Barens Chocolate have launched an advertising campaign to capture the hearts of chocolate lovers in the run up to Christmas. The adverts invite consumers to beat the festive rush and fill their stockings with Barens’ delicious range of luxury milk chocolate at discount prices.

Barens, a Swiss chocolate manufacturer, appointed design and branding agency Bonfire Creative Intelligence to create a series of advertisements to showcase a variety of their products including; Moon Melody, Alpen Zoo and hollow Milk Chocolate Santas. The series of four adverts ran throughout November and December in popular television listing titles Inside Soap and All About Soap. Gemma Umney, Senior Account Manager at Bonfire, comments, “These titles offer a captive audience. We are a nation of soap lovers who love nothing more than to curl up on the sofa and indulge in some of our favourite treats.”

The campaign drives readers to 99p stores where chocoholics can take advantage of the Barens’ range for only 99p. Normally priced at £1.99, this gives consumers the perfect opportunity to enjoy luxury chocolate at a fraction of the price. Gemma Umney adds, “In the current economic climate buyers are having to tighten their purse strings and make savvy Christmas purchases. Whether it’s parents purchasing goodies for their children’s Christmas stockings or adults looking for a treat, consumers can rest assured that they’re getting exceptional quality without breaking the bank.”

Sales have been increased 35% week-on-week with the fourth and final advert being published in All About Soap on 18th December.

As a leading innovator in the digital mammography revolution, it was crucial for Fujifilm to continue to demonstrate its innovative products and world-beating technology at Symposium Mammographicum. The Fuji Medical team briefed Bonfire Creative Intelligence to create a branded direct mail invite that would help raise awareness of their attendance at the event.

In addition to designing, printing and mailing a personalised invite to Fuji’s key prospects, the direct mail piece was overlaid with a two-pronged sales promotion campaign to drive footfall. Bonfire recommended a charitable donation be made to a relevant foundation for every person who completed a registration form at the Fuji Medical stand throughout the duration of the event. In addition to this, every registrant was given a Fuji Medical gift at the show. The portable, insulated mug and mini clip-on hand sanitizers, produced by Bonfire Creative Intelligence, proved very popular with radiographers. The branded gifts had been sourced specifically with medical staff in mind, who are often on the go and highly safety conscious.

Gemma Umney, Senior Account Manager of Bonfire Creative Intelligence, said,  ‘Despite the media reporting a wave of ‘charity fatigue’ we felt strongly that the activity needed to fundamentally support our client’s commitment to women’s health. Being able to reward visitors with a free gift and raise money for such a valuable cause has helped this campaign deliver at every level.’

In addition to an incredibly successful event, Robin Breslin, Fuji Medical Commercial Manager, was delighted to present a cheque to the value of £1,000 to Jonathan Prince, Trustee of The Pink Ribbon Foundation. Cara McMillan, Marketing Assistant at Fuji Medical, added, ‘The campaign helped tick a number of boxes for Fuji Medical, from driving traffic to the stand to raising a significant sum of money for our chosen charity.’

Branding and design agency Bonfire Creative Intelligence have helped Randstad Education unveil a prestigious and topical report highlighting the challenges facing school leaders.

Having received over 600 headteacher responses to Randstad Education’s World of Work (WOW) survey about the ‘10 Burning Issues Keeping Education Leaders Awake at Night’, Bonfire were tasked with designing a report that would outline the key findings. The report contains valuable sector research that schools would not be able to obtain independently. The brief was threefold, to communicate the information in a user-friendly format, to engage and inspire the reader and to remain sensitive to Randstad Education’s brand.

Gemma Umney, senior account manager of Bonfire Creative Intelligence, said, ‘The survey findings and Randstad Education’s brand guidelines very much shaped the over-arching style of the report. However, Bonfire really differentiate the piece from the wealth of academic reports in the market by creating more unique and sector specific mechanisms to communicate the results. These have been well received by teachers and journalists alike.’

The report was officially unveiled to invited guests aboard Randstad’s tall ship, The Clipper Stad Amsterdam, in London’s Docklands. Speakers included former Education Secretary, the Rt. Hon. Lord Baker of Dorking C.H. and Heath Monk, chief executive of Future Leaders, whose mission is to help develop the next generation of leaders for challenging schools.

You can download a PDF of the report here.

The latest Olympus TV campaign – created by agency Bonfire Creative Intelligence, part of Envibra Group – is launching this week to promote the Olympus VN-5500PC DNS digital voice recorder. The 30-second ‘Read My Lips’ advert is aimed at students and will feature in-between popular TV shows across five TV channels between 23rd August and 3rd October 2010.

The voice recorder comes with Dragon Naturally Speaking transcription software that effortlessly converts recorded speech to text. Instead of sitting at a PC for hours, the recorder allows users to dictate their documents where and when they like, downloading them to a PC later for conversion at the rate of 160 words per minute, with 99 percent accuracy.

Bonfire MD, Stephen Judge comments: “The creative features an exaggerated life situation where converting voice recordings direct to text can save students vital time. The commercial involves ‘Tommy’ being blinded by the light of his love interest in a slow motion, ‘American teen flick’ style and falling into a storeroom – classic storytelling with pace-change humour.

“We required a very specific treatment, and execution was critical, so we worked with multi-award winning directorial team Bert & Bertie, production company Gate Films and the ad was shot by director of photography Ed Wild (Severance, Shifty). All post was done at 422 in Manchester where we cut on Avid and colour graded on Smoke. We are very lucky to have worked with such a fantastic team.

“The equipment was just as important and the ad was shot on the Sony F35 Cinealta camera using 35mm Zeiss prime lenses and Angenieux Optimo zooms. This allowed us to shoot at full bandwidth 4:4:4 HD, which was key to give the narrative-driven advert a slick cinematic look.”

The script includes the line ‘Read my lips’ which appears on the heroine’s t-shirt, the report cover, etched into the desk in the press ads and is also an integral part of the on-and-off-line media strategy. This was a tactical point-of-reference that supported the voiceover ‘Why type when you can talk’; both lines relating directly to the functionality of the hardware/software combo.

Comments Mark Thackara, national marketing manager for consumer products at Olympus: “The Olympus VN-5500PC DNS is a superb product and it needed a different approach to ‘your standard ad’. We feel that the TV advert combined with social media sites and YouTube interaction will result in an engaging campaign that will create awareness of both this ingenious product and the Olympus brand.”

The advert, along with spoof ads, behind the scenes footage and photos, can be viewed on YouTube and Facebook.

Olympus is encouraging fans to create their own spoof ads and upload them to YouTube for some great freebies and giveaways.

Further to the successful creative outcomes of NEC’s Industrial Open Day’s in 2006 and 2008 Bonfire have once again been appointed to support NEC, now Renesas, with this their third prestigious future technology exhibition showcase. Bonfire has been asked to push the creative boundaries for IOD2010 to be held for the second time in Barcelona in October of this year.

We have developed an overarching brand, concept and visual theme for the show, all exhibition graphics and imagery, have advised on stand construction and lighting, have sourced modelmakers and advised on the latest experiential display technologies and are just entering the last phase of design development. Following this there will be the design and production on 2 video animations to be used throughout the event on a centrally positioned video wall.

An ecological life cycle underpins the ubiquitous nature of the future Renesas’ technology, and the exhibition will highlight the diverse application of their products, from everyday life to medical care, from factory control to robotics.

The exhibition collateral has a sharp contemporary design, fusing technology with nature and we can’t wait to show you the photographs from exhibition itself.

The rebranded Eagle IPA was unveiled this month at Wells and Young’s brewery in Bedford. The tag line of “Born and Brewed in Bedford” was developed to declare its pride as Bedford’s local brew.

As well as trade kits, which included t-shirts, bar runners, drip mats, bar towels, promotional posters, pump clips, free-standing tent cards and newly branded glassware, high impact creative was developed for the signage at the Bedford Blues Rugby Club stadium. This builds on the historic relationship between Charles Wells, Wells & Young’s and Bedford Rugby Club. The feedback from the signage has been extremely high and we are pleased and proud to have been able to deliver such a great outcome for on organisation very close to our hearts.

Bonfire worked with Wells & Young’s to develop a visual style that related to the target audience, and one that we hope will reinforce a sense of pride in both the brand and the community to which it belongs. Another prominent presence to support the launch was at The Bedford River Festival 2010, helping support the launch and community engagement.

Family friendly four star hotel chain QHotels have launched a fun new children’s pack to coincide with the start of the school summer holidays. The pack centres around a family of illustrative ducks known as ‘The Quackers”.

Following the creation of a new Quackers character, Eggbert, earlier in the year QHotels approached Bonfire Creative Intelligence to produce the promotional packs. The brief was to develop a fun, vibrant pack to support the QHotel’s enhanced childrens policy. The free Quacker’s gift packs would be used to welcome families upon check-in and keep smaller guests happily occupied at mealtimes.

As an added-value promotional item, the packs needed to be produced as cost-effectively as possible. Gemma Umney, Bonfire Senior Account Manager, comments, “In addition to the branded activity materials for the children we also looked at parent-friendly giveaways to promote the QHotel brand. Quackers branded reward stickers were also incorporated to encourage good behaviour. We also designed a colour-me-in postcard, so children can tell friends and relatives about their stay at their QHotel.”

Whilst Bonfire Creative Intelligence couldn’t promise sunshine for the school holiday, they did deliver every other aspect the project required including the design and artwork for the activity component, the pack, branded merchandise, print management and fulfilment.