Happy New Year! How are you getting on with your New Year's resolutions? Mine was to blog 3 times a month, but considering this is my first post of the year, I can safely say I'm not off to a great start. However, my other resolution was to 'shrug things off more' so.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  I know someone who's trying to give up smoking in 2015 and it made me start thinking about UK cigarette advertising. How do cigarette companies advertise their product when they're not allowed to? What do the marketing teams do all day? Are there even marketing teams for the likes of Silk Cut and B&H? Advertising for cigarettes and tobacco was banned on TV in 1965, and then banned in print and billboards in 2003. bit weird After this, the best way to advertise the product and stimulate sales was to do it on the packets themselves... However, a law was passed in 2008 to add graphic imagery health warnings on the packets, covering 30% of the front and 40% of the ...

As 2014 comes to an end, I thought I'd write a post about some of the things I am proud of this year. Being British, if someone pays me a compliment or congratulates me, I awkwardly mutter thanks and sprint away from them, convinced that they are merely being kind out of pity. One of my (many) New Years Resolutions is to take a moment to soak in my achievements and celebrate them. So, before I decide to not write this (because I am cringing already), here we go.... Pimp My Summer Ball Earlier this year, Lucozade partnered with MTV so we could be more relevant to our target audience of 16-24 year olds. We created 'Pimp My Summer Ball', whereby selected Uni's could compete to get their summer ball pimped out by us. To vote, they just had to tweet #YESPimpMySummerBall plus their Uni name. This competition went above and beyond our expectations and KPI's. It organically trended not only in the UK, but globally within the first 24 hours We ended up with...

Here's a true story. Last week I read that a 14 year old boy had made £14,000 by selling crisps, snacks and energy drinks to fellow students at school. As part of his black market stock, he was also selling Lucozade, the brand that I work for. Obviously at this point the feelers were out. I heard murmurings in the office... ' should we do something ?', ' keep an eye on it '. don't hate tha player, hate the game Then as of yesterday this boy decides to sell a signed (by himself) bottle of Lucozade Energy on eBay. It's all over the news. Oh, and now the bidding has gone up to £2.5million. Suddenly, I'm having people come up to me left, right and centre. ' Are you jumping on this ?', 'So  what are you going to do on social ?', ' There's budget if we need to create a really cool response .' Me:  One of the main reasons we are not getting involved with this story is because we are a company that only markets ...

HALLOWEEN, aka the best time of the year, is right around the corner. I am squealing like a butchered pig at the thought of watching terrifying films, eating spider shaped sweets and carving spooktacular pumpkins - all whilst in fancy dress! Is there anything better? I think not. Me, my future hubby and the kids on Halloween I have a love of All Hallow's Eve and advertising, so you can imagine my excitement when brands start to incorporate the holiday into their marketing campaigns. Last year, Tide and Oreo both did these creative Vines which were fun 7 second videos recreating scenes from The Shining (click on the hyperlinks to view). This film seems to be the cult horror classic of choice, even this year with Ikea in Singapore. Take a look - I bloody love it I love how relevant the advert is, not only to Halloween, but that they've chosen a scene from a film that works so well in their own environment - The Shining really wouldn't have loo...

hi ME AGAIN, So we have yet another charity awareness social campaign designed for female narcissists. This time it's taking a selfie the moment you wake up and then posting it online with the hastag   # WakeUpCall. So far it's mainly celebrities taking part, however I'm sure this will spread quicker than ebola and you'll soon see suspiciously flawlesss pics of that Facebook friend you know full well is a right munter. Jemima Kahn started the trend that asks people to post a selfie and then donate $8 to child right's charity, UNICEF. The selfies aim to serve as a "wake up call" that alerts people of the child refugees in Syria. Nice idea, ruined by vanity. Wish I woke up with a naturally filtered face like Paris',..... Generally, I believe you can never do a non-self-gratifying wake up selfie for two reasons: 1. Either your photo will be contrived and designed to show everyone how "amazing" you look when you wake up, ...

So I pretty much just got back from my holiday in US which was incredible. I hopped in a people carrier with random strangers and we road tripped it from Newark to Miami, via DC, Tennessee and the Deep South. the gang One day in Panama City Beach it was raining so we went to see a movie, and one of the pre-show ads really caught my attention. It was for Spotify and the tagline was ' You have the story, we have the song '. The ad shows Jason telling us about when he got fired from his job and handled it like a rockstar thanks to Whitesnake's 'Here I Go Again'. Check it out:  You'll see at the end of the ad is the hashtag #ThatSongWhen . This is just the beginning of Spotify's new campaign which encourages viewers to share their memories where music played a pivotal role.  The aim is that this will drive conversation, evoke emotion, and thus result in people signing up to Spotify over other more popular US music streaming platforms such ...

So, the Ice Bucket challenge. I'm sure we all have our own feelings about it. exactly. In my opinion, this year has been a bit of a charity showcase what with the "no make up" and "cock in a sock" selfies. Social media is a great way of raising awareness, however you have to admit that along with the do-gooding, there is an egotistical, attention-seeking element to it - just like everything else that gets posted on a social media site This kind of self-promotion charity works so well and is fantastic for raising awareness, but a reported half of Brits who did the Ice Bucket Challenge did not donate to the ALS charity.... this is my surprised face And now with news coming out that out of $10million raised, only an apparent 14% goes towards the fundraising, everyone is acting shocked like this is BRAND NEW INFORMATION! Come on, every charity has staff, overheads, admin bills - if you have a problem with it (those who actually donate), then why don...