After a very busy first quarter the teams at Lowe and Rivet Sydney took to Sydney Harbour on two sailing boats.

Afterwards we all settled into a few cold ones at Walsh Bay Wharf.

Lynx and Lowe & Rivet have made male soap use a crime and created a squad of beautiful women charged with reducing male soap use and turning guys on to Lynx Shower Gel.

We launched the Lynx Anti Soap Squad (L.A.S.S.) on radio and the web, using these mediums as the main drivers for a huge awareness campaign targeting a notoriously difficult group to reach — males aged 18 to 24.

Check it out.

Last night ElectroCity won a coveted AIMIA Award. Tom Markham took to the stage to accept the award.

The AIMIA Awards are the peak Awards for the Interactive Media and Digital Content sectors in Australia.

Rivet Australia’s recent Kiwi creative imports had a hugely successful night at the John Caples International Awards in New York, collecting four of the twelve trophies won by New Zealand agencies.

Between them, Rivet ECD Chris Hunter and Interactive CD Tom Markham scored a First for the Stella Artois Fight Club experiential campaign, two Seconds for Vodafone and nzdating.com and a Third for the Genesis Energy ElectroCity website. They also had three more campaigns listed as Finalists.

Last Friday, ElectroCity also won two first places at the NZ Direct and Interactive Marketing Awards, picking up the gongs for Best Interactive Creative and Best Interactive Strategy.

The Stella Artois Fight Club and the Vodafone v.box interactive work both won Silver in the Loyalty/Relationship Programme category, and v.box also collected a Bronze for Customer Retention.

On Friday night, Rivet’s groundbreaking website ElectroCity won two first
places at the NZ Direct and Interactive Marketing Awards, picking up the
gongs for Best Interactive Creative and Best Interactive Strategy. Our
Sydney-based Interactive Creative Director, Tom Markham, designed
ElectroCity for Genesis Energy, New Zealand’s largest electricity retailer.

The Stella Artois ‘Fight Club’ and Vodafone NZ v.box interactive work both
won Silver in the Loyalty/Relationship Programme category, and v.box also
collected a Bronze for Customer Retention.

Rivet ECD Chris Hunter was in Auckland to pick up the awards, and joined the
Genesis Energy clients for a night to remember!

Here at Lowe Sydney we have invoked the magic of Street Theatre to drive ticket sales for the Hyundai A-League Football Finals Series for the Football Federation Australia.

Using the ‘90 minutes, 90 emotions’ brand campaign idea as inspiration, we used actors to bring to life the various emotions fans go through when watching football in popular Sydney and Brisbane public spaces.

Passers by will be able to choose from ‘Joy’, ‘Passion’, ‘Elation’, ‘Tension’, ‘Worry’, or ‘Despair’ and then have the actor play out that emotion.

Football Federation Australia’s senior marketing manager Peter Jarmain said “With our target demographic being 16-24 year olds, it’s crucial we think outside of traditional media and seek out other means to resonate with our target audience through online and experiential”. This campaign provides a truly unique way to articulate the crowd atmosphere and range of emotions experienced at the Hyundai A-league. It’s a great extension to our existing TVC and print media.

Dave Johnson Lowe Executive Creative Director said “When taken out of the context of a stadium, a football fan’s behavior is really pretty extraordinary, so by literally taking a singular fan and placing him on a street corner amongst our target, we were really able to amplify the range of emotions that the game elicits to huge effect.

“What I love about the Interactive Fan is that the interactivity is totally fake. The idea that passers by can instigate certain emotions in a fan just by pushing a pedal is ridiculous, but this proved to be a most irresistible and entertaining draw card” said Johnson.

The interactive fan will also be pushed out virally and forms part of the finals series campaign supported by TV, radio and print.

Watch the interactive fan in action

Tony Wright, the London-based Chairman of Lowe, is arriving in Sydney this weekend.

We’re looking forward to Tony’s visit because his thinking has a big impact in the real world. In the last three months, he’s led Lowe to major account wins against the toughest international agency competition. These include the giant China Mobile company and the international Signal toothpaste and Magnum ice cream brands.

Tony was recently named as one of the world’s best 5 planners by the influential UK magazine Campaign. And in his previous role as Chief of Planning and Strategy for Ogilvy & Mather, he created the ‘360 Degree Branding Toolkit’ - widely recognised as the leading model for integrated marketing.

Tony will be in Sydney for the week, meeting with Lowe clients, key influencers and the media.

They say toddlers have little tummies and big appetites. Well for Yahoo7 – celebrating 2 years will be a big deal. The company has been at the forefront of Seven’s push into new media and under the stewardship of Rohan Lund has made a competitive stand in the Australia marketplace – still dominated by adolescent players.

In fact it’s hard to think that the joint-venture is only two years old tomorrow. Proof of digital’s speed? That was just part of what Rohan said to this year’s AFA Graduate Trainees – our Grad among them - who have just started their one week intensive course.

We welcome your thoughts too.

Rivet’s ECD Chris Hunter and Interactive CD Tom Markham have featured prominently in the list of finalists for the 30th John Caples International Awards in New York.

Their work for Rivet’s New Zealand office last year has resulted in seven mentions, on clients including Vodafone, Genesis Energy, GlaxoSmithKline and nzdating.com.

It’s great news for the agency as Chris and Tom are now based in Sydney.

While this blog is usually dedicated to the goings on here at Lowe and Rivet’s HQ, we couldn’t help but notice the innovative launch of a new airline.

British Airways (BA) has launched a new airline – called OpenSkies with daily flights from New York to Europe, taking advantage of last year’s EU-US “open skies” deal to free up the key transatlantic market. (Source). Now the product itself is quite innovative. Flying medium sized jets they are going to have roughly the same number of passengers in Business (24), Premium Economy (28) and Economy Class (30) giving it a comparative executive jet feel and smaller more intimate cabins throughout.

But what caught our attention was the launch website which is … a blog. With a name like OpenSkies, BA has established a brand name that promises a new levels of brand and consumer interaction. Well the blog seems to be taking that promise forward. A read of the behind the blog section spells out the plans for the site and that two-way conversation that we think is so important.

If you want to see an example closer to home (apart from the site your on right now) check out the blog – The Full Picture - on the FOXTEL HD site we recently launched. Hosted by Patrick Delany - FOXTEL’s Executive Director of Content, Product & Delivery Innovation – it’s another great example of brands opening up dialogue with their most passionate consumers.

We just launched a new website aiming to be the ‘definitive guide’ to HD for Australians for our client Foxtel.

It’s all about the pixels and their life now that HD is coming and they will have to share the same space with over 4 times as many pixels!!! Check it out.

Michael is Lowe Rivet’s IT guru and has some answers for you…

1) Which is the campaign that impressed you most this year?
The Silverjet (All business) airline ads in the UK

2) In your job, which is the most important thing you learnt this year?
Solutions are only solutions if they work for the client

3) As a marketer what’s on top of your agenda for 2008?
Redeveloping my site (digitalsalad.com.au) and having a go at blogging.

4) What, in your opinion, will be a killer application/key trend in marketing in 2008?
Killer Applications - more mobile tools for smart phones, PDA’s. Gone are the days of pulling out a street directory. Just pull out your blackberry and go to google maps

5) Which book would you give as a Christmas present to a colleague?
Change the world 9-5. 50 ways to change the world at work

With only a few posts to go, today we hear what Judi Lewis has to say in response to the advent calendar questions.

1) Which is the campaign that impressed you most this year?
Probably stating the obvious – but it’s hard to go past NY Tap. I wish I could say I was involved. Such a simple insight coupled with a big idea and executed brilliantly.

2) In your job, which is the most important thing you learnt this year?
The majority of agencies fail to do what they advise Clients – create a clear single-minded proposition that is substantiated and which differentiates from the competition.

3) As a marketer what’s on top of your agenda for 2008?
Based on question no.2, top on the agenda for next year is creating greater distinction as an agency. Not just for the sake of it, but to give greater value to our Clients and more opportunity for our people.

4) What, in your opinion, will be a killer application/key trend in marketing in 2008?
What I hope the trend will be; more marketers committing resources to deliver greater personalisation and customisation. Given all the technology available, there is absolutely no excuse for irrelevant marketing communications. The marketers who have applied this strategy are rightly enjoying the rewards. Look no further than the Apple IPOD and Nike collaboration (Nike+).

5) Which book would you give as a Christmas present to a colleague?
Chris Hunter beat me to the punch, my pick is also ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy. It really is superb. Don’t be put off by the dark plot – it is an outstanding read.

Tony is our Head of Strategic Planning and today’s advent calendar man.

1) Which is the campaign that impressed you most this year?
The wind initiative: Nordpol in Hamburg. This is not really a campaign but still is such a compelling communication that takes the area of environmental energy and talks about it in a totally new, fresh way, that breaks from the usual more worthy comm’s on this topic. It stops you in your tracks and makes you think differently.

2) In your job, which is the most important thing you learnt this year?
Often the things you worry most about never amount to anything of any real consequence. But the things that become a problem could not have been forseen. So I have learnt to worry less and to be more accepting of unexpected surprises when they arrive.

3) As a marketer what’s on top of your agenda for 2008? 
Focus on delivering solutions that are about taking brands to where they need to be in 2 years time rather than 2 months time.

4) What, in your opinion, will be a killer application/key trend in marketing in 2008?
Application: The exponential use of social networking platforms (EG: FACEBOOK) in mobile devices
Trend: The rise and rise of brands that give technology a human face.

5) Which book would you give as a Christmas present to a colleague?
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: Deepak Chopra

Unilever has consolidated its $100m (£48.8m) global advertising account for the Signal toothpaste brand into Lowe Worldwide, without a pitch, relieving Bartle Bogle Hegarty of the European account.

The European business, which is estimated to be worth around $40m in terms of billings, will move out of BBH as part of a global realignment of the brand. BBH has handled the European account since 2004.
Lowe already handles creative duties for the Signal brand in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The move has been credited to a four-strong team from Lowe, including Tony Wright, worldwide chairman for Lowe, and Jean-Louis Roche, chief executive of Lola in Madrid, Lowe’s Spanish ad agency.
The team was completed by Fernado Vega Olmos, global creative director at Lowe, and Richard Kelly, global planning director.
Sebastian Lazell, Unilever’s senior vice-president for oral care, said: “Our global brands are being run in an ever more coordinated way and a single agency realignment will obviously help.
“We greatly value the relationship with BBH on Signal in the recent past but for the future we want to consolidate the business into one global communications partner and given Lowe’s extensive geographical coverage and experience of our Signal business globally, Lowe were the obvious choice.”
Signal is also the umbrella brand for a number of other brands including Pepsodent, Aim, Zhonghia and Pf.