THIS IS THE NEWS: ON-GOINGS AND GOINGS-ON AT SEVENTY SEVEN

MORE ON THAT SPAR STORY

Finally managed to track the clip down and get it up online ... Jonathan Ross, Dara O'Briain and Dominic Cooper have a crack at the SPAR regional wine labels on the show last night. Loving it. A lot ...

MORE FROM SPAR ...

Update from team SPAR as we came in this morning to some lovely coverage, including pieces in the METRO, The Times, Daily Star, Daily Mail, The Sun and a host of regional dailies.

What's more, the story made the "and finally" in the Guardian's Daily Podcast. Which was nice ...

Oh, and there has been some really lovely radio coverage. Somewhere, there is a BBC World Service piece, but we can't find the damn thing. Meantime, so of the really rather lovely regional stuff ...

More as it comes, I guess. But some sweet work, though we do say so ourselves. Totally boss, canny SPAR team.

SPAR TAKES ON SOME WINE CONVENTIONS

Fun and games in Seventy Seven today as we hit the phones to see what could be done with the regional wine labels, written in the many-splendoured dialects of the UK.

If you want to get a real sense of it all, the original tasting note for our Merlot said ... "A truly great Merlot which is ablaze with succulent blackcurrants and blueberries. This Merlot has legs like a thoroughbred, strong and forward, which tantalises your palate. Its full bouquet is a delight for your nose and will leave you yearning for more. This isn’t a wine for the faint hearted."

This was how we re-interpreted that across the nation ...

For more like this, you might also take a look at the YouTube channel that we hastily popped together to get the recordings out and about.

If there isn't more to say about the coverage tomorrow, we will be ... disappointed. Particularly because we've a host of regional radio interviews lined up, ITN South West and five News tomorrow.

PA has done us proud with a cracking piece out on the wires too.

But the highlight so far is the Guardian's piece on the story, which Hilary Osborne has written-up with tongue firmly wedged in cheek. What's more, that story has meant that SPAR has gone Twitter-tastic, with what can only be described as a spectrum of opinion on our little story.

That aside, thank you to the nice Twitterers and bloggers who've joined the fun ... Steel Wine, Words & Fixtures, Drinking Outside the Box, hilaryosborne, vinocations, OliverStyles, Laura Lindsay, Sophie Goodwin, The Wine Diary, Guardian Food, Guardian Life & Style and UK Beer Bloggers.

THETRAINLINE.COM STORMS THE CHARTS

Many smiles on the faces of thetrainline.com team this week as their iPhone App stormed the App Store charts, clocking in as the second most downloaded free applications in the world.

Lovely stuff, we thought to ourselves.

So far, it's been favourably reviewed by many nice folk (thank you nice folk). And so it should have been, what with an offline timetable, as well as live and updated train times, a natty little "next train home" feature and a "last train home" thingy, too.

Well worth a look.

MORE CRACKING NINTENDO AND AARDMAN WORK

Back-story is here. Meantime, some more lovely shorts by Aardman for Nintendo.

BTW, the videos have now had over 400,000 views. Not bad, we reckon.

THE LATEST AARDMAN FILM FOR NINTENDO

There is a full back story to this piece of work.

Meantime, enjoy the latest film ...

FLIPPING QUALITY WORK WITH NINTENDO

Brief mention for a cracking campaign that Seventy Seven has been working on with Nintendo.

Faced with the need to create an idea to promote Flipnote Studio, the new DSiWare software that enables users to create flipbook animations with their Nintendo DSi, we came up with the idea of working with some of the creatives at Aardman Animations to see what they would come up with.

In the end, they came up with gold. Mad gold. But gold nevertheless.

So we have a collection of 12 mini-films, all of which have been created with Flipnote, that we hope will show what can be done with a bit of time and effort and will inspire people to get flipping.

So far, film one (released a month or so ago) has clocked up over 225,000 views on Flipnote Hatena (the site that hosts the flip note films). The second and third films in the series are doing very nicely too thank you, numbers-wise.

And they have picked up some cracking online coverage delivered by Nintendo's network of European agencies. Which is what it was all about.

The first three films are below for your viewing pleasure. Note: someone has ripped these to YouTube, so the numbers aren't quite as high. To see them on Hatena, they're here, here and here.

SEVENTY SEVEN GAMBLES ON NAKED TRUTH

News hit today that we've picked up the work for the Betfair-backed right2bet campaign.

And what a cracking campaign it is too.

We're working (alongside our European network partners in Sweden, Netherlands, Germany and Finland) on a PR and digital campaign to try and garner 1 million signatures, forcing the EU to take a more balanced and consistent approach to gambling regulations.

At the moment, gamblers in many European states can't access services from businesses based in other countries. So while you can play strip poker in public in many countries, you can't play poker in the comfort of your own home. Madness.

So we're on the case with our petition to tell the naked truth about gambling.

First up, the naked petition. Head to the right2bet website and sign our rather lovely campaign ambassador ... ANYWHERE about her body. What's more, if you do sign our friendly lovely, you'll be treated to her "bouncy video" as she celebrates your sign-up ... with a Space Hopper.

Lots more to come from this one ...

A SWEET PIECE OF WORK FOR CHILDREN IN NEED

So the Terry Cake launched today amidst a bit of a media scrum in Covent Garden as Sir Terry came face-to-face with his baked alterego (as created by Jane Asher) ...

A little over 25 snappers down at the shoot to watch Terry come face-to-face with his own visage in cake-form, which has meant that shots are now in every news room across the land.

To be honest, there is a little too much coverage to shake a stick at, but a clean sheet in the tabs, with pieces on Daily Express, Daily Mirror (including our PA Multimedia film), METRO, the Daily Mail and The Sun.

Then there was the BBC coverage, including the News front page, a cracking live on BBC News24 and pieces out on the regional radio network, the BBC London News, you name it. Oh, and some splendid stuff on all the major portals (thanks to Tiscali, MSN, AOL, VirginMedia and Yahoo).

Cap that off with a simply stunning crop of regional stuff as we hit both PA and Johnston Press networks. So you can't on balance, say fairer than that.

Let Terry meet cake ... we say.

Here's our Terry chatting about the whole thing on his Radio 2 show this morning ...

IBUYECO BACKS (PARK)ING DAY IN THE UK

Much fun and many games in Seventy Seven this week as the ibuyeco team brought the San Francisco-originated (PARK)ing Day to the UK for the first time.

Basically, a one-day event that encourages people to legally and legitimately book out a public parking space and to create a little area of calm in it by creating a mini-park in the area.

In all truth, the whole affair is best-explained in this film-ette that was created by the team and seems to have been picked up widely by the eco-blogs. Which is lovely ...

For those who might be interested, the highlight of the coverage was BBC London, who managed to stick the story into their regional news loop on the day, along with plenty of online stuff. Nice work to a happy team of Jo, Izzy, Laura, Ro, Shaun, Emily and lots of others from across the agency.

HOTELS.COM ON BBC WORLD AND SKY NEWS

Another Hotel Price Index has yielded bucket-loads of coverage.

Including these two cracking pieces ...

BAREFOOT CLEANS UP MEDIA-WISE

The Barefoot team were cock-a-hoop with the culmination of some fine work in partnership with Surfers Against Sewage.

The final leg of the team's Big Beach Clean Up saw Barefoot (which sponsored the south coast clean up) plastered across the BBC South East and ITV Meridian reports of the team in Brighton.

Nice work altogether from the Barefoot collective, who are Izzy, Jo, Alice, Laura and Sarah.

Barefoot on Meridian on Vimeo.

Barefoot on BBC SE on Vimeo.

YOUTH MUSIC BOX ROLLS ONWARDS

More great feedback to report from our work on the Youth Music Box.

The team of Alice, James, Amanda, Jess and Alex have been rocking the blogosphere with our pitches to some of the UK's top music and culture blogs and it would seem that Alice's work has been paying dividends.

We're hoping that it's because we've had something relevant and interesting to say to them ...

Anyhow, big thanks go out to the lovely people who have covered the launch of the Box, who include in no particular order ... Nintendo Wii Reviews, theLondonPaper reviews, Superfuture, The Mixtress, London to MK, Soundmind on theStar, Blogging around the clock, ViewLondon, AllofStuff and Hypebot.

Thanks, folks, we appreciate the shout outs.

WOLFF OLINS AND THE BRANDS OF THE FUTURE

It's been a cracking work for the diminutive team of Alan and James on Wolff Olins.

Three cracking pieces on various Wolff Olins topics, including comment in a full-page FT analysis of retailers moving into the banking sector, a belting FT management case study of their innovation work with Mercedes and comment in Business Week on why private equity is snapping up orphan brands.

Not bad for a consumer agency, eh?

Not content with all that, however, our research into the idea that the next global superbrands will come from emerging markets graced the front of the Companies & Markets section on Monday.

Since then, the story has gone global with belting pieces across the world's media including pieces on leading markets blog, FT Alphaville, Emirates Business, BrandRepublic, Campaign India, BrandRepublic Asia, UTalkMarketing, Fast Company, The Grocer and GulfNews.

By all accounts, the agency has had new business calls and requests for the research report. Which just goes to show that PR does work ... Lovely work, boys.

IT WAS JINGLE BELLS IN SEVENTY SEVEN

Even Bumblebee had to agree that the bling was a bit ostentatious

We’ve all been extremely good in Seventy Seven this year, which is why Christmas came  early for us as once again we helped Hamleys to unveil the toys that will see parents going into a blind panic come the festive season.

Over 65 journalists and TV crews pitched up to the Play Room at the Regent Street store, which had been transformed into a Christmas grotto.

The Press Association, Bloomberg, ITN, Sun, Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Star and the Times – to name a few – were all treated to a few mince pies and a sneak peak at the Hamleys buyers' top picks for this year.

Not content with just our hot picks, we had journalists poring over toys from the traditional to luxury … and, in some cases, downright bizarre: Swarovski crystal-encrusted Lamborghini, anyone?

The result has been fantastic coverage in almost all of the nationals, including full-page spreads in the Daily Star and Daily Express and pick up in the Times, the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, the Independent and Mirror, as well as the METRO and thelondonpaper.

Broadcast pieces have also appeared so far on the BBC, SKY, Heart FM, Bloomberg, Smooth Radio and ITN, with more still to come.

There's also been some great pick up north of the border with the Aberdeen P&J and Herald picking up the story.

The long leads also turned out in force with journalists from Good Housekeeping, Essentials, Woman & Home, Prima Baby, T3 and Junior (amongst others) all popping down to take a look.

And with coverage still rolling in, the Hamleys team (Alan, Caroline, Dylan, Nicki, Fred and Jess) are feeling very proud of themselves! What good little elves we are ...

Hamleys Christmas in July 2009 on Vimeo.

LAUNCHING YOUTH MUSIC BOX

Seventy Seven has been working with Youth Music, the music charity, to launch Youth Music Box. Basically, a fantastic music-making installation down at the Southbank Centre open now (11.00 am-7.00 pm daily) until 31 August. And it is brilliant, as this piece from the Beeb explains ...

CHILDREN IN NEED GET ... SEVENTY SEVEN

If you were a child in need, I'm not sure that Seventy Seven would necessarily be your dream solution. Thankfully, we're helping Children in Need, rather than children in need.

As reported on PRWeek.com, we've been appointed as CiN's first ever PR agency to help them to launch this year's activity in September and sustain the campaign through to the big night in mid-November.

According to the site, we beat Publicasity and Trimedia to the job and we're really looking forward to what should be a cracking couple of months of activity. Nice work from the team of Caroline, Alice, Laura and Alan.

FWD HITS THE BBC

Couple of nice pieces today for the Federation of Wholesale Distributors "My Shop is Your Shop" campaign during National Independents Week, a celebration of the UK's local and independent stores. BBC Radio 4 Today and BBC Radio Five Live Breakfast will do nicely ...

FWD on Radio 4 Today on Vimeo

FWD on Radio Five Live on Vimeo

MY SHOP IS YOUR SHOP HITS SUN FRONT PAGE

Cracking stuff today as the My Shop is Your Shop campaign made the front-page splash of the Sun as part of a new partnership to celebrate National Independents Week, which celebrates the role in communities across the country of the local and convenience store. An absolute belter for the campaign as the week kicks off ...

MILLSY GIVES A SECOND OPINION ...

Amanda has also popped up in PR Week today as she gives a second opinion on a campaign to ensure that childcare becomes an option for chaps.

A high risk strategy, she concludes, but one which ultimately paid off with some cracking coverage for the activity. Nice work by the Children's Workforce Development Council and Band & Brown, it would appear.

There isn't a version of it on the PR Week website, so will pop a link to the scan up here at some stage in the not-too-distant, so you'll just have to take my word that it is a lovely piece in the meantime ...

SEVENTY SEVEN WINS SPAR BRIEF

Nice piece in PR Week about our winning a bunch of work from retailer, SPAR.

Many fun things are to follow as we seek to raise awareness of the quality of the SPAR's wine offering across their wine aisles and turn them into something of a "challenger brand" when it comes to the grapey stuff.

Big congrats go to the team of Alan, Cazza, Nicki and James. All good ...

Read all about it ... here.

IN HARMONY SCORES AGAIN

More lovely work from the In Harmony team with this stunner on Look East ...

In Harmony in Anglia on Vimeo

MORE NEW WORK IN SEVENTY SEVEN

They're like buses someetimes, new business wins.

You wait a while for one to arrive then three arrive at once.

So it has been in Seventy Seven.

Sadly, we can't yet say who they are but news reached us over the last couple of weeks of wins for an Eco-brand, a soon to launch online music service, a major national retailer and a youth charity campaign.

Oh, and new work from Gallo Family Vineyards and Hamleys has also landed. So that should keep us happily busy for the next few months.

Happy days ...

SEVENTY SEVEN CREATES "LAMBIENT MEDIA"

Quite fun ... we've taken thetrainline.com into advertising on sheep. Or Lambient Media, as we have chosen to christen it. Some piccies below of some of the finest sheep that can be bought (or found thanks to some well-placed advertising in Farmer's Guardian).

For those who want to see the "making of lambient media" film - it's true that NOTHING can be done now without a "making of ..." film - we stuck a quick report of the antics on YouTube. Rather pleasantly, the Daily Express decided that it was worthy of a place on their website, too ...

IN HARMONY IN THE LIMELIGHT

This week was a loud and exuberant one for In Harmony - the English community development programme that is based on the widely acclaimed Venezuelan, El Sistema programme.

The Venezuelan programme, responsible for providing some of the country's poorest young people with instruments, training and ultimately a different way of life, has produced the most exciting young conductor of our time, Gustavo Dudamel and subsequently the most celebrated youth orchestra ever, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.

This week, the Orchestra is in residency at the South Bank - the actual concerts were sold out over 10 months ago but the DCSF gave out hundreds of free tickets to young people around the country to watch the rehearsals. The residency provided a prime opportunity for In Harmony to demonstrate just how far the UK's own project has come since the concept that was announced at the end of 2007.

The young people of Lambeth, one of the pilot areas chosen to pilot the In Harmony project, performed at the South Bank Centre on Friday April 17th, and the projects leader and champion, Julian Lloyd Webber sat on the panel of the Saturday symposium, discussing the role of programmes such as El Sistema and In Harmony, alongside the revered founder and director of El Sistema, José Antonio Abreu, chaired by James Naughtie of BBC Radio 4's TODAY programme and the Guardian's Chief Arts Writer, Charlotte Higgins.

In order to hit the media while passions were running high about the residency and also take advantage of having the various projects in London, we contacted key national media targets prior to the residency to ensure that In Harmony was recognised and referenced as the English programme. 

As a result, the In Harmony programme was included in general reviews and features in The Times, The Guardian and the Independent.

Working with the South Bank press office, interviews were also set up for Julian Lloyd Webber and Brendon LePage, the leader of the Lambeth In Harmony project, with National Geographic Kids and the Evening Standard. Music Teacher Magazine attended the event along with the South London Press and further features have been lined up with The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian and the Independent.

ROYAL BLIND IN PR WEEK

Nice case study in PR Week on our campaign for Royal Blind (click image to enlarge).

WOLFF OLINS ON COKE AND INNOCENT

Nice piece in Marketing Week in which Wolff Olins are quoted on the Coke and innocent deal that was announced this week. Interesting stuff indeed (click the image to enlarge it). They did another interview with the Sunday Times, so will pop a link to that here when it's out.

WOLFF OLINS GETS SPEEDY INDEEDY ...

Part client-related, partly just plain interesting, this one.

Google, YouTube, London Business School and the Daily Telegraph have partnered together to create an interesting business channel on the video site: Survival of the Fastest.

On the one hand, it demonstrates the fact that YouTube is interesting beyond animals falling off stuff and babies eating things. Which is a good thing in itself.

It's also interesting because of some of the people who are involved - one of whom is Ije Nwokore at Wolff Olins (Seventy Seven's very own clients). He does a piece on whether brands matter in tough economic times. And we think that it's jolly interesting ...

Also of interest is the IPA and Ogilvy's Rory Sutherland talking about customer service in a downturn ...

There's a LOAD of other good stuff on the channel - it's well worth a watch. Variously, they are on the themes of Speed, Marketing and Insights.

MORE LOVELY SING UP WORK

Isn't this a lovely piece?

Alice sorted it out with ITV Meridien and it is a BEAUTY ...

Sing Up on ITV Meridien on Vimeo.

MEDIAWATCH RELAUNCH MOMENT

Thought that folks might like to know that we have revamped and relaunched our MediaWatch weblog.

Taking a look at it, we realised that it'd got a bit behind the latest moves (too much real work to be blogging for the last couple of months). So we've stripped it back and are relaunching it.

Lots of good stuff, including the latest journalist moves (the useful ones, not the fact that Needlework and Cross-stitch Monthly has got a new editor), as well as relaunches of mags, supps and websites.

Oh, and the odd piece of commentary on the media news that we think matters.

HPI RIDES (YET AGAIN)

Another Hotels.com Hotel Price Index has been and gone. Lovely piece from Simon Calder. But also a couple of lovely broadcast pieces - that have been popped up on YouTube by Cordy over at H.com.

Cracking interviews with CNN ...

... and BBC News 24 ...

SEVENTY SEVEN ON STREETVIEW

Would you look at that ... our offices on Google StreetView ...

YOUTH MUSIC'S BANDWAGON ROLLS ON

Those with Elephantine memories will remember that we are doing some work with Youth Music on the impact of games like Guitar Hero on the take up of real instruments?

Well, the campaign that kicked off in December last year (but which has generated national coverage on and off ever since), scored its final major piece this week as the BBC World Service Digital Planet programme covered the report with interviews with Richard Stilgoe and Andrew Missingham of the campaign.

Youth Music on Digital Planet on Vimeo.

CLIENT HAT TRICK ON THREE

What a lovely evening it was settling down to listen to BBC Radio 3's flagship music feature programme Music Matters last night. No fewer than three Seventy Seven clients featured in a music education special recorded at the Manchester MusicLearningLive!2009 event.

Christina Coker (chair of Youth Music), a Sing Up schools music education programme and an interview with Julian Lloyd Webber about the In Harmony programme that we PR on behalf of DCSF all feature in the show. Lovely stuff for a laid back Saturday night listen ...

Everyone on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters on Vimeo.

NICE WORK TEAM ... THETRAINLINE.COM WIN

It's lovely to do some storming client work (and there have been some really sweet campaigns from Wolff Olins, Royal Blind, some lovely stuff on Hotels.com and Sing Up). But it's also nice to win new stuff.

So we were delighted when we heard that we'd won thetrainline.com PR business.

For those few of you who might not know, the site is the UK's biggest independent train booking site and we've picking up their UK brand promotion work. Really lovely stuff.

Expect to see all manner of train-travel related stuff from the team in the nation's newspapers shortly ... We kick off with them mid-month.

Sweet work from a team that includes Jo, Nicki, Izzy, Chris, Kathryn and James.

PR Week have scribbled a piece on the news here.

SINGING UP FOR MUSIC IN SCHOOLS

Sometimes you triumph in adversity in PR ... challenges become opportunities and sound media relations turns a story that might go against you into a chance to tell a positive tale ...

So it has been in the case of the Sing Up team and the report on music-making in schools by OfSTED.

The report looked like it might lead to a rash of negative reporting, critical as it was of school music – largely based on the inspectors’ findings in secondary schools, rather than at primary level, which is Sing Up’s concern.

However, some fast digesting of chunky reports, swift assembling of responses and some sound media relations from the team of Jess, Alice, Lucy and James led to some broadcast coverage that would have done a proactive PR campaign proud – let alone a piece of work where we were in a potential firing line.

Particular highlights include the agenda-setter as Sing Up ambassador Howard Goodall took to Radio 4’s Today Programme to put the case for the music sector, complete with children singing drifting across the airwaves at 7.45 in the morning.

Sing Up on Today on Vimeo.

That was followed by a belting piece skilfully marshalled by Alice and Lucy as BBC education editor James Westhead headed to a Sing Up school to do some filming for the One O’Clock and Six O’Clock TV news bulletins. We were rather pleased with the branding in this one ...

Sing Up on the Beeb on Vimeo.

Other highlights include another Howard interview on LBC as our singing ambassador went out once again to champion music in schools. No doubt there will be more to come, but we’re well-pleased to be getting our point across in ways that are compelling and engaging for parents and teachers listening-in.

WOLFF OLINS ON FACEBOOK

Good work from Alan and James this ... With a bit of help from the Beeb's Rory Cellan Jones, no less.

Facebook hit the ripe old age of five today ... Spotting an opportunity, our erstwhile Wolff Olins publicists swung into what passes for action where they are concerned.

The opportunity to use the birthday coverage as a reason to talk about Wolff Olins' "Brand Next" thinking - that brands must now create platforms for their users to do useful things, that they must free themselves to be defined by their users rather than trying to push their own myths and images and that they must become links for people and organizations to come together rather than organizational islands - seemed a natural fit.

They first scored an interview with BBC west coast corrie Maggie Shiels, who popped quotes into her News Online piece.

A swift follow-up with RCJ led to him pinging our pitch note across White City, a call from News 24 and an appearance by director Robert Jones to do a live in the studio (he did us proud). Lovely work altogether ...

BBC News24 piece below ...

Wolff Olins on Facebook on Vimeo.

WOLFF OLINS ON MONOCLE WEEKLY

Nice piece (we thought) for Wolff Olins as their CEO, Karl Heiselman, chats to Tyler Brûlé about "brand America" in the wake of the inauguration of Barack Obama. Sweet angle, nicely delivered. And some really interesting commentary on the whole area ... New Stars and Stripes, anyone?

Wolff Olins on Monocle on Vimeo.

ROYAL BLIND SHOWREEL ...

Our work for Royal Blind in showreel form ...

Seventy Seven: Royal Blind from Seventy Seven PR on Vimeo.

BLINDING COVERAGE FOR BRAILLE CAMPAIGN

We launched our campaign for charity Royal Blind this week as they marked the 200th anniversary of Louis Braille's birth during National Braille Week.

At the same time, we launched an appeal to raise £2 million to save one of the UK's leading braille "printing" presses - which ensures that blind people have access to the written word.

To bring the campaign to life and give it media currency, we recruited Scottish author Ian Rankin (whose son attends the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh) as an ambassador for the campaign.

And we cleaned up in the media.

The Times covered the story with our pictures (we brailled part of Rankin's Fleshmarket Close and created an installation on the walls of the street of the same name for a photocall).

The Guardian has put its weight behind the campaign with news coverage (and more to come), as well as an editorial in praise of braille.

STV, GMTV Scotland and the BBC all covered the story for TV, while You & Yours weighed in with a piece on Radio 4 and Radio Five Live also covered the story.

Across the regions, there were pieces across BBCs Radio Scotland, York, Solent, Bristol, West Midlands and Three Counties (amongst others) and another 60-odd pieces from the various interviews co-ordinated with our chums at MarketTiers.

And - what with a Scottish charity and a Scottish author, the nationals north of the border also weighed in with lengthy pieces across the Scotsman (twice), Record, P&J and Herald.

The team of Alan, Nicki and Amy are justifiably proud of what has been a fantastic campaign. And thanks to the work, Royal Blind should be well on their way to hitting their fundraising target.

SECRET SANTA IN SEVENTY SEVEN

One of the secret Santa gifts (Lucy's, as it happens) was this fabulous set of cups ... Pick Your Nose cups, they're called. And very fetching Alan and Alice look with them too!

PANASONIC ... THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN ...

James got involved in judging the Panasonic Next Generation Talent contest this week ... as they searched for new ideas from young creatives to advertise their new TV.

Some of the shortlisted work (there were six pieces that a panel of judges, including James shortlisted) was stunning and well worth a look.

For James' money ... Messing Around was a bit too Sony given the Play-Doh, but in another media could work ... Boxes is lovely but perhaps a bit generic ... Tree could do with some work but is a lovely concept ... and Memories was a lovely, lovely idea that I could see working well for the brand ...

Anyhow, James judged, but then the people were asked to vote and, lo, they did.

"Boxes" came out on top in the advertising contest. Congrats to the lovely people who put together this rather lovely piece of visual communication ...

Anyone wishing to watch the judging process and get the thoughts of the judges (including me!) can do so by watching the couple of films below ...

One on the process overall ...

Another with some comments on the winner ...

ROCKING OUT WITH YOUTH MUSIC

We've been unleashing our inner rock gods for Youth Music as a team of Alice, Amanda, James and Jess were PRing a report on the influence of video games on kids' propensity to take up real instruments.

The campaign was an odd one ... we needed to hit parents who might be buying games at Christmas, the hard-core gaming community AND the educational and music establishments.

So a combination of national and regional radio and some serious pitching to the online gaming and trade websites seemed like the natural answer.

We're just waiting on the final tally, but we reckon that we managed to hit a little of 60 regional radio stations offering a combination of Andrew Missingham (author of our report, which established that around 1 million people between 12 and 18 have been inspired to take up an instrument thanks to games) and Richard Stilgoe for some musical gravitas.

SKY Radio delivered the bulk of those fellas thanks to a cunningly sold-in news package that was neatly syndicated out, but BBC radio stations chipped in to the tally in large style.

Hitting the gaming crowds, meantime, a couple of well-placed features did the trick. A piece with TimesOnline delivered the depth and gravitas that we wanted, while a news piece in the Daily Telegraph's gaming section meant that the rest of the gaming world would sit up, take note and copy and paste - reaching far and wide across the world's online gaming community.

And pick up they did, with pieces on ... MSN, WiiGamer, Kotaku, GamesDog, C&VG, PCFormat, GoNintendo, WiiParent and TechRadar. The education sector coverage is coming through more slowly, but is coming ... so far, pieces on EduNews and Music4Games ... more to follow on that front.

All-in-all, however, we're showing that Youth Music ROCKS!

MILLSY ON LONELY PLANET

Millsy - Seventy Seven's very own travel PR wiz (amongst many other things, obviously), is in this week's PR Week chatting about the implications of the launch of Lonely Planet magazine from the BBC ... and its potential impact on the likes of Wanderlust ... here.

GET YOUR FAMILY "ON THE CASE"

Just to mention a fun thing that we have done with our Hotels.com client ... Picture Pillows!

Basically, we all know how unglamourous business travel is, don't we? Anonymous hotel meeting rooms, anonymous hotel lobbies and, apart from the drive from the airport, the only thing you see of the city is perhaps a Euro-bar that could be anywhere?

Well. that may be dull, but worse is being away from loved ones. Now, the Picture Pillow may not replace a wife/husband/child/lover, but at least it's a reminder of them.

You can get yours (if you are one of the lucky 100 people selected, as this is just a trial at the moment) by emailing pillowphotos@hotels.com with your chosen image.

Lovely ...!

SEVENTY SEVEN IN PR WEEK

Couple of pieces in today's PR Week from us, which is all lovely ...

James' Second Opinion on the launch of the New Football Pools appears in the Campaigns pages of the magazine, while our Youth Music win gets a mention on the charities pages.

More to come as there are a couple of recent wins that we can talk about soon ...

AND ANOTHER SHOWREEL ...

Sing Up this time, which we have been a bit behind in getting together ... LOVELY work though, no?!

Seventy Seven: Sing Up launch from Seventy Seven PR on Vimeo.

GET YOUR WALKING SHOES ON ...

Another "My Shop is Your Shop" campaign as we took to the newspages and airwaves to encourage folk to walk to their local shop, calculating the savings to shoppers' wallets and the environment that could be made if we walked to the stores rather than driving.

The coverage kicked off with an exclusive in the Daily Mirror (above) and was followed by no less than 65 radio interviews featuring our very own Alan Twigg as the spokesman for the campaign. No less than eleven BBC stations and a crop of regionals secured through SKY News Radio.

Lovely work from the team of Jo, Amanda and Twiggy ... and Alan's dulcit Scottish brogue is to be heard on the interview below.

Walk to the Shop ... from Seventy Seven PR on Vimeo.

COUPLE OF NEW SHOWREELS ...

Given the re-branding, we had to re-do all of our lovely showreels. We also took the opportunity to make a couple of new ones to show off our work on the RSPCA and on the various E&J Gallo Winery brands that we work on ...

RSPCA's Good Business Awards work is here ...

RSPCA Good Business Awards from Seventy Seven PR on Vimeo.

The E&J Gallo work is here ...

E&J Gallo Winery from Seventy Seven PR on Vimeo.

There will be case studies up on the spanking new website pretty soon, so folks know what actually went on, as well as being able to look at all the pretty coverage!

SEVENTY SEVEN GETS A MAKE-OVER

There is a school of thought that says that re-branding generally is a bad idea and is something to be avoided, by-and-large.

I think that, on balance, it's a sentiment that we here in Seventy Seven would broadly agree with - but add that sometimes it is profoundly worthwhile.

Though we would say that after a week in which we launched a new ID and brand positioning. The work was done by our sister branding agency, FHD (who also blog here), along with the FHG Studio team.

We (Fred and I) thought that we would share some of the new look with those who have yet to have seen it.

First up, the reason for the work is that we alighted up the idea that is "we are ... Seventy Seven".

The focus is on who we are and how those different people that make the agency what it is: at Seventy Seven, we're all pretty colourful in our own ways and we're not afraid to express our individuality.

We have different skills, different contacts, different backgrounds and understandings of industries, sectors and media.  But we're also different characters - some of us are shy, others more exuberant, some of us dress conservatively, others are more flamboyant, some of us get stressed easily, others are unflappable, some of us like RnB, others 90s guitar pop.

One thing unites us – we really care about each other and we work really hard.

So Seventy Seven will never be an agency with a few long-departed founders' names above the door. Rather, it will always be an agency that has everyone's name above the door (or at least across the letterhead).

The logo sort of reflects that thinking: celebrating individuality, while still representative of the agency as a whole. The thinking behind it is that people on our team will be able to make their own versions of the logo: bringing in pictures, fabrics, textures, photos, whatever.

The left part of the logo represents the structure, our sensible part, the close-knit aspect of the agency whilst the right part of the logo is a choice of interpretation of our creativity, fun and of the individuality of the characters that make our team.

Our stationery and office reflects that too, with a mixed use of people’s names and photos on paper and on the walls.

And because one single logo couldn’t express all our personalities and likes, expect to see more logos inspired by our people come up in the future.

The website is a piece of work that I am loving quite a lot ...

We also carried the new work onto the weblogs ...

Then there is there are the various applications of the logo and new photography across the offices - including new graffiti-painted meeting room ...

There will be a longer piece on the whole process up on Spinning Around shortly as there is an interesting tale to tell. It will also include the fully story of the development: trials and tribulations on the way to triumph and all that ...