Despite looking really pro in their shiny new orange kits, the Baber Smith lads rocked up to Wembley Goals on Sunday 6th June with fairly low expectations, but with plenty of enthusiasm and exuberance. With more players in the team used to egg-shaped balls rather than round balls, we had a few issues to overcome. Not to mention the general fitness of our ‘smoking group’, who accounted for half the team!

After a few matches the boys were feeling the strain. There were some great individual performances however, with Tim “Aussie” McGrath proving that becoming accustomed to a totally new ball shape cannot hinder talent and Olly “SAFA” Sherwell putting in a Duracell battery effort. Mark “El Capitano” Fisher was consistently strong and even slotted home a penalty for us. Man of the match however was Charles “Big Mouth” Lees who turned out to be a great goalkeeper (shame we didn’t realise until the last match!)

Baber ‘Oranges’ were probably the only team with a mascot…Eliza Jordan, (daughter of our MD Sam Jordan) a mere ten weeks old, who donned an orange playsuit and looked super cute!

We may not have won any trophies but we were first in line for a beer and a burger in the sun! With some more training and a Baber Smith ‘stop smoking campaign’ we will be in much better shape next year!

Emma “Fabio” Blanchard (Team Manager)

Luxury skincare brand Mama Mio tasked Baber Smith with creating an integrated, through- the- line campaign to promote the launch of their product ‘Get Waisted’ in Debenhams.

We all knew that this was no ordinary client. Mama Mio was originally started up by 3 women; all with a passion for tackling women’s body problem areas with powerful, butt-kicking ingredients and a really fun brand strategy. The founders are passionate about the brand and their products and within 5 minutes of meeting them you really ‘get’ what Mama Mio is all about.

When I was invited onto the account team, I was really thrilled to be working with a brand that I could relate to and thoroughly enjoyed the experience and responsibility of helping to organise the shoot. One of my tasks was to hunt down a very specific costume for the shoot (a cropped top, midriff-revealing High Court judge’s costume is not a standard request)! Obviously my high street shopping experience was of no use in this instance and I resorted to phoning various costume hire stores and seamstresses to find what I needed. A number of calls later, following a trail of seamstresses via recommendations, I found someone willing to create this unusual garment within a 24 hour time frame. Visits to Potters Bar and late night material shopping ensued and the result was, well, fantastic! As it turned out the seamstress made costumes for the Harry Potter films so this must have been a walk in the park for her- or maybe it was just magic.

One of the key factors to consider with this shoot was that the model had to be a real woman, reflecting the brand’s belief that ordinary women need extra-ordinary solutions. Simone, a 40 something ‘Mama’ of 2 fit the bill perfectly. And as Hannah Marshall (LPA) our lovely make up artist transformed Simone into a beautiful high court judge we could immediately see the results were going to be great. One perfect location and an award winning photographer (Laura Pannack LPA) later and the shoot was underway.

Back at the agency and the shots were looking great, Laura had captured the natural look we were going for and Simone looked effortlessly confident.

What really enthused me about this particular shoot was how the passion of the founders motivated everyone to do the best possible job and got everyone really excited about the product they wanted to promote. The results were great, Simone looked fantastic and both Baber Smith and Mama Mio were really chuffed.

Emma Blanchard,  Junior Account Executive

Truly compelling presenters are indeed a rare breed. People who have the ability to empathise with an audience, command their full attention and communicate a message clearly are few and far between.

An ideal candidate would combine the charisma of Meryl Streep and the sales flair of Steve Jobs.

A big ask, but one person who may well fit the bill precisely is the Reverend Teresa Munro. Teresa’s uniquely well-honed presentation skills have also not gone unnoticed by those of us who have a rather more commercial agenda. We recently brought in the Reverend Munro to run intensive presentation workshop sessions for us, or as she describes the sessions herself: “I’ve used Drama skills and games throughout. We’ve looked at relaxation and confidence, audience awareness, active listening and body language.”

Many ad agencies invite actors in to teach presentation skills, we wanted to choose someone who really believed in what they were communicating either in work or in life. Someone who we felt could teach not just presentation technique but also empathy, respect for and understanding of the people around us.

Of course, the world of advertising has seen more than its fair share of motivational speakers, but the Reverend Munro brings a uniquely empathetic perspective to her sessions: “some people will need more space and it’s about giving everyone the opportunity to speak and being aware of that within the team. I think that’s a skill much more to do with being a minister than being a Drama teacher.”

What’s more, although the Gospel according to Matthew and an advertising sales pitch may seem spiritually worlds apart, the Reverend feels as though her approach to communication can provide invaluable tools for today’s ‘Mad Men’: “I think they can learn a lot about interpersonal relationships and that a pitch is not just about content, it’s about relating to the people you’re trying to sell to. They can learn an awful lot about watching for an audience reaction, for instance.”

As Sam our MD says “Yes, the content is quite different but the parallel is that fundamentally we’re both trying to communicate ideas that we believe in to other people – there’s an art in making them engaging, relevant and interesting.”

Asked to sum up her unique approach, Teresa comes up with an answer that’s direct and well-honed enough to be the envy of many a marketing strategist: “I talk about it as ‘walking alongside people’, being there to journey with people, that’s what I do as a teacher and it’s probably what I do as facilitator in the workshop. I say to the guys today, it’s not about me having the right answers, but giving them the facilities to get where they want to go.”

Teresa was a big success and already we are seeing our people putting into practise the skills they have acquired from these sessions.

Jo Smith

Sales and Marketing Director Baber Smith

All good things must come to an end and so it was with Movember, as our furry friends met their maker at a barber’s shop in Camden. After a few farewell tears, hot towels were applied and the cut throat razor expertly removed our month old moustaches in a matter of minutes.

Whilst we may have looked questionable with our upper lip furniture, our cause certainly was not and the Mo Bros of Baber Smith raised over £1250 for prostate cancer research! Across the UK, Movember raised more than £4 million and it was a pleasure to be part of this.

Despite unanimous protests from other halves – plans are already being made for Movember 2010.

The Movember Team

Two weeks into the month of Movember and entering BS towers is like walking into casting for a Village People video, as the MO’s become mo’ and mo’ impressive every day!

Here’s how our Bro’s are getting on…

So far, our guys have raised a fair amount, but will need all your support to reach their target total! TO DONATE TODAY, CLICK HERE!

Yesterday evening we hosted an event at Adam Street exploring what’s good and what’s new in social media and mobile marketing. The aim was to look at which brands do these things really well, to understand what other brands can learn from this and then to look in to the future of these communications channels.

We kicked off with a short intro explaining that we at Baber Smith like to categorise brands and their engagement with social media and mobile marketing as Hawks, Doves & Ostriches. The Hawks being overtly commercial and aggressive in this space (wrong), the Doves being the ones that use it sensitively and subtly to connect with people (right) and the Ostriches being the heads in the sand, hope it goes away types (also wrong!).  This event was all about learning from the Doves!

First up, Howard and Glen talked about their successful experience with social media in the music industry – the industry that’s successfully pioneered the use of these channels for commercial ends.

When it comes down to it, it’s all about expressing basic human values well:

Being true to yourself
Communicating what you’re about
Being a good friend
Creating an interest

With this in mind we drew on case studies from, amongst others, Keane, The Saturdays, Mika and Il Divo in the music industry plus Dell, Best Buy, Skinny Cow and HSBC.

Check out http://www.mikasounds.com/points

and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rTzIAWI4Ms for a taster.

Next up was a second Howard, this time on Mobile – where to start! Howard blew everyone away with his knowledge and passion for mobile and not least with the awesome things the technology can do. This was however all tempered with a sense of realism. Some of the technology isn’t here yet and some of it is widely available but it just isn’t being used properly. M&S and their use of Quick Response (QR) codes was put under the spotlight – fortunately their failings in implementing the technology were made up for by good customer services from the manager of their Covent Garden store. We also checked out the wonders of Augmented Reality and got a demo of some leading edge Near Field Communications (NFC) wizardry.

All the feedback seemed positive but please feel free to post your comments if you agree/disagree.

Sam

Our Partners & Speakers

Howard Wilmot, MD of All Leo a specialist in social media marketing in the music and entertainment industry. All Leo are our partners in Baber Smith Socialise, the soon-to-be-launched division that specialises in integrating social media into boarder marketing activity.

Glenn Cooper, Head of Digital at Island Records and the founder and MD of online polling community pollthepeople.com.

Howard Furr-Barton, mobile guru and our partner in the also soon-to-launch new division Baber Smith Mobile that specialises in mobile technology and it’s integration into the marketing mix.

Movember is about bringing the moustache back and having some fun for a very serious cause
- prostate cancer.

It takes a lot to sacrifice one’s looks for a greater good, so all of us at BS towers are very proud of our willing fuzz farmers. Our lads are primed and ready, waiting to say balls to prostate cancer as we enter another fine Movember.

TO DONATE TODAY, CLICK HERE!

Our Bros with Mo’s are: Kirk Mc Carthy, Richie Florey, Simon Smith, Charles Lees, Oliver Sherwell, James Fielden & Andy Lennard.

I recall being at one those advertising agency tree-hugging/team-building weekends a while back where I was forced to reveal my answer to the question – “what do you think is the best thing you can give your children?” My answer at the time was “a sense of self-esteem” – words which came back to haunt me recently when I read “Generation Me” by Jean M. Twenge.

This well-researched, keenly-observed book is an analysis of the thoughts, dreams and aspirations of the post-Baby Boom generation. The thrust of Twenge’s argument is that Baby Boomer parents have s

pent far too much time boosting the self-esteem of their children, to the point where they now have an unrealistically inflated sense of entitlement.

It also points out that any potential employers of today’s graduates and interns have a responsibility to act as a kind of  “reality decompression chamber”, helping this generation come to terms with the cold, harsh environment of the job-free marketplace and frozen economy. We have to politely but humanely point out that the six-figure salary won’t be there on demand like a Starbucks cappuccino, and that it might be slightly harder to become a CEO than it would be to pass an X-Factor audition. And, that successfully ascending the career ladder might be down to such unsexy characterisics as persistence, patience and hard graft rather than easy charm and natural intelligence.

It’s no simple task – giving out a cold, hard dose of reality without dampening the ambition and enthusiasm of our graduate intake.

But for the sake of our industry’s future and for the future success of our new blood, maybe those of us in positions of seniority have to take a deep breath, gird our loins and access our inner Simon Cowells.

Mark Blanchard
Creative Group Head, Baber Smith

Team Baber Smith - F**K Yeah!

On September 10th 2009 nearly 50 per cent of the Baber Smith guys and gals turned out, along with 700 plus other aspiring Usain Bolt’s-come-Paula Radcliffe’s. Ironically, for an industry that has provided strap lines such as ‘Just do it’ and ‘Impossible is Nothing’ there was a distinct amount of trepidation and anxiety amongst adland’s elite competitors. That said, the old adage remains; ‘it’s the taking part that counts’ and with over £10,000 raised we were all winners… metaphorically of course. The Baber Smith crew came in a humble 19th out of 22 teams, however, we weren’t without our star performers. Diana Hopfner came in as 4th fastest woman at our last reckoning and Simon Smith impressed with a very credible time of 21:07. Once again, all had a great day out and thanks must go to LGN and NABS, who even managed to fix the weather. See you on the track.

Vfestival saw the return of the Strongbow tent this year, which was dedicated to giving revellers some Bowtime of their own. Once inside, ICE COLD Strongbow flowed from the bar (and most the folk on the dancefloor) as we bopped along to up and coming bands and DJ’s. Bandanas, fleece-rugs and vest-dresses were among the free offerings designed to make festival life that little bit funkier. Not to mention yellower. What Strongbow did so well was harnessing their brand colours to full effect, slathering everything that was yellow with BOWTIME and sending it out into the masses, turning a large percentage of the crowds yellow.

And there were even more perks for those who were lucky enough to acquire a VIP pass, where private areas away from the rif raff were laid out like relaxing gardens with free Strongbow on tap and of course, VIP toilets – a god send when consuming copious amounts of cider! But as far as I could see, not once did anyone who’d trickled down from Strongbow’s marketing team ask for anyone’s email address – with the crowd so drunk they’d have told you their pin numbers, I think they missed a few thousand valuable data cache opportunities there…

Sarah_Jean Duggan Junior Copywriter, rocking on.