Dick Powell appointed as D&AD Chairman

Dick Powell, co-founder and director of Seymourpowell, has been appointed D&AD Chairman. Powell succeeds Anthony Simonds-Gooding CBE, who is stepping down from the role following 17 years in the position.

Powell is a past President of D&AD and recipient of the D&AD President’s Award for his outstanding contribution to creativity. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programmes alongside business partner Richard Seymour, and, along with the D&AD Executive, has sat on the boards of the Design Council and the Design Business Association. Dick was global design advisor to Samsung Electronics and is currently a member of the International Advisory Panel for Design in Singapore. He also holds the role of group creative director at Loewy.

“Anyone who’s ever met the man will tell you that Anthony Simonds-Gooding is a one-off, and we’ve been extremely lucky to have him for all these years,’ said D&AD Chief Executive Tim O’Kennedy. “He steered D&AD toward success and through significant challenges over the years, and was a source of both excellent advice and much hilarity throughout. No doubt about it, he’ll be missed”.

“But if there’s anyone who could plausibly step into Anthony’s shoes, it’s Dick Powell,” he continues. “Dick has a rare combination of world-renowned creative credentials and great business acumen, and that will be of great benefit to D&AD. He’s as smart as hell, I’ll certainly benefit from his mentorship - as will we all. I look forward to working with Dick and the Executive Committee to ensure D&AD’s core principles remain vital and relevant as we approach our 50^th Anniversary.”

“No doubt about it - Anthony will be a hard act to follow! I had the privilege of working closely with him during my 5 years on the Executive Committee, two of which he mentored me as President and I learnt a great deal,’ says Dick Powell. “Anthony leaves D&AD in good shape despite the downturn. It has a great team of people hugely motivated by everything D&AD stands for.

He continues, “Like them, I’ve always been passionate about D&AD’s mission for creative excellence, and its education remit helping young (and not so young) people in the creative industries.  My role as Chairman is, I think, to ensure good governance, to embed a long term strategic vision, and to mentor and advise the Management team and the Exec along the road to its delivery.”

Loewy appoints Will Whitehorn as non-executive Chairman

Loewy has appointed Will Whitehorn as its new non-executive chairman. He replaces Mark Adams who took up the role in 2007 for a three-year term.

Whitehorn is known primarily for his role as president of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and his twenty-plus years working within the Virgin empire, mainly in a PR and corporate affairs capacity.

As non-executive chairman, Whitehorn will guide and counsel Loewy as the market emerges from the recession and the group embarks on a new phase of business growth and development. Fostering collaboration between Loewy group agencies, which cover design, research and marketing communications will be a key focus for him.

In addition to his non-executive role at Loewy, Whitehorn sits on the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the government funding body for scientific research in the UK and is non-executive chairman at Next Fifteen Communications plc.

Will has firsthand experience of industrial design projects. He helped oversee the development of Virgin’s Pendolino train and the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, the aircraft owned by the pilot Steve Fossett and sponsored by Virgin Atlantic which flew a solo nonstop airplane flight around the world in a time of 67 hours 1 minute in 2005. He also plays an active role in the development of the Virgin Galactic space tourism business.

Loewy CEO Iain Johnston says: “We are extremely fortunate to have a business and design visionary of Will’s stature involved in Loewy. He will act as an inspiration to our agencies and his wealth of experience in industrial design, project management and PR complements our core business disciplines beautifully.

Whitehorn adds: “I have had the good fortune to experience the work of Loewy’s Seymourpowell as a client at Virgin Galactic and have been greatly impressed by their work. I look forward to helping foster collaborative output within the group at this exciting time in its development.

Branded to overhaul brand positioning for Clinton Cards

Branded has been tasked with undertaking a wide-ranging appraisal of the brand positioning and strategy for greeting cards retailer Clinton Cards.

The work undertaken by Branded will result in a complete review of Clinton’s branding and portfolio, and is expected to culminate in a number of changes to the brand, as well as an update to the store design and layout.

This is the first time that the card retailer has undertaken such a comprehensive review. The work is expected to conclude towards the end of the year.

Phil Ley, MD and founder of Branded says, “Clinton Cards is the largest retailer of greeting cards in the UK and a stalwart of the high street. We are really excited to be working with the Clintons team to rejuvenate the brand 42 years after the first shop was opened.”

Seymourpowell Aircruise concept wins Condé Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Award

Seymourpowell is happy to announce that its Aircruise concept has won a prestigious Condé Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Award. At the awards ceremony on Monday 10 May, Dr. Paul Thompson, Rector of the Royal Collage of Art, presented Seymourpowell with the award for ‘Best project in Aviation’.

Seymourpowell’s winning Aircruise concept – a innovative transportation design for a giant, vertical airship powered by natural energy and designed to carry travellers in style and luxury – was included in the awards shortlist drawn up by a panel of expert and high-profile judges from across travel, lifestyle and hospitality sectors. The shortlist was published in early April on the Condé Nast Traveller website where the magazine’s global readership was invited to vote for the winners in each of the 10 categories.

The Condé Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Awards, now in its fourth year, aims to celebrate excellence from across a range of related sectors encompassing transport and infrastructure, culture and style, consumer technology, retail, leisure and sustainability. The winning Seymourpowell design received the highest number of votes in the Aviation category, which also included projects from British Airways, Qatar Airlines and NASA amongst others.

Introduced in early 2010, Seymourpowell’s Aircruise is the concept design for a hotel in the sky, with low passenger numbers and huge internal spaces offering room for living, dining and relaxing, as well as scope for dramatic and inspirational public spaces. The initial design proposes a bar/lounge zone, four duplex apartments, a penthouse and five smaller apartments.

Originally a self-generated project, the concept subsequently captured the imagination of Korean giant Samsung Construction and Trading (C&T).  Driven by its interest in new materials for building, Samsung C&T appointed Seymourpowell to refine the idea and produce a detailed computer animation of the proposed experience to illustrate this visionary approach to the future.

Other winners on the night included iPad by Apple, designer Paul Smith, Anya Hindmarch, Anish Kapoor, Zaha Hadid and Virgin Galactic. 

Richard Murray, co-founder of Williams Murray Hamm, has died of skin cancer.

Murray, aged 44, was one of the best-known figures in the design industry due to his outspoken view on marketing formulae and the industry’s over-reliance on design clichés. He wrote three books on the subject, ‘The Little Book of Don’ts’, ‘Churnmore’ and ‘Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time’ and was a regular columnist for Design Week in the late 90s. The FT and The Guardian both recognised him as being one of the most influential figures in UK design.

Williams Murray Hamm is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated design consultancies of the last decade. It topped the Design Week Creativity chart three times, has twice been named Design Agency of the Year by Marketing Magazine and was ranked number one for design effectiveness by the DBA for three consecutive years. The company have won more creative awards in that period than any other design consultancy. In recent years WMH have been working with large corporate clients like Barclays, Fortnum and Mason and Syngenta, but Murray will probably be best remembered for the agency’s bold and provocative work with brands like Hovis, Clipper Tea, and Sainsbury’s SO Organic.

Richard will be sadly missed, our thoughts are with his family and our colleagues at Williams Murray Hamm.

Donations in his memory can be made to Hatherop Castle School via Cowley and Son Ltd, Cirencester, on 01285 653298.

New Associate Director joins Prescient

Prescient is pleased to announce the arrival of its newest team member. Debra Crush joins as Associate Director from McDonald Baily, where she specialised in consumer research in the retail & FMCG sectors.

Having begun her research career in 1993, Debra’s vast experience spans a wide range of sectors,  fitting in perfectly with Prescient’s long established and varied client base.

Managing Director, Andrew Sawkins, says “We are delighted that Debra has joined us. Her specialist knowledge enhances our experienced team further. She has already fitted in very well and has certainly hit the ground running.”

Branded develop brand strategy and positioning for SeeSaw

Branded, the Loewy-owned strategic brand consultancy, has successfully concluded the brand positioning for SeeSaw, the UK’s new online TV service.

SeeSaw was launched in Beta (trial) mode earlier this year and officially launched on 17th February. Branded won the project in December last year, having previously worked with the service in its earlier incarnation as Project Kangaroo.

Branded successfully developed the brand strategy and messaging . The brand strategy has since been used as the basis for all of SeeSaw’s internal and external communications, including the advertising campaign by Fallon.

The agency also coined the name ‘SeeSaw’, based on the idea that the service allows you to watch both current and catch-up programming.

Phil Ley, MD and founder of Branded, says, “We are really excited to have worked with SeeSaw on this project. As a completely new service, we were working with a blank canvas - and a broad brief to capture everything exciting and unique about the service and translate this into effective consumer branding.”

“We worked closely with the team at SeeSaw to define the brand’s positioning and messaging. We’re confident that the result reflects a compelling and relevant proposition that will appeal to trade and consumers in the increasingly competitive VOD market.”

Maya Bhose, head of brand marketing at SeeSaw, adds, “We chose Branded because of their proven branding experience with broadcast and VOD services in Europe. The team demonstrated real insight during the entire process; as a result of their work, we have been able to create a really comprehensive brand strategy that will appeal to TV fans.”

The Team Creates New Identity for Parkinson’s Charity

The Team announced today that it has created a new brand for the Parkinson’s Disease Society. From April, the charity will be known as Parkinson’s UK.

Together with Loewy stablemate Prescient, The Team  researched audiences’ perceptions, created a comprehensive brand strategy, produced the charity’s new name and strapline and designed its new logo and visual identity.

The logo is made up of the Parkinson’s UK name and a strapline designed to sum up its personality: ‘Change attitudes. Find a cure. Join us.’ They are shown together on a three-degree angle to illustrate that the charity is moving onwards and upwards.

The wording is made up of the ‘Parkinson’s UK stencil’ - a font designed specifically for the charity to show its active nature. The charity’s main colour is cyan. The only other colours it uses are black and white. The visual identity has been designed to reflect the charity’s brand values: it is short, simple, bold, bright and human.

Another main element of the charity’s new brand is the use of photography of people with Parkinson’s to show that the people for whom it works are at the forefront of its mission. People with Parkinson’s are pictured holding up placards of personal messages such as ‘Together we can beat it’; ‘We’re here to help’; ‘Life goes on’ and ‘A cure cannot wait’.

The Parkinson’s Disease Society employed The Team to create a new brand identity because it felt the public, GPs and other health professionals did not know enough about Parkinson’s or about what the organisation does. It wanted a brand that clarified its vision - to find a cure and improve the lives of everyone affected by Parkinson’s.

Prescient interviewed and held focus groups with the charity’s different audiences and found that everyone explained the society in a different way. People said the name was old-fashioned and the visual identity was conservative and inconsistent.

The research also showed public understanding of Parkinson’s was also not as good as it could be. The disease was commonly associated with elderly people and there was little awareness of many of the different symptoms, other than ’shaking’.

The brand will support the charity’s five-year strategy, which includes raising more than £110m before 2015 to help raise awareness, fund research and find a cure for Parkinson’s.

Dan Dufour, a consultant and charity specialist at The Team, said: “The new brand has been designed to be something that people can be part of - it shows an active, passionate and determined charity, driven by people coming together.

“This wasn’t just a visual identity and logo - it has helped the charity define its vision, mission and core values to influence the way the organisation behaves and conducts its business.

“It was crucial to involve supporters and people with Parkinson’s in developing the new identity because it is their brand - their involvement in every step of the process has made this project incredibly rewarding and unique.”

Steve Ford, chief executive of the Parkinson’s Disease Society, said: “I am really excited by our new identity - Parkinson’s UK. It highlights our commitment to change attitudes to Parkinson’s, fund cutting-edge research to find a cure and inspire more people to support us.

“One of our strengths is our people - our enthusiastic supporters and committed staff. We wanted Parkinson’s UK to be a movement - something everyone could be involved in. The new brand will give people affected by Parkinson’s a stronger voice and make sure that everyone know that because we are here, no one has to face Parkinson’s alone.”

Speed named Best UK Consultancy to Work For

The Holmes report today named Speed Best UK Consultancy to Work For. This fantastic endorsement comes a month before the consultancy’s first birthday. Here’s what the Holmes Report had to say:

One of Speed’s predecessor firms, Rainier PR, won our Best U.K. Consultancy to Work For Award in 2005 and 2006 and managing directors Stephen Waddington and Steve Earl have clearly brought their magic touch to Speed, which beat out more than 40 firms to be named number one in the U.K. this year.

The firm’s pursuit of workplace excellence begins with its recruitment process, which makes use of a mixture of digital (Twitter, LinkedIn and the blogosphere) and traditional recruitment methods to find people who fit the culture. The firm offers a structured mentoring programme, with all new employees paired with a company director, and a training programme that draws on the broad expertise of parent company Loewy Group, with the company CEO providing personal one-on-one coaching as well as larger group training on anything from review processes to line management. Employees also enjoy a high degree of autonomy when it comes to achieving their client and professional development objectives, and are trusted to do so whether working at home or in the office. The firm is open about all management and financial decisions, and conducts a bi-annual staff Satisfaction Survey to solicit feedback, sharing findings with employees.

“Since re-launching as Speed in March, we have come such as long way and achieved so much, without any of the negative issues that I imagine might face merging companies,” says one respondents. Others share that enthusiasm: “Speed has launched with a passion and it is a strong and growing agency. It has developed a good work ethic and has a genuinely good set of employees who bring a range of skills to the workplace.” The bottom line: “I feel we have a real identity, common objectives and a hard working but relaxed environment in which to work to achieve our goals.”

New look for Lil-lets

Seymourpowell has created a new pack design for the UK’s leading non-applicator tampon brand, Lil-lets having secured the brief following the successful redesign of the Lil-lets’ compact applicator range.

Lil-lets has long been the UK market leader in the non-applicator tampon category, with 78.6% market share* and more than 2.6m users**. Offering a widthways-expanding tampon, Lil-lets is proven to prevent leaks more effectively than other tampons which mainly expand lengthways.

Seymourpowell has created a contemporary design for the brand leader, which reinforces its positioning with women as the non-applicator tampon of choice.  The new look imbues a confident and feminine approach for the target market while also giving the non-applicator packaging a distinctly separate identity from that of the compact applicator range. In addition, Lil-lets quantitative research (2009) amongst 257 Lil-lets non-applicator users shows that the newly designed packs are now 20% quicker to find on shelf than the current lilac design.

Neil Hirst, creative director at Seymourpowell commented, “The new design for Lil-lets non-applicator tampons is feminine and modern but also acknowledges that women wish for an element of discretion to be respected within this category. To achieve this whilst creating a design that has shelf impact has been challenging but we are confident that it will bring new users into the brand and reinforce its leadership position.”

Jackie Roberts Lil-lets senior brand manager added, “The contemporary styling of our new packaging gives the non-applicator range a strong identity and clearly differentiates it from our compact applicator tampons. It challenges the category norm and as women spend so little time at the feminine hygiene fixture we are confident that our new packaging will work hard for the brand at point of purchase.”

* IRI HBA Outlets value data 52 w/e 31 October 09
** TGI data 52 w/e March 09