When brands and a band collaborate

By Adam Claxton
Twitter: Savvy_Adam


This morning I discovered the new music video from the band OK Go, which was made in partnership with Chevrolet. It is not OK Go’s first collaboration with a major brand, having partnered with Google to create a video that promoted HTML5 web technology. OK Go have a burgeoning reputation for creating ingenious videos, that has helped them earn a cult following. This new video is certainly among the best and they certainly deserve all the plaudits they get.

OK Go set up the shoot with over 1000 instruments over 2 miles of desert outside Los Angeles. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments, and the band recorded a version of Needing/Getting, singing as they played the instrument array with the car. The planning for the video took four months of preparation and four days of shooting and recording.

There are no ringers or stand-ins; Damian (Singer) took stunt driving lessons. Each piano had the lowest octaves tuned to the same note so that they'd play the right note no matter where they were struck. Being a music video fan I find OK Go are at the top of their game, so innovative, original and clever you sometimes have to watch it a few times to work out what is actually going on... OK Go make videos you would definitely show your friends, share on Facebook and post on Twitter (OK Go was trending on twitter this morning), and I'm sure you will to once you have seen the video.

Important to this video, and the success of previous OK Go videos, is the fact that they are obviously picky with the brands they work with; bands who have received corporate sponsorship in the past have often been accused of ‘selling out’ and damaging their credibility. In the case of OK Go it appears that they have not suffered this fate because they have partnered with brands that stand for innovation and that is something that they try to represent in their videos.

Here are my top four favourite OK Go videos including the new Needing/Getting and the one that started it all A million ways, Enjoy:

The Savvy team captured on camera

By Savvy HQ
Twitter: Savvy_Victor


Last October the Savvy team embarked on a team building exercise, at the studio of professional photographer Andy Sutton of Captured Imaged Photography. It was an important time in the development of Savvy & Victor as we welcomed Kate Emmerson to the team and we were in the final stages of moving into our new and larger HQ in Uckfield. It was our intention that the day out in the studio would help us get to know each other even better and create even more of a buzz about our fresh new set up.

The photography involved each member of the team bringing in items that represented their interests. Each portrait was carefully set up by our Head of Design Adam Claxton, who directed the shoot so that each photograph would be of the highest quality. Speaking about the shoot Adam said "I really enjoyed directing the shoot and dressing the sets.  Seeing everyone’s important items gave us a real insight into each other’s lives.The pictures are professional in their approach but allow our individual personalities to shine through."

How many items can you spot in each photo?

The Savvy team from left to right Edmund, Kate and Badger, Jolene, Adam, Jo and Jasper

Jo Allen - Creative Director

Adam Claxton - Head of Design

Jolene Fairs - Design and production

Kate Emmerson - Marketing Executive

Edmund Chartier - Brand Executive and Social Media 

Jasper Wallace - Copywriting

A Christmas celebration at our new HQ

By Savvy HQ
Twitter: Savvy_Victor

It has been a huge year in the history of Savvy & Victor as we’ve welcomed new members into the team and have moved into new and larger premises. Undoubtedly everyone is excited for the future and raring to go for next year and the start of the next stage of development for Savvy & Victor.

Keen to end 2011 with a bash we were delighted to be invited by Peter Taylor of Peter Taylor Associates, our landlord at the Old Mill, to join him and our neighbouring businesses for a special Christmas celebration.

The festivity started with Peter Taylor welcoming everyone to the party and providing a fantastically detailed history of the building Savvy & Victor now call home. Among the snippets we heard were that the foundations of the Old Mill were originally built upon oil drums meaning the building would sway during a storm. Thankfully this was one of the first renovations he made to the building when he purchased it in 1988. Peter finished his speech by presenting every business in the building a beautiful print of the Old and Roller Mills. We instantly fell in love with our copy and we’ve already given it pride of place in our client room.

Following Peter’s speech all the businesses in the building spent 5 minutes introducing themselves, after which we then spent an enjoyable time talking to our new neighbours over drinks and a festive feast. Being the newest business in the building everyone at Savvy & Victor enjoyed meeting with staff from Peter Taylor Associates, Micro APL, Phormium IT Solutions and Efficient Air Ltd, whom we straight away established a rapport with. Unsurprisingly, the festive celebration continued in Savvy & Victor HQ,  

 

A highlight of the afternoon was the Savvy & Victor novelty gifts exchange, which led to a lot fun games that included table tennis, a bubble machine and a make your own boyfriend that was amusingly picked by Ed! Perhaps, the most popular gift for some were the silly fake moustaches, see below for the incriminating photos. 

After the fun and games the day was capped off with a delicious dinner. It was sincerely a very enjoyable day for the Savvy & Victor team and we’d all like to express our gratitude to Peter Taylor for arranging the party and for the generous gift. We’re all looking forward to future events with our new neighbours.

The value of a good office party

By Savvy HQ
Twitter: Savvy_Victor

We have been asked by our clients to devise and implement an eclectic range of projects over the years. From creative communications and graphic design to customer and employee events, and it has to be said, we’ve achieved some great results. Right up there with the best was a recent request from itmsoil to plan and organise their 2012 Christmas Knees Up.

After spending several weeks of planning to deliver something fun, engaging and surprising the company’s boardroom was transformed into the ‘The Uncivil Engineer’. Replete with oak barrels, a stag’s head mounted on the wall – above an inviting fireplace, which itself has only just appeared - and a well-stocked bar set up in a corner. The centrepiece was a candlelit table, laden with a feast worthy of Dickens. In an adjacent room a mulled cider and champagne bar kept the more tranquil party goers happy.

We’re pleased to report that feedback suggests our efforts were an unqualified success.

The Savvy team inside the 'The Uncivil Engineer'

Some of the comments that we particularly enjoyed were from staff recalling their anticipation on the day of the party. One employee Emily Clarke, group health and safety manager from London admitted she couldn’t resist a sneaky peep around the boardroom door: “I have spent the last two days training in this room and it is transformed. It’s really nice that this effort has been put in. It’s been exciting all day. I had a sneaky peep through the door earlier.”

A view that was shared by Sheridan Elliot, monitor and technical services engineer: “It’s really good, very quirky, an amazing transformation of a boardroom.

Joanna Allen from Savvy & Victor, commented, “It was great fun organising the party. Our brief was to pull the stops out to make this a special occasion for itmsoil staff and I think we achieved that. People were amazed by the transformation of their workplace and very much enjoyed visiting The Uncivil Engineer and tucking into a Dickensian-style feast.”

With a successful end to 2011 for the staff at itmsoil, roll on 2012 where we might see ‘The Uncivil Engineer’ again.

How to optimise your website with the perfect formula

By Edmund Chartier
Twitter: Savvy_Edmund

A key objective for any business with an online presence is to optimise their website to encourage more traffic and achieve higher rankings on search engines. It is often a daunting task and even the most committed and enthusiastic individual can be confused by blogs and websites recommending different approaches.

There are many factors that you have to consider, for me the most important one is focusing on writing good content that will not only rank high with search engines, but also interest the reader.

For the budding SEO specialist a good read is the easy to understand and well laid out Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors created by Search Engine Land.

As they have stated:  

“SEO — may seem like alchemy to the uninitiated. But there is a science to it. Search engines reward pages with the right combination of ranking factors”  

Enjoy! 

Is the email dead, I don’t think so!

By Edmund Chartier
Twitter: Savvy_Edmund


With a reputed wealth of $17.5 million by the age of 27 and having created the most popular social networking site in the world, you should really forgive Mark Zuckerberg for any hyperbole he might spout. There have been far less talented individuals, who have become unbearable egotists after even a momentary brush with fame (my current anti celebrity list would include the majority of the X Factor no hopers, Mark Wright from TOWIE and Dappy).

Now, of course Mark Zuckerberg cannot be compared to those people, but this week he has certainly got a little ahead of himself when he announced the demise of the email at the launch of Facebook’s new messaging platform. It is certainly true that with different platforms now available
Facebook, Google + and Twitter that there is now a greater variety of ways people can send information across the net.

With the email being the elder statesman, it was always going to be the case that newer rivals would want to win over that market share. However, how confident can Zuckerberg be that they’ve finally struck a fatal blow to the email or is this the case of Zuckerberg's wishful thinking.

Are we witnessing the death of the email?

A recent research report by the Radicati Group indicates that email accounts are expected to grow by 7% per annum and will number 4.1 billion by 2015. Social Networking is also expected to grow from 2.4billion to 3.9 billion growing at a pace of 11% per annum. This shows that while social networking is growing quickly, it is not growing at the expense of the email with both platforms splitting the market with a near equal market share.

The detail in the report that interested me the most was how email use is increasing, according to the report, it is mostly through business email accounts. This is significant of course because it supports the view that the greater the number of messaging platforms, the greater our choice in how we communicate.

For instance I love twitter! It’s easy to use, instantaneous and is great way to get a short impactful message out to a large audience. Similarly Facebook is a great medium in which you can share photos, music and stories with a close (if you so choose) network of people. For that reason the amount of emails I send to friends have now decreased majorly from 8 to 9 years ago. However, despite the fact I send less emails to friends now, I haven't become less reliant on them. For work I couldn’t function without them, they’re absolutely vital to send information, reports and other files to clients. You can also certainly hold a more detailed discussion via email than you can do on Twitter and Facebook.

In an article on the BBC Head of Microsoft’s Envisioneers team stated “Everything has its place and it’s really understanding which is the right tool for the job”. I couldn’t agree more, what we’ll see over the years is not a situation where one platform dominates over other, but a market where there is genuine consumer choice. One of the most exciting aspects of the rise of social networking is the increasing number of innovative sites that are being created to provide an even greater user experience.
Currently we have Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Linkedin and Diaspora all offering us something a little different. Emails may become a more niche mode of communication but they will remain important and be one of many platforms with which we’ll be able to communicate in our own way. The fat lady has certainly not started to sing yet!