Short of blasting you with acronyms, we’d just like to let you know that the DBA (Design Business Association), which promotes the design industry to commerce, has given us a big ‘thumbs up’!

Traditionally when tendering for work with the public sector and some larger organisations, the tendering process can be a long, laborious form-filling exercise.  Many of these organisations now use third party accreditation providers, such as the DBA, to pre-qualify suppliers to speed up the procurement process.

So now we’re all pre-qualification questionaire’d up and listed in the DBA’s Directory of PQQ Ready Suppliers, we’re looking forward to continuing our business growth!

Bonfire Creative Intelligence’s excellence in rebranding was recognised at last night’s Transform Awards, with its work winning a Bronze award in the category of ‘Best corporate rebrand following a merger or acquisition’ category.

Now in their second year, the Transform Awards are the UK’s only dedicated celebration of rebranding, repositioning and brand transformation.

In a ceremony at the Grange Hotel St Paul’s in London, hosted by former director of communications and strategy at Number 10 Alastair Campbell, Bonfire Creative Intelligence was lauded for its countdown campaign for the rebrand of Select Education to Randstad Education.

Judged by a panel of branding experts, communications practitioners and academics, the Transform Awards were established by Communicate magazine, the UK’s leading magazine for corporate communications and stakeholder relations, to celebrate creativity, innovation and effectiveness in brand transformation.

Stephen Judge MA FCSD said: “This is a great achievement. Both the campaign and award are the direct result of a great working partnership – let’s not forget that clients play a key role in all our work. It was a proud moment for all the team to see our campaign displayed alongside the creative of leading global agencies such as Interbrand, Landor, Siegel + Gale and Heavenly. Well done team!”

Andrew Thomas, publisher of Communicate magazine said: “We have seen a 60% increase in the number of entries this year, fabulous growth in difficult times. This highlights the importance of the Transform Awards. They are important because whilst still recognising the importance of creativity they also benchmark execution, outcome, and, perhaps most importantly, the strategic input of Europe’s branding consultancies and in-house expertise. It is my belief that Europe leads the way in these fields.”

For further information please contact Stephen Judge MA FCSD on 01525 841079.

The highly successful ‘Countdown to Rebrand’ campaign developed by Bonfire Creative Intelligence for Randstad Education has been shortlisted in the Transform Awards 2011.

The vibrant campaign is a finalist in the ‘Best corporate rebrand following a merger or acquisition’ category of the annual awards, which are run by Communicate Magazine, and winners will be notified at a fabulous gala dinner on 7 April at The Grange St Paul’s Hotel in London. The other finalists are Age UK, and Siegel and Gale for their work with Blizoo.

Bonfire CI designed an integrated campaign to promote and raise awareness of Select Education rerband Randstad Education in January 2010. Randstad, the world’s second largest staffing services group, had acquired Select Education and was entering UK education recruitment for the first time.

A rebrand strategy was developed to raise awareness amongst clients, and internal and external stakeholders, in the period leading up to the switchover. The aim was not just to inform the target audience of the change but to reinforce key brand values, and this was achieved through a range of media and channels.

The strategy was to deliver the campaign across five monthly phases, following a ‘five-four-three-two-one’ pattern, primarily through direct mail and press ads in key industry titles such as The Times Educational Supplement (TES). In addition, a parallel PR campaign saw the launch of a schools competition to increase engagement with primary and secondary schools, and an internal awareness programme focused on keeping staff informed and engaged.

The first creative, based around the simple tagline ‘5 months to go before Select Education becomes Randstad Education’ listed ‘5 reasons to count on our teachers’ and a visual that mixed in the answers with popular trivia and quiz questions linked by the number five. This continued with ‘4 reasons to count on us’, ‘3 services in one name’ and so on, building up to a ‘blast-off’ launch in January.

The content highlighted key advantages of the Randstad Education service, such as comprehensive background checking, value for money and quality guarantees. The contemporary design, vibrant colours and witty copywriting were a slight departure from Randstad’s fairly formal brand tradition, and was intended to introduce Randstad Education as approachable and exciting.

Bonfire CI Director Stephen Judge said: “We’re absolutely delighted that our campaign for Randstad Education has been recognised in this way for the second time. It’s a great example of an agency and client working closely together to create something memorable, exciting and, above all, effective. As a result, what could have been a standard corporate rebrand became a lively, high-impact, multi-channel engagement initiative that really resonated with its target audience. We are over the moon and to stand in the ring with the likes of Interbrand, Landor Associates, Rufus Leonard and Siegel and Gale is something we are all very proud of.”