Skive

‘Gamification’ the trend that keeps on powering up, it’s been around for a while now but we thought it was about time we scoured the web again and updated our quick overview of gamification with some latest case studies that we really like.

As the rain steadily patters against our office windows it seems like a good time to put a little smile on your faces and tell you about the latest project we’ve done for our bubbly friends at Aero.

Not content with how bubbly their bars were, Aero decided to trap even more bubbles inside, creating a new shape and making their bubbliest bar ever. The new bar launched in March in original milk chocolate, mint and limited edition orange flavours.

Aero asked us to help raise awareness of their new bar and create an engaging and uplifting campaign for their chocolate loving audience.

The idea was to use social media to lift people’s spirits – just like the uplift from eating an Aero.

Users are encouraged to share a message with their friends on Facebook, but this message had to be extra special, ‘more bubbly’ if you will. So we introduced our Facebook AERO® mail App, where each AERO® mail message is hand crafted by our balloon modeller extraordinaire – Lord Geoffrey.

The user can select a colour, write a bubbly message and send it to up to 5 Facebook friends to brighten their day. At certain times we’ve also been giving away free samples of the new bubbliest ever Aero bar. Fans have to be quick though as 1,000 bars have been known to float away in under an hour!

Some of the bubbly messages from our AERO® mail App have also found their way into Banners and Press Ads, helping to spread the bubbliness beyond Facebook.

We’ve been really pleased with the success of the campaign. Over 100,000 fans have joined the Aero Bubbly Chocolate Facebook page since the campaign launched – joining Aero in their quest to make the world a bubblier place, one AERO® mail at a time.

If you fancy seeing Lord Geoffrey in action just click here and send your very own bubbly message to a friend!

Things are busy at Skive and we need a new mid-weight digital designer to join our team here in Clerkenwell.

Have a read of the person spec below, if you’d like to apply please email us at jobs@skive.co.uk with a link to your work, a CV and a bit about yourself.

What’s this position all about?

We’d like to meet a thoughtful designer who can take a brief and understand insight. Then you’ll work with our user experience experts adding a layer of interaction design and finally visual design, turning it all into a beautiful design experience. The main type of work you’ll be asked to do will be big web interfaces, app interfaces and social media applications.

What sort of person is right?

It goes without saying this is an important role for Skive. We have a goal to make the design part of our business brilliant, thoughtful, provocative and award winning.

We’d like the person who fills this role to have a certain spark about them. Be inspiring to the client and to the Skive teams. You’ll be active in the design industry and have an unhealthy appetite for everything creative.

You should have a good understanding of what can be done with web development in all it’s formats, and always be pushing your design to make use of the exciting technical stuff we can do.

You should of course know your tools and be able to spot an out of line pixel at a hundred yards when you need to, but also be free enough to try new things without always worrying about the detail.

You’d need to show us your experience in a similar role by taking us through a few of your favourite projects for some well known brands and explain the background or rationale behind them.

Above all Skive is an independent agency, and every person is here to be counted. You’ll need to be a bit of a self starter, with a entrepreneurial attitude to get stuck in there to get the job done, and done to the best level you can possibly do.

Experience and skills

At least 3 years of design experience with a majority of that time spent in digital/interactive.

A formal design education would be good, but not essential if your portfolio and experience shines.

A good demonstrable command of interactive design principles.

Ability to work closely with our user experience people, as well as our art directors, copywriters and developers.

Contribute to new business and be confident in the design aspect of a pitch including comfortably presenting to clients.

Have strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work with a small team during pitches and presentations.

Spread your expertise, passion, and innovation throughout the design and creative teams.

Willingness to act as an advocate for Skive with our clients.

A strong understanding of digital as a platform and how it fits into wider cultural trends.

Experience of design for branding would be good.

Responsibilities

Be able to produce drop dead gorgeous design for presentation and production based on a brief from the Creative Director and working alongside our Design Director and Art Directors.

Take an end-to-end interest and responsibility in a project making sure every last detail is designed to it’s best.

Use your interaction design skills to work with our UX team making sure the user experience of our projects is inspiringly beautiful.

Articulate your visual strategy to other members of Skive to ensure a thorough understanding of how your design fulfills the brief.

Willingness to present your design to the client with a full rationale of how our approach answers their objectives.

Know your tools.

Have an eye for detail, especially with typography.

Keep up to date with design principles and the effects that new devices are having on design, such as tablets, touch web etc.

Skive’s current clients

Our current clients include Carlsberg, Nestlé KitKat, Nestlé Aero, Vauxhall Four Nations Football, Tetley and the Caterham F1 Team.

The world is changing fast. Here’s our guide for brands:

So, Creative Social was last week. This blog post should have been done before today but it’s hard trying to balance my hummus addiction and creative power-housing schedule. Apologies.

The theme was ‘F**k that’s good: What’s turning us on right now’ which I liked as the 13 year-old in me still thinks it’s naughty to swear. Up on the podium were Sanky, Co-founder of All Of Us; Seb Royce, ECD of Glue; Simon Lloyd and Christine Turner, Creative Digital Heads of Adam and Eve; Patrick Collister, founder of Creative Matters; and resident speaker Andy Sandoz of Work Club.

Each speaker tackled the subject very differently – from using scientific theory to rationalise the strive for creativity, to using creative for good. Or in Sanky’s case, flipping the topic and soapboxing all that is bad in advertising (I’m sure Dave Carson is Tippex-ing him from his Christmas card list as we speak).

Our personal highlights included Seb Royce showing beautiful interactive documentary bear71 (http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71), and the Wello project (http://wellowater.org/) which has literally re-invented the wheel to bring water to those struggling in the third world.

Sanky summed up his paradoxical take on the night with a quote from Seinfeld, “If every instinct you’ve had is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right”. Not a new theory, but an apt one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUvKE3bQlY

There were many more nuggets of genius including Patrick Collister making us believe we have the power to change the world and Andy Sandoz making me believe I’m made from stardust. Have a gander at the presentations here: http://www.creativesocialblog.com/agencies-people/creative-social-presents-fuck-thats-good

So what turns the people on around me? No, not in a ‘rub your thighs’ way but in a getting-the-creative-juices-flowing way. I asked, and lo! behold these splendid replies:

Gaz brought this to my attention http://dharbin.bigcartel.com/product/one-hour-drawings

Pay this guy $40 and he’ll draw you some lovely art for your wall in under 60 minutes. You can suggest a theme but more often than not he’ll just draw whatever he wants anyway. There’s some great stuff on his Flickr but I don’t think anything can beat his picture of Batman riding a T Rex.

Russ sent me http://grabsomegoodby.com/. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. The site is a tribute to folk at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners who were affected by the latest layoffs. Out of bad comes good.

Stevies mouth dropped at Content Aware, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UrlsnQ32YhY pure Photoshop goodness.

The WVIL concept camera envisioned by Artefact and brought to my attention by Lloyd, beautifully answers the question: “what’s next for camera design?”. http://vimeo.com/22134219

Rob had a geekgasm at the design of http://www.realmacsoftware.com/clear/

It’s a simple to-do list app but beautifully designed around an elegant gestural UI. The interface has been reduced without undermining the user with obvious ‘click here’ buttons – we think this will set the standard for many apps to come.

Finally what makes me say “blimmin’ flip that’s good!”, is this idea for turning waste plastic bottles into clean, free, sustainable light sources for homes without the use of electricity (thanks to Patrick Collister for the link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQ8LXXtv6w

Solving a problem with a bit of lateral thinking that has a real and positive impact on people’s day to day lives – isn’t that what we’re all ultimately striving for? Holy cow, now that’s what I call good!

‘Lean back’ and ‘Lean Forward’ remember that? Ahh the good old days of the early noughties, when marketing was transformed and we all talked about how ‘it’ was no longer just about ‘broadcasting’.

Well now, a decade on, broadcasting is not just about broadcasting.

Yes, we’re heralding in an era where a whole generation of young people are used to on-demand, snackable content and can’t actually watch TV without touching something – I’m referring to their mobile or laptop. They’re constantly connected to their friends.

So, here comes the socialisation of TV, Social TV, or even Connected TV. It was the talk of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas this month, as it became clear that web connectivity will now be standard in new TV sets. These connected TVs will mean that social content can co-exist with broadcast content.

It’s not just about Connected TVs, social channels like Facebook and Twitter have been extending the influence they have over TV for some time now.  Within these social channels broadcasters can find new audiences, new revenue streams and extend the engagement of what’s on TV. Why? It’s simple.

People love sharing their opinions and feelings about what’s happening on the telly.

In particular live events such as football matches, news, current affairs and shows like X-Factor, have great social currency.

Facebook’s CTO, Bret Taylor was quoted last year saying that he believed that social media can do for TV what it’s done for gaming:

“When you watch TV with a friend it’s such an engaging activity, we think a new generation of start-ups are developing social applications for TV, what Zynga is to gaming they will be to media and news.”

And he was right.

Facebook have just announced several new partnerships that will bring ‘Frictionless Sharing’ to your TV and make the most of the channel’s newly launched features such as Timeline and the Open Graph. What exactly does that mean?

People will be able to seamlessly share: what they are watching, see what their friends are watching and ‘Like’ and comment on what they are watching. Shows can be posted directly to your Timeline enabling you share the shows you like with friends.

If you don’t feel exhausted by the prospect of all that activity when you’re meant to be relaxing – here are some of the Apps that are leading the way:

Boxee: http://www.boxee.tv/ Boxee finds your favourite TV shows online and puts them on your TV. Boxee then lets people post what they are watching to Facebook.

Zeebox: https://apps.facebook.com/zeeboxtv/?ref=ts ‘could’ be huge – it lets users find additional info on shows and chat via Facebook and Twitter and even purchase products – all integrated into Sky +.

GetGlue: http://getglue.com/ a social service that let’s users check into content. It’s just raised $12 million and has 2 million users

IntoNow from Yahoo!: http://www.intonow.com/ci  Just tap a green button when you’re watching, and IntoNow will identify the show and the episode to share with your friends on Twitter or Facebook.

DIRECTV: http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/index.jsp Facebook is integrating with the DIRECTV app to let people share what they are watching

Snapstick: https://apps.facebook.com/snapstick/?ref=ts streams web content to your TV. Watch and surf with mates.

Letterboxd:  http://letterboxd.com is a new web app that’s focused on helping film fans find and recommend movies socially – think Last.fm crossed with IMDB

My oh my, what a year we have had here at Skive, let’s look back, before we look forward and marvel at some of the glimmers of genius 2011 had to offer.

The door opened and in walked a brand spanking new CEO in the shape of James Sanderson (http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesjsanderson).

The new “captain” arrived to take the helm and steer Skive into brave new waters. In the samevein, he plans to whip us all into shape, batten down the hatches and further unite our already motley crew. We salute you Commodore Sanderson.
We had a great reason to crack out the champagne earlier in the year when we were voted no.8 in Pitch’s top ten Digital Reputation Survey. We were more than chuffed with the result; we aim to keep climbing the chart.
A warm welcome to three new clients…Carlsberg, Vauxhall and AVG. A host of highly creative and exciting work has been produced and more will come from these partnerships in 2012.

At Skive we love ideas, small, big, fat round or in this case skinny. Skive encouraged young creatives to swap La Croisette for Shoreditch Highstreet and have a scratch at Cannt Skinny Cubs. One brief, a whirlwind 48 hours of creativity lead to some brilliant work being produced. We even bagged ourselves two bright young talents, one Cornish, one ginger, Stevie and Dan.

New talent was the theme this year; the arrival of Lauren, Loren, Julie, Alex, Anne and Adrian sets us in good stead to produce brilliant work making 2012 extra exciting.

Brilliant ideas aside, nothing make us happier than cakes (well, eating in general). Imagine our sweet-toothed delight at National Baking Week. As well as the massive sugar rush, warm fuzzy feelings ensued as all proceeds went to the charity Children in Crisis.

Handlebars, Pencils and Bumfluff. This can only mean one thing, Movember. A bunch of our finestundertook the challenge to let the razor ignore their top lips, all for charity. Good work guys, or should I say guys and girls. Our lovely Emma started her own ‘Mo me’ campaign, whereby everyday she let someone scribble on her face for a couple of quid. A particular highlight was “The Lobster”.

It’s been a big year for many of our team too, Gaz got married (aww) Russ had a baby (double aww), Tim’s car caught fire, oh and Sean had many near death experiences. Never a dull moment.

We polished off the year with a good old Skivemas party, the less said about that the better http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3_4NlqfhzY

That’s it for another year. Merry Christmas Everyone! 2012, bring it on.

Augmented Reality (AR) is becoming a big deal. It’s maturing from gimmicky games to sophisticated experiences that connect us to the virtual world.

AR opens the channels of communication allowing you and your audience to participate in a richer dialogue, making sharing content such as product information, exclusives, competitions, deals, dynamic pricing/group buying, more engaging for the customer.

When linked to social networks, AR becomes a powerful tool for communicating stronger brand experiences, ultimately driving sales and building communities. AR is set to play a big part in our future. Step forward the age of AR…

Augmented Reality – Everything You Need To Know

View more presentations from Skive

Yes our lot have also been sporting their soup-strainers this month and they’ve raised £700 between them so well done guys! 

(photo courtesy of @kateisgreatyeh)

Today I attended my first meeting of the recently formed IAB Future Trends Council, chaired by the all round nice guy that is Tim Pilkington (IAB Research Director).

Tim Pilkington of IAB and Sean from Skive (on the right) discuss the future.

The first subject that the Council is going to tackle is Connected TV. Internet on our teleboxes, what will they think of next!   Shoes that talk? Carpets that clean themselves? Seriously this “battle for the living room” is predicted to be next big technological shift with a wide range of corporate beasts like Google, Apple, Samsung, LG and Sony all trying to dominate this new sector. Anyway, watch this space as the Future Trends Council looks to help us all understand the opportunties that will undoubtedly develop as this trend unfolds over the next 1000 days.