Bonfire are pleased to report they have been working with Leeds based QHotels, who run a sizeable chain of 21 unique four star hotels, in both urban and rural settings across the UK, after winning the branding work for their Party Nights 2010 collateral in February. This is a key area of business for the prestigious hotel chain, and Bonfire have subsequently been commissioned to develop a wide range of branded promotional material for the 2 core areas of their business; leisure breaks and corporate conferencing facilities.

The leisure break work includes national advertising and direct mail campaigns, breakaway club incentive promotions and Quackers Club for the younger visitor.

On the conferencing side Bonfire has produced, amongst other projects, the ‘Conference Calm’ Campaign which awarded a spa voucher for every conference booking made, and the ‘Dream Destinations’ campaign which offered those enquiring about the conference and meeting venues the chance to win a once in a lifetime trip to South Africa.

Bonfire has been appointed by local brewers Wells & Young’s to develop the marketing collateral and trade pub kits for Eagle IPA, Bedford’s local beer. Eagle IPA, is named in honour of Bedford’s crest and is the proud sponsor of Bedford’s other local talent, the Bedford Blues Rugby Club.

Wells & Young’s brews and distributes some of the UK’s best-loved cask beers and speciality lagers, and has a heritage dating back to 1875. The re-launch programme’s core aim is a reassertion of the relationship with Eagle IPA and the local community.

The project consists of on-trade promotional kit materials and a large signage project in and around Bedford’s Goldington Road rugby stadium.

Olympus VN5500PC-DNS

Having been narrowly beaten by Team Saatchi in the recent pitch for the Olympus PEN camera, agency Bonfire Creative Intelligence, part of Envibra Group, has triumphed in the five-way pitch for the latest Olympus TV campaign.

The new ad, for the Olympus model VN 5500PC DNS digital voice recorder, is set to air on terrestrial and digital channels in August and will be aimed at students planning purchases for the September term.

Mark Thackara, National Marketing Manager – Consumer Products, Olympus KeyMed said: “The Olympus VN 5500PC DNS is a superb product and it needed a different approach to ‘your standard ad’. We worked with Bonfire when developing the Mju 790SW advert, now known as the Toddler ad, and they showed a great understanding of the product, its market and how to approach it creatively, but we had already placed the work with our incumbent agency. With this in mind we invited Bonfire to tender for our latest campaign.

“As a branding consultancy Bonfire’s approach was very different, analytical in its deduction and highly creative in its application. I have to give credit to Bonfire as an up-and-coming agency for their refreshing and enlightened approach to what was an equally challenging brief. Their costing structure was also very impressive – open, inclusive and honest and I look forward to working with the Bonfire team on this campaign – and again in the future.”

Bonfire MD Stephen Judge said: “The ultra-compact Olympus VN 5500PC DNS will be optionally bundled with Dragon ‘Naturally Speaking’ voice-recognition software and the creative features a fun demonstration of how converting voice recordings direct to essays can save students vital time. An 18+ version for viral and cinema is also under consideration and campaign budget exceeds £300,000.”

The great Anita Roddick, human rights activist and founder of The Body Shop, left us with many wise phrases. One is: “I just want The Body Shop to be the best, most breathlessly exciting company – and one that changes the way business is carried out. That is my vision.”

That vision is what makes the Body Shop different. And beautiful.

So Bonfire is honoured to be entrusted with the window graphics installations at the flagship Oxford Street and Leeds Briggate stores.

The latest campaign – for Spring – promotes the new fragrance LOVE Etc – see here.

Three further installations are planned for completion in Summer, Autumn and Winter.

Bonfire has been appointed by Argos to develop their Chad Valley brand. The project is the first in a series of developments for Argos following a

Chad Valley brand development

number of recent brand acquisitions.

Chad Valley was one of the UK’s leading toymakers throughout the 20th century. The brand’s roots are in a Birmingham based printing business established by Anthony Bunn Johnson in the early 19th century. Under the management of subsequent generations the company moved to the suburb of Harborne, in the valley of a stream called the Chad, from where the brand takes its name.

Chad Valley was taken over by Palitoy in 1978 and later bought by Woolworths, ten years later. Home Retail Group, the parent company of retailers Argos and Homebase, then purchased the brand for £5 million from Woolworths when it finally closed its high street doors in January 2009.

An interim phase has been completed with the production of a series of themed background illustrations for catalogue 73 in January 2010 and is to be followed by a full brand review and development in the New Year.

The project will cover a broad set of style guides, packaging and other promotional activity, and is aiming to be launched in June 2010 in time for catalogue 74.

Stephen Judge MA FCSD, Strategic Development Director at Bonfire says ‘Chad Valley is a historic children’s brand and we are proud to be part of this project. I can’t think of a more exciting way to enter our 10th year.’

Andrew Turner, Marketing Manager for Argos owned brands, adds ‘Having been recently appointed to manage a number of the recently acquired non-Argos brands, I approached Bonfire to help with the first phase development of the Chad Valley branding – to help develop and position Chad Valley in the 2010 spring/summer catalogue as a brand (although Argos-owned) in its own right. This initial work will be followed by a full brand review.

Bonfire created a range of wonderful background illustrations for the various age and product categories to very tight deadlines and I look forward to working with them further. Their expertise, approach and in-house illustration capabilities made them the perfect partner for this fun and lively brand.’

Bonfire were recently invited by Olympus to tender for their latest TV advertisement.

The fabulous new Olympus Pen EP-1 and accessories.

The advertisement was for the new Olympus Pen EP-1. A retro-styled digital camera using the latest in compact digital technology – micro-four-thirds technology – developed in partnership between Olympus and Panasonic. But why approach a branding consultancy?

Bonfire had been working with Olympus and built up a thorough understanding of the brand and its goals. In early 2008 Olympus commissioned Bonfire to come up with concepts for the Mju 790SW TV advertisement that had already been placed with their incumbent agency.

This commissioned work provided the opportunity for Bonfire to learn about TV advertisement production, and Olympus to see how Bonfire could tackle a TV brief. It was on the strength of this creative we were invited to tender for the Olympus Pen EP-1 TV campaign this year.

At this stage we knew we were up against Red Brick Road (the incumbent) and A. N. Other. After the first round of presentations we were the holders of two of the preferred routes and were praised heavily for our approach, thinking, presentation style and open costing structure. During this process we had sourced a number of production companies, both leading and emerging, with leading directors to provide expert advice and guidance in the production and interpretation of the concepts.

The final presentations took place with one of our concepts a hot favourite amongst the UK marketing team. It then went to the European marketing team and we found out shortly after we had been pipped to the post by the ‘other’ agency, who later turned out to be Team Saatchi.

Although losing the tender we have learnt a lot in this process – not least the full production cycle of an advertisement and met some great directors and production companies in the process.

Mark Thackara, National Marketing Manager – Consumer Products, Olympus KeyMed says ‘The Olympus Pen EP-1 is a fantastic new product and it needed a different approach to your standard camera ad. We worked with Bonfire last year when developing the Mju 790SW advert, now known as the Toddler ad, and they showed a great understanding of the product, its market and how to approach it creatively. With this in mind we invited Bonfire to tender for our Christmas 2009 TV campaign alongside Saatchi’s and Red Brick Road (our existing agency). As a branding consultancy Bonfire’s approach was very different, analytical in its deduction and highly creative in its application. It was a very close call on the final decision but I have to give credit to this up-and-coming agency for their refreshing and enlightened approach to what was an equally challenging brief. Their costing structure was also very impressive – open, inclusive and honest and I look forward to working with the Bonfire team again in the future.’

With this knowledge we now look for more TV opportunities with the encouragement that we have a highly competitive creative team and about 65% the cost of the big agencies. Cost is a big issue at the moment and many TV campaigns have been axed due to the current economic climate – but there is another way. To find out more about how we tackled this campaign and how our creative approach can help you stand out in the crowd drop us a line on +44 (0)1525 841079.