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)

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.

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.