Category: Insights

We’re a multi-talented bunch here at DTW and we’ve had great fun creating illustrations for, and animating, our advert for the Law Society’s ‘Use a professional. Use a solicitor’ campaign.

The advert, which launched on ITV Player in March 2015, highlights how wills are not just for old people – everyone should have one!

(Turn up your sound)

We wanted to capture the attention of all of those people who don’t yet have a will, or whose circumstances have now changed making their will invalid, and highlight the importance of making a will and using a professional solicitor.

We created an engaging and thought-provoking animation that promoted wills to a younger audience in a fun, creative and eye catching way. By combining clean line drawings with injections of colour and using cute animated characters, we created a stunningly simple but highly emotive advert that resonates with a younger, as well as older, audience.

The 30-second advert was part of a larger campaign DTW worked on for the Law Society as part of its Consumer Campaign. Integrating PR, social media, video, online advertising, out of home advertising and ITV player advertising, 2015 marked the second phase of DTW’s work on this national campaign, pointing consumers to the Find a Solicitor website to search over 140,000 legal professionals to find the best solicitor to suit their needs.

Live streaming is one of those technologies social has had a hard time harnessing for its own uses. Yes, Skype and Facetime exist for video chats and have achieved the biggest market saturation and name recognition while apps like Viber offer similar options – there has been little in the way of live streaming just for social.

Google have made a good fist with Hangouts On Air, allowing 10 people at a time to take part in a video chat. It will also link to YouTube allowing an unlimited number of people to watch the stream but it somehow doesn’t feel as instantaneous.

Enter #Meerkat. A new app for the iPhone and iPad, Meerkat crosses video chat with the disposability of Snapchat letting the user live stream from their device to their friends or anybody with a link while it is streaming. Once the stream has finished then that’s it, over, gone – literally watch it live or not at all. The technology isn’t new but the opportunity to reach the audience through Twitter with its proven ability to spread trending items quickly is.

Less than a month old, Meerkat is already getting a lot of attention – particularly from media organisations, journalists and savvier brand-builders like Gary Vaynerchuk – who realise it’s a cost effective way to reach a potentially huge audience quickly.

This implication has been grasped by Twitter who bought a rival service, Periscope, and has immediately sought to limit Meerkat’s ability to use its service. The fierceness of this competition, literally only weeks after one was launched shows that they understand the potential free, widely accessible video has.

Smart brands and agencies will already be thinking about what they can stream, (or Meerkat or Periscope – you can tell how successful a service is by the time it takes to become an adjective) especially when tools to embed and curate the streams become available. #TeamDTW have already been experimenting with Meerkat so watch this space!

Sadly, this could have been the killer app Google Glass needed to become a mainstream success – the tech equivalent of Charles Goodyear shutting his tyre factory because of low sales the week before Henry Ford launched his Model T.

Providing solutions outside the traditional PR toolbox is a fun and exciting way to broaden horizons. One of the recent projects I’ve worked on uses interactive mapping technology to keep people up-to-date about road and construction work in their area, and about how it might affect their daily journeys.

By blending traditional skills of communication with new technologies available to us on the web, we have helped our client meet the needs of an increasingly tech-savvy populace, more used to navigating with a smartphone than a road map.

The project in question is the Mersey Gateway bridge. A £2 billion landmark piece of infrastructure spanning the River Mersey. Work on the bridge affects the whole area of Halton Borough Council, and tens of thousands of residents, commuters and road users. It’s a massive project, with work across multiple sites, and with hundreds of people involved.

Using a custom Zeemaps overlay that works with Google Maps, we developed the ‘Down Your Street’ tool. It allows people to navigate at a street-by-street level to see how their daily journeys could be affected by project work. The tool is readily available on the project’s website, and works across mobile devices.

The interactive map is highly visual, simple to use and is broken up into nine main project sections. Visitors can click through each section to find out about construction work, road works, road closures, footpath diversions and tree clearance work.

Each map is illustrated with graphics of the work going on within that section, and visitors can select these to bring up even more information about what’s happening. The map is updated daily and provides our client, Merseylink, with an agile solution to provide people with information to help their day-to-day journeys.

The system is flexible and allows us to add information as and when we need to. Of course, to complement Down Your Street, we still provide information on road works to the public through traditional channels, such as press releases.

Ultimately, blending new tech, with tried and tested communication methods results in the end user – in this case the people who use the interactive tool – having a wealth of information at their fingertips.

*** Don’t forget to turn up your sound when watching! ***

When working in the world of film there is one strict rule of thumb – don’t work with children and animals. In the spirit of DTW we thought we would challenge it, get ten children, two dogs and a pretend horse to re-create Christmas for our video greetings.

A very early morning start saw props, staff and toys for all girls and boys loaded up and carefully and decanted into one of the director’s houses. As if by DTW magic, a converted church and outdoor woodshed that doubled up as a perfect grotto, were dressed and filled with fun and mayhem.

The script was carefully recorded and, amongst the very crazy chaos, perfect gems of elvish monkey business were captured. Much to the DTW team’s surprise, there were no diva fits, tantrums or doggy mishaps. Although the children were quite bemused as to why members of staff were enrolled on the mock naughty and nice list.

The children’s camera elfie – selfie photography was outstanding – obviously their parent’s artistic nature has rubbed off onto said offspring.

The elves did a sterling job; they were extremely happy, full of chocolates from retakes and covered in glitter.

The smaller members found the wrapped presents with no contents very misleading, so took it upon themselves to rewrite the naughty and nice list, as team DTW have of course, been absolutely amazing this year!

See the antics that our elves got up to last year

Its’ important not to become entrenched in what we think, we should do, as designers and artists, it’s important to listen to other disciplines. This can only enhance what we do as agencies. The Design Museum is a fantastic example, lines are blurred, boundaries are broken and this place brings all walks of life together.

Times like this reminded me of the importance of leaving the bread and butter for a day, and how important in an ever-changing design landscape, it is to renew our ideas and thinking and to lead in our field.

I travelled through the life and work of Louis Khan, a revolutionary architect of our time. There was such a strong bond between his work and the work I had been presented last month by Suzhou and Wuxi University from China.

I could feel a whole conversation bubbling inside and unraveling around the use of architecture in everyday design. This was only then reflected and confirmed by the next exhibition.

Daniel Weil is a partner in the international art group Pentagram. Like myself he questions and shakes those boundaries. I simply loved the personal approach of raw sketchbooks. It is an intimate journey as you see more than a sketch – from beginning to end you see someones outpourings of expression and critical design thinking.

He draws on personal exploration whether that is exploration, travel, parenting, sport or fashion. Showing his relationship between personal aspirations and clients aspirations are fused.

Hairs stand on my neck as he quotes,
“My design doesn’t compromise the opportunity to invent, it gives you the sense that everything is connected.”

This man sings from my song sheet, this is my ethos too.  As designer, artist or visual thinker we must make connections. It could be through the context of social media, a visual conversation or collaboration.

DTW is in the media today, with the focus on our new client The Law Society – we’re delivering a major PR and marketing campaign for it across England and Wales.

The national ‘Use a Professional’ campaign, which is launching across England and Wales this month, is to promote private practice or high street solicitors and encourage people to use their services.

So, if you’re reading this and you need some good service from a solicitor – jump on to the Law Society’s free online Find A Solicitor website, which matches people needing legal advice to qualified professional solicitors in their town or area.

It’s a great project, and the office has been buzzing with ideas and inspiration with #teamDTW spending the summer finalising and testing the creative concepts, travelling around the country shooting videos, working on real-time bidding advertising campaigns and planning creative PR and social media campaigns.

The focus is all about the importance of using a professional solicitor to deliver important services that you need – sounds simple doesn’t it? Yet many of us don’t do it – we’d rather get something done cheap or fast.

Whether we are getting a ‘good’ service is often overlooked.

The legal profession is not alone – as any PR and comms people reading this will already have realised.

Everyone can do PR, right?

Wrong, but professionalism is something that the PR industry is still grappling with. Talk to people at CIPR Council meetings or the more engaged members of the PR community and they get it – we need to be professional in everything we do to deliver a future for the industry – training, evaluation, ethics and professional development.

What we’ve collectively been less good at is demonstrating the huge value that the public relations function can bring to organisations. In an era when reputation has never been so important, we must take this issue and tackle it head on.

That can mean challenging colleagues, superiors and clients when it comes to devising and delivering campaigns that make a difference. We must be relentlessly focused on outcomes, think from a customer perspective and not compromise on quality.

The Government Communication Service, under the watchful eye of Alex Aiken, is doing a great job in showing the way. Those of us operating in the private sector should take note.

Professionalism and expertise isn’t a ‘nice to have’, whether you are getting legal advice, growing your business or delivering challenging behaviour change campaigns, it’s an essential.

Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Dribbble, Instagram… everyday designers, artists, illustrators, makers and doers around the world post their creations online for us to appreciate. While this can often prove a vital resource for inspiration, there are a number of catches when browsing and posting art and design online…

The first problem is that what you think is wonderful (and your mum has reassured you is truly awesome) might just be a bit rubbish. And now the whole of the internet has seen it and anonymous commenters are bluntly comparing your artistic ability to that of a trained chimp. Ouch! Of course the alternative is almost as bad – your work is poor but you get 30+ likes on Instagram so you falsely assume that it’s good. Who are these people who are telling you that your work is ‘Adorbs’ or ‘Sick!’ and do they know what they’re talking about? Take a look at their profile and the sort of thing they post. If it’s all kittens and food, are they really a valid critic? Perhaps not. So, rule 1: don’t just post any old stuff. Look at it. Evaluate it. Post it only if you’re proud of it.

The second problem with sticking all your images online is that other people, less scrupulous than yourself, may appropriate your work and pass it off as their own. Rule 2: if you’re showing professional work that you use to earn your living, it may be better to only show a sneak peek online or to invest in professional watermark services to protect your copyright.

A further problem with looking at the work of talented, skilled designers and illustrators from across the world is the crushing sense of personal failure that can arise when you realize that, even if you quit your day job and did nothing but drawing practice from now until you’re 90, you’re never going to be THAT good. Oof! That can be a harsh blow to your ego but hey – maybe that person can’t code websites or cook a mean linguini or whatever your particular talent may be. So rule 3: don’t let the talents of others knock your self-confidence.

However, the main problem with browsing Pinterest and Behance etc is that we spend too much time looking and not enough doing… Faced with the sheer enormity of stuff available to look at, admire, covet and drool over, it’s easy to waste whole afternoons browsing, pinning and admiring inspirational images but that’s time you could have spent creating your own little masterpiece. So the final, most important rule is: make time to make things. Go on…

(Featured image: Whale  by Sarah Bibby)

After three heavy filming days, confined to the foot well of the cramped car and a less than ideal temperature, my artistic leash was unfastened by my directors. I was set loose around some poignant, cultural and stimulating exhibitions.

I packed up the cameras, notebook and complimentary tickets. I declined the idea of a hot tube and plumped for an on foot foray of optical delights.

London definitely did not disappoint. I’m a little lost on the Southbank and I feel like I have walked into uninvited rave, as I am party to an explosion of neon stripes and geometric revelry.

An impromptu feast of shapes and colourways, these would be my inspirational epiphany. A whole memorised mood board, was being built and ready to pass on to team members for our creative den, which is under construction as we speak.

An awe inspiring construction of typography and multi leveled graphics lured me in to explore. Artists, communities and partners had come together and transformed the Thames side site with installations and artworks (featured in Creative Review).

The artist Morag Myerscough and Luke Morgan, shower me in a riot of bright colours, a place of celebration and love for humanity to conquer hate – something we could all do with right now.

I had no choice but to smile and be happy, with an energized spring in my step, The images are captured and stored to help influence styles and ideas within the office.

I turn around the corner to find a random lonely chair, perfectly placed in the most contrasting setting. Swaddled in street art and placed in the center of the skate park. How did it arrive? Where is it going? I place my self on the seat and take in the messages, stories and statements.

This is the height of using visualisation for clever communication, albeit smelling of p*ss from where the homeless sleep every night, it seems to add to the social impact and impact of the political messages being spoken through illustration.

Each of my senses are heightened, as I have eaten my visual starter before I head off to the Tate for my mind filling, main course.

We’ve just joined the Google Glass Explorer programme.

Now I’m guessing most people reading this are either thinking “The what?” or “That’s cool.”

If it’s the latter you’re right. Not only is it cool but its simple to use and is already adding value to the way we work with our clients.

If you don’t know what Google Glass is you can find out straight from the Google itself, but basically it looks like a pair of glasses but it’s a computer with a tiny screen (and a built-in high quality video-camera) just inches from your eye that you can talk to.

Yes, really.

It’s part of what those trendy types are calling wearable technology, but what’s really interesting is what you can do with it.

The potential for training programmes, almost instant video uploads to Youtube and for capturing content from a unique first person perspective is fantastic.

We’ve let our Social and Digital Manager Guy Bailey loose to do some R&D work with the glasses over the past week, and he still hasn’t stopped smiling. Basically he’s in charge of having fun whilst working out the vast number of applications for the new technology. We’ll keep you up to speed with the opportunities, but in the meantime if you want to have a demo of how it all works get in touch with guy@dtw.co.uk and let’s talk.

PS – Thanks to Timbuk 3 for the headline inspiration (if you’re under 30 and you care you’ve probably already googled it)

DTW Digital and Social Media Manager Guy Bailey takes us through the Looking Glass…

I’m a gadget guy. Always have been, a child of the ZX Spectrum generation, I measured my own and humanity’s progress based on access to the latest advances and cool devices. For most people growing up in the eighties, Tomorrow’s World was the annoying, swotty buffer between Top of the Pops and The Young Ones while for me it was a catalogue from the future.

One family in every neighbourhood was always the first to have a Walkman, or a Diskman, or the latest Brevill Sandwich Toaster. My dad shared my love of the shiny so it was us. True, it frequently led us down many a silicon cul de sac as we chose the loser in a two-horse tech race – Betamax over VHS, Intellivision over Atari, TCR over Scalectrix – but at least we were at the party.

I continued to blaze a trail through the nineties and noughties with my calculator watches, digital diaries and Palm pilots until the dawn of the Smartphone revolution when everyone got in on the act. When I heard about Google Glass, I turned into a hyper eight year old again.

You can read about what Glass is and does, and why DTW has sensibly got in on the ground floor – but let’s talk about what it was like when my colleagues and I got to hold the future in our hands for the very first time.

The majority of the designers I work with were far more interested in typefaces, fonts and box layout than the actual piece of kit itself. Although Google being Google, it looked exquisite and as if it had fallen through a wormhole from the very near future.

Holding them as if they were made of Unicorn hair and fairy wings, I gently placed them on the bridge of my nose and powered them on. Adjusting the moveable eyepiece into my field of vision, a black welcome screen emerged with the GLASS logo gently appearing.

A welcome video played and guided you through the first uneasy steps into navigating your way around the device. You literally stroke the side of the glasses with your finger forward and backward to take you through various menu settings and double tap it to select your favoured option.

If you make a wrong turn, which is easily done at first, you can slide your finger downwards to cancel the screen and return you to the ubiquitous homescreen with a pleasing clanging sound.

The homescreen is where you will spend most of your time in Glass and can be accessed with a tap of the glasses, lifting your head up to a certain degree or if you specifiy it yourself, by winking. Yes, winking.

The screen displays the time and the phrase ‘OK, Glass’. This is a phrase you will become very familiar with. Say ‘OK Glass’ loud enough for it to hear but not so loud that you look like the crazy man outside Pret A Manger, and you access a list of suggested commands you can give to glass such as take a photo, record a video, send a message, play a game etc.

Glass works via Bluetooth and wifi so can work independently of another Android device or iPhone but it works best when paired with one. This gives Glass access to your email, calendar, SMS messages and more, so you can see notifications and messages in your screen as and when they appear. Other apps also link into Glass and it has its own select utilities that take advantage of its unique capabilities including a star map to identify constellations, Evernote, Tumblr and the busy media professionals’ tool of choice right now – IFTTT.

The camera and video recording features give Glass another unique edge. Filmed from your first person perspective, you literally just look and click. There is also a manual button on top of the glasses for you to take a picture, or hold it for longer and it will start taping a 10 second video clip. If you press the button again during this recording, it will remove the time limit and continue recording for as long as you want to, or your battery allows. Once recorded, you can upload it to any YouTube account you have or share it via email or SMS.

It’s an amazing device in itself but, like the iPhone and iPad before it, its key functionality will come out of what the community makes for it. When the iPhone was launched, all everybody was concerned about was call quality and the novelty of web access. Nobody mentioned the App store – which is its primary feature today.

The potential for Glass is huge with geolocation, augmented reality, facial-recognition, real-time video streaming, social networking and journalism uses waiting to be unleashed. Right now, you won’t see too many in the wild, especially in the North East, but as more users join the Explorer program, new and exciting designs come out from Diana Von Furstenberg, Ray Ban and others and word gets out on one or two killer applications and uses go mainstream, then the Glass ceiling will be broken – and recorded live while you do it.