We were asked to promote two BBC Radio 4 science shows; The Life Scientific and The Infinite Monkey Cage. The BBC wanted a fresh approach that would appeal to the younger end of the station’s target audience as well as regular listeners.

The idea began with the end line ‘Science comes to life on BBC Radio 4′. We created an animation that conveys a sense of emotion and sympathy through anthropomorphism,  capturing this with a little bit of technical magic and a humble radio receiver.

Click here to watch the ad

We are extremely proud of our latest work for the BBC. Branding an ambitious new Radio 4 dramatisation of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, starring Kenneth Branagh.
We crafted a set of striking imagery and animation to promote the series, which consists of seven narrative frames.
The powerful novel, set during the Battle of Stalingrad, is widely regarded as one of the most important works of the 20th century, and its comparison of Stalinism with Nazism led to the manuscript being placed under arrest by the KGB. We tapped into the style and feel of old USSR propaganda posters, using a limited colour palette (red, black and off-white), to convey the sentiment of the 1950s novel and the Soviet Union of the era.
We were initially asked to come up with a piece of artwork for the series, to be used on a variety of media including posters and banners – following the success of this, the brief was expanded. The animation tells the story of the infamous arrest of the novel, which was to be banned for 300 years.
The eight-hour dramatisation will air on BBC Radio 4 from the 18th September to the 25th September this year.

Last night at the London premiere of the new blockbuster, John LeCarre’s ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’, STUDIOCANAL unveiled a strong new visual identity produced here at devilfish.
Our brief was to create a piece of work that was both classic and timeless, an appropriate image that could become an iconic cinema ident.

In order to create something truly timeless, we began with the concept of the interplay between light and glass. Light is the common denominator of all cinema; a movie is simply the record of light on film. And the glass in the lens of both the camera and the projector is an essential tool in the making of movies.
A large installation of 25 glass panels was built (representing STUDIOCANAL’s vast library of films), and abstract light generated from STUDIOCANAL titles was then projected through the glass panels.
We crafted as much of the ident in camera as possible, keeping post-production to a minimum – creating a sequence that could conceivably have been shot at any time in the history of film-making. World-renowned cinematographer Harris Zambarloukos (Thor; Mamma Mia; Enduring Love) was the Director of Photography.
The music for the ident was created by composer Alexandre Desplat (Harry Potter; The King’s Speech; Girl with a Pearl Earring; Tree of Life; A Prophet) and was recorded live with a 60-piece orchestra in Paris.
Click on the image below to view the ident itself.

We are delighted to add another two awards to our rebrand campaign for A&E – a silver award for Best Branding Image Campaign, and Bronze for General Branding/Image Campaign.

Lucy Hunt and Lee Edwards went over to New York to collect the award in person, attending the Promax US conference 2011. We can tell by their faces that they were as pleased as punch!

We are extremely proud to announce that Ed Edwards joins us today from CHI & Partners as our new ECD. He is a great addition to our growing team, and he brings with him a plethora of big brand, award-winning experience, most recently picking up a Cannes Lion and a Campaign Big Award for the ‘Rehab’ campaign for Tango, as well as a D&AD nomination for Drench’s ‘Cube Head’.

Ed has made his name working on flagship accounts.  He was the brains behind the famed Lynx ‘Click’ ads and Levis ‘Ice Cream’ during his two years at BBH prior to joining CHI & Partners in 2006. In 2000, he was hired by Fallon where he created high profile and award-winning work for BBC Radio 1, Kleenex Double Velvet and Skoda. He made his first foray into the industry alongside creative partner Dave Masterman in 1994 at BMP DDB.

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/archive/1077849/Ed-Edwards-named-first-Devilfish-ECD/

We are delighted to announce that we have been chosen by woomi to be its global digital strategy and creative partner as the connected TV platform readies itself for its first consumer push. Deals with a number of leading CE manufacturers and content providers, including Samsung and MUZU , will take woomi onto 10m devices across Europe by the end of the year. We will transform the brand’s site, designing and building a multi-language online entertainment destination in-house, promoting woomi’s core content with video and editorial.

woomi will also engage with a series of blogs relating to the various genres offered within the platform. woomi launched its app in the UK in January 2011, rolling out initially on Samsung connected TVs on its Internet@TV portal. It’s since been joined by LG and Toshiba with more connected devices in the coming months. It features a range of content, including ITV shows via a partnership with Box Office 365 and various programming from production giant HiT Entertainment.

There are also around 1,000 movies available, from archive titles to newer releases. Clare Dentith Marketing Director of woomi, said: “We asked devilfish to redesign our site, but they impressed us so much with the scope of their thinking about our brand as a whole in this important year that they were the natural choice. woomi is an app with huge potential and it’s exciting to be at the forefront of the connected TV revolution. ”

When it comes to generosity, there’s no better way for a brand to put its money where its mouth, or heart, is than engaging in Random Acts of Kindness (RAK). Consumers are calling out for the human touch. Everything from brands randomly picking up the tab to sending a surprise gift will be one of the most effective ways to connect with customers in 2011.

For brands, a serious, and sincere, RAK strategy will mean showing compassion and charisma. Something that is priceless and actually fun.

Fueling the RAK trend is brands’ ability to actually know what’s happening in consumers’ lives, good or bad, as people publicly and knowingly disclose, from Facebook to Twitter, more and more about their daily lives, their moods or their whereabouts.

Social networks also enable acts of kindness to spread far beyond its recipients, as they will gladly tell their friends and followers about the unexpected good news. A fun example to copy or improve on in the next 12 months:

Flower delivery service Interflora launched a social media campaign designed to brighten up the lives of Twitter users by sending them flowers. As part of the campaign, Interflora monitors Twitter, looking for users that it believes might need cheering up. Once found, the users are contacted by tweet, and sent a bouquet of flowers as a surprise.

We’re delighted to announce that we are one of two agencies chosen by the BBC to provide them with design, branding and identity services over the next two years.

Our appointment to their roster comes at a very exciting time, especially with the 2012 Olympics taking place next year.

Please click here to find out more..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/03_march/07/csr.shtml

Check out this great article about one of our most award winning spots for Sky One, this was a huge viral hit in 2006 with over 30 million hits and has now resurgence into the viral world again!

http://www.socialtimes.com/2011/02/the-simpsons-intro/

The enemy has changed. It’s no longer simply your business competitor. You’re up against a substantially more scientific reality – our inherent lack of ability to multi-task!

Multi-tasking may be something that we think we mastered over the years, but have we…really?? Can you send an email, whilst sitting in a brainstorm, really listening to what is being said, and engaging with your colleagues? You will most probably answer yes, but in reality it’s more likely to be a no.

But don’t take our word for it.  Try this simple experiment. It will only take a minute…

www.martinlindstrom.com/experiment

Could this intrinsic inability to multi-task affect how we consume messages from brands and advertisers?

devilfish can help you to ensure that your communications remain relevant for the future.

At devilfish we’ve always believed in the power of great creative ideas.

Creative advertising not only captures the imagination of your audience, it’s also the best, AND the most cost-effective, way to make people choose your product over everybody else’s.

But don’t take our word for it…Take UK marketing bodies Thinkbox and the IPA’s.

Analyzing the correlation between a campaign’s effectiveness and creative awards, Thinkbox and IPA found that a high level of creativity results in advertising campaigns that are AT LEAST 11 times more efficient.

All of which proves that, if you want ROI from your marketing spend, you could do a lot worse than starting with a great idea.

To find out more about the correlation between creativity and effectiveness, check out the complete report.

Needless to say we’ re biased, but check out this sizzle reel to see some smokin’ hot creative.

Our Super Bowl commercial, promoting the new season of the FX Original Series “Justified”, is the daily HOT SPOT for Promax today.

The 30 second spot titled “Question” premiered in the coveted first-break after the game’s final play.

In the spot, “Justified” star Timothy Olyphant, who plays Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens, confronts a convenience store bandit and, using his cool demeanor and sly wit, cleverly disarms him.

We were tasked with creating a spot that positioned the Raylan Givens character along side the best of contemporary, iconic American heroes.  As importantly, it had to appeal to a broad Super Bowl audience and possess the qualities of the FX “There Is No Box” brand – edgy, surprising and unique.

A second commercial titled “Cantina” is a companion spot that references the famous Star Wars cantina scene.

Click below to see both spots in full.

Question

Cantina

“We need a Facebook Page.”

“OK. Great. What are you going to use it for?”

“Oh it’ll be awesome, we can post updates on our products and stuff.”

“Okey dokey. And who will you be talking to?”

“Everyone who uses Facebook”

“And why will they want to join your Facebook page?”

“Because our products are awesome.”

“Right.”

We all know the figures.

Facebook is second only to Google in popularity on the web.

A third of the population of UK & the US have a Facebook profile, and more than half of them visit every single day.

As a business you’d be crazy to not have your own page through which to target those people wouldn’t you?

Not necessarily.

Like any medium, Facebook is only as effective as the way it is used.

Having an inactive Facebook presence is similar to buying a ton of TVR’s without making a commercial. A bit nuts to be blunt.

Especially when on Facebook alone you have tons of other brands all clamouring for the attention of your audience, some of whom are spending a lot of cash and time to do so.

So there are a few things you have to decide before jumping into that big Social Networking pond.

1. And this is important. Do you really need a Facebook page? They take a lot of work to manage and you have to have something compelling to say at regular intervals.

There are few things as sad as a Facebook Billy no-mates and those few people who do drop by and see a lack of activity may actually leave with a negative impression of you.

2. If you do have a Facebook page, who is going to manage it for you?

You may have a very talented intern who could drop by now and again, but as Facebook expands and the competition for face time gets stiffer, it’s wise to have a dedicated team who really knows how to leverage the many possibilities the platform has to offer.

If it’s not feasible for you to employ your own Social Network Managers then there are a number of agencies out there that can take care of it for you.

3. What are you going to say? As loyal as you are to your brand, the likelihood that your audience is going to be as interested in the nitty gritty behind your product as you are is slim.

One option is to find a cause or activity that is relevant to both your brand and your audience that you can rally behind together.

This should provide you with a sturdy stream of conversation, debate and creativity for your community to collaborate on with you.

4. What do you have that you can reward your members with? Because to be honest, if people are going to spend their time with you, they’ll want something tangible in return.

That can be as simple as free product to sample, a decent competition prize or offers.

Innocent have recently announced that they will be giving away a total of 40,000 of their Veg Pots over the next few months in conjunction with a number of activities.

Interflora are embarking on a project which entails them monitoring Twitter for signs of people who need a bit of cheering up and sending them a complimentary bunch of flowers.

5. How are you going to let people know you’re on Facebook? If you build it they won’t come unless you tell them where you are and how they will benefit from dropping by.

Consider buying some advertising space on Facebook itself, or promoting the fact you’re active in that space across your other communications channels, even on your product itself.

Creating a Facebook Connect app is a great idea as it makes it easier for your audience to get involved and share their involvement with friends.

It also throws up all sorts of opportunities for more immersive creative that enables the user to leverage their Facebook profile.

With the Whopper Sacrifice App, Burger King notoriously offered a Whopper to anyone who unfriended 10 people on Facebook.

Althought the App was pulled at the insistence of Facebook, it had already done its job with 100,000’s of participants and the kind of PR money can’t buy.

6. What’s more important to you, quantity or quality?

Do you really need millions of friends… or would it be better to have a select few from whom you can canvas considered, quality opinion that can influence the future of your brand.

Eco friendly cleaning product brand “Method” have a small but powerful community of advocates who go by the name of “People Against Dirty”. Method regularly turns to this group of 15,000 or so to test drive new products and spread the word. Crucially they genuinely listen to and act on their opinions and feedback.

Innocent are specifically targeting Healthcare professionals in a bid to expand on their reputation for genuinely nutritious, convenient food.

7. Is Facebook really the Social Network for you? Do you want to risk being a small fish in the massive pond when one of the many, specialised communities may reap far more effective rewards?

For example, Mumsnet is an online force to

be reckoned with. The influence of their community of Mums was even felt in last year’s election via a series of webchats between their members and some of the UK’s political movers and shakers.

8. What are people already talking about that you can benefit from without necessarily having to create your own platform.

Tom Tom recently leveraged an ongoing campaign run by a passionate Brian Blessed fan to have the Flash Gordon legend added as a voice to their GPS Units.

The company challenged Richard Gardner to recruit 25,000 people to his cause.

In return they would make his wish reality. Gardner succeeded in his goal, Tom Tom were true to their word and benefited from a huge amount of PR in the process.

They also brought themselves to the attention of at least 25,000 people who now look upon the brand as one that is approachable, personable and fun.

Keeping an eye on existing conversations can reveal a wealth of creative options for engaging with your audience.

9. How can you use Facebook to make your audience’s lives easier?

Domino’s Pizza recently created a Facebook app that combined sales with community activity by allowing their audience to find their local outlet and order Pizzas to deliver, directly through the app.

This included activity that offered increasingly rewarding “deals” at Domino’s as more people used the app.

The good news is that if you get it right, engaging with Social Networks can actually drive sales, and engender advocacy within the audience.

Like any other medium your social network activity needs to be considered and planned.

Set yourself realistic goals and think of the most creative and enriching ways in which you can achieve them.

Do remember though, it’s important to manage expectations and expect your goals to shift.

In many cases this can be to your benefit as your community grabs the seed you’ve planted and runs with it in fantastic and unexpected directions.

Crucially this is an opportunity for you to get to know your audience as real people rather than just statistics, to reward them for their loyalty to your brand and of course, have some fun.

It has just been announced that devilfish is now the proud owner of another Kinsale Shark,award, a silver in the Sports Promo category for our latest work on Canal+.

See the spots by clicking on the image below:

We’ve recently collaborated with the lovely design fellas at Sticky Creation on a print and online campaign for TV Channel CBS Action.
We were asked to unleash our inner geek to come up with a suitably cinematic image to be used as the centrepiece of the campaign for the launch of Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

The result combined a distinctive “schematic” drawing of the iconic, eponymous space station, with an original, beautifully rendered, full colour illustration of DS9 floating in deep space (appropriately enough)

The creative is currently gracing billboards the length and breadth of the country, as well as various Trekkie-ccentric publications and websites.

We also created some very lovely banners for London’s recent Comic-Con.

None of the team has subsequently been set upon by an angry mob of geeks so we must have got something right!

Marketers from companies including Arcadia, GSK and Universal Music convened at The House of St Barnabas in Soho, London, on Thursday 8th July for a breakfast event co-hosted by ourselves and Contagious Magazine. Speakers took to the altar in a beautiful chapel and the  event wound up with gastronomic delights at a small farmers’ market in the garden at St Barnabas. The 80-strong congregation, chaired by Contagious co-founder and editorial director Paul Kemp-Robertson, listened to marketing gospel from Gav Thompson, founder of mobile network giffgaff, Jon Mitchell, Spotify’s UK managing director, and Louise Kjellerup Roper, chief ripple maker at Method. Our contributions came from Matt Cole, digital creative director, plus Richard Holman, founder and creative director, which followed the theme for the morning, ‘Punching above your weight: the value of a twinkle-toed approach’

Click on the link below to see the exclusive online interview with Richard Fine, Founder and CEO of Help Remedies.

http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/07/contagious_devilfish.php

This week we’re all about ‘lean forwards people’. We like this type of person, because in the US they watch the A&E channel for whom we’ve just launched a new national US campaign.

It stars all the, well, stars of A&E’s drama shows and was a lot of fun to shoot – if you don’t believe me, check out our very own Lee with Gene Simmons. Hard to tell who’s the real star here huh?

Lean forwards people get involved in the drama on their screens. Have a look at the new work here.

In other news, we’ve just finished a pitch yesterday so big up to Kate and Matt and fingers crossed for a good result later on this week.

Have a good week y’all.

It might be rather gloomy in the skies of Covent Garden but inside our devilfish offices the sun is shining – we have a new campaign being finished up for a huge US broadcaster and another pitch came in this morning – busy days are happy days. This is all somewhat in contrast to how the devilfish footie team felt at 10pm on Thursday when they were rudely defeated, but for effort alone they should have won out.

It’s gearing up to be a busy June and July, with lots of questions beginning with the phrase ‘you’re not going on holiday in the near future are you?’ Following the ashcloud shocker which prevented us from making it to Lisbon for PROMAX Europe (and much worse, prevented Richard from presenting his speech on ‘Ten Great photographs :an inspirational guide to the power of the single image’, Kjetil, Matt and Lucy are putting on their shades and heading out to La La land for PROMAX’s West Coast event in a few weeks’ time. No doubt their drinks party will be the happy, bubbling affair people have come to expect from devilfishers, with the LA sunshine to soothe their heads come the Thursday.

Watch this space too for news on our breakfast briefing event with Contagious magazine in July.  We’ve got some awesome speakers – Gav Thompson from giffgaff whose launch campaign goes live this week; Jon Mitchell from Spotify who are taking on the old models of the music business, and Louise Roper of Method, the coolest most interesting cleaning brand known to man. All these guys – and our own from Devilfish and from Contagious magazine – come together under the headline of ‘Punching above your weight: the value of a twinkle-toed approach.’ More details to follow… see you there or in LA!