News

In style Finch wins advertising brief

Jade — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:01:54 BST

Liverpool advertising agency Finch has won a six-way pitch to handle the marketing activities of luxury tour operator Seasons in Style. The brief includes the creation of a new range of brochures highlighting the range of Seasons properties available. Finch will also launch a new advertising campaign in the autumn across key consumer titles.
Paul Beacall, managing director of Seasons, said “These are challenging trading conditions, so it is important that we have a clear offer that differentiates us from the competition. We now have this, and look forward to reaping the rewards

Annual NW Business Pitch

CL5 — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:01:23 BST

Liverpool Science Park is hosting an event later this month aimed at the digital sector, to encourage collaborations and idea sharing.
Through a series of 90 second “elevator pitches” company representatives will talk to delegates about their company, what they do and their key skills, so that the audience can see if there are any potential business opportunities, link ups or outsourcing opportunities.
Organisers hope that it will help start ups forge partnerships with larger companies, while established organisations will be able to access innovations from smaller enterprises.
It’s open to firms in the North West and developers, users and suppliers of products and expertise in the digital, ICT and new media sectors.
The event takes place on 28th April and you can register on its website.

Liverpool Sound City Update

CL5 — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:58:33 BST

Liverpool Sound City line-up is shaping up to be one of the most sought-after tickets on the festival circuit with Gil Scott-Heron, Paloma Faith, Ian McCulloch, Delphic, The Maccabees, The Fall, British Sea Power, My Passion, Speech Debelle, Wild Beasts, Field Music, Los Campesinos!, The Blackout, Wave Machines, The Sunshine Underground, Hot Club de Paris, Ian McNabb and Chilly Gonzalez to name but a few confirmed as playing the festival.
With just two months to go the current list of confirmed acts show the scale of this top music festival. Liverpool Sound City also hosts premiere movie screenings, photography exhibitions and a full music conference with names such as Seymour Stein already confirmed to attend.
The Liverpool Sound City Conference, Hilton Hotel – 19th and 20th May

Your chance to listen to, meet and question some of the top music industry insiders at the Liverpool Sound City Conference.
Panellists include speakers from: Warner Music, EMI, ActiVision Games, Topspin, McCartney Digital, BMG, Moshi Moshi, Headlock Management, etc.
Keynote sessions include Seymour Stein, the legendary music mogul who signed acts including Madonna, Blondie, Talking Heads, The Ramones, Echo and the Bunnymen.

‘Create Sound City’, Hard Days Night Hotel – 19th and 20th May

Liverpool Sound City will for the first time host ‘Create Sound City’ a series of educational panels, workshops, seminars and interactive sessions aimed at artists – both new and established, and young people.
Educational sessions from the Musicians Union, Diaspora and CMU on Music, Money and Management with special guest speakers.

The LSC conference is rapidly becoming a must attend event on the music business calendar with over 1,000 music business delegates including promoters, booking agents, managers, record labels, PR companies, publishers and media in attendance, it is THE place to meet and network with the music industry from the North, as well as the rest of UK.
Now in its 3rd year, more than 35,000 revellers are expected to attend Liverpool Sound City, creating an electric atmosphere that takes over the city streets and venues.
A Festival Wristband is all that’s needed to truly experience what this festival is all about.
The Sound City Wristbands allow entry to ALL shows (first come first served basis and excluding Gil Scott-Heron) over the 4 day festival and can be purchased through www.liverpoolsoundcity.co.uk for just £45.
They carry a whole list of additional exclusives available to WRISTBAND HOLDERS ONLY including Wristband Only Gigs (exclusive entry only with your wristband), Goody Bags filled with record company and sponsor’s freebies, Text Alerts with news about last minute gigs and special events, Aftershow Party Invites only announced on the day, Competitions and exclusive prizes to wristband holders and ‘Money Can’t Buy’ prizes such as meet and greets.
Liverpool Sound City are pleased to announce their special Festival 1 Day Wristband.
For just £17.50 Wed or Thu or £19.50 Fri or Sat you can purchase a 1 day wristband that gets you into all live events at Liverpool Sound City. A great price and great chance to see your favourite band and also have all the benefits of the full wristband on the day or your choice.
Check out www.liverpoolsoundcity.co.uk to see which bands are scheduled for each day.

Fund managers bid to run North West Venture Capital Loan Fun

CL5 — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:56:33 BST

Almost 40 fund managers from across the UK have bid to run four new venture capital loan funds for the North West.
The Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) has announced that the £184m Northwest Venture Capital Loan Fund (VCLF) has received 39 expressions of interest. These are likely to include Liverpool-based Alliance Fund Managers (AFM) and Yorkshire Fund Managers (YFM) who are currently operating the £10m interim VCLF.
When the VCLF is fully up and running later this year it will include a development capital fund, a venture capital fund, a loan fund and a priority sector growth fund.
The NWDA and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) have set up a new company – NW Business Finance (NWBF) – to oversee the selection of the fund managers.
Around 40% of the overall fund has been ring-fenced for the Liverpool city region which would mean local firms would benefit from a £70m pot.
It is believed AFM, based at Cunard Building in Liverpool city centre, will bid to run the loan fundIt is currently in control of the £4m interim loan fund from which it has already completed three deals.
The NWDA says VCLF finance is available now to businesses in the North West through the interim funding pot and they can apply for this through Business Link Northwest.
The interim VCLF currently has 37 applications under active review totalling £10m, of which a number are close to contract stage.
It’s first investment is £300,000 to a software company that is to set up home at the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus.
Lord Daresbury has been appointed as the chairman of NWBF.
He is already chairman of several companies including, AIM-listed Nasstar, Stellar Diamonds, Mallett and Aintree Racecourse.
He said: “I am delighted to take on this important role for what will be one of the most important funding support streams available in the region.
“Venture capital and loan funding of this type is vital for the growth of our businesses and our economy.”

Fund managers bid to run North West Venture Capital Loan Fun

CL5 — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:56:33 BST

Uniform rebrands RopeWalks

CL5 — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 10:55:59 BST

Uniform, a Liverpool design consultancy, has created a new brand for the city’s RopeWalks area. The company was awarded the contract in February by The Creative RopeWalks Stakeholders Group, including representatives from The Mersey Partnership, Liverpool City Council, local businesses and residents.
Uniform said its new branding seeks to capture the “history, eclecticism, diverse offer and vibrant character” of the area.
The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment says the area, which boasts 96 listed buildings and lies partly within Liverpool’s World Heritage Site, has “great historical character and architectural merit”.
A new website for the area is now being developed by Digital Blah Blah to provide an “online hub” for residents and businesses.

Switch makes BBC list

CL5 — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:53:52 BST

The £7.5m Capstone Building at Liverpool Hope University’s Creative Campus has opened. Supported by £6.5m funding from The Northwest Regional Development Agency and Higher Education Funding Council for England, were present at an opening event that incorporated a concert and awards ceremony.
Steven Broomhead, NWDA chief executive, said the new building would help to support skills development in the region.
The Capstone Building is a project which has been in development for almost 10 years. The building will be massively beneficial to the creative and performing arts industry, it will provide opportunities to develop new initiatives with local creative businesses and the local community, provide the scope to create new jobs, assist with new business start up and encourage and widen participation in Higher Education and the Arts.

£7.5m Capstone Building Opens

CL5 — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:53:11 BST

Office Share � Castle Street

Georgia — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:51:59 GMT

Office Share – Bank of England – Castle Street
Creative Liverpool – Design & Marketing Agency is looking for a synergy business to office share its prestigious head quarters in Liverpool city centre. This is a prime business address and a very cool office space, very competitive rates for the right company.
Contact Details – Peter Glover – 0151 236 5797
http://www.creativeliverpool.co.uk
Office Address
The Old Bank of England Building
31 Castle Street
Liverpool
L2 4GL
Office Share Details
�¡Office Space Open Plan – 700sq foot
�¡Fully furnished – 7 Desk spaces (desks/chairs etc included – can be removed)
�¡Private 10 seater conference room with Plasma, Internet etc.
�¡Integrated Telephone System with DDI’s (if needed)
�¡40Mb Internet connection
�¡The best view in town – With cool balconies
�¡This office share would be ideal digital, design or IT companies who want a flexible, cool and sophist iced office.

Well done Mando

CL5 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:45:44 GMT

Liverpool digital agency Mando Group said today it has secured software giant Microsoft as a “strategic client”.
The agency, which has been a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for the past two years, will work with Microsoft to produce an innovative user experience application utilising the company’s Silverlight, Sharepoint 2010 and Bing Maps.
Mando managing director Ian Finch said: “Silverlight and SharePoint are core technologies for us, so it’s fantastic to be developing with them directly with Microsoft and gaining crucial insight into the future of enterprise applications.”
http://www.mandogroup.co.uk

£40m lost in Latitude pre-pack

CL5 — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:44:16 GMT

Warrington-based digital marketing agency Latitude, valued at £50m when it changed hands just over two years ago, was sold for less than £1.1m after it went into a pre-pack administration in January.
A newly filed administrators’ report reveals that equity investors lost nearly £40m in the collapse of Latitude Group Ltd (LGL) and Barclays, its bankers, lost £4.62m.
Latitude, a search engine optimisation specialist, was bought back out of administration by its previous owners Vitruvian Partners, a London-based private equity firm which acquired the company from founder Dylan Thwaites and his former father-in-law David Ashton in December 2007.
The expectations underpinning that deal were never fulfilled as more players got into SEO and Latitude’s top line suffered when it lost one of its biggest clients, the price comparison site Gocompare.com.
Administrators from BDO say there is no prospect of a payout on £38.89m of loan notes owed to private equity backers and management, while non-preferential creditors owed another £5.67m will also get nothing.
Barclays, which lent the business £8m, held onto £2.6m of cash which Latitude had on deposit and took another £700,000 of the sale proceeds.
The sale price of £1.08m was made up of £832,000 for goodwill, £150,000 for debtors, £100,000 for plant and office equipment and £1 for intellectual property rights.
Joint administrator Toby Underwood said BDO had been brought in by the bank in January 2009 because of concerns about Latitude’s trading and financial position. Turnover fell to £27m in 2009 compared with £58m in the previous year.
Underwood said 23 potential buyers were targeted with 16 showing interest and three making offers. “The highest offer received was not adequate to achieve a solvent restructuring,” he said, adding that in December it was decided to put the company into administration because it could not meet payments on its debt.
BDO’s report said the sale to Latitude Digital Marketing Ltd, owned by Latitutde’s management and Vitruvian, was for “a total consideration” of £1,082,072. As a result of the sale, the jobs of 99 employees, about 75 employees of them in Warrington, were saved.
Latitude chief executive Alex Hoye told Crain’s he was not surprised that multiple parties had showed an interest in buying the business.
He said the purchase price did not include an undisclosed sum of working capital which Vitruvian had injected into the business and pointed out that although LGL did not pay creditors, the new company had “taken great pains to ensure that our suppliers are taken care of”.
Hoye added: “I am pleased that our existing investors have placed a vote of confidence in the turnaround that current management led in 2009. After losing some key clients at the end of 2008 and seeing ad spend reduce in the financial sector where the company was heavily dependent, important changes were made to the team.”
There had also been investment to diversify to multiple channels and enhance technological capabilities, which had led to new contract wins such as BT.
Hoye said service was uninterrupted throughout the MBO process, with clients worth 99.5 per cent of total sales renewing their contracts.
Trading is on target in the first quarter of 2010 and Latitude is expecting a big increase in spending from its gaming clients Bet365, Victor Chandler and Virgin Games.
“The impending World Cup and expanding regulation change in Europe have been a boon for the sector and Latitude is in advanced planning stages for record-breaking campaigns,” Hoye added.
Related Story: http://www.digitalliverpool.co.uk/latitude-administration

Insider Media: The Future is Fibre

CL5 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:33:45 GMT

Fibre optic internet is an essential service for the growing digital and creative sectors in the region argues Insider Media’s Kate Simpson.

‘High-speed internet is becoming an essential business element, especially within digital and creative industries – areas in which the North West is working hard to become a leader. But when it comes to speed of internet connectivity there is a risk it could get left behind. With this in mind the North West is taking the matter into its own hands.
The UK is ranked 21st for speed behind France, Spain and Portugal, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) study of net connections. “Next generation access (NGA) is going to be a priority for 2010,” says Andrew Halliwell, acting head of regional ICT policy at the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA).
The government has announced that it has £1bn to spend on making Britain’s broadband better. But that’s not enough to pay for everyone to get connected to fibre optic networks. So who should get connected first? The majority of UK broadband is supplied through copper cables, whereas with fibre optic cables a much higher speed of connectivity can be supplied. There is a lot of fibre infrastructure in the ground that could be used, it just needs to be “lit”. Once lit, this could be used to provide a Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) service.
This means the fibre is connected up to street cabinets but the last part of cable that goes to homes and businesses (known as the last mile) will go through copper cabling, reducing the speed of the service. A faster service can be achieved through Fibre to the Premises (FTTP), when the extra fibre optic cabling is added to connect the street cabinet across the last mile to businesses and homes.
The NWDA has been busy developing a strategy for NGA for the region since September. Halliwell says: “NGA is extremely important to ensure the North West is able to compete within the global economy.”
Manchester is leading the way and has various projects up and running; Liverpool is just starting to plan a NGA strategy; and Cheshire, Cumbria and Lancashire will follow on from there.
Liverpool
LIVERPOOL INNOVATION PARK
The park has an internal fibre optic ring that can carry a gigabit. This is connected to a high-speed fibre optic network via a service provided by tenant company AIMES.
The technology company specialises in delivering data centres and application development. It buys connectivity to the high-speed fibre network in bulk and then leases it to other tenants at affordable prices. Fibre is expensive for individual businesses to buy, but bulk buying brings down the cost, meaning AIMES can offer it at a similar price to normal broadband.
LIVERPOOL SCIENCE PARK
Liverpool Science Park also has a dedicated fibre optic source, which even lured one tenant from London on the basis of the connectivity. It’s not really surprising – a back-up system is place in case there is a problem with the primary source, so tenants will never have to do without broadband. It seems simple, but it is a must for modern businesses.
NORTHERNNET
There are media access bureaus at FACT in the city centre and at the Innovation Park, and internet service providers that already provide fibre optic broadband, notably Virgin Business Media. Andy Marshall, director of corporate sector, says: “Our entire next generation network is fibre optic and accessible to all businesses in the North West.” It comes at a cost that most smaller businesses can’t justify, though. In fact, the cost of a 100Mpbs connection in our region is many times higher than comparable city regions. If this isn’t addressed it could affect the potential for future inward investment.
The good news is that initiatives are in place to get us up to speed at more affordable rates. Manchester is part of BT’s expansion plans in which a further 21,000 North West homes and businesses will have access to super-fast broadband by the end of 2010. This expansion will take the number of super-fast fibre-based lines in the region to 335,000. It follows an announcement in 2009 that by early summer 2010 fibre-based broadband would be available at 20 exchanges in Greater Manchester.
A host of bodies in the city are furiously working to connect as much of Manchester as possible, one being the Commission for New Economy. Alex Roy, head of economic analysis, says: “We are investigating options for investment in next generation broadband to accelerate the roll-out across Greater Manchester and encourage take-up. Part of the assessment includes identifying existing fibre assets and the potential to exploit these further.”
Liverpool is also making progress, albeit without any support from BT, which has no plans to provide fibre optic internet in the city. The Mersey Partnership has formed a working group for NGA to look at the possibilities and is working with businesses to increase interest and demand. Some businesses are frustrated at being missed off BT’s initial plans.
CL5, a specialist search engine promotion company, set up the Digital Liverpool blog in collaboration with other city centre companies to highlight the lack of service. John Elcock, head of internet marketing, says: “We are frustrated about the provision in the city. There are peaks and troughs throughout the day.”
Richard Spragg of AIMES says the lack of high-speed broadband is already holding businesses back: “Most of the companies we offer services to don’t have access to a high-speed connection, so we have to build a connection upgrade into the package to continue to be able to do business with them.”
NGA is high on the priority list for furthering the opportunities for expansion and investment in the North West. It is essential for the future of our growing digital and creative industries that we get this right and do it quickly’.
Article quoted from Feb 2010 edition of Insider Media with thanks, view original.

Liverpool Innovation Park Appoints New Chair

CL5 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:32:38 GMT

Liverpool Innovation Park (LIP) operator, Space North West, has appointed Steve Smith as chairman of its Advisory Group.
LIP, based on Edge Lane is home to a gigabit fibre optic network and is geared to attracting high-growth firms in the knowledge economy.
Steve Smith is ICT Industry Director at Liverpool Vision and helped bring s Software City to Liverpool last year. Steve will chair the Advisory Group comprising representatives of LIP tenant businesses, Liverpool’s universities, Business Link NW’s innovation team, NHS innovation specialists TrusTech, and the Northwest Regional Development Agency.
‘That LIP Advisory Group’s member organisations also support complementary facilities such as MerseyBio and Liverpool Science Park demonstrates a joined up approach to growing Liverpool’s Knowledge Economy. Under Steve’s chairmanship, we hope to advance an increasingly collaborative agenda.’
LIP Innovation Manager, Mark Tock
www.liverpoolinnovationpark.com

Mando�s New Addition

Gareth — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:27:32 GMT

Those Mando chaps keep churning out top notch work. I had a good poke around Mando’s latest delivery, the Penketh website,. I was encouraged to read that the client – a Liverpool based office products suppliers worked with the agency over an 18 month design and development process. This serves as a good reminder to all those client-side, that these sort of large scale sites cannot be ‘knocked up’ quickly. Presumably with a client such as penketh who approaches a web design project in this serious and professional manor Mando weren’t met with the ever present cry “is there any funding we can have”.
It’s a slick site, visually light and ‘roomy; giving the feeling of space. With this many product lines, many designers could get this wrong, overcrowding the space and over designing, but Mando have delivered a cracker.
The great news story for me is the ROI part; the jump in online orders. A quick note to the plethora of agencies promoting poorly designed sites through google ad sense and PPC – See, good design is just as important in getting sales!
http://www.mandogroup.com/
http://www.penkeths.com/

iPad � How will you use yours?

Mark — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:25:18 GMT

A quite humorous video has popped up on YouTube since the iPad was launched last week. All credit goes to ‘midnightblade’ who has cleverly dubbed a clip from the 2004 German film ‘Downfall.’
It discusses that the Apple product will become a failure, nothing more than an ‘oversized iPod Touch.’ Please be warned, content of the video is of an explicit nature and in a ‘tongue in cheek’ manner. Please do not view if you are easily offended.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaj-YZw4PNg&feature=player_embedded
It does not have multi-tasking, no camera and most importantly it does not include ‘Flash’ but this is the in-between product of the iPhone and the iMac. The first generation of the iPhone missed key features such as the Camera but this was soon put into a later edition.
I will still be purchasing an iPad on launch, it may not be the finishing product just yet but once Flash is finally included in an update, I think this will revolutionise web browsing and multimedia viewing. A key words Steve Jobs used was ‘intimate.’ I could easily find myself browsing the web on my knee in front of the tv or grabbing it within a client meeting when needed or for the secretary to use it as a calender and meeting log. Fast and easy to use.
It looks more comfortable to a desktop or laptop to use and as easy as an iPhone. When you have a laptop resting on your knee it feels like you are carrying out a task that is clerical and ‘work like.’ The iPad will be more fun, surely???
Await product review on launch.

Jim Gill's Retirement

Gareth — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:43:22 GMT

The announcement today of the departure of Jim Gill, the Chief Executive of Liverpool Vision, is one which raised a few eyebrows. Although unsurprising as he made no secret, privately or in public that retirement was looming. So what should the digital sector hope for in his successor?
Jim’s leadership of Liverpool Vision has been an undoubted success, delivering genuine success to the City Region, even through the dark and difficult days of the last 24 months. For the Digital sector Vision supports ACME – the creative and digital sector industry body. They have also been great supporters of ICDC, the only UK University research centre focused on New Media. In addition to this Vision, do handout the occasional new business grants – although not specific to our sector, Vision’s/NWDA’s Financial Assistance to Business grant is worth having a look at.
All the people I speak to in the digital and creative sector say that the main issues facing our sector can be summarised as:

Skills Gap of School leavers/Retention of talent leaving Universities
Foreign direct Investment – getting the best digital companies here.
Financial help for digital start ups/SME’s

All three issues are clearly on Vision’s radar as the laudable Foundation for Growth report in 08 highlights. Keeping them on Vision’s radar, is our job.
The incumbent of Jim’s post will need to address all three issues to keep our sector on the upward curve that it has fought hard to climb onto. What is needed is a visionary, a person who ‘gets’ digital. A spokesman, with real flair and detailed knowledge of industry. For my mind, they have to have a private sector background. Not just a public sector re-tread.
I had the pleasure of sitting next to Jim at the Merseyside Property Forum’s annual dinner some years ago. His legacy is one of undoubted success; he is one of Liverpool’s champions and real nice guys. They will be big boots to fill indeed.
As a sector, we need to keep pressure on the new Chief Executive. I’m sure they will have an open door policy, we need to ensure the new person is engaged and on board with our issues and concerns. But I’m sure you will all join with me in wishing Jim an enjoyable retirement.

Merseyside ACME?

Gareth — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:42:14 GMT

Apart from being the mail order catalogue of choice for Wile E Coyote in his harebrained schemes to get that roadrunner. What is ACME? I know from the website that it’s the body that supports the creative sector in Liverpool…ect ect, but in all honesty I really don’t see it out there day to day.
Now unless I’m missing something, and I’m happy to be proved wrong, what is it actually doing? Apart from the occasional random poorly designed e-newsletter (which more often than not carries last months news) I really can’t see it out there. I can’t even log into their rather bizarre website these days.
Vision’s involvement in ACME (or more rightly - acquisition of) hasn’t seen a great increase in activity. I watched with interest as the body moved to the Capital to see if there would be a sea change of activity. As i say I’m happy to be proved wrong and welcome all comments from this piece.
I can guarantee that between salaries, suppliers, rent, office costs etc Liverpool Vision don’t much change from £100k . Now by my reckoning there’s around forty five major agencies active in Liverpool. Now here’s a question. ACME or an annual cheque from Vision to those agencies for £2,200. I know what I’d have.
For the record, I’m 33 and I still find Roadrunner funny.
Confused
Liverpool

Latitude Problems or Not?

Peter — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:25:08 GMT

I read with interest the news emanating about Latitude’s problems and its left me slightly confused. Their funders Barclays are believed to have lost several million pounds as a result of a pre-pack administration but the business says they are doing great, so why the call in from the bank?
Pre-Packed Administration – This means their business was sold back to its management and their existing private equity backers Vitruvian Partners, basically like a NEWCO. In my experince others also get burned here along with the banks, what happens to thier suppliers?? Barclays is understood to have written off up to £5m of loans after a poor 2008 from latitude; however the SEO firm claimed to be getting back on track last year. confused.com?
Ian Riley, managing partner of Vitruvian, said in a news release: “No jobs will be lost as a result of the deal as the new company bought the entire assets of the business out of administration.
In another news release this same deal was described as a management buyout and did not mention the pre-pack, chief executive Alex Hoye said: “This deal secures Latitude’s ability to innovate and grow in a disruptive market. Marketing spend online surpassed TV for the first time in the UK this year – advertisers’ continued shift of expenditure to digital services provides growth opportunities for firms like Latitude in any economic environment.
Vitruvian acquired a majority stake for £50m in December 2007 from Dylan Thwaites and his former father-in-law David Ashton, who founded Latitude in 2000. Under the founders, turnover grew from £500,000 in 2002 to more than £40.5m in 2007 when it made a pre-tax profit of just over £1.46m.
Dylan Thwaites left the business in December 2008 amid a management shake-up which saw the departure of several other top executives. Chief financial officer Julie Morgan, chief technology officer Rob Shaw and head of client services Judy Dewsbury all went. The workforce was cut by about a dozen to around 95 in 2008 after customers cut back on spending and the company posted a turnover of £58m.
According to Latitude’s website the company is still recruiting, advertising three jobs at its London office and nine in Warrington, where the majority of the staff are based.

Digital Switchover - Office Space Opportunity

Gareth — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:27:01 GMT

Looking to move? Looking for space alongside an award winning Digital Agency?
The perfect opportunity has arisen for an inspiring business to take space in one of the most prestigious offices in the Central Business District. Grade A space available for a Grade A company.

City Centre location
Plug and play facilities
One monthly fee - all costs included
Very flexible leases

Enquiries to Digital Liverpool or c/o Gareth@creativeliverpool.co.uk

FACT - New Website

Peter — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:35:41 GMT

The new website for FACT is launched, more features, easier navigation and a shiny new look.
For me the site is an improvement but falls short of a ‘great site’ tag. Navigation is quite simple if not too obvious at the start but there’s far too much flat content on black, making it a tad repetitive and slightly boring to browse. Saying all that, it’s an information site and a huge amount complexity to incorporate under one domain.
What FACT say:
‘The site is aimed at being easier to use, offering more content and providing a clearer picture of all the things that FACT does as an organisation………there’s lots of features to come in the next few months, including a host of interactivity options & new features.
What do you think?

The Zeitgeist List

Gareth — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:04:48 GMT

The annual Google Zeitgeist list has been released this week.
If a measure of the importance of an event is reflected in numbers of searches it receives through Google, then in decades to come the list may well provide social anthropologists and insight into the most important events of that year.
Depressingly enough, the top search terms for 2009 are Susan Boyle, Michael Jackson (in the wake of his death) and Lady Ga Ga. I mean, Christ all mighty. Global depression, climate change, war in Afghanistan anyone?
The big winner though, predictably was Facebook. The social networking site (along with the Spanish invitation-only private social networking website Tuenti made it in the list as the fastest rising searches. Tuenti (I have on good authority) is like Facebook – only in Spanish, just that the girls are fitter.
Swine Flu, Acacia Berries, and Twitter were amongst the highest risers and John McCain, Sarah Palin and Obama were in the fastest fallers. In Google Maps Mount Everest, Laguna Seca and the Grand Canyon topped the bill. I am, however perplexed at how pictures of a new moon out performed Megan Fox in the image search.
It’s a strange world we live in.
Check out the list at
http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/press/zeitgeist2009/

Event: FACT Workshops with Scott Kirsner

CL5 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:30:41 GMT

As part of their Visionary Sessions series, Northwest Vision and Media presents a workshop with Scott Kirsner, author of the 2009 book ‘Fans, Friends & Followers’.
FACT, Liverpool
Wednesday 27th January 2010
10am- 2pm (finishing with lunch)
If you are a new to the creative industry or a freelancer such as a filmmaker, musician, visual artist, games designer, radio or TV writer etc then this session is a MUST for you!
Author and CinemaTech editor Scott Kirsner will hold an interactive and intensive workshop titled ‘Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age’ on how creative artists can cultivate big audiences and earn a solid return from their work.
Scott’s workshop will avoid jargon and, assuming a reasonable level of familiarity with the internet, will focus on how you can:
• Start building an audience as soon as you commit to your project
• Use social media tools to get the audience engaged, involved, and supporting your work
• Choose the communication channels that work best for you
• Use your time effectively
• Reach potential audience members via blogs, podcasts, e-mail lists, and video series
• Understand the four kinds of fans
• Build, manage, and geotag your audience database
• Create a range of merchandise, physical and digital, for fans to buy
• Turn people interested in your work into fans who support you economically, from one project to the next.
Expect to be inspired and challenged, but also armed with real practical tips.
PLUS
Afternoon Workshop – 2pm till 4pm (Optional)
Scott has agreed to stay around for this extra session and will be joined by one of North West Vision and Media’s team of trained Media Development Professionals, Krishna Stott, Director, Producer and Writer of Interactive Media. Together they will facilitate a 2 hour practical session to enable the ‘conversion’ of the morning’s ‘tips’ into a personal action plan.
Register online today for your FREE PLACE
These activities are funded by the Skillset TV Freelance Fund and the Digital and Media Skills Programme, delivered by Northwest Vision and Media in partnership with Skillset, and supported by the North West Development Agency.

Unilever Success for Daresbury

CL5 — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:29:00 GMT

Soap giant Unilever has made a research and development agreement with Daresbury Innovation Campus, the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has confirmed. STFC scientists will use modelling and simulation to develop new software tools to speed up the development of new and more efficient products across Unilever’s personal care range. The research, with Unilever’s R&D team at Port Sunlight, will use the laboratory’s supercomputers to try to develop special software tools that can predict how the different ingredients will interact with each other.

Innovation Awards for Merseyside businesses

Peter — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:52:24 GMT

Innovatation Awards for Merseyside businesses
Lets have a digital winner here! Post us any ideas?
The search for Merseyside’s most innovative companies has once again begun with the launch of the annual Merseyside Innovation Awards. The awards, aim to recognise and reward the use of innovation as a means of boosting growth and profitability.
This year’s winner was Liverpool-based wildlife charity Landlife Group, which has developed a soil inversion technique to increase biodiversity. It secured a £10,000 cash prize plus £4,000 worth of legal, business, accounting or design consultancy; support from some of the region’s leading business advisers; and publicity for the idea.
The search for the 2010 winner will start on 24 January at Liverpool Science Park where early contenders for the award, plus previous winners, will be in attendance.

Mando launches arts website

CL5 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:47:57 GMT

Mando Group has launched a new website for public art project Art for Places www.artforplaces.com.
The project, a partnership between NewHeartlands, Liverpool Biennial, Arts Council England, and local authorities and housing associations, will run for the next three years.
Mando chief executive Matt Johnson said:
“The Liverpool region has much to offer its residents and we’re proud to be helping it build on those assets to ensure future success.”
www.mandogroup.co.uk

£1.92 Million i-phone

CL Design — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:38:37 GMT

Dream Designing Job!
The world’s most expensive iPhone, featuring almost 200 diamonds and costing £1.92m, has landed.
Designed by Scouser Stuart Hughes, it has taken ten months to make for the anonymous Aussie businessman who commissioned it.
He’ll be recognisable as the only iPhone owner not ostentatiously waving his new toy around.
Hughes said most of the ten months was spent trying to find the seven-carat diamond used as the front navigation button.

GVC Launch Unique Official LFC Product

CL5 — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:19:17 GMT

Liverpool design and brand agency GVC has launched a new online retail venture specialising in a range of exclusive Premier League merchandise.
premiersportsgifts.com was launched earlier this week (01.12.09) selling the UK’s only personalised Official Liverpool Football Club 2010 Calendar – the first in a select range of official club merchandise shortly available on the website.

Similar products for other Premier League and Scottish Premier League (SPL) clubs including Arsenal FC, Everton FC, Fulham FC, Manchester City FC and Celtic FC will also be available very soon.
The launch promotion features an eye-catching and totally unique Official LFC 2010 Calendar that is individually personalised with the customer’s chosen name authentically reproduced on each page photograph. Prior to ordering via a secure online purchasing facility, visitors can preview all their calendar pages through a user-friendly interactive display.
Each calendar is printed on high-quality, silk-finish paper with a cover and 12 personalised pages that display a selection of football images including crowd scenes, stadium backdrops and dressing rooms. Orders are printed and despatched within 48 hours.
premiersportsgifts.com is the only online store that offers officially endorsed personalised football calendars for Premier League and Scottish Premier League (SPL) clubs.
Graham Robinson, sales director for premiersportsgifts.com commented on the launch:
‘We’ve spent many months developing this product and we know from our research that it’s a fantastic gift which promises to be a big hit with true football supporters. We’re really confident that the Official LFC 2010 Personalised Calendar is going to be the must-have present for Reds’ fans’.
GVC was founded in 1992 and has an established track record of designing and implementing highly effective branding and marketing solutions across the sports and leisure sector.
www.premiersportsgifts.com

Creative Funding Success

CL5 — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:50:03 GMT

Merseyside creatives secure funding
Creative and digital support agency Northwest Vision and Media has invested more than £130,000 into four Merseyside companies through its Regional Attraction Fund (RAF).
The fund, delivered in partnership with the Northwest Development Agency, has awarded cash to games production company Catalyst Outsourcing, digital art production studio Milky Tea, and games company Dou Yi Dou.
The largest award in Merseyside went to video games company Citrus Suite, which secured £50,000 to invest into a new Nintendo WiiWare download game.
Paul Taylor, the organisation’s director of business delivery, said:
“The aim of this funding is to stimulate growth in the sector so that our creative and digital businesses can take full advantage of the significant opportunities regionally with MediaCityUK, nationally and globally.”

V&A � Hit Search Win Contract

CL5 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:55:11 GMT

Digital marketing specialists Hit Search have recently added one of the world’s top museums, the Victoria and Albert Museum to its list of clients. The London museum has enlisted the services of Liverpool based Hit Search to aid the online marketing campaign of its retail website, V&A Shop.
The Liverpool-based digital outfit will be working on the V&A Shop site to improve its online presence via Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), with the aim of increasing traffic to the site and, ultimately, increasing the amount of purchases made from V&A Shop.
Hit Search director Andrew Redfern said: “This contract with V&A is a massive coup for us. Not only is it an excellent, established brand to work with, it sends a clear message of our ability to deliver and attract big name clients from all over the country.
“We hope to not only live up to V&A’s expectations, but to exceed them greatly, as we help this historic institution to build upon their strong web presence.”
The V&A Museum is, with a permanent collection of over four-and-a-half million objects. Established in 1852, its collection spans over 5000 years of exquisite art, from ceramics and portraits, to jewellery and sculptures.
Around two-and-a-half million visitors pass through the V&A’s doors every year, and the V&A Shop allows those visitors to purchase a number of souvenirs related to the museum and its current exhibitions, from both the store located in the museum and its website.
Richard Wilkinson of V&A Shop said: “We’re delighted to be working with Andy and the team at Hit Search in order to aid our online expansion. Hit Search’s partnership approach makes for a closer working relationship through responsiveness and transparency, which will ultimately work towards delivering a better Return On Investment (ROI).”
For more information on the Victoria and Albert shop goto www.vandashop.com

studio placement at Mando Group

Digi Liverpool — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:04:29 GMT

Trainee Social & Search Executive – Mando Group
Liverpool based Mando Group is a nationally renowned web design consultancy, with more than 700 web and online development or campaign projects to date. NorthWest Vision & Media will be partnering with them on the i.studio scheme and are currently taking applications for a Trainee Search & Social Media Executive. This is an ideal opportunity for individuals new to the web industry who want to build a career in Search Engine Optimisation and social media.
How to apply
If the role is right for you and you feel you match the skills requirements, please download the Training profile for this role and the application form which is available on the Vision&Media website and returning it by email to Simon Knight on simonk@visionandmedia.co.uk along with your CV.
Deadline for applications has now been extended to 12 noon on Tuesday the 17th of November, with interviews now planned to take place during the week commencing the 23rd of November. If you have any availability issues for this time period please let Simon know in your email.
Placements will commence in September 2009 with the selection process starting now.
If you’re dead set on a career in digital – from web development and programming to design, online marketing and beyond, then now is the time to enter the i.studio.
Northwest Vision & Media is partnering with some of the region’s very best web, digital and interactive companies to offer twelve 6-month, full time, paid placements. Successful candidates will also benefit from one-to-one mentoring, digital industry masterclasses and more.
The placement roles will include trainee opportunities in:

Web Development
Web Design
Project Co-ordination
Digital Marketing

If you are interested then email i.studio@visionandmedia.co.uk with your CV and contact details to be notified of forthcoming opportunities.
Please note this is a training and development opportunity and not a job.

TweetUp North Event

Digi Liverpool — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:39:05 GMT

TweetUp North Event
Monday 16th November
12.30pm to 1.30pm
BT Convention Centre Liverpool
‘TweetUpNorth’ is the first meet-up for Twitter users organised by the BT Convention Centre Liverpool and follows on from the success of similar events held in London for event industry professionals.
‘TweetUpNorth’ will be a focus for the region’s event professionals, industry leaders and regional business contacts to exchange ideas and, above all, network.
Twitterer’s will take part in a networking activity with a difference during the event – so be prepared to expect the unexpected! For Twitter users, this event is all about talking and networking as online profiles materialise into real time face values.
To access the event and register interest follow the BT Convention Centre on Twitter. Followers of ACC Liverpool can RSVP their attendance by messaging @ACCLiverpool on Twitter.

Michael Wolff at Liverpool Design Symposium

Digi Liverpool — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:44:56 GMT

Michael Wolff, co – founder of highly acclaimed and iconic design company Wolff Olins was in Liverpool this week for the annual Liverpool Design Symposium held at the JMU Art and Design Academy organised by curators Uniform and Smiling Wolf.
An inspiration to the youthful presence of the local students but also those that was in attendance from the professional arena, he did not fail to impress. The leader in ‘brand thinking’ arrived dressed in black with the added addition of an extravagant bright orange scarf in which Design Week described as ‘guru-orange.’ The audience was engaged with his presence immediately.
The conference titled, ‘Branding The City’ was hosted by Creative Review Editor, Patrick Burgoyne who questioned Wolff on this topical issue.
Wolff described branding a city is like attempting to ‘eat a dinosaur.’ He continued, ‘Branding is an illusion of an easy win for cities, without actually making them any better to live in.’
‘Whether the word ‘London’ is written in Helvetica, or the logo has Dick Whittington in it will not have much bearing on how people actually think of, and experience, the city,’ he said, referring to plans to create an identity for London.
Wolff not only disliked the new ‘Liverpool brand’ suggesting that it did not provide a strong identity outside of the city, and the design itself such as the font used should of not been computer generated but conveyed the past success of the city.
He also discussed his former brand consultancy Wolff Olins, ‘the group’s boldness has turned to arrogance, which has not a trace of humility in it’. Wolff identified service design in the NHS and care for the elderly as important topics for designers to take on.
He also encouraged the audience of students and professional creatives to address ‘real’ issues instead of ‘window dressing’. He stressed to designers that they should ensure that they keep numerous ingredients to there creative thinking. One being an appreciation of quality not just in there work, but what is in there surroundings in every day life.
In a final, nice touch Wolff suggested designers should not go to their Pantone book for a colour reference but go to their local park for inspiration then to the Pantone book to match the chosen colour.
The Liverpool Design Symposium is an event within the 2009 Liverpool Design Festival which runs until 8th November.
www.liverpooldesignsymposium.com
www.liverpooldesignfestival.com

CR click 2009 - London

Digi Liverpool — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:02:47 GMT

Event: click 2009
Date: 12th November
Location: Soho Theatre, London.
For 5 years Creative Review has been bringing together Europe’s creative leaders to showcase, spar and demonstrate how to make your digital creative work bigger and better than ever before. Last years do in London was a phenomenal success according to CR and was a complete sell out. With a refreshed line up of speakers and new format – they promise that 2009 will be even bigger and even better.
Building on the ongoing success of Click London, 2009 is the year that Creative Review’s digital event ‘Click’ goes global with events planned in Singapore, New York & London. The Click trilogy will provide a platform to both global award winners and niche local creative shops alike to tell the full story behind the most talked about work of 2009 in an organic and interactive forum.
CR click will be predicting future trends, looking at how to spread the power of digital and showcasing creative work from the best young talent in each region.
Click London is now fully open for registration. There are only limited places at this year’s event. fact, Rgister before the 24th August 2009 and you’ll get the early bird rates:
Register here for Soho Theatre – London 2009
To remain in the loop about additions to the agenda etc, follow us on twitter and facebook.

Liverpool Software City Int. 05.11.09

Digi Liverpool — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:23:00 BST

Now in its third year, Liverpool Software City is an event designed to showcase the city’s technology sector and attracts an international audience as an opportunity for businesses and investors to make valuable connections, share ideas and hear from leading entrepreneurs.
Selected technology companies will be pitching their business proposition to a panel of entrepreneurs and investors with a combined net worth of £0.25bn who will decide which company has the most compelling proposition.
5th November 2009 – 1pm
BT Liverpool Arena and Convention Centre
After the success of last year’s event Richard Farleigh, of Dragon’s Den fame, will be returning to Liverpool to host the panel and he will also be joined by Julie Meyer, one of the recently announced ‘online dragons’. Julie co-founded First Tuesday and is the founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital. Between them they have over 40 years experience helping start up businesses.
www.softwarecityltd.com
The after show networking party will be held in PanAm on the Albert Dock where delegates will have the opportunity to meet Richard Farleigh and Julie Meyer and network with delegates of Develop in Liverpool one of the highest profile events in the video gaming sector.

£5m for New Digital Quarter in Liverpool

Digi Liverpool — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:16:00 BST

A £5.2m investment plan from the NWDA and ERDF is to be used to support the growing digital and creative business community around Liverpool’s Baltic District in L1.
The scheme will see four warehouses refurbished to house up to 60 digital and creative businesses.
The ‘Baltic Creative’ scheme aims to augment the area’s growing reputation as Liverpool’s BoHo district which is already home to a number of leading digital companies including Splinter, Dolphin Music and Elevator Studios.
Kevin McManus, director of Liverpool Vision’s creative support body ACME, commented in the LDP: “We want a mixture of sole traders and small and large companies. We want to see a lot of collaboration and innovation, that puts Liverpool on the cutting edge of the industry.
“Liverpool’s future is creative and digital. We want to have some of Liverpool’s great creative and digital firms in there – maybe visual artists, designers or musicians. This will be a space where people can spark off each other and collaborate – all the things they should be doing at the moment.
“We have to support businesses that are going to grow and bring money and jobs to the city.”
The Baltic Creative funding includes £3m from the NWDA and another £2.2m from ERDF.

New Concept Gaming Needs Character Animator

John — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:46:54 BST

Birkenhead-based New Concept Gaming, winners of a 2009 Big Chip award, are a rapidly growing company serving the games industry. They design and manufacture innovative motion controllers for current and next-generation gaming across a number of platforms. Their “jOG” peripheral for the Nintendo Wii was named the best toy of 2009 by Channel Five’s Gadget Show.
New Concept Gaming in partnership with North West Vision and Media are currently seeking applications for a Trainee Character Animator to join the company for a 12-week paid Plug-In placement.
As part of their ongoing R&D, New Concept require an individual to design and animate characters that can accept and display motion inputs from their existing and forthcoming products.
This is a great opportunity for a recently trained 3D animator to build on their skills with a company directly related to the games industry. The company will be using the Unity engine in their games simulations, so candidates can be skilled in any of the best-known industry standard animation packages.
Follow this link to the NWVM website for details of how to apply
This activity is funded by the Digital and Media Skills Programme, delivered by Northwest Vision and Media in partnership with Skillset, and supported by the North West Development Agency.

2009 Liverpool Design Symposium

Peter — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:44:31 BST

Location: JMU Art and Design Academy
Date: 04/11/2009
Liverpool Design Symposium is back again delivering an array of speakers, exhibitions and events to delight the most design savvy and creative types.
The 2009 programme features Michael Wolff, courtesy of D&AD as part of the President Lecture Series. The DBA will also be running a session on Effective Design in the public sector led by Peter Mills, Consulting Director at the Team.
Aspiring creatives and students of design and advertising have the opportunity to hear top tips on how to break into the industry at a series of education-related sessions run by the D&AD, whilst the DBA will be holding a presentation on design effectiveness aimed at students.
And as if that’s not enough, an exhibition featuring the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards and The D&AD exhibition ‘Everyone Starts Somewhere’ exhibition has been thrown in for good measure, so have a nosey.
Website: www.liverpooldesignsymposium.com

Online Brand Management

Peter — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:43:16 BST

Brand Protection – Online. We all know protecting online brand image is vital. So why is it that so many businesses just don’t seem to bother, until they are in the shit and it’s too late? I think online brand management is a real area of growth for local SEO and Web design companies in Liverpool if more business owners wise up and realise the importance.
All businesses should understand what’s online representing them.
I quite like showing potential clients their brand impersonators on Facebook, or a Google image search against brand name can provide a similar impact.
Some Blog and directory sites carry some real weight with customers and making sure the most current reviews are positive is a big job indeed. Although we can’t control what’s said about our clients online we can certainly influence.
Is there call for DL to issue a press release to the local media?

Digital Training: Glow New Media and Uniform

CL5 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:42:18 BST

Northwest Vision and Media are working with some of Liverpool’s best-known digital and creative agencies to offer vital career opportunities for new talent and right now they are taking applications for a Trainee Web Developer with Glow New Media, and a Trainee Marketing Assistant with Uniform.
Glow New Media are taking part in the i.studio scheme, and the trainee role will kick off as soon as possible last until the end of March, with the added benefits of mentoring, masterclasses and extra funding for training. If you’re a coder particularly skilled in CSS, XHTML, ASP .NET C#, lacking in commercial experience but ready to take the leap, then this may be an ideal opportunity for you to start your career in earnest. Deadline for applications is 12 noon on Tuesday the 20th of October, and full details can be found here.
Uniform are seeking candidates to take an all-round assistance role in their marketing, new business and PR activities. This is an ideal opportunity to gain in-depth insight into how an award-winning full service agency operates. This opportunity will again finish at the end of March next year. Deadline for applications is 12 noon on the 27th of October and full details are here.
This activity is funded by the Digital and Media Skills Programme, delivered by Northwest Vision and Media in partnership with Skillset, and supported by the North West Development Agency.

Digital Concepting in PhotoSketch

Mark — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:11:15 BST

Mark Jones of city centre design agency Creative Liverpool asks what impact PhotoSketch may have on streamlining client work, or does it risk dumbing-down the creative process?
All designers especially the ‘old school’ whom are reading this will have their layout pads tucked underneath their keyboards and magic markers spread across the desk may think ‘What is this new tool?’
Developed by five Chinese students PhotoSketch is a clever online tool that allows you to create photomontages from simple stickmen-style sketches. The programme works with a simple tool palette on which you draw representations of an intended image, which are then tagged up by the user with keywords.
Using some clever technology as explained in the demo video below thousands of images are pulled in from Flickr, Google and Yahoo, from which 20-100 candidate images are produced. The most well-matched of these are processed within 15 minutes, resulting in an almost seamless composite picture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqAHijKYKD4&feature=player_embedded

If this tool works as described above and the client get there hands on it, I believe it won’t destroy our industry but will in turn only benefit the flow of our creativity and open doors to new thinking.
Remember the start of a great design job is the idea and then how to execute this in the correct medium, format and layout that’s why the client comes to us. Imagine the time you could save when putting together inspiration pieces for clients…”Here’s what I’m envisioning, how do you feel about it?”
It’s basically a simple way of getting your ideas out quickly. They may well be some copyright infringements if images are taken (use only for visuals, if for final job purchase image simple as that), but if fixed this could be a a great time saving tool.
They all said ‘that’s the end of my job’ when the Apple Mac was first launched in 1984 (predictions can happen but not fully) and 4 years later when Photoshop was introduced to the world and later in the nineties when the internet and then Google became rapidly available with a huge source of billions of images to process your ideas straight into photoshop without the magic marker. Surely like previously this type of tool can only benefit us.
Design once was truly a ‘craft’ when it took an immense skill not just to get the magical idea from your brain to a piece of paper without the aid of a mac, photoshop and the internet in front of you. When it took weeks to get an ad out, individually creating each letter with one mistake could set you back weeks.
With my commercial experience spanning 6 years I wasn’t there for the big changes in the eighties but hear many of the stories of ‘back in the day’ in the studios I have worked in. I wasn’t even there with the introduction of the internet in our industry but what I do remember is my first industry job.
After getting introduced to all of the studio and shown where my Mac sat and layout pads were found, I was quickly into one of my first ‘big jobs’ a national ad campaign for the ‘New Wembley Stadium.’ After digesting the brief i started scribbling my ideas down on paper, back and to from the mac searching for images that fit my ideas.
As I gathered a collection of images and typography I needed to get these in an illustrative format onto paper. One of the Art Directors i was working with then shouted out the ‘Grant Machine is in the back passage if you need it.’ I sharply replied, ‘Grant Machine, what the hell is that?’ He shrugged his head and look disgusted and replied ‘ Didn’t they teach you anything in Uni young boy?’
As not being one of the ‘old school’, I was amazed on the usefulness of this old raggedy machine. It was raw and instant but not digital. But I had a new tool to play with. Yes a Mac could do all of this and probably better but having a pencil and the aid of this machine in your hand your ideas could flow more creatively without the added noise from the computer screen (not the white version).
There was more craft to the job and felt I progressed my ideas much more rapidly improving my layout skills further than I ever had. This new road to take was 25 years out of date but was vital in my career progressing. I had discovered the combination of new and old works, if it benefits to the end result then it is good progress.
Just make sure you use both, if you use the new flashier digital tools maybe you lose the sense of creativity or if you use primary the layout pad and magic marker then you cannot take your ideas to the next level.
The journey of the layout pad to the finish print or final web design works but the odd tweak here or there back or forward surely can benefit our industry.
I still have not seen another Grant machine to this day, but maybe the introduction of tweaks like the PhotoSketch tool will substitute this. The organisation behind this are currently looking at adding video to the package. Digital concepting will change for the good.

The Mersey Partnership � Economic Review 2009

Gareth — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:07:18 BST

Yesterday morning over 100 attendees gathered at Liverpool University’s Foresight Centre to see Rod Holmes, Lorraine Rogers et al deliver TMP’s assessment of the economic development of the Liverpool City Region.
So what were the key findings and what do they mean for the digital sector?
Well, to shamelessly steal Rod’s patient/doctor metaphor fitting of our surroundings, the patient (Liverpool City Region) is out of the critical phase of illness and making good recovery – but is not off the life support just yet.
The headline data is littered with encouraging signs. A decade of strong growth, increases in the key GVA metric, output per head rising, employment rate increasing etc. However it’s important to present the backdrop – think of the city a decade ago, if these figures had not seen a positive trend upwards something would be very, very wrong.
Skills Shortage
The report did not try hide the alarming figure that almost 20% of school leavers in the City Region leave without a single qualification – nothing, not a GCSE, NVQ – Nada, zilch.
Also in 10% of 16–18 year olds fall into the NEET category – that’s 5,500 people Not in Education, Employment or Training! As an agency we have taken a handful of such staff through the Connexions programme. I would thoroughly recommend this to any agency. The individuals who we took on over a year ago are critical assets and are invaluable part of the team now.
So what is in it for the digital and creative sector?
Well, some good news on a £600m master plan for the Daresbury campus generating around 12,000 jobs, but also a commitment to invest in Liverpool’s Knowledge Quarter with the relocation and rebuild of the University Teaching Hospital. Other than that our sector can take heart in the (continued) increase in student numbers to over 53,000. The annual graduate spill-out into our economy can only be good news for our sector and Liverpool digital and creative companies. This year’s crop of CVs have, I must admit, been the best I have seen.
Encouragingly the data relates to data from 2007 and none of the figures includes the positive impact of ‘08, the ACC Arena impact or Liverpool One. So let’s look forward to next year’s report!
The full report is available from. http://www.merseyside.org.uk/displaypage.asp?page=12

'Graphic designer vs client' genius virals

Digital Liverpool — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:14:16 BST

If you’re a graphic designer or web designer for 5 years or more than you’ll find this very very funny indeed.
With 300,000 hits already it’s simply ‘brutally funny.’
Ironically these videos were made using xtranormal ‘text-to-move’ service that turns users’ scripts into mini-films using predesigned characters and backgrounds.
WARNING: Contains strong language.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QeSm2CHN6k&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvA4HXR1oUI&feature=player_embedded

i.studio 2009: Developer Required by Conker Media

CL5 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:05:19 BST

Northwest Vision and Media have partnered with Liverpool-based Conker Media, one of the country’s leading multiplatform production companies, on thei.studio 2009 scheme.
Under the scheme, Conker is looking for a Trainee Front End Developer to work with the senior developer in building, maintaining and modifying sites for a number of well-known broadcasters.
This is a paid role starting as soon as possible and funded until March 2010.
You will already be particularly skilled in CSS / HTML, ideally with experience working with a variety of CMS systems up to developer level. You should also be able to demonstrate a knowledge of standards and accessibility. Overall you should have the drive to want to take your skills as far as this opportunity will let you.
Full details on how to apply can be found via the NWVM site, but please keep in mind we can only take applications from Northwest-based individuals NOT in full-time education and with LESS than 12 months’ prior paid experience in the industry.
Deadline is 12 noon on Monday the 12th of October 2009.
This activity is funded by the Digital and Media Skills Programme, delivered by Northwest Vision and Media in partnership with Skillset, and supported by the North West Development Agency.

Site Review: liverpoolphil.com

CL5 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:00:46 BST

Liverpool agency Smiling Wolf has produced the latest version of the Philharmonic Hall’s website. It follows the last major re-design of the site in 2007 by Mando Group. Just how well does the new version stand-up to the benchmark set by Mando for one of the city’s leading cultural institutions?
The Philharmonic Hall is home to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the oldest concert-giving organisations in the world and rapidly re-establishing itself as a world leading orchestra under its charismatic Russian chief conductor Vasily Petrenko.
The Philharmonic is also a lively music venue in its own right with Razorlight and many other rock, pop and comedy stars regularly playing in the fantastic art deco building. The website therefore has to appeal to a broad audience, and for people who are regular concertgoers or of course new to Liverpool.
Smiling Wolf’s site at first glance marks a big creative shift from the Phil’s relatively restrained brand. We’re seeing lots of colour, photography and big, big web-safe Georgia typeface. Gone are the trademark white pages, sans serif font and tight, tidy layout, SW has introduced new colourways and graphics and most strikingly an abstract background image that contains the centre-aligned content sitewide.
The navigation has been switched away from the left hand side to push all second-tier pages to a new right hand side menu bar in the centre section. Key functionality such as the booking and contact section is neatly contained in a fixed element at the top of the window.
Brand information is kept separate from sales information by fixing it in separate menu tables to top and bottom with the booking section and multimedia pages (the ‘Phil Channel’) broken-out as quick links top right.
The original site had a very elegant solution to displaying mixed events programming that is central to the Phil’s business, by enabling visitors to search by genre, then dates using a horizontal tabbed menu.
SW have rightly kept this system adding a nice little reminder app for key dates, but on the date of our visit one of the forthcoming dates had disappointingly, a broken link on its secure page.
Seat allocation and pricing via AudienceView has now also been integrated into the booking pages which makes for a more seamless experience for the site user. The box office area appears to be the main are for minor technical bugs and glitches in content (eg: no navigation back to main site, copyright info) which may yet be teething problems.
SW are known as a creative agency, whereas Mando perhaps have the reputation as application developers. This difference is seen both in site design and deployment, with another major departure being the site construction in open source rather than ASP.
With venues becoming more and more reliant on using the web to sell direct to consumer, the Phil’s website will undoubtably be a really important part of their sales and marketing strategy. SW has produced a more accessible, quirky site that may have a broader appeal to users. How this translates into sales will be interesting to watch.
www.liverpoolphil.com

From Now On This Blog Is Going To Be�

CL5 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:58:34 BST

Is the intriguing title of a commission to artists Oliver Laric, John Michael Boling, Hanne Mugaas and Guthrie Lonergan by Liverpool’s AND Festival.
From 20-27 September 2009, AND (Abandon Normal Devices) has commissioned four leading bloggers to create new work.
The piece’s title ‘From Now On This Blog Is Going To Be…” is a response to the tendency for blog sites to start with so much expectation, and then to fade away to leave the blogger with quote ‘a nagging guilt’.
Taking its title from a piece by Michael Bell-Smith – a simple Google search for the phrase – From Now On This Blog Is Going To Be… is a curated selection of artist commissioned blogs to be realised online throughout the festival dates.
In the spirit of the Festival, let’s see what this post, on this blog – managed by specialist SEO agency CL5, adds to the noise.
AND Festival

Facebook finally hits profit with 300m users

CL5 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:56:59 BST

Facebook was valued at up to £6billion by experts but, until yesterday, had failed to make a cent in profit. Now, after five years and racking up 300million users, it is finally making enough money to cover its costs.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg comments ‘This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long-term’.
The results suggest the business may soon offer shares to the public.
Since its creation in a Harvard dorm room – an enterprise which nearly got Mr Zuckerberg expelled from the prestigious school – Facebook has emerged as one of the Internet’s most popular destinations, challenging the web’s established powerhouses.
Facebook unveiled a revamped search engine last month and is testing an online payment system, while the number of users has trebled in just a year. The company had previously projected breaking even sometime in 2010.
The company’s income is on track to grow by 70 per cent this year.

2 out of 3 � Social Media

Peter — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:55:51 BST

Officially social media is ‘an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction and the construction of words, pictures, video’s and audio’ – Wikipedia. It is quickly becoming the way billions of us are communicating with our friends, colleagues, customers and suppliers. It’s taking over email in a lot of areas.
18 months ago, I would debate the value of social networking for some of our more serious corporate clients. Now, almost all of our clients have some social networking presence. The data available makes it a necessity to at least have a flickr, facebook and www.linkedin.com/LinkedIn profiles, even if to just to protect brand image a little

2 out of 3 of the global internet population visit social networks
Visiting social network websites is the 4th most popular online activity
13 hours of video are uploaded to You Tube every minute
3,600,000,000 photo’s are archived on Flickr.com – one for every two people on the planet
5,000,000,000 minutes are spent on facebook each day

What is becoming clear to me is any type of strategy needs to be flexible. Facebook, twitter will be replaced by something better in a few years; i don’t think a loyalty factor will to be hard to break.
Some research I found recently published by Keegan states on social media users states:

93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media
85% of social media users believe a company should go further than a simple presence on social networking sites and interact with their customers.

Tenfold increase in search engine traffic

John — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:51:59 BST

If I told you that you could see a tenfold increase targeted traffic to your website through search engine optimisation, would you believe me? Probably not, but this is exactly what Sleepmasters has achieved with a little bit of help fromQuba New Media (who have recently branched out into Liverpool from their base in Sheffield).

A successful search engine optimisation campaign can make a huge difference to a client. But a traffic increase is nothing without conversions, which is why it was vital that the traffic was targeted and therefore brought in sales.
In July of 2008, Sleepmasters asked Quba to kick off their SEO campaign. At the time, Sleepmasters were struggling to compete online with other big players in the industry who had a few years head start with their online marketing.
Always liking a challenge, Quba created a robust strategy for a 12 month campaign and started pushing Sleepmasters up the ranks for many popular (and competitive) searches in Google which has caused this massive surge in traffic. The pinnacle of the campaigns success is a tenfold increase in traffic to the website in July 2009 compared to July 2008 – and sales have gone through the roof as a result!
In the current economic climate, it is vital that businesses get an excellent return on investment – every penny counts and advertising budgets must be spent in the right places.
Online marketing is a viable (and cost effective) extension of existing campaigns, whether they are on TV or print – it makes excellent business sense to actively promote a business online, and the results (particularly for Sleepmasters) speak for themselves.
Scott Bowler
Head of Online Marketing, Quba

AND Festival of New Cinema and Digital Culture @ FACT

John — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:42:50 BST

Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival debuts in Liverpool this September, five days of new media, cinema and digital art.
From FACT: ‘AND is a new space where artists and filmmakers will offer striking perspectives, and visitors can enjoy, discuss and interact with ideas, in a festival that questions the normal and champions a different approach. AND festival will also be trailblazing across the Northwest with a series of taster events and commissions, partnering up with other festivals that rock our world. Stay tuned to www.andfestival.org.uk for all the latest fest info and find out how you can get involved.’
The programme includes a short film competition, workshops, performances and some intriguing digital projections from a former military vehicle. Stay tuned.

AND Festival runs from 23 – 27 September 2009.
Launch Location: Screen 1, FACT 23rd Sep 10:00am.

Event: Liverpool Twestival 2009

CL5 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:47:07 BST

The second Liverpool Twestival Local will be held at Leaf Tea Shop and Bar on Thursday 10th September 18:00 in aid of Clatterbridge Cancer Research.
Performing will be magician Dan Burgess, musician Danny Morris with a charity auction that has some very cool prizes. Event co-ordinators Andy Goodwin aka @franticuk, Alison Gow aka @alisongow and Stu Robards aka @FACT_Liverpool look forward to your support.
DJ from 6pm, auction from 8pm, Danny at 9pm. See you there.
http://liverpool.twestival.com/

Event: Media Summit, 22nd Sep. Salford

CL5 — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:45:00 BST

The North West’s creative and digital sector represents a vast collection of innovative companies whose overall growth is bucking the current economic trend.
As an industry they now deliver a staggering £15.8bn to the region’s economy or in other terms a huge 16 per cent of our total output. Understandably it’s of paramount importance to us all that creative businesses continue to exist and thrive in the North West.
One common problem that is often faced by these organisations is an inability to collaborate in a commercial environment. They may have brilliant, inspiring ideas but do not always know how to access funding, approach new markets and complete on a global scale.
To help answer these questions Insider will be holding its first dedicated media conference in September.
For ticket enquiries and further information contact Andrea Jenkins on 0161 907 9705.
North West Insider’s event – more…

Date: Tue 22nd September, 2009
Venue: Lowry Centre, Salford

Liverpool at the Heart of the Gaming Industry

CL5 — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:41:40 BST

Say ‘Liverpool’ to most people and what industry do you think of?
Shipping, manufacturing, tourism/sport maybe? In more recent years the insurance sector and the financial services have blossomed here. Well Liverpool stands to be one of the UK’s centre of excellence for the digital gaming industry. It’s up to us to spread the word.
Liverpool has a long history of video game development and for a long time has produced some of the leading games in the industry. From its bedroom developer days through to the multi million pound budgets of today the industry and Liverpool’s role within it has come a long way.
Everyone knows the exciting cutting edge work that Sony and Bizarre Creations have been doing but there are also a lot of incredible and innovative games being developed across the city by a group of dedicated games developers beavering away hoping to make the next blockbuster.
So what will that game be – interactive entertainment for the masses, games to keep you fit, games to keep your brain active, games to keep you up nights, games to chill you out, games to play at work, games to play for work, massive multiplayer online games, govt. funded education games and so that list goes on. One thing is for certain Liverpool will be at the heart of games for the foreseeable future with the creative talent, technical expertise and great vision that it has to offer.
Enda Carey is Head of Games & Digital Content at Northwest Vision and Media.
http://www.visionandmedia.co.uk/

.Formby Hall Golf � Search Engine Case Study

John — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:26:45 BST

Formby Hall dominates local search results across highly competitive leisure sector keywords.
Formby Hall Golf Resort and Spa is a new 4* boutique hotel north of Liverpool and home to the UK’s first National Residential PGA Academy. CL5 was chosen to maximise the impact of the launch campaign by implementing a six-month search marketing programme.
In 2008 Formby Hall completed a major £14m investment resulting in stunning new spa facilities, a brasserie restaurant, cocktail lounge and 62-room hotel, all complemented by an 18 hole championship golf course, a new 9-hole par 3 course and 26-bay floodlit driving range.
The sheer range and quality of the offer, supported by a first class website, suggested the search marketing campaign had great potential. Our challenge was to get visibility in a very competitive search environment and grow web sales referrals.
CL5’s first task was to use software and competitor research to quickly identify a target keyword list across the six key areas of the business. Keyword ranking in search pages is used to measure our campaign performance and the target list is used to optimise the page content for the search terms that potential customers in this market were actually using.
A structured programme of link research and link building was undertaken to boost the website’s popularity in Google. This included paid submission to high quality directories such as Yahoo! together with a range of industry-specific portals, plus large scale link submission to free search engines and high PageRank UK directories.
Technical improvements to the site’s readability in search engines were implemented and monitored using the webmaster tools utilities in Google, MSN and Yahoo! In addition, CL5’s expertise in interpreting site traffic data from Google Analytics was a useful source of information for our client to assess the performance of their ongoing marketing activity.
A range of small scale Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns in Google AdWords were devised to support specific sales activity in the hotel, to test market different keywords and to promote Formby Hall to new audiences. This data has proved invaluable to direct future advertising spend in hotel, spa and golf related markets.
Reputation counts in the hospitality industry. So in addition to our search marketing work, CL5 pro-actively monitored customer reviews from important referring sites such as Trip Advisor as well as ethically seeding forums and other review sites to help manage brand reputation.
The traffic figures speak for themselves, the number of unique visitors to the website rising 73%, non-brand keyword traffic rising 40%, average page views up 80% over the 6 month campaign and over 20 keyphrases gaining a top ten organic ranking.

Big Agencies Lead Way

Peter — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:03:29 BST

Rippleffect have won another premiership football contract. They’ve been appointed by Bolton Wanderers FC to create a series of microsites to raise awareness of its non-footballing activities. The new sites cover the club’s educational and international programmes, its engagement with football in the community, and a membership scheme for under 18s.
Rippleffect also announced their win with www.visitleeds.com, (i thought New Mind where the boys and girls from Liverpool doing the whole visiteverywhere.com!) Mando Group have also been announcing a whole series of new business wins recently alongside a recruitment drive for a further 5 account managers. CL5 we have also seen activity starting to pick up for SEO with a big contract win.
It appears from the outside the big website agencies are prospering in the current climate, which is a positive signal to us all.
There’s definitely been a change in the recession which I believe will benefit website design, development and internet marketing companies.
The private sector has had a wake up call on their marketing spend at the same time the national news has been flooding the country with the power, profitability and absolute need of the web for business.
This type of great industry promotion also creates insecurity for those businesses that haven’t quite got a proper online strategy. Or simply more businesses are accepting in 5 years their business will be very internet dependant and it works better and cheaper than traditional marketing!
Some of the digital sector growth must also be coming from spend switching. PR seems to be the biggest hit. Over the last 6 months I’ve seen big traditional PR agencies diving in desks for crisis management strategies from the treat of online marketing. But the internet isn’t the controlled environment of their business model and journalist’s lunches! It’s not as simple as being able to up skill as some agencies say the whole different evolving technical theatre that EPR is a snippet of.

Liverpool Digital � Success or Failure

Peter — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:57:39 BST

What’s the sector’s opinion of the Innovation Park on Edge Lane? Do you think it’s achieved its objectives?
I have been to the site several times over the years as a potential relocation for our business, but until 2007, I was more likely to hit tumbleweed than a potential client. It was well kitted out but a soulless and sterile atmosphere, not a creative hub of energy and excitement. Always seemed a little clicky, not really for non uni start ups. ICDC, having worked with some of thier senior web people in 2008, shocking, really shocking, being paid a wonger and takes them 6 months to over engineer a 10 page HTML site. A lot of the people i met wouldn’t cut the mustard in the private sector, or get the same salary.
In my last visit in June 2009, the place had come to life somewhat. More as a university building than an incubator of digital businesses.
There are indeed some very good companies located in the building and born from it; but the question of the initial vision has changed, a lot?.
The recent news from the gaming sector should provide a great new opportunity for the innovation park, in the trusted hands of Gary Miller i feel more confident. Edge Lane for me is taking shape, slowly, but thats no bad thing really. The innovation park has more opporunity now than ever to capitalise on its investment, sticking to the plan is essential.
The Orginal Plan & Vision in 2003
8th December 2003, The Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) unveiled the branding for Liverpool Digital, as part of Marconi Corporation’s activities to celebrate 100 years of innovation at the Edge Lane site.
Liverpool Digital is a major destination for high-tech digital industries. The site will form a centre of excellence for the information and communications technology sector, and provide a home to business and incubation activities, together with university research facilities, all focused on the Creative and Digital industries.
Steven Broomhead, Chief Executive, NWDA said:
“This is the dawn of a new era. The infrastructure at the Edge Lane site, combined with the availability of Marconi’s specialist skills base, will preserve and enhance Liverpool’s growing reputation for ICT and New Media excellence. Potential occupiers will benefit from the site’s strategic location, mixed-use facilities, high bandwidth fibre infrastructure……. I am delighted and pleased with the new branding, which signifies the start of this new and exciting time.”
Mike Parton, Chief Executive of Marconi Corporation plc said:
‘with the commitment of the Northwest Development Agency – and a new name – Liverpool Digital – the site is set to become a high-tech hub, with Marconi taking pride-of-place at its core. Liverpool Digital will be an exceptional location and will offer access to the latest state-of-the-art facilities.”

HDV Digital Camera Workshop

John — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:37:35 BST

A comprehensive five day course in the creative potential and technical limits of the latest HDV cameras from Liverpool-based The Film Workshops, September 6th-11th 2009.

“The course covers Field Production and the entire digital work flow process including tape and tapeless acquisition, all the way through to Post Production. We cover video cinematography and technology, production methodology and electronic image processing. We demystify the on-board menus so you can control the “look” of your images.
We will be using a variety of new HDV cameras, including but not limited to: the Canon XL H1, Sony Z-7 and the JVC GY-HD110U, along with basic lighting kits, and professional field sound recoding systems.
We combine classroom work with field production and critiques. During morning lectures, demonstrations, screenings, and discussions we cover a variety of HDV cameras and the camera’s role in the storytelling process. We explore the technical limits and creative potential of each camera during the afternoons and evenings as you and your class shoot tests, set-up lights and shoot a variety of projects. These are edited each evening for presentation and critique the following morning.”
The Film Workshops
6 Claytons Yard, 6 St. Bride Street,
Liverpool, L8 7PL United Kingdom
Tel +44 (0)151 203 2404
Tuition: £1,000 plus £55 non-refundable application fee. Accommodations and meals additional.

TEDxLiverpool 07.08.09

CL5 — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:36:08 BST

The first TEDxLiverpool event takes place Friday 7th August 13:30-16:45 at ICDC.
Hosted and organised by Codeworks Enterprises, The International Centre for Digital Content and Kisky Net Media it promises to feature an inspiring session of speakers and TEDTalks videos packed full of “ideas worth spreading”.
TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.
Friday 7th August
13:30 Registration
14:00 Herbert Kim : Welcome & Video : Curator of TED
14:15 Katie Lips : Introduction
14:20 First TED Video
14:40 Live Speaker : Steve Clayton, Microsoft
15:10 Coffee Break
15:25 Live Speaker : Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Tinker.it!
15:55 Second TED Video
16:15 Live Speaker : Alison Gow; Liverpool’s Daily Post
16:45 Katie Lips : Thank you / Close followed by networking
Places are limited. To attend the TEDx Liverpool event, please contact Allison Cordner to book your place (or call 0151 231 4704).

Digital Media Etiquette

Gareth — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:34:20 BST

Like many things in life, digital and social media should come with an etiquette manual. Like first dates, job interviews, PR, and funerals there are some simple rules that, if we all observed, would make the whole business run smoother and more enjoyable for everyone.
Firstly the introduction
When joining a group remember there could be thousands of members, say who you are, any credentials you may have and post your comment. Use a sensible heading summing up your post.
Replying
Only add a conversation when it is taking the conversation forward. Posting a ‘lol’ comment for all 30,000 members of the group really isn’t helping.
Keep your friends realistic
You can have too many friends. A friend of mine complained he only had 280 friends on Facebook, now I know this guy and there is no way he has more than 6 – and I’m one. Don’t invite, your mates, girlfriends sisters blokes next door neighbour as a friend, it will only confuse the hell out of him and make you look somewhat desperate
Choose your group wisely
Best to have a small selection of well chosen groups/blogs than 36 ill fitting ones. You can’t contribute to all of them – remember most of us actually do have day jobs that don’t involve ‘posting blogs’ as a KPI’s.
Do include your links
If your comments/discussions refer to alternative references sites in order that it will add to or further the conversation make sure the links are included.
But don’t…
Link through to your own blogs, unless it’s necessary. If you are on someone else’s blog – avoid the temptation to put a link to yours on there, it’s somewhat shameless
Finally
Always remember, if you live by blogging, you can die by blogging just as easily.
As one politician said, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be assumed an idiot than to open it and have it proved”!!!
Putting your foot in your mouth on a global platform is a lot worse than staying off the radar. Think before you post.

Liverpool Business Online Portals

CL5 — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:33:21 BST

What business club websites are the best to profile on? Who gets the most visitors, which is the best site, Google ranking and so on. Purely based on design then Downtown Liverpool in Business for me is the best. Second place, Liverpool Chambers of Commerce and a long way back is Professional Liverpool; the name becomes an oxymoron when you land on the website.
Liverpool’s business clubs play an important role in helping to promote our businesses. They act as a starting point for many businesses from outside region wanting to access information about our economy, what’s going on in the business community, the type of businesses in the city and resources available.

Best Liverpool Business Website

2nd Liverpool Chamber of Commerce

I wish there was another I could put here. It’s really drab and boring but this fits with their brand image I guess.
Best Google page ranking site out of the 3.
I don’t know what has happened to their Emarketing but it’s shocking in design and content. Given the millions of pounds the chamber has been given from the public purse it should be doing a better job for us.

3rd Professional Liverpool

Professional Liverpool. Having just joined I am disappointed. The site is pretty crap which ever way I try to look at it. Trying to find something positive about the website. The business club itself seems to have a great membership line up so I am expecting the networking to be the benefit of my £500 investment.

Liverpool Shanghai 2010

Gareth — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:30:23 BST

How can the digital community of Merseyside maximise in Liverpool’s investment at Shanghai 2010? There appears to be confusion in the digital and creative sector about how we (collectively) can get involved in Shanghai 2010.
I went to a meeting specifically set up for the creative sector, described as ‘Promote your creative enterprise at Shanghai 2010′.
Having turned up acme’s new Capital building HQ, eaten some expensive sandwiches, I sat down, pen poised, hoping I would leave the meeting with a pad full of ideas, opportunities and enthusiasm.
Kevin McManus, took to the stage:
‘I’d like to introduce you our expert in Shanghai, Phil Southward, who will be telling you how the creative sector can maximise opportunities in shanghai 2010 and how to do business in China.
Phil took the stage,
‘I’m not the expert on how to do business in China and I have nothing to do with the creative sector. But I’d like to get to know you all personally. Can we start with going round the room (of 40 people) and can you tell me who you are, and what’s your story’. My MD stood up and left at this point.
I am keen to support public sector events that help the companies in the city, but I do feel more effort needs to be made in putting on better events. Specifically in emerging markets, and the digital sector is one of those. Helping companies grow is key and any useful help is always welcomed.
What we needed to know from this event:

What are the business generation opportunities?
How can I get my company in front of interested businesses to generate new business ?
Is there any benefit of creative / digital businesses going to Shanghai.
What type of businesses will mostly be attending.

I appreciate acme and the work they do, but as the years pass nothing is being done to address and support digital industries. We’re predominately technology driven and I’d like to see a public sector body, headed by a digital industry expert in the city to support, promote and help develop our sector. I can’t see this being achieved by those, who as hard as they try, don’t have the experience to really help us.
I’m positive if there was a strong digital sector body for Liverpool we would get more support from the private sector.
Cllr Gary Miller is a sector expert, could be a good starting point?

Maghull Group Launches New Website

Ed — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:28:03 BST

The Maghull Group, one of Liverpool’s high profile developers, has launched their new website. Creative Liverpool, based on Castle Street designed the website, copy and photography in-house.
Mark Jones, Creative Director at Creative Liverpool, and designer of the Maghull Group website:
‘The site needed to be slick, clean, fast, easy to use and all CMS driven. Images proved to be most difficult task and we will be working with the client to improve this section. We took the decision early to keep the web site very simple and to build on the architecture over time. We’re just in the middle of developing an ‘add-on’ so the client can sell commercial and residential space direct. It’s a common theme popping up on a lot of developer’s sites, Langtree, Urban Splash, etc….’
Michael Hanlon, Group Chief Executive of the Maghull Group:
‘We needed to invest more time and effort into our online marketing and communications strategy. The new site still has a long way to go but we are happy with the results the site is delivering. Property developers are taking online a lot more seriously because the cost savings have more than proven’
The Maghull Group website went live in July 2009.
Designed by Creative Liverpool – Visit Website.

Develop Conference Heads to Liverpool

CL5 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:26:04 BST

Liverpool’s gaming sector is gearing itself up to the news announced this week that the UK’s largest event for the game development community is set to travel north in November.
Develop in Liverpool, will be a one day conference taking place at the Arena and Conference Centre Liverpool on Thursday 5th November. Earlier this month, the fourth Develop Conference took place in Brighton, attracting over 1200 game developers from over 30 different countries, and has become firmly established as the leading conference for European games developers.
The organisers state Develop in Liverpool is designed to meet the demands of the thriving game community based in the North, with three tracks and multiple networking sessions including a post event drinks reception.
“With such an active and vibrant development community north of Birmingham it just makes sense to take the Develop conference to Liverpool. We want as many developers as possible to experience the passion and energy that we saw in Brighton. Develop in Liverpool is at the heart of a region that has long history of development excellence, so we’re confident this will be a day fizzing with ideas and insights,” commented Event Director, Andy Lane.
Develop in Brighton has received widespread praise for the quality of its speakers and the breadth and depth of the conference.
“Yet again the Develop Conference provided an energetic and exciting environment in which to meet new people and learn new things.” Jonathan Smith, Development Director, Traveller’s Tales Games
“Having to fly from the other side of the world to attend the Develop Conference, that put some serious pressure on my expectations, however I can now report back, it far exceeded those expectations. I met lots of friends, had really great business meetings, lots of press, and it all happens in an amazing location.” David Perry, Creative Director, Acclaim Games
More information on both events can be found at www.developconference.com

Local online banner advertising

CL5 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:25:03 BST

SME’s & Online Banner Advertising. Does online banner advertising work? Should you be advertising? How much does it cost? All the answers are variable and it depends on your objectives, brand values and how good your website is. Most of the campaigns we see are from big multinational companies who spend millions each year on banner advertising but there is room for SME’s to get impact for far less; you just need the right ad and a good understanding of your customers. If most of our customers are local then there’s quite a few techniques that can be used.
Banner Design & Copy. Often the biggest mistakes are made by SME’s here. Pumping out your logo and strap line is not always the best option. You need a banner that grabs your attention, is accurate in its message. If it takes more than 2 seconds to transmit the message, forget it.
After you’ve designed your banner, what should you do with it?
Geo-Target. This means your banner advert will only appear to people who are in your demographic area. Keeping it local cuts down on wasted traffic and cost.
Set the time. You can have your adverts appearing only at specific times. This can beneficial if you’re either a B2B or B2C company. Your website stats can tell you exactly when your peak traffic times have been in the past, which is a good starting point to setting the times you want your ad to appear.
Keep Track of your Results. You need to be confident that any banner campaign is delivering results and not just wasted traffic. You need to track the visitor from the banner ads and constantly tweak your campaign until your at the optimum conversion rate.
Try to choose the websites do you want to advertise on? You’ll probably know far better than Google the websites your customers probably go to. You can often make a direct approach them and see what there rates are. Advertising on a trusted website goes a long way in banner advertising.

NMA Live � Twitter for Brands 21.08.09/London

John — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:20:38 BST

2009 has been the year where business has caught up with consumers on the power of microblogging giant Twitter to influence and engage with people.
New Media Age has organised a half-day event that should be of interest to all digital agencies and companies who are using, or thinking of using Twitter for commercial marketing purposes.
Friday 21 August
Hesperia Hotel,
London Victoria
Cost is just £110.00, or £85.00 for New Media Age subscribers and with London only 2h 20′ by Pendolino is well within reach of Liverpool-basec companies looking to expand their knowledge of Twitter. Also a chance to hear the experience of legendary web app company Moonfruit.
To book your place or for further details, email nma.live@centaur.co.uk or visit the NMA website.

Digital Marketing Bootcamp, Liverpool 04.08.09

John — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:18:37 BST

A digital marketing workshop delivered by Glow New Media
‘Driving success with Digital Marketing is very far from easy and it gets more complicated each day. Keeping on top of technologies and techniques can be a full time job.
Right this minute, your customers and competitors are improving the way they market and exploiting digital marketing techniques to save money and increase the effectiveness of sales and marketing.
Glow is providing a half day session to selected partners. Attendance is strictly limited.
Cost: FREE
Venue: Posh Pads @ Cassartelli, Hanover St
Date: 04/08/09 – 9:00am – 12:30pm
Who should attend
• Marketing Managers
• Membership Managers
• PR Staff
• Business Owners
To reserve a place enquire online‘

Approaches to Writing Good Web Copy

John — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:16:57 BST

The web is notorious for either creating a severe case of writers’ block or freeing-up people to wrote reams of garbage. What techniques are useful for writing web copy that works with the medium and engages with your users?
The web is different to print.
We all read differently depending on the medium we are looking at; interaction with a computer screen is rapid, lazy and critical. Don’t assume then that people will read your webpages in the same detail as your company report.
Use short paragraphs
Web copywriting is more similar to newspaper journalism than writing a magazine article. The column widths are generally narrower, the attention span shorter. Aim to convey one key message per sentence and one to two sentences per paragraph.
Formatting counts
For the same reason, it’s ok online to use text formatting to draw a user’s attention to important phrases or calls to action. Appropriate use of bold and italics is good, underline is bad – as this could be mistaken for a hyperlink.
Upside down
The journalist’s method of the inverted pyramid works on the web too, only the headline information should appear at the top of the page, with increasing levels of information and background data the further down the piece.
Get personal
The web is an excellent medium for speaking with YOU the user. Despite its mass appeal it’s not a broadcast medium that speaks to a collective. The opportunity for the web copywriter is to get up close and personal with the reader with an informal tone of voice, plain speaking and clear communication.

Liverpool Misses Out On BT Fibre Optic Broadband

John — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:14:58 BST

BT’s announcement of the second round of locations for its new fibre optic exchanges reveal that Liverpool will have to wait for the next generation of broadband internet of speeds greater than 40Mb.
News that BT has left out a UK city region of 1.5m people from its new fibre optic network might seem surprising when you consider Whitchurch and even Berkhamstead will benefit instead from super-fast broadband.
So when the regional director of BT cites ‘levels of anticipated demand’ and ‘interest from other organisations’ for the decision making, one wonders who was banging the drum for Liverpool?
Given that all 14 new fibre optic exchanges in the North West will be located in Greater Manchester, will someone (anyone?) responsible for inward investment in Liverpool please ring BT and ask to speak to MIDAS quick to get some advice?
Back in March, Liverpool was even omitted in the first round of fibre deployment, with yes you’ve guessed it all 6 exchanges in Manchester.
As a local company who has recently had to extract itself from a 0.5Mb bandwidth hell following the collapse of its broadband provider, we know only too clearly the impact broadband speed has on the business. To retain digital companies in Liverpool and grow the sector we need to stay competitive andan integral part of this is access to high-speed internet.
For all the talk of sea-port to e-port , Liverpool-based companies and potential investors may simply vote with their feet. In the 19th century, it was Liverpool’s investment in international connectivity – ie docks and shipping – that gave it the technological advantage to become a world city at that time. We can’t afford to be left behind in the 21st.

New Mind � Tourist Software

CL5 — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:14:01 BST

Liverpool-based New Mind has adopted technology from Microsoft to be used on tourism sites such as VisitBrighton, which New Mind designs.

The photosynth technology creates a 3D virtual map, almost like being inside a video game. New Mind’s managing director Richard Veal said the company is “taking e-tourism into a new era”.

New Mind has created such as visitliverpool.com and visitbath.co.uk which are amongst the highest performing sites of their kind, both in terms of visitor numbers and income generation.

AIMES Grid Services wins 3 year deal

CL5 — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:11:57 BST

Liverpool AIMES secures three-year contract

Liverpool technology company AIMES Grid Services has won a three-year contract to provide an on-site disaster recovery programme to North West training and consultancy provider Sysco Group.
The service streams data from Sysco to the AIMES ISO27001 certified data centre facility at Liverpool Innovation Park, ensuring data is backed up off site in real time.
Richard Spragg, technical director at AIMES, said: “Investments in local digital infrastructure are changing the business model for these types of disaster recovery services and making them accessible to local businesses.”
AIMES is also the lead organisation behind the Digital Inclusion and Enterprise Programme, which aims to transform levels of digital infrastructure in the Liverpool city region and is supported by a partnership of local authorities, the Northwest Regional Development Agency and the digital development agency.
Download MAP 2008-2011 (merseyside action plan).
‘Action plan for the 2008-2001 Liverpool City Region’ – Powerpoint Download

Well done Rippleffect

Peter — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:10:45 BST

Rippleffect maintain high growth.

Well deserved recognition for them and some more positive news for the sector in general. Companies like Rippleffect and Mando play a big part in helping to develop the SME digital sector in Liverpool. We need more companies like these in Liverpool to help promote our position on the digital map.
It’s pleasant to read Rippleffect’s website and find out their growth is continuing after its Trinity Mirror buy out in 2008. I’m not sure why our local and regional press haven’t been shouting more, this is the type of news our sector needs more of.
Rippleffect is one of the fastest growing technology companies in Europe in 2009 and confirms for the second year its outstanding performance to be listed in the Deloitte Fast 500.
Rippleffect have had recent and well deserved run of award victory’s and accolades including being short listed for Digital Agency of the Year, ‘Best Interactive Agency at the NetImperative Awards’ and ‘Digital Agency of the Year’ in the recent DADI Awards (Drum Awards for Digital Industries)
Rippleffect have added a great deal to Liverpool’s digital sector. Their client list is one most agencies in the country will envy, and it gets stronger each year.
This news from Rippleffect is very positive for Liverpool’s digital sector.

Liverpool Misses Out On BT Fibre Optic Broadband Network

CL5 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:08:47 BST

BT’s announcement of the second round of locations for its new fibre optic exchanges reveal that Liverpool will have to wait for the next generation of broadband internet of speeds greater than 40Mb.
News that BT has left out a UK city region of 1.5m people from its new fibre optic network might seem surprising when you consider Whitchurch and even Berkhamstead will benefit instead from super-fast broadband.
So when BT cites ‘levels of anticipated demand’ and ‘interest from other organisations’ for the decision making, one wonders who was banging the drum for Liverpool?
Given that all 14 new fibre optic exchanges in the North West will be located in Greater Manchester, will someone (anyone?) responsible for inward investment in Liverpool please ring MIDAS quick to get some advice?
Back in March, Liverpool was even omitted in the first round of fibre deployment, with yes you’ve guessed it all 6 exchanges in Manchester.
As a local company who has recently had to extract itself from a 0.5Mb bandwidth hell following the collapse of its broadband provider, we know only too clearly the impact broadband speed has on the business. To retain digital companies in Liverpool and grow the sector we need to stay competitive, and an integral part of this is access to high-speed internet.
For all the talk of sea-port to e-port , Liverpool-based companies and potential investors may simply vote with their feet. As Aimes’ chief executive acknowledged recently in the 19th century, it was Liverpool’s investment in international connectivity – ie docks and shipping – that gave it the technological advantage to become a world city at that time. We can’t afford to be left behind in the 21st.

Liverpool Plans for Computer Gaming Academy

John — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:03:40 BST

This month sees the first suggestion from city councillors that more could be done to capitalise on Liverpool’s established reputation as a leading centre for computer games design.
The proposal by Cllrs Gary Millar and Laurence Sidorczuk is to back a games ‘academy’, a training facility with an estimated price tag of £5m to train and support the next generation of games developers.
No detail has yet been given on where the money will come from, who will be leading the project or when it will be implemented.
Liverpool has for many years been hiding its light under a bushel, with over thirty years of games development originating from the city including many famous games titles such as WipeOut, Colony Wars, Motor Storm and WRC.
The major design studios in the city including Sony Europe, Evolution and Bizarre Creations have roots that lie in the early innovators and games enthusiasts in the 70’s and 80’s that led to the creation of legendary developers such as Psygnosis and Amaze.
The recent success of New Concept Gaming’s jOG device for Wii is an encouraging sign that local digital companies are emerging that represent the next wave of games development, and the potential in the future to grow into the kind of businesses that attract gifted developers rather than lose them after graduation.
Local authorities have a responsibility to provide a climate for business that encourages inward investment or supports indigenous companies, is using public monies to train games developers the correct use of resources?
The Audit Commission’s damning rating of council spending in 2007 suggests there is some internal housekeeping to be done long before investing into areas that are well outside its remit or expertise.
The games sector’s track record can be understood in deeds not words, perhaps the task for the local authorities to step-up to their challenge

EPR by Ubiquity

CL5 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:59:40 BST

Many firms desperate to attract more business online are increasingly in danger of being sucked in by novice marketing agencies aggressively selling the virtues of SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques.
Article by: Joel Jelon
Managing Director -ubiquity PR
Experienced marketing professionals with integrity will tell you that traditional SEO when used in isolation from e-pr or digital pr will not generate business, maintains Joel Jelen, managing director at Liverpool-based pr agency, Ubiquity. Business must be aware of the challenges that face the pr and marketing industry over the next few years. And companies desperate to bring in cash quickly from web marketing should not to be ‘taken in’ by short-term measures being offered by some unscrupulous operators.
Companies perhaps using the pr industry’s services for the first time coupled with an expanding number of savvy clients now want maximum tangibility. Just five years ago, we operated in a far more nebulous arena. Unfortunately, as is rife in our fickle world, there are a disappointing number of marketing firms with short term thinking for both their own business and their clients that are plugging SEO to death. Some of these agencies have already left many ex-clients crying in their wake having followed the advice like sheep and failed to deliver.
The facts are that a business wanting more clients and prospects needs an online marketing strategy that is a combination of SEO marketing and prolific media exposure via digital or e-pr. If everybody is for example, spending money on pay per click then how can that secure a client top ranking on Google? However, if a business is flavour of the month on a consistent basis through regular editorial across print, broadcast and online, only then is it maximising its spend and visibility to win new business.”
In some ways, the problem is partly that so many people think they can do marketing & pr and ‘have a go’. There are very few industries that relate to the notion of being able to do a ‘bit of dentistry’ or ‘a bit of architecture’.
E-pr capitalises on the foundation that SEO creates and is a crucial element in a solid SEO strategy.
If an SEO company approaches you, aside from checking their credentials at Companies House, ask if they use a combination of marketing and pr applications online to help you attract more prospects. If they say yes and prove it, only then can you be sure that you’re not having the wool pulled over your eyes.
www.ubiquitypr.co.uk

The Obama Online Campaign

CL5 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:56:16 BST

The Obama campaign is one of the biggest online marketing success’s of our time. The Internet in 2008 played a huge part in getting Obama elected and changing how all political campaigns will be fought in the future. The whole campaign was executed perfectly and last week it picked up the Titanium Grand Prix advertising festival at Cannes Lions

The campaign was praised in particular for its integration of digital into a traditional approach. Blue State Digital was the company behind it all headed by Thomas Gensemer. The website mybarackobama.com is simply very effective.
The campaign signed up over 13.5 million for email updates on Obama’s progress. Two billion emails were then sent out”
Early doors Blue State Digital were beavering away to turn interest into donations and to utilise support on the ground. The campaign website mobilised over 3 million people to contribute over $500 million online.
Some of the key characteristics of the campaign. Blue Sky kept their emails short, never longer than 300 words and never anonymous. They were always consistent in their tone and style.

Liverpool�s Digital Sector, where are we?

Peter — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:54:57 BST

Where would you look to find out what’s going on in Liverpool’s Digital Sector? ACME and the Design Initiative represent the creative sector as a whole. ICDC law upon to itself and does little to float my boat. When you start have a proper look there’s not a public sector site that I think is well designed, current and helps showcase Liverpool’s digital sector.

There’s some serious web design, SEM, Game Design and ICT businesses in the city. Adding them all together in one decent website and you’ve got the start of what could be an open platform to promote our cities digital business and become a resource for us to find out what’s going on.
We’ve been creating great digital work for a decade. We deserve and need a decent platform to show the world what’s going on in Liverpool’s digital sector.
I’m not suggesting a website is going to be the answer, or it hasn’t been thought of before now but I see nothing being done.
I’d like to see the digital business owners get together and start discussing what would benefit us and what could be done to improve our Digital Liverpool brand.

Eco Website Launch by Ph.Creative

Mark — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:50:22 BST

Rising stars Ph.Creative have launched the Eco Environments website, July 2009. Eco Environments is a renewable energy specialist in Liverpool and the UK, seen an innovator in the energy field.
The design is fresh, great use of flash and HTML. It feels easy and efficient so a perfect fit to its client brand. Some cool use of icons.
Ph.Creative quote from their website ‘When Eco Environments asked us to design their website, we had to provide something equally as innovative and deliver the message that Eco delivers to its customers. We came up with a design that not only carries a message but allows customers to interact with the website and helps them understand how renewable energy and energy efficiency makes a difference’
A well answered brief from Ph.Creative.
http://www.eco-environments.co.uk/

Mando Group � Big Chip Award Victory

mark — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:28:14 BST

Well done Mando Group on winning this year’s big chip design award for the ‘Liverpool Biennial 08’ website. It’s a great achievement by the Liverpool agency beating off a lot of heavy weight contenders. For me it confirms Mando Group’s position as one of the region’s best agencies.
Mando Entry Description
Liverpool Biennial is known internationally for its contemporary arts festival held every two years in Liverpool. Mando Group were commissioned to deliver a website that would showcase their 2008 festival projects plus raise the profile of the other projects the organisation are involved in on an ongoing basis. A thorough user profiling exercise steered the information architecture and confirmed that integration with Biennial’s YouTube, Flickr and Twitter accounts was needed to communicate to a wider web-savvy audience. The CMS functionality and micro-site builder ensure Biennial can deliver a series of engaging web based projects to support community based projects.
Mando have been at the top of their game year on year. They are probably the most trusted web design company to the big blue chip and public sector companies we have in the city. Rightly fully so, they delivered great work since the Web Shed days.
Mando Group Website – Visit
Mando Group: website design, development, SEO, Liverpool

Online PR � Some Basic Tips

CL5 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:20:43 BST

Online PR – Search Engine Marketing
Since the majority of us don’t have Google’s bankroll for huge Pay Per Click camapigns, you are left to find less expensive ways to drive visitors to your websites. Online PR could be part of your answer – sharing your company news and views directly over the Internet.
You can get decent online exposure starting from £60 using a news distributor such as www.prweb.com.
Or you can do down the free PR route by sending your stories out using sites like www.clickpress.org or posting them to your Facebook account.
Online PR kills two birds with one stone. Besides getting traffic for your site, you are also creating exposure for your company. By having the possibility of your press release being picked up by multiple media channels, you can quickly and cheaply get eyeballs looking at your product or service.
TIPS to good Online PR
1: Plan a mini-campaign of three press releases over 4-6 weeks.
2: Writing a good online press release is critical, you should consider

300-500 words – one page max!
People tend to scan web pages, not read them. Keep it simple.
Make sure the first paragraph sums up the story.
Include 3-4 links back to your website.

Or you can do down the free PR route by sending your stories out using sites like clickpress.org or posting them to your Facebook account.
3: Think about the ‘keywords’ that your customers might use to find your product or service and use them in the press release title.
Unlike traditional media, with online you can easily select the target audience you want to deliver your message to. The results are quick and your press release can be picked up and shared with millions of potential customers.
You will know exactly how effective your online Press Release has been by tracking the new visitors to your website. Online results don’t lie.
Online PR allows does deliver a good ‘Bang for your Buck’ in search marketing terms and in our opinion, this will continue to grow through 2009.

Classic Online Virals

Peter — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:15:35 BST

Online virals have been around for what seems an age. The big sports brands like Nike, Adidas have caught on big time to the value of online virals and do the best job in my eyes. Probably because they now spend the most money on production and promotion.
The first one I remember back in the day of great big Mpeg email attachments screaming through your 56K dial up wasn’t in a corporate, it’s the kick boxing floppy leg! It’s still as hard on the eye now. Give it a play!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icnlz7hdVTk&feature=player_embedded

John West Salmon – 2001
There’s been some golden oldies I’d forgotten about. JOHN WEST SALMON, who would have thought it?
It’s a classic. A John West employee fights a grizzly bear off to land a fish – just to go that extra mile for quality, as of course tinned salmon is!
It created more than 300 million views; it won ten awards, including Best Commercial of the Year from British Television Advertising Awards and a Gold Lion at the Cannes Lions Festival, 2001. Not bad going really!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkOHD3lH9fQ&feature=player_embedded

AGENT PROVOCATEUR – 2002
Kylie Minogue rides a velvet-bucking bronco wearing nothing but lingerie from Agent Provocateur. Naughty, but executed like a dream!
The whole plan was to do this for a cinema audience, but after being judged too naughty and rude by the powers that be of the ICT, it went viral. A good decision. Anything that we shouldn’t watch we want to, so it spread aggressively over internet and remains a classic.
Agent Provocateur corporate vision is to provoke and create controversy, which I would say it pulled off with a modest 410 million views and still counting – more than seven years after its release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZIwR-5IBJE&feature=player_embedded

Liverpool City Brand � Fit for Purpose?

Gareth — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:12:43 BST

Leaving aside the usual frequently heard mutterings of “is it good enough” and “did it warrant the £100,000 price tag” – the bigger puzzlement for me is – who is actually using it ?
The brands own website http://www.liverpoolcitybrand.co.uk/ claims that it is, “a way of presenting the essence of the city with immediacy and consistency. An introduction to all the separate stories that live here, no more”.
I suspect that many people will agree with the “no more” part of the statement!
However, I appreciate its early doors so lets not get bogged down with how good the design is (or isn’t), the bigger issue for me is that (save a few stakeholder websites) I haven’t seen the logo in use anywhere.
How are people engaging with the logo? Are people intending to use it? And, am I alone – have I been walking around blissfully unaware of its presence on every street corner!
It’s our city and our brand – like it or not it’s here to stay, so let’s use it.

Formby Hall Website � Rippleffect

Mark — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:08:46 BST

Rippleffect redesigned Formby Hall Golf Website back in February 2009. This site is one of the best in sector for golf and hospitality. Its simple, clean, great use of imagery and I can get around it easy enough. That couldn’t be said about most of the golf websites out there which are shocking. Surprised Rippleffect haven’t mopped up all the UK Golf courses with this as an example.

Formby Hall Golf Resort & Spa

I am not so keen on the flash based the booking system but the site hits the mark of a solid and professional website. I’d book with confidence. A great website by Rippleffect.

Pelican Crossings, where have they gone?

Peter — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:17:34 BST

I just hate the new pedestrian road crossing systems in Liverpool. The stupid, impractical low down box things that you can’t see as soon as one person stands in front of them! Its safety gone mad. The system had to have been tested with the world’s most patient people. Technology improvements where simply not needed, nor the cost of installing a new system.
The pelican crossing, a lovely black and white mat to walk cross, huge belisha beacons guiding you across in a straight line, even practically better after a few to many sherbets. Bring them back, or at least the mat! It’s a classic British design and it worked.
Why did we need to change from the red and green men high up on the each side? At least if you were making a dash you had some hope of knowing if you’re going to make it.

Creative & Digital Overview

CL5 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:34:23 BST

Liverpool can be at the forefront of the Creative and Digital Economy The information below was taken from the TMP website
The creation of one of Europe’s largest Science Parks plus innovations such as the International Centre for Digital Content and a new Art and Design Academy put the Liverpool City Region at the forefront of the creative and digital economy.

Broadband services are available from anywhere within the sub-region, and Liverpool is one of only nine cities within the UK that has blanket city-centre wireless internet access. The sub-region’s telecommunications infrastructure is modern and robust allowing businesses to operate in the global market place.
The most advanced trans-Atlantic fibre optic cable, Hibernia Atlantic, has a landing point in the sub-region (Southport Business Park, Southport). This is the only direct high capacity cable linking North West England with the North American continent, providing a low-latency, self-healing, secure link that allows businesses operating within the region to take advantage of emerging CTI technologies.
The breadth of creative industries – including design for technology, film, fashion using leading edge materials, and advertising – is reflected in Liverpool’s status as European Capital of Culture 2008.

Key Industry Features and Benefits

Liverpool Science Park is the fastest growing science park in the UK, with the 36,000 sq ft Innovation Centre launched in 2006. It envisaged 500,000 sq ft of accommodation will be provided in three phases, making it one of the largest Science Parks in Europe when complete.
The continued development of a regional centre of excellence, Liverpool Digital focuses on the ICT, digital and creative industries as. Liverpool Digital will create upto 7,000 jobs by 2013 and will accommodate the proposed National Microsystems Packaging Centre, a unique facility in the UK
Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus (SIC) near Runcorn has been identified by the government as a key driver for UK’s science-based economy and aims to become the pre-eminent location in the North of England for pioneering ‘big’ science.
The ICDC (International Centre for Digital Content) is a world leader in creating innovative digital content solutions. The centre is involved in developing solutions for Interactive TV, mobile phone and wireless users, which can also include Bluetooth and GPS technologies, for markets as diverse as tourism, health, e-learning and games.
AIMES (Advanced Internet Methods and Emergent Systems) is a focus for advanced internet technologies, particularly grid computing. This research and technology transfer centre is hosted by The University of Liverpool.
Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) is spearheading a £23.5 million Art and Design Academy scheduled to open in 2008. The Academy will be at the leading edge of teaching, research and knowledge transfer in art and design and will incorporate the Liverpool Screen School.
Liverpool’s growing film and TV sector means it is now the most filmed UK city outside London. FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology) based in the city centre is the UK’s leading organisation for the development, support and exhibition of film, video and new and emerging media.
Funding has been secured to develop a Centre for Materials Discovery to help businesses apply state-of-the-art techniques to the discovery of new functional materials for applications such as energy storage, medicine, consumer products and communications technology.
A Merseyside school is one of just 12 across the globe to be chosen by Microsoft to take part in a drive to develop schools in the future. Bowring School in Knowsley has been signed up to join his Worldwide Innovative Schools Programme, and will benefitfrom Microsoft’s experience in applying technological expertise to education.

IT, Digital and Creative companies include:
IBM, Sony CEE, BT, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), Cybertill, Orgmetrics, Lime Pictures (formerly Mersey TV), Mando Group, River Media, Hurricane Films, Bizarre Creations, Fraser Williams Logistics, New Mind, Amaze, Felix Blow, Strategic Systems Solutions.
Key support organisations for companies in the IT, digital and creative sectors are Merseyside ICT and Merseyside ACME (Arts, Culture & Media Enterprise).
For more information about this sector contact Neil Bradley, Corporate Sales Manager on 07736002253

Creative Sector Funding

Gareth — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:31:32 BST

Funding for Creative Industries.
There is, after much searching, a plethora of pots of money out there. I know this because I have been through the considerable task of leaving no stone unturned in an effort to find funding to launch a new business into the digital media sector.
As the banks bolt their doors and concentrate on re-stabilising and re-capitalising, less and less of their money (or our money, lets get this right) is hitting the SME’s.
Despite government rhetoric to the contrary – I have yet to meet one person who says it is. So, for firms who don’t want to go down the VC route, these funding pots are the only lifeline. Don’t forget as well that in many instances – ITS OUR MONEY, so don’t be afraid to ask. So what do you need to find the illusive pots, well a good toolkit would include:

Patience
Time
Persistence
Tenacity
Creativity
Good Business plan (see above)
Internet (essential)

As I type, the NWDA is awaiting Whitehall’s delayed launch of the £140 million schemes. A £15 million transitional fund is in place to tide us over, however, Mr Broomhead may concede that the final delivery of the full scheme may well be ‘’too little too late”.
The old Small Firms Loan Guarantee is (allegedly) back. Having personally been rejected for this by our bank (virtually over the phone) you have to wonder just what ‘risk’ the bank is exposed too. With a 15% of the loan PG’d against company directors and the remaining 75% underwritten by the DTI – you have to wonder why the banks are not knocking at our door with a briefcase full of used bank notes. But they’re not so lets move on.
Let’s not be too pessimistic as there is money out there, we have just won a £50k grant from the NWM Regional Attraction Fund.
There are obvious starting points to explore for funding – Business Link Blue Orchid NWDA etc but as you dig deeper, it gets a little harder and a little less clear. My advise – get in there quick. It’s a slow process and if the General Election brings a change of Government the RDA’s days are numbered. Filling the gap of what replaces it (if anything does) will be slow.

MediaCity & Liverpool.

Lucy B — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:28:44 BST

MediaCity – Is there an opportunity for Liverpool digital companies to get invloved? The 36 acre Peel development is possibly the biggest opportunity that will happen to the digital media community this decade in the North West.
Manchester will be the biggest beneficiary of the opportunities and rewards. For instance city centre residential housing take up, high net worth individual spend into the region and job creation and fulfilment will all benefit the Greater Manchester economy more significantly than the Liverpool city region
– but what’s in it for us, the digital businesses of Liverpool?
Encouragingly, Paul Newman, former head of communications at the Liverpool Culture Company is to be the first head of communications at Media City UK, so hopefully we won’t be completely off radar in the boardroom
Clear opportunities for Liverpool comes from the MediaCityUK PSP programme. Using MediaCityUK as a catalyst to grow the digital and creative industries and developing skills throughout the North West.
Sounds encouraging- but how are we participating?
What’s the bottom line for Liverpool? Will our companies be taken seriously in the tender process? Are we, as a city, engaging with the project?
Salford City Council – Further Info

It�s good to be popular: link building tips in Google

John — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:26:46 BST

How does Google determine which sites will rank above others in its natural search results? Unlike web directories that list sites on the basis of editorial review by a human, Google is software that uses a complex maths formula to make its ranking ‘decisions’.
No-one outside of Google can claim to know the whole formula, but outside of a whole range of quality factors that are pretty well published and understood, the popularity of your website is a really important factor.
Google measures this partly by the quality and quantity of websites that have links back to your website. Seeking backlinks has therefore become a big part of the SEO industry, but just as in life it’s a good idea to choose your friends wisely.
Here are some tips to help you achieve ranking success and avoid keeping bad company on the internet.
Start simple by requesting a link to your website from your most obvious and trusted sources. If you are a member of a trade association, are you listed in their links directory?
If you own or manage a number of websites, point your links to the one most important site in the group.
Avoid automated link submission software that promises to deliver 000’s of links. The quality is poor and Google doesn’t like them.
Look for opportunities to get your site mentioned in high quality websites such as broadsheet newspapers, major review sites or high-traffic blogs.
Don’t be tempted to participate in reciprocal link and Free for All link building schemes. You could end up in some bad neighbourhoods on the Internet – and this damages both your reputation and your popularity.

CL5, Digital Sector Accessing Public Sector Funding

Peter — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:17:27 BST

Access to finance has been the big issue for SMEs in the recession, obtaining public sector investment can be a useful alternative.
I started CL5, a digital consultancy specialising in search engine marketing in April 2009. To launch and then grow the business I needed more capital than I could afford to invest personally. I had been kicking at the doors of all the major banks for a good six months asking the questions, with only a set of sore toes to show for it. I was in the most frustrating position in my business life, having to turn business away. I just couldn’t get enough capital in one hit to hire the people and buy the equipment in order to service the contracts.
Armed with a solid business plan, an industry experienced management team, a growing order book and the experience of owning and running a successful design agency for nine years I felt we couldn’t have presented a safer case to lend us the money.
I listened to the mantra of Gordon Brown telling me to go back to the banks; their doors would be open again. All of the MP’s were boasting lending was starting again, yet on ground level it was non-existent. The attitude of banks didn’t improve at all; their doors remained 100% shut. The computer said No. I was getting nowhere fast.
With a business screaming for investment and nowhere to go I sceptically poked my toe in the public sector pond for help. I fully expected to get my leg bitten off and nothing else. I anticipated the treatment to be worse, but it’s not at all how it turned out.
I have just received the first payment of a £50K high growth business investment grant from public sector agency, North West Vision & Media. I was awarded this grant because I demonstrated I had a viable business plan, I was able to employ up to an additional seven people and my business was in a high growth sector.
Within three days of making contact with the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) I was assigned an industry expert. He had been employed from the private sector which was my first surprise. He was also a pretty big hitter in our industry which I also wasn’t expecting. Looking at business plan, the order book and the banks attitude he calmly took us through what the public sector could do to help. Within a week I had two options to apply for the finance I needed, a £50K Investment Grant and £150K business loan from a NWDA-backed scheme.
I was expecting the next steps to be less efficient – and a lot more painful. I prepared for many weeks of form-filling, weekly meetings with failed business owners (‘consultants’) and after six months being told we weren’t eligible because my auntie had blonde hair.. you get the picture.
I was completely wrong. The process I have been through was relatively simple, logical and quick. Not something I had previously associated with quango’s and the RDA’s. We were taken seriously and treated with respect as the professionals we were. Our urgent circumstances were fully understood and they reacted at the speed we needed.
The first phase was completing a relatively simple application form to register our interest. Within a week we were asked to submit our business plan and forecast three-year financials. Our plan was then assessed by the board and their approval was given two weeks later.
The third and final stage was to attend a ‘dragons den’ type meeting where a panel of NWVM representatives and independent advisors would quiz us over our business plan and give an answer that day. It was a tough meeting, but we had planned and prepared on that basis. True to form, we got a telephone call same day saying ‘all systems go’.
From making the telephone call asking for help to the first £30K landing in our account was just six weeks.
What I found was a willingness to help. It wasn’t pretentious. It wasn’t full of people who couldn’t get a job in the private sector. The whole process has left me feeling that the creative industries are taken far more seriously by the public sector than I could have ever imagined. It’s actually been enlightening and a positive experience.
Do I feel guilty about using public sector backed money to grow my business? Not at all. Even the banks can only lend us back our money again now, and like any loan finance I’ve got to pay the money back, and at a slightly higher rate of interest than the norm.
I would have been sunk without someone stepping in and helping. Now I’m generating real jobs and opportunities for people to develop within the business, we’re growing rather than floating or sinking.
Some TIPS

Seek help early
Assemble the project team
Do your market research thoroughly
Evidence the business case
Differentiate yourself from the competition
Understand the wider stakeholder picture
Focus on the investment criteria

How to track e-commerce success

John — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:14:15 BST

One of the responsibilities of the search engine marketeer is to look at the performance of your website ‘beyond the click’.When you consider that it can take several months investment to improve the ranking of a website and that pay per click costs can be considerable in some online markets, it makes sense to ensure that if a user clicks through to your site, you are maximising the chance of them interacting with your company in some way.
For an ecommerce retailer this will mainly be a sale, but it can also be a newsletter subscription, the view of a particular page or just a phone call.
All these interactions can be tracked – and your marketing efforts quantified. If you’re not already considering how users interact right across your ecommerce site then you’re missing out on potentially valuable data and it’s a good idea to seek early advice.
To better evaluate the performance of your ecommerce site, ask yourself if you are having access to the following information:
How many of your site visitors immediately leave your home page having arrived?
This kind of metric is called a bounce rate, Google state that this is one of the most useful pieces of data from your web traffic stats.
What is your shopping cart abandonment rate?
Research in 2008 in the US suggested the average was around 60%. On high-volume ecommerce sites a 2% swing either way can have a significant impact on sales, and minor adjustments to page layout or copy can be all that’s needed to make the difference.
Do you know what the preferred path or ‘funnel’ to purchase is?
The assumption might be that your customers proceed to checkout 2 to 3 clicks from the homepage. The reality may be that customers entering your site via a search result directly into the product pages are more inclined to make a purchase.
Do you have access to your web site statistics?
It’s surprising just how often ecommerce retailers don’t have access to their own web traffic stats. Ask your web designers for the location and password access and if you don’t have them enabled get them to install some for you, both Yahoo! and Google offer excellent free software.

How Social Media is Transforming Brand Communication

Mark — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:13:35 BST

With the newest technologies and abundance of successful social networking services out there you may well ask, ‘how do I make use of these ever-changing tools?’
The internet, with all its free services, provides tools for everyone to be heard. Nobody needs to know a thing about HTML, coding, or pay for web hosting to use the digital platform. The people have been given a voice, and this is a change so impactful that marketers are finding it immensely difficult to cope. What happens when information becomes social and more than 1 billion internet users add their contributions and creativity to the media landscape? Products, brands and services are now chosen on the basis of their online presence.
One of the fastest growing areas of online presence is social media Facebook, Myspace, Flickr YouTube, Delicious and Twitter – the list is becoming endless. These are portals where the active consumer interacts amongst fellow members of the target audience. It is almost certain to say that the developments in the last 3 or 4 years that this new media platform is not going anywhere soon. With these social networking arenas and all the blogs and forums where the active consumer interacts they are a huge factor in taking your brand forward. This will expand over the coming years with media companies and marketing departments that do not adapt to this perfect opportunity to engage with there target audience in these arenas. It is the perfect tool to interact with consumers in such an arena, however they will need to know how to exploit this in the correct manner.
Since the turn of the century and before where traditional marketing mediums were the norm in the last few years companies have become familiar in shaping their brand and having the complete control over the channel of communication they used. Now they are losing this control and need to act soon.
To exploit this opportunity you need the suitable technology to implement a decent strategy forward. If you look at the impact of YouTube which has become the biggest online broadcaster they have had a massive impact on the methods people communicate and distribute there content. The latest instalment of the Batman series the ‘Dark Knight’ used a digital campaign through YouTube where they had 8.5 million which preview the trailer both on there site and YouTube page. They also used the exploitation of the ‘Add This’ tool where they could forward the content onto friends through the likes of Facebook and Twitter. The campaign titled, ‘Why so serious?’ with the jokers famous catchprase in the film. Well the production company wasn’t joking at all and were laughing all they way to the bank.
The other shift in online communication is ‘Facebook.’ The structure they have given us to share content and have a constant and up-to-date communication with friends has become a very useful and engaging approach to online marketing. It is only human nature that we want to be able to connect with people.
One important factor is the change of control from traditional media approach to consumer control – the participation part is the key. Another thought is how do you create an online campaign that people will want to share with other people. The main advice is not to be too intrusive on others and provide content that is creative enough to be user friendly and ‘stand out from the crowd.’
Whilst people are more likely to debate your brand without your involvement their increased activity means insufficient attention is gained. Today people are increasingly choosing brands, products and services based on their online members relying heavily on comments and ratings on social networking sites. The overall effect of this is the deterioration of traditional media.
Going back to the Business studies textbook from Sixth Form – the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It looks at the needs of a person. Basic needs being entertainment and information, safety and security, social, self esteem and self expression. If you apply the technology shift from this in the last twenty years things are turning upside down. Originally the entertainment and information need was a huge factor with the TV and cinema factor. Although these mediums are still flying high, the smaller need of the 80’s – self expression which was only thought of a minority that would walk down the street with a ‘punk rocker’ to show off. Well social media platforms are now the new street to self express your not only ‘punk rocker’ and everyone is at creating debate on new fashion and trends but most importantly – your brand. Brand awareness and recognition is increased – its up to you how you engage with the users to create the correct perception.
Online media is changing one of the key things is that they are always on. The major boundary to tackle is when the correct audience is logging on and how it is your company is going to effect them. The spoken word…well the typed word is the new tool to take your brand forward efficiently in a cost effective manner and effectively if you do it the correct manner. Social media was once the inhabited space of advertising, it has now become the ‘bright lights’ of the digital city. Do not be left in the slums and lose your brand down the stream.

Event: b.TWEEN Interactive Digital Media Forum

John — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:38:38 BST

The b.TWEEN line-up includes companies such as Made by Many, Pulse Films, ex-Lase.fm, and Sellaband. Live webcasts are planned from Watershed (Bristol), Cornerhouse (Manchester) and Showroom (Sheffield).
12-12 June 2009
FACT (Liverpool)
www.btween.co.uk

Designing Search Engine Friendly Websites

John — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:08:44 BST

If you are interested in fast cars and motorsports then you’ll appreciate there’s a world of difference between a Lotus Elise and a pimped-up Ford Focus. One car has been built from the ground-up for performance, the other needs a whole lot of effort and expense before it can look – and act – the business.
Bolting a spoiler on an Reliant won’t improve its 0-60. Similarly, getting an existing site retro-fitted for SEO can sometimes waste your efforts in Search.
The good news for website owners is that unlike car enthusiasts, getting a website that performs really well in Google doesn’t depend on you having the budget to commission a very expensive website at the start.
Here are some tips to consider what you might look out for in your current site to decide whether it’s ok to just nip to Halfords, or whether you need to visit the Audi dealer.
-Is your site designed 100% in Flash?
It’s possible to promote and track Flash websites, but if you’re serious about SEO then you need to have an alternative approach. Consider building a simpler, corporate website at a different web address.
-Does your site use images instead of text in the main areas of copy?
To check this Ctrl+right click (Cmd +Alt Mac) and see if it prompts to Save Image file as. A search engine can’t read text that’s within an image file so your valuable page content will be invisible to Google.
-How fast do your pages download over a broadband connection?
If your pages take an eternity to load even over a broadband connection there’s a chance your website has some problems with code or content. Google is saying it likes fast-loading sites, your customers are saying they like fast-loading sites, so why wait?
-Do your webpages use search-friendly URLs?
Click on a menu link on your website. Check out the URL of this page in the white address bar at the top of your browser window. If the address looks similar to this:
http://www.site.co.uk?pg=75f9ff043452f867&cl=1&catid=d5da7fc807074444&mp=a25b0d9958dae6bc&-session=ldcms:5D98491B0f6212A0C2Nsly186DDA
it’s difficult for search engines to understand your site structure. And if you wanted to send this link via email, how would the recipient know this was your contact page or latest news? This kind of problem can be patched-up but usually means a serious trip to the garage.

Liverpool as a digital destination?

Gareth — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:09:05 BST

Where’s the heart of the North Wests Digital community. Take the major commercial developments which have emerged over the past decade, which have brought real term benefits to the creative community and two names dominate the arena – Urban Splash and Peel Holdings. Both developers are backing our sector with long term and specific building design.
Peel Holding’s Media City – need I say more. Also for those of you who have seen Peel’s fly through of the proposed Wirral Waters scheme you can hardly doubt that stories like this are great news for the City.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/videos-pictures/videos/videos-news/2008/09/06/latest-fly-through-of-peel-holdings-wirral-waters-development-100252-21684243/
It’s encouraging to see a developer proposing a 50 year plan for the City, god knows Liverpool has seen enough investors and developers who turn around sub standard residential developments with a three year turnaround and exit strategy. The current economic climate will wipe these players out leaving a small group of long term bigger developers.
The Maghull Group’s purchase and proposed regeneration of key buildings in Liverpool’s Hope Street – the Cultural Quarter of the city provides more opportunities to attract the next breed of companies (and individuals) from the creative ad digital sector to the City.
Indeed, outside Manchester there are some great major hubs for the digital, creative and science community – Liverpool Science Park, Liverpool Innovation Park, Daresbury, the Heath in Runcorn, Urban Splash’s Matchworks and the Tea Factory are worth notable attention. Downing’s redevelopment of the capital building has brought new life for the Daily Post and Liverpool Vision staff and now houses Liverpool ACME.
All great examples of purpose built environments for our industry to thrive and prosper. All these laudable schemes are playing their part in promoting the appeal of the City Region to inward investors. It’s a challenging time for the property developers but, working with companies in high growth industries (digital) a long term partnership could be mutually beneficial.

Hit Search Limited

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:16:00 BST

Company Name: Hit Search Limited
Tel: 0845 643 9289
Email: info@hitsearch.co.uk
Web Address: www.hitsearchlimited.com
Business Address:
Liverpool Innovation Park
Liverpool Digital
Baird House
Liverpool
L7 9NG

About us:
Hit Search is a specialist search engine marketing agency based in the North West.
Hit Search have have a broad range of clients with a variety of budgets, the company was originally set-up to cater for small spending clients.
SEO, Website Marketing, Internet Marketing, Pay per Click, Search Engine Optimisation, Liverpool Innovation Park.

Big 20 – Digital Liverpool.

Glow New Media

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:09:07 BST

Company Name: Glow New Media
Tel: 0151 707 9770
Email: info@glow-internet.com
Web Address: www.glow-internet.com
Business Address:
712 Gostins Building,
32-36 Hanover Street,
Liverpool,
L1 4LN

About us:
Glow is an award winning Liverpool web design and digital marketing agency, set up by Phil Blything and Thom Shannon. Glow Media is here to help you succeed and their small but fast growing team is highly focussed on doing just that.
Working with clients throughout the UK, Glow Media have an impressive portfolio of varied projects each delivering clear benefits to their clients.
Glow Media take pride in turning complex problems into simple and elegant solutions which deliver measurable benefits and return on investment.

Fact

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:07:04 BST

Company Name: FACT
Tel: 0151 707 4450
Email: info@fact.co.uk
Web Address: www.fact.co.uk
Business Address:
88 Wood Street,
Liverpool,
L1 4DQ

About us:
FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology is the UK’s leading organisation for commissioning, exhibiting, promoting and supporting artists’ work and innovation in the fields of film, video, and new media.

New Concept Gaming

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:02:26 BST

Company Name: New Concept Gaming
Tel: 0845 224 3409
Email: info@newconceptgaming.com
Web Address: www.newconceptgaming.com

Business Address:
Liverpool Science Park
Innovation Centre
131 Mount Pleasant
Liverpool
L3 5TF
About us:
New Concept Gaming was founded by three friends who share the vision of making video games healthy. They are dedicated to the development and sale of ground breaking products that bridge the gap between video gaming and health & fitness and combine the best aspects of both.
Their first goal was to introduce natural and significant body movement into standard video game play in a way that enhances the fun of the current game experience and has a tangible health benefit while being widely accessible, both in terms of cost and ease of use.
New Concept Gaming is dedicated to the development and sale of ground breaking exergaming products that bridge the industries of video gaming and health and fitness. Their aim is to make video games good for you – by providing fun, low cost and easy to use peripherals that promote healthy activity during game play.
Their products translate players’ natural body movement (walking or running on the spot, jumping, kicking, turning) into game movement via easy to use, low cost, well-designed video console accessories which work with almost any game.

Emote Games

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:01:02 BST

Company Name: Emote Games Ltd
Tel: 0208 543 5844
Email: enquiries@emotegames.co.uk
Web Address: www.emotegames.co.uk
Business Address:
London Studio,
Wimbledon Bridge House
1 Hartfield Rd
London
SW19 3RU

About us:
Emote Games is an online games publisher with a passion for the next generation of games.
We don’t put games in boxes. We don’t follow the old ways of doing things. We create high quality online games with depth and longevity that deliver unrivalled experiences.

Mando Group

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:00:06 BST

Company Name: Mando Group
Tel: 0845 365 4040
Email: open@mandogroup.com
Web Address: www.mandogroup.com

Business Address:
131 Mount Pleasant,
Liverpool,
L3 5TF

About us:
Mando Group is a nationally recognised web design and application development agency. Mando Group specialise in usability consultancy, content management, e-commerce and integration solutions. They exist to help their clients become more successful.
Website marketing, SEO – Search Engine Optimisation, websites development.
Services By Mando Group
Mando works in three core areas; web development, consultancy and online marketing.
Mando Group consultants are available to work on and off-site with clients.
The agency redesigns websites, undertaks usability or accessibility audits, integrates existing software or building online brand presence.
Website Development
Over the past 10 years Mando Group had delivered more than 700 websites that reach into every sector. From high profile e-commerce systems to simple brochure sites Mando Group has designed, delivered and supported them all. They believe that you should be able to manage your own sites content so every site is content managed (this allows you to edit the content of your site through a simple to use web interface. Only when substantial changes to design are required will you need thier direct help.
Thier clients have found this approach very flexible. They have three different types of content management system that cover every size of project from sole trader to enterprise level solutions.
MandoGroup take a staged approach to web projects.

Initial consultation
Concept design and sign off
Testing and delivery
Ongoing Support and Maintenance

During the initial consultation they invite you to come to thier offices to join us for a strategic workshop. This enables them to better understand what it is you are trying to achieve from the project. After this stage you are shown a range of concepts – this enables us to agree on the exact direction of the project. Finally the site is built, tested and delivered to you.
Thier relationship does not end there, with cutting edge hosting, support and online marketing packages Mando Group aims to be your long-term partner in everything “web”.
Creative
Mando Group is a company that is proud of its creativity – from simple websites through to complex, bespoke e-commerce systems creativity is built into everything that they do. Thier innovative design team can bring you everything from marketing emails, advertising designs and flash games to complete e-commerce webshops.
During your meetings with you they work hard to find out exactly what it is you are looking to achieve by working together with us. Clients come to us and go through what is important to them as an organisation and how they would like to convey this image through the visuals we create. This helps us form a good understanding of your business so we can serve you better.
Mando Group’s creative work speaks for itself with a number of visual impressive sites built for high profile clients such as:
Liverpool Biennial
Rare Fashion
ACC Liverpool
Mando Group has also completed branding exercises here are a few examples where we have created the branding from the ground up:
Trade 1st
Electrocollect
Enterprise Nation
08 Business Connect

Digital Liverpool

Uniform

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:06:53 BST

Company Name: Uniform
Tel: 0151 709 9055
Email: info@uniform.net
Web Address: www.uniform.net

Business Address:
200 Vanilla Factory
39 Fleet Street
Liverpool
L1 4AR

About us:
Uniform is a creative ideas company.
We are a new type of company. Not limited to one discipline or sector. We build brands, create campaigns and deliver results. Our integrated approach is what makes us unique.
Uniform is a creative ideas company.
We are a new type of company. Not limited to one discipline or sector. We build brands, create campaigns and deliver results. Our integrated approach is what makes us unique.

Trinity Mirror

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:05:38 BST

Company Name: Trinity Mirror
Tel: 020 7293 3000
Email: rupert.smith@trinitymirror.com
Web Address: www.trinitymirror.com

Business Address:
One Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AP

About us:
Trinity Mirror plc is one of the UK’s largest newspaper publishers, with an award winning portfolio.
The Group employs over 7,000 people in more than 85 locations across the UK, including nine printing sites.
Their strategic goal is to build a growing multi-platform media business, by developing and sustaining strong positions across print and digital, with products and services which meet the needs of customers, both readers and advertisers.
Trinity Mirror was born out of the merger of two highly successful newspaper companies in 1999 – Trinity plc and Mirror Group plc.
With five national and over 120 regional newspapers and more than 400 digital products, the Group reaches over 40% of the UK population every week.

Splinter

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:01:05 BST

Company Name: Splinter
Tel: 0151 709 9066
Email: design@splinter.co.uk
Web Address: www.splinter.co.uk

Business Address:
2nd Floor
57 Blundell Street
Liverpool
L1 0AJ

About us:
Splinter is an award winning multi-disciplinary design studio based in Liverpool City Centre. Splinter specialise in the production of corporate identity, new media and printed solutions, and have particular expertise in working for the education and ’social marketing’ sectors.
As the company has expertise in a range of New Media and Graphic Design services, they are able to present a consistent approach throughout any design project.
Some of the services Splinter offer include, corporate identity development, Internet/website development, E-learning solutions delivered via CDROM or Internet and Brochures, corporate literature and other printed applications

Sparkle

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:55:16 BST

Company Name: Sparkle Media Ltd
Tel: 0151 236 4275
Email: info@sparklemedia.tv
Web Address: www.sparklemedia.co.uk

Business Address:
66 Rodney Street
Liverpool
L1 9EW

About us:
Sparkle Media is a Visual Effects & Animation Studio based in the heart of Liverpool with clients across the UK and the world. Now in their fourth year Sparkle* is about to branch out with an office in Australia by the end of the year.
Sparkle* provide effects and solutions to the advertising, music and entertainment industries. Television commercials, Music Videos Corporate Advertising using high end CGI & compositing seeing it through to the final post production.

Rippleffect

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:48:10 BST

Company Name: Rippleffect
Tel: 0845 803 8381
Email: enquiries@rippleffect.com
Web Address: www.rippleffect.com

Business Address:
Liverpool Science Park
131 Mount Pleasant
Liverpool
L3 5TF

About us:
Professional, Creative, Driven.
Rippleffect is a multi-award winning online agency specialising in web design, consultancy and online marketing, working at the forefront of the rapidly changing online marketplace.
Rippleffect has a diverse client base from across both the public and private sectors. Based in Liverpool, one of the top 250 fastest-growing technology companies in Europe.
Their Award-winning work has helped clients, including some of the largest national and international brands, to promote themselves to a global audience.
They have a proven record of successfully ensuring that their client’s websites achieve exposure on the internet.
Rippleffect offers a range of services which open up organisations to new audiences and markedly increase revenue generation.

Playbox

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:42:22 BST

Company Name: Playbox Limited
Tel: 0151 705 3400
Email: recruitment@playboxgames.com
Web Address: www.playboxgames.com

Business Address:
Liverpool Science Park
Innovation Centre
131 Mount Pleasant
Liverpool
L3 5TF

About us:
Remember when you were just starting out in the games industry, and work was all about fun?
Remember that feeling of pride when you had an idea that pushed the boundaries?
When you were part of a team of great people who made original, creative things happen?
Want to recapture that spirit?

Ph Creative

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:36:29 BST

Company Name: Ph Creative
Tel: 0151 708 2280
Email: liverpool@ph-creative.com
Web Address: www.ph-creative.com

Business Address:
12 Rodney Street
Liverpool
L1 2TE

About us:
Ph.Creative is one of the fastest growing full service internet marketing agency that specialises in helping you to grow your business.
Ph.Creative excel at helping you to communicate effectively with the right audience and convert more traffic into more business.
They are a full serviced internet marketing agency based in Liverpool specialising in the combination of online and offline marketing strategies to effectively promote your business, create a brand awarenesss and provide a lead generation system that works for you.
The agencies services include web design and development, SEO, PPC, email marketing and social network marketing.

New Mind

CL5 — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:28:00 BST

Company Name: New Mind
Tel: 0151 287 7791
Email: info@newmind.co.uk
Web Address: www.newmind.co.uk

Business Address:
Suite 101-108
Queens Dock Business Centre
67-83 Norfolk Street
Liverpool
L1 0BG

About us:
By combining best-of-breed technology with leading edge internet design and marketing capabilities New Mind enable their destination management organisations to grow their tourism economies in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Website Design, SEO, website marketing.
New Mind is one of the best resourced supplier in the sector, re- investing profits year after year in making sure that their hosting infrastructure, support and account management services are second to none.

CL5 Liverpool Internet Marketing

CL5 — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:02:52 BST

Company Name: CL5 Search Engine Marketing
Tel: 0151 236 3322
Email: agency@cl5.co.uk
Web Address: www.cl5.co.uk

Business Address:
The Old Bank of England Building,
31 Castle Street,
Liverpool,
L2 4GL

About Us:
CL5 is a specialist online marketing agency offering our clients the correct balance of marketing experience and search expertise – to help deliver great results. CL5 is a Google ad works professional company.

What CL5 does:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Organic Search Engine Marketing (natural listings)
Pay Per Click management (PPC)
Google AdWords
Online PR
Banner Advertising
Mobile ad formats
Geo-targeting
Local Search
Website Maintenance
Digital Copywriting
Viral Marketing

CL5 only delivers Internet Marketing & Search Engine Marketing campaigns.
Website: www.cl5.co.uk
Contacts:
Peter Glover: Managing Director
John Elcock: Head of Internet Marketing
Gareth Pickering: Finance Director

Creative Liverpool

CL5 — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:55:45 BST

Company Name: Creative Liverpool
Tel: 0151 236 5797
Email: agency@creativeliverpool.co.uk
Web Address: www.creativeliverpool.co.uk
Business Address:
The Old Bank of England Building
31 Castle Street
Liverpool
L2 4GL

About us:
Creative Liverpool is a design and marketing agency based in Liverpool.
Website Design, Brand Design, Print Design Agency. Over 9 years, the company has quietly assembled a strong team and a track record in delivering high quality impacting marketing projects. The agency has and an excellent relationship with many long-term clients.
In 2008 the agency moved to its flagship offices in the Grade II-listed Old Bank of England building in the city centre.

Brainboxes

CL5 — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:38:16 BST

Company Name: Brainboxes
Tel: 0151 220 2500
Email: marketing@brainboxes.com
Web Address: www.brainboxes.com

Business Address:
Unit 3C
Wavertree Boulevard South
Wavertree Technology Park
Liverpool
L7 9PF

About us:
Brainboxes is a world leading designer and manufacturer of PC data communications hardware. Since 1984, substantial developments in R and D and manufacturing have gained us a reputation for products that are easy to use, highly configurable and extremely reliable. All hardware design, software design and product manufacture is done in- house at our Liverpool headquarters giving us an unparalleled level of flexibility and control.

Bizarre Creations

Georgia — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:33:00 BST

Company Name: Bizarre Creations
Tel: 0151 494 4140
Email: NextGenJobs@bizarrecreations.com
Web Address: www.bizarrecreations.com

Business Address:
The Studio,
Leeward Drive,
Estuary Business Park
Speke, Liverpool,
L24 8DA

Bizarre Creations is a medium sized video game developer, based in Liverpool, England. Established in 1994, the company is famed for such high profile franchises as Formula 1, Fur Fighters, Geometry Wars, The Club, and Project Gotham Racing. In September 2007 we joined the ranks of Activision as one of their dedicated teams. With 200+ staff working out of a custom-built development studio, we are now simultaneously developing several next-gen projects across various platforms.