienced, to utilise every touchpoint as part of a tailored strategy; the way we might suggest a client transmit a brand message on film is vastly different to the way we might suggest they do so online for example. Cut your cloth . . . one size does not fit all.
• Develop open sourcing for ideas as a viable financial model – The heart of Creative Nation’s business model is the crowd / open sourcing of ideas; our name, brand and above all our work for our clients shows that this model works.
• Take responsibility for driving a change in pricing models to account for the impact of Digital – Creative Nation is known for it’s realistic pricing and for us digital is an integral part of what we do . . . there has never been a silo mentality in this Creative Nation!
• Outcome based compensation – Creative Nation thrives on a payment by results model. With global brands like Coca-Cola moving towards this model, others are sure to follow. Bring it on!
• Communicate your agencies “value add” – Creative Nation is all about helping create cost- effective content like break bumpers and more besides. We know that compelling content sells like nothing else can; content is king.
• Offer project management plus creative and buying services to minimise overheads – Creative Nation offers project management for pitches and campaigns. We do it because we want to and because we know it delivers the best result for our clients. 

We welcome positive moves towards ROI, realistic pricing, creativity and crowd sourcing. It can only be good for us in terms of more business. As we said last week, it is also great news for clients. We share clients’ belief that the best creativity is affordable, results driven and collaborative.

Phew! All this hard work makes us think of holidays. As we’re so busy and can’t really get away for a while yet we thought we’d share a virtual vacation with you, it’s only 80 seconds long but wow!

Until next time . . . . have a great May Day bank holiday.

Creative Nation were in Cannes to film the launch party of Discovery’s new channel for women, TLC. We also made a showreel to demonstrate the depth and scope of Discovery’s content and channels. It was great to be involved, after all Discovery Channel is a broadcaster with international reach. More than 200 people gathered at the launch party over champagne and canapes and The Sugababes performed a set which blew everyone away! Our showreel was well received . . . . and, oh, what a party!

Recently Marketing Week’s sister publication, Pitch, asked the killer question ‘what do marketers want from agencies?’, this was as part of their new YouGov Agency Reputation Survey.  Surpise, surprise – creativity and return-on-investment came tops.  We like to think that Creative Nation may feature on the list this year . . . what do you think?

We’ve kick-starting Spring by revamping the Creative Nation website. As you’re such a creative lot we figured you deserved the best site we could possibly give you, enjoy! We have been awhirl with cosmetics, Hollywood, trendy trainers and corporate events . . . .

The 2010 Budget has also been on our minds recently. The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, promised tax breaks for the creative sector similar to those designed to stimulate UK film-making. The chief beneficiaries of this development are likely to be our chums in the gaming industry.

The gaming industry in the UK, home of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, reports a turnover of more than £2 billlion according to NESTA and supports 27000 workers, including 9000 developers across the UK. But with the creative industries contributing more than £50 billion to the economy every year according to NESTA isn’t it about time the Government did more? Go on Alistair . . . or whoever will be in charge after May 6th . . . give us a (tax) break!

Recently we’ve also seen more interesting news for our sector with the passing of the Digital Economy Bill. OK, so filesharing is likely to be punished severely. But it also means that copyright holders (that’s you and me folks!) are more likely to get their dues as piracy and plagiarism through digital means is outlawed.   Get your 5 free tracks from iTunes (via Facebook) here.

Spring is going to be a busy time for Creative Nation. We’re not going to give away too much but the clues are there if you know where to look . . . so find us on Facebook  and Twitter and check our site regularly to find more clues about our projects as they develop.  

Celebrate with Creative Nation and get a free subscrption to Marketing Week delivered to your desk.

This blog is to bring you our most exciting news which is that our promo for e.g. fashion has been selected for London Fashion Shorts and will be exhibited during London Fashion Week www.londonfashionweek.co.uk

We are really proud to have been selected for what we consider to be the ultimate Creative Nation production thus far- this was a truly collaborative effort, utilising some of our best talent, so we hope to see some of you at the private view on the 18th February at MACHINE-A Gallery, 60 Berwick Street, London, W1F 8SU.
http://www.machine-a.com/machine-a.html

Fashion Shorts debuted during New York Fashion week last year. It brings together video artists creating work for a fashion designer or delivering imagery with a fashion aesthetic. The program of films blends genres, mixes the commercial with the underground, and shows how moving image can represent and interpret fashion.

We look forward to seeing you there and will be in touch soon to tell you what else we have been up to!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us this year- our clients, family, friends and those talented folk with whom we have had the pleasure to work, we could not have done it without you! FACT!

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous 2010, please enjoy our Creative Nation Christmas Mix as a gift from us to you, and we hope it makes you dance around your mince pies!

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous 2010.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2ywtz2yz2gm

Lots of love

Everyone at Creative Nation xxx