Moody stills of our new gaff. That's Charlie in reception.

Hello there artists, illustrators, painters, printmakers, weavers, solderers, sculptors, thinkers, crafty kids, creative teams and creative types.  We’ve just moved into our shiny new studio. Unfortunately the walls here are blank, and we badly need something inspirational to look at.

This is where you talented lot come in.

Tell us what you’d do to make our boring walls look better. You can submit your ideas in the form of a moodboard, a written proposal, a sketch…whatever. Just post it to our Facebook group’s wall.

The people whose ideas / designs we like the best will be invited into the studio to paint, draw or install their creation. Not only that, but the person with the most votes will get a full paid placement in our agency. The deadline is the 30th July. The Creative Directors will then announce the winners the week after!

Good luck!

In what is becoming a frequent blog post, the ‘Start Thinking Soldier’ campaign has picked up yet more trophies.

Firstly, at the prestigious FITC (Flash in the Can) Awards, where it was rewarded for Best Flash Motion Graphics. Skive’s very own Dan ‘Greyskull’ Bradshaw and Stephen ‘Penfold’ Archer were on hand to collect the distinctive prize in Toronto, and evidently celebrated with a few cold ones afterwards. The full roster of award-winners is here.

The project also picked up a Silver in the AME (Advertising & Marketing Effectiveness) Awards for Best Integrated Campaign, and has been shortlisted at the D&AD Awards for a gold pencil in the Integrated category. Fingers crossed.

At the Revolution Awards last Thursday night a slightly stunned Skive were thrilled to take home Best Integrated Campaign for ‘Start Thinking Soldier’.

We’d been nominated in four categories, the others being Best B2C Campaign, Best Website, and Best Use of Video – and to be honest thought we had a much better chance in those than the hotly contested Integrated Campaign, which featured a shortlist of 7 including work from CHI, Dare and AKQA, as well as T-Mobile and ComparetheMeerkat.com.

It was fitting to be there with the creative team from Publicis Modem, Jon Groom and Asan Aslam, who were integral to appointing us and whom we’d first met some 18 months previously - as well as client Nic Cary from the COI.

It was also pleasing recognition on the back of winning an IAB Creative Showcase Grand Prix, for Most Innovative Campaign. Next up for the Start Thinking Soldier Awards Rollercoaster: FITC in Toronto…

Start Thinking Soldier has picked up a few more trophies – this time at the Creative Circle Awards, where it won Bronze honours for Best Viral Marketing and Best Multimedia Campaign.

In above the line categories, it also won a Bronze Best Press Ad for ‘Football’ and a Silver Best Public Service Ad for ‘Girlfriend’ and a handful of commendations, so congratulations to the creative team of Matt Anderson and Steve Nicholls of Publicis, who were also responsible for the four TVCs.

2010 is well underway and we’ve already  picked up our first trophies for the cabinet in the shape of the Recruitment Advertising Awards, held at the Grosvenor House Hotel and hosted by the ubiquitous Michael McIntyre.

The night started well and just got better, with Start Thinking Soldier picking up Best Campaign – just as Publicis’ Mel Hopkins needed the loo.

This was soon followed by Best Microsite, where Skive’s Louis Clement and Hopkins were joined on the stage by the COI’s Nic Cary.

Best was yet to come, however, as the campaign picked up Best Work of the year, and McIntyre was mobbed on stage by a jubilant Skive team.

It wouldn’t be a Skive Night Out without some glorious mishap, however, and while most turned up to work the next day with a sore head, there was alas no sign of the statues themselves. Turns out we’d left them in a sack at the hotel…

Skive has been appointed by L’Oréal Luxury Products Division as a digital strategic partner after a three way pitch, providing brand strategies and training across Fragrance, Skincare and Make Up, in order to upweight its digital approach and exploit emerging digital opportunities.

Skive will propose an overall digital strategy for L’Oréal LPD, identifying key objectives and success measurement metrics. It will also develop and implement the individual digital marketing plans for the key brands within L’Oréal LPD. Work begins imminently.

As part of Skive’s work, the agency will also provide a detailed series of digital marketing training programmes for the communications teams within the L’Oréal Luxury Products Division. Initially, Skive will work on briefs for Yves Saint Laurent and Lancôme brands but this will widen as the full L’Oréal LPD digital strategy becomes evident.

L’Oréal LPD recognises the importance for the beauty sector to reach target audiences through digital channels and this appointment signifies its intention to be the sector frontrunner in digital use.

Emma Dawson, Communications Director L’Oréal LPD comments: “The beauty sector has been slower than others to embrace digital but this situation is changing rapidly.  L’Oréal LPD recognises the need to use the medium as a way to engage further with our consumers, complimenting other marketing spend and Skive’s appointment is the start of our work to do just that.”

Sean Singleton, Managing Director, Skive comments: “The luxury brands sector is increasingly competitive by nature and has used TV advertising, glossy print ads and rich retail experience to target audiences. As research starts to show an increase in luxury consumers using the web for information about the products they buy, so digital needs to play a larger role in luxury marketing efforts. L’Oréal LPD is perfectly placed to take hold of the emerging opportunities ahead of its competitors.”

The Tweeting Twankey in all her glory

Find the Tweeting Twankey and win yourself some Christmas spending money.

To enter into the festive spirit, every day for a week some unfortunate from Skive will don the unmistakably gaudy garb of Panto’s finest comic dame and miserably troll the streets of London texting, tweeting, twitpiccing, foursquaring and lifecasting their camp hearts out.

During the generally accepted lunch hour of between 1-2pm, from the 14th – 18th December, anyone who manages to personally locate the Tweeting Twankey (and believe me, she will be hard to miss) and speak the magic password will instantly receive £100 shopping money to spend in the store in which they have successfully located the bewigged young fellow.

So make sure you keep your eyes peeled for an embarrassed looking chap in a bawdy golden frock, and ask all the weary sales assistants if the Twankey’s been seen nearby.

And for every person who follows the Tweeting Twankey on Twitter, Skive will donate £1, up to a £1000, to Shelter’s Christmas Appeal.

We’ve been doing quite a lot of work with Coty to support various fragrance launches and sales initiatives with rich media banner ads.

Recent work includes campaigns for Davidoff Hot Water and Daisy by Marc Jacobs.

The latest is for a limited edition CKin2U metallic bottle, with creative by Staffs and Raks, inviting users to ‘come play’ with the bottles, which liquify upon touch before reforming.

In the next couple of days the blog will host a Flash on the Beach (FOTB) homepage take over, designers, techies, and interns descended on Brighton to see what Adobe and the FOTB folk were developing and inventing.

First up are Dan’s notes, from the underground! From the belly of beast! From memory whilst staring into space from his desk the next day …

Josh, the creative Intern, and Viet, the technical Intern, made the journey to the seafront twice.  We even gave them a couple of quid to buy crisps and cola. Well it is the least we could do for the trials that they suffer during their tenure @ skive.

The Actionscript team geeked out and were left inspired and informed by a number of standout sessions. Not only did they exercise their minds, but also their hearts – bonding on the pier with a breakfast pizza following a night of shots until 5 AM. I am telling you, these boys know how to party – it’s like after school at the chess club.

Image courtesy of @laszlo-photo – http://www.flickr.com/photos/laszlo-photo/2533701878/sizes/l/

The third and final Kit Kat promotion this year has gone live, and centres around Music Breaks – with free music download offers on pack.

To support the promotion, we’ve produced three online ad creatives, including these fun rich media banners featuring our very Matt Staff and Dan C, playing ‘the Kit Kat harmonica’.

The message is that there’s a better way to get music from your Kit Kat – and that doesn’t mean using it as a zither, either.